This week my group is presenting onTradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism by Lynn Davidman. The theme of lineage appeared multiple time throughout the course of this book. Women were seeking out Judaism as a way to connect with their roots and thereby felt empowered through their inert connection because of their ancestry. This theme isn’t unique to this book, nor is it unique at all. I am currently reading The Life of Milarepaand The Life of the Buddha and the same theme of lineage runs throughout. Also, it is present in the bible with the laundry list of lineages from Moses to Jesus! I wonder what this importance of lineage is? Why do so many religious stories begin with ancestry? This seems strange to me because I have been exposed to so much choice in my life. American religious movements that I study in my major haven’t been around long enough for an ancestry within to form. I guess that is the point, those people that do have that intrinsic connection to a religious organization that stems back centuries have a special tie to it.

This makes me think about the contrast between established religions like Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. that have had hundreds to thousands of years to create webs of connections throughout humanity and newer religions organizations that have not created those ties. And if this emphasis on lineage is valid (as it keeps appearing over and over again) then there is no way I can see a demise in these traditions. So, while we see an increase in “spirituality” and a decrease in adherence, I’m curious to know if it’s just new religious movements that should be scared for their future? Especially when taking into account things like Hansen’s law of third-generation and similar types of “reconnection” that is possible within the world’s oldest religions. So while we might witness downward trends in numbers in all religious organizations, it makes sense to me that if those numbers ever did increase they might be for religions that have “roots”?

In my reading of Lynn Davidman’s Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism, one question kept occuring to me. Could the wave of religious extremism that seems to be becoming more prominent be considered the modern counterculture? There seems to be an increasing number of membership, or at least more media attention, for sectarian-edging religions. Davidman mentions that her book, “tells the story of two groups of secular Jewish women who were troubled by some of the characteristic dilemmas of modern life, such as feelings of isolation, rootlessness, and confusion about gender. These women sought solutions in an unusual way through participation in Orthodox  Jewish resocialization programs.” The thought process of these women seems very similar to John Milton Yinger’s definition of a contraculture, which he defines to be at, “conflict with the values of the total society.” The women in Davidman’s book are confused by and at odds with the liberal society that surrounds them. They sought for a, perhaps odd, method of coping with this discrepancy. 

To me, this appears to bare semblance to a countercultural movement. The massive amounts of attention being paid to religious movements in the media is undeniable and definitely at odds with mainstream liberal society. However, this ultra-conservative push back hardly resembles the countercultural movements of the past. Historically, countercultural movements have been very emotional liberal and progressive such as Romanticism of the early 1800’s, the Beat Generation of the 50’s and 60’s, and the Hippie movement of the 60’s and 70’s. Is it possible for there to be a conservative counterculture, because, if so, if would be the first of its kind and point towards the ushering in of a new era of thinking. This new era would be marked by a liberal mainstream and a heavy conservative push back that mimics the liberal ones of the past.

In class this past week the first group presented on Protestantism in America. There were three churches represented in their presentation. The Hope Chapel, Vineyard and Calvary. I found it intriguing that these names rang a bell with myself regarding having previous knowledge of these Churches due to the rising population within these churches. These churches have an open, relaxed, casual atmosphere that allows for individuals who are trying to discover what they want in a church more appealing than the standard Formal Churches. My first time going to a church that was outside of my personal norm was a Church like the Calvary Church. It didn’t feel as if I was even at church and because of that it led me to want to have continuous visits to this church. On the other hand, If I decided not to go every Sunday it didn’t feel as if the organization was going to shun me. Currently, individuals in college, or just out of college tend to need a flexible schedule and when days don’t go as they are planned for themselves the last subject that a young adult is going to want to think about is how individuals will view them at their church. A church should not be a place where an individual feels more pressure added on to their daily life, it needs to be a release and an escape to recollect oneself resulting in a clear mind in order to get through harder days. The presentation made me reflect on this and evaluate this as being a possibility as to why the interest rate of these types of Churches are growing rapidly  

Continuing to work on our group project has brought a few things to light for me about the differences with people and religion. My groups book was Sacred Stories and Spiritual Tribes. The whole book was about the different religions different people have and the different demographics of the people that were surveyed. So many different people can be in a different “tribe” within a church. Nancy Ammerman talks about the definition of tribe is a group of people with the same interests. An example of this would be when professor Spickard brought up megachurches. Everyone is there for the pastor, but the church is so big its hard to connect with people. People then find more people with similar interests making them a tribe within the church.

