A major element of the readings that resonated with me this week was McGuire’s discussion of “The Individual’s Religion” (McGuire 55), specifically how children may become exposed to religious worldview before actual involvement in a religious community. McGuire describes this as, “Especially for women and children, the family and home are central religious sites.” (McGuire 55). This was interesting for me to read because it is incredibly similar to my own religious experience growing up. While my time actually spent in church was limited, the basis of my religious experiences are rooted in private religious activity within my family. As a result, my self-identity was mostly based in my early childhood and family, rather than community. My religious identity was mainly developed through the desire of my mother to provide the religious environment that she grew up in, this was largely reflected in McGuire’s reference to religious studies where, “the most memorable aspects of growing up religious occur within families, especially through the daily routines and sacred objects, the holidays, and the intimate relationships of which families are composed” (Wuthnow qtd. In McGuire 54).

In this sense, I definitely connected my mother’s experience with religion and her subsequent choosing to expose me to Catholicism with McGuire’s observations of the development of self-identity. My mother’s experience in a Catholic Filipino family intersects with McGuire’s comments on ethnicity and religion, and the options for people to choose “which cultural elements to make personally meaningful” (McGuire 57). Ultimately, the readings this week were particularly interesting for me because I could really easily apply my own experiences with religion to McGuire’s understandings of how one cultivates a self-identity. Furthermore, McGuire’s discussion of ethnic self-identities was interesting to apply to my understanding of my mother’s interaction with religion, and how her self-identity influenced my initial exposure to religious life.

Upon my reading of Chapter Two of McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, I was struck by her analysis of the Individual. She comes to the conclusion that individuals do not, “construct a personal meaning system from nothing,” and that every personal meaning system is derived from those around them. This begs the question, however, does the individual even exist if McGuire’s conclusions are correct? If no individual has an entirely personal meaning system, and if meaning systems help make, “sense of one’s identity and social being,” then how can the individual exist? It seems to me that McGuire’s analysis of the individual when coupled with her concept of meaning systems concludes that the entirety of society feeds off of each other to  develop their personal identities. When I first began to seriously ponder these questions, I began to doubt the validity of McGuire’s claim. I could not understand how an individual could truly be an individual if their very meaning system was something taken from those around them, rather than personally developed within them.

As I continued to question, however, I began to understand more fully what McGuire was truly saying. She does not say that the individual’s meaning system was taken from those around them, but rather, she claims that the individual’s meaning system is influenced by those around them. The distinction is crucial. The individual uses the figures that are present around them to assess their personal identities. They compare and contrast their beliefs with the beliefs of the individuals they encounter, essentially placing their meaning system with theirs and scrutinizing them both intently. By exposing themselves to their family, friends, society, etc., they are able to learn from the meaning systems of others, as well as solidify aspects of their own meaning systems.

Currently in class we are sharing our different backgrounds and experiences with religion. One thing I found in common was many students experience with the Catholic Church and my Dad’s experience at the church were both a like. Similar to many kids that grew up in the Catholic church, he also left when he was a teenager and never went back. Growing up, I can recall going to church during the holidays, but then slowly going less and less until we never went at all. My family was never extremely religious and was always open to believing whatever you wanted to about religion. While growing up in San Jose, I never felt that religion was a huge deal or topic in our everyday society. I had friends that would go to church on the holidays or every Sunday, but when greeting someone nobody ever asked, “What church do you go to” like in San Antonio, Texas. We are currently reading McGuire’s text: “Religion: The Social Context” where she brings up certain cities such as San Antonio that has a plethora of religions that are very important to each person. I found it interesting that San Antonio had so many religions present and that so many people were so heavily involved with their churches. When comparing San Antonio to my hometown I wonder why so much religious activity is at the forefront of their culture, and not in San Jose. After being in Redlands for two years now, I can see how religion plays a large role in society here as well. There are a lot of churches just around the campus and when talking to fellow classmates I have found that a lot of them grew up going to church every week and still continue to go while in college. It is interesting to me that different cities and states can have such different perceptions on religion, but yet people in our class can have such similar relationships with religion such as in the Catholic Church.

