SCRIPTURAL LITERALISM AS THE NEW PAGANISM Terms such as ‘pagan’ and ‘heathen’ are used as (usually derogatory) labels for people adhering to older, non-normative, ‘superstitious’ beliefs (e. g., ‘witchcraft’). Originally, however, these were denigrations used to describe the unsophisticated country dwellers who had not yet accepted the tenets of Christianity then normative among city dwellers. …