Also, the term theistic and extra theistic kept coming to our attention. The definition of theistic is relating to or characterized by belief in the existence of a god or gods. Extra theistic people have more of an outside look on things compared to theistic people. The most interesting thing that I found out was the relationship with pets. People who considered themselves extra theistic would more likely be a pet owner compared to someone theistic. Also asking for prayer over smaller things compared to theistic people. Being a theistic person would lead to more meaningless prayer as well. An example would be praying around the dinner table. Families do it every night because it is routine, making it less meaningful then someone praying over someone who is very sick.

In the spirit of connecting our group readings to my personal life, I started to take note on how religion affects my day-to-day life, under the same guidelines as the author’s instructions to her subjects. The author asks her subjects to take photos and connected them to their faith or beliefs. What I found myself doing is taking photos of trees, people, and buildings, the main notes that were repetitive were the ones about feeling connected by more than just being human or man-made. It was mostly people interacting, people under trees or people talking, but just places and people interacting. This makes sense because a core belief of mine is that we are all connected and we should all understand this and try to strive for helping one another. Now this isn’t necessarily religious but it connects to one of the key aspects of religion and that is community. A lot of the people who took part in this study also felt that community was most important and prevalent because it’s what affects us in our day-to-day life. She also wanted her subject to just take notes on habits and things so most of my notes were made up of songs I have been listening too and questions I would ask God if I believed he was real. What I noticed was most of what I was listening too was more poetry than music and most of the lyrics were made up of call to actions to start working together and were are all individuals together. Most of my questions were me asking if this is how God wanted this to be or if we got lost somewhere along the way. The funny thing about this is I don’t find myself to be a religious or spiritual person and answering these questions just had me shift my mindset to that of a religious person. 

Last week in class we began presenting our group projects. My group presented on Miller’s book, “Reinventing American Protestantism”. I thought the book was an interesting read that gave a lot of insight into the changing aspects of many churches. The main focus of the book was to point out the ways that Calvary, Vineyard, and Hope Chapel are now appealing to many people who are no longer interested in strictly structured religion. Many of the individuals that are joining these movements want to feel freer and have a more personal interaction within the service. They no longer want to feel that they have to go through a hierarchy in order to make a relationship with God. Moving away from structured religion has a lot to do with the hippie movement and the freedom that was found during that time. This led me to wonder: what may have happened with structured religion, had the hippie movement never occurred? Would there have been a surge of movements such as Calvary, to make religion less structured? Maybe not immediately, but I do believe there would have come a time in society to branch out from structured religion to allow more people to have religious freedom. However, there are still plenty of people practicing structured religion, which was brought up by another group presentation. This group discussed a Catholic Church, Our Lady of Assumption, and contrasted it to another Catholic Church, Saint Brigitta. It was interesting going from Miller’s book which took the stance that in order for churches to survive, they would need to be more relaxed, and the other book which contrasted two popular structured Catholic churches. Although Our Lady of Assumption was much stricter in their views, both Catholic churches showed that many people still prefer the more structured aspects of religion and may not want it to become more relaxed.

This week I came across an online article entitled, “When Religion Leads to Trauma”. The article discusses the impact of condemnation by one’s own congregation for example, “Gay, lesbian and trans people are told that God condemns them, unwed mothers that they are living in sin, and many natural human desires are deemed evil”(Schiffman 2019). According to the article, the psychological impact of negative religious experiences is becoming more recognized by a variety of religious organizations, and groups like Dr. Harold G. Koenig and his team at Duke University, and Dr. Marlene Winells organization, are seeking ways to combat the symptoms of such experiences. What I found most interesting about the article is that people are coming together and recognizing that people can be hurt by something that is supposed to be good, and attempting to find ways to combat this type of trauma. It seems like many organized religious groups are condemning groups that weaponize religious teachings but I had not seen any long term solutions being instituted to attempt to solve the problem. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that specialized therapeutic techniques are being developed to best help people experiencing religious trauma, and I think it’s so important because reflecting on the group discussion of religious experience at the beginning of the semester it appeared that a significant portion of the class had experienced some sort of religious trauma that soured them towards a religious group.

This information makes me wonder, What really must change to reduce the number of people who feel victimized by religion? Is it going to be a congregation by congregation change? Is it even possible to prevent people from being hurt by religion? What do you think of the new awareness and medical treatment for people with religious trauma?

As I was reading chapter 4 of McGuire’s book, I was drawing a few parallels to the book my group has been reading, “Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes”. The participants in Ammerman’s study vary from religious to nonreligious, religious but not spiritual, spiritual but not religious, both, or neither. I think that overall, Ammerman’s research showed that religion has become more and more individualistic in American society, which may be the reason for the rise in those who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious”. Sure, those who are religious may feel a strong sense of connection to their congregation/community, but even among the most religious, each individual expresses his/her religiosity in different ways outside of the congregation. It is also apparent that of those who are affiliated with a certain religious group, they have become increasingly likely to disagree with certain teachings, and they are increasingly likely to admit to it. McGuire discusses how the religious institution will hold a model of the individual and the socialization the person must be exposed to in order to be considered a part of the organization. Conformity to this model has been changing; it seems that, overall, people have been conforming less. It would make sense that the less a person conforms to this model of his/her religion, the more he/she may wish to identify as “spiritual but not religious”.

I believe that this is exactly what happened in my own life. I used to be religious and attend church regularly. I also read the Bible, prayed daily, and pretty much accepted all the rules and beliefs of the church. However, as I got older, I stopped going to church, prayed and read the Bible less, and questioned the teachings of the church more. Since I did this, I thought of myself as no longer being able to call myself a Christian because I no longer conformed to the model of what it means to be one. I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I feel like McGuire described my own experience to me in a way which I haven’t been able to. It now makes perfect sense as to why I have become one of the many Americans who claim to be “spiritual but not religious”.

Religion as a form of community is a tie that can be made in the texts, lectures, and presentations. Religion was never a component of my personal life and this last month of the class had made me feel as though it is something that I may have missed out on. It has been expressed time after time that attending church can and does create a sense of community and a feeling of belonging. It makes me curious about the thoughts formed by children. While listening to the case studies it was presented how different churches preach different interpretations of the bible. This makes me wonder how the children growing up in these churches view the same topic. I wonder if they tend to only understand the side that the church presents or a multifaceted view of the topic. Throughout my readings, I have also wondered the amount of commitment to the church that is felt through its members.

While reading “A Mosaic of Believers” by Gerardo Marti, it was expressed that the pastor did not favor people who he viewed as shopping for a church. He expressed that a church was something that required time and dedication and felt that people should feel that pull to the church. It is interesting to me that this is a belief and I wonder if this is a commonly held belief. All in all, religious life, service, and routine is one that keeps me wondering.

Our reading from the past week, chapter four of McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, talked about the ins and outs of official and nonofficial religion, and the different ways that religion, spirituality, and belief could be classified. One thing that really stood out to me from this reading was the assertion that, “No single quality could be used to describe the individual as ‘religious’ or relatively ‘more religious’ than another individual” and the following five dimensions of religiosity. These dimensions were listed as experiential, ritualistic, ideological, intellectual, and consequential. I loved the idea that religion and spirituality influence and are influenced by such different factors, and that there are the different kinds of “levels” or “areas” of religiosity. I think that religion impacts every person in very different ways, which can all be found through the consequential dimension, but I think that each dimension informs the others. I believe that people who identify more with spirituality than religiosity may state that they think more about the experiential or ideological dimensions, while some others who may attend services and bible study every week identify most with the ritualistic and intellectual dimensions.   I feel that most, if not all, people have had some sort of brief experience with each dimension, whether it be through observation or direct lived experience. People who have never had an experience with ritual or intellectual religion may go out into nature or hear a choir sing and experience a bliss and connection with the world that could only be described as holy, which opens up to them the experiential dimension of religion. I appreciated the look into religion through this lens, and having a breakdown of where and how religion can be practiced, felt, thought of, and informed.