In Chapter 2 of Religion: The Social Context, McGuire explores the difference between religious belonging and religious belief in a pluralistic society. She writes that “declining community attachment” has contributed more to the decline of church participation than the decay of “traditional belief”. Later in the chapter, she writes that urbanization, greater geographical mobility, mass media, and education have weakened “ties to local community”, and thus commitment to religious institutions in modern societies.

In my life, these theories go hand in hand. After leaving my small Maine town to study in southern California, I have found myself surrounded by not only a more ethnically and politically diverse population, but a population with very different worldviews–as in comprehensive meaning systems–than I have grown up around. This physical separation from the community that shaped my religious credence has not served to strengthen my commitment to religion. Despite and perhaps because of this detachment from the community, I have learned how to practice as an individual, which is a much more introspective and personally meaningful approach to religion. I have found myself studying religious texts and concepts that I didn’t study before because my religious fulfillment came from simply existing in the community. I now have a much deeper understanding of and connection with my religion because I have taken the time I might have otherwise spent in services analyzing which parts of the religion I agree with, and which parts I find outdated or closed-minded. With this understanding I have been able to make my own choices about which commandments and traditions to actively implement in my life.

In short, distance from my religious community awakened dissociation between church and practice, which served to strengthen my relationship with religion.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the heart of the Silicon Valley, religion was often downplayed in daily interactions, at least in my own experience. I attended public school, so of course religion would not likely arise in discussion at least in the classroom, but even outside of school, among people I knew or interacted with, religion was not only overlooked, but mocked. While most of the people at my high school did not grow up atheist, most of them ended up becoming so during high school, and even those who were not atheist or agnostic did not do much outside of the mass commercialized Christian holidays like Easter or Christmas, so it was not as deeply embedded in many people’s lives as it could be. There were churches in our city, however, they were frequented mostly by older people or those families with kids specifically attending private religious schools. Those who did practice their faith deeply at school, by being members of “Christian Club” or posting on social media about their work in the church, were often unfairly mocked and ostracized. San Francisco’s liberal politics bled heavily into high schools, both mine and those within my school district, and religions, specifically Christian ones, came to be associated (again, unwarranted and wrongfully so) and targeted for being conservative, specifically after Donald Trump’s election in November of 2016. Just as the few Republicans at my school were bullied and mocked at my school by the student body and several teachers, so were practicing Christians, which is, in my opinion, slightly ironic, since the student body of my high school celebrates diversity and tolerance. The large LGBT community within my school, an overwhelming majority of liberal students, (roughly 95% a survey one year found) and the powerful GSA club, all combined with the lack of open Christians, somehow stereotyped certain religions into being a hateful concept, while other ones, such as Islam, were respected and discussed responsibly. 

In this Sociology class, we are learning what types of people choose to practice a certain religion, what characteristics are favored by certain people, and the backgrounds of people, who grow up with certain religious communities or experiences, and grow disenchanted with it, by either quitting religion or converting. Highly religious cities, such as Redlands or San Antonio, do not operate the same as the one that I grew up in, and that means something to the people who live there. Personally, I find religion to be beautiful, and I wish I had grown up around people with more of an appreciation for it than a mentality of “attack.” Chapter 2 of McGuire discusses the meaning of religion, and how it can bring meaning and value into our lives. Obviously more people around the world than I have personally been exposed to can agree with this statement, but I wonder how in my hometown it was more difficult for people to see the value or importance in Christianity in some people’s lives, while at the same time respecting other religions, like Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, or Judaism. The predominance (or lack thereof) of religion, coupled with obvious political influence, is something that hopefully will be addressed more in this semester. 

This past week we were introduced to the question of “what is religion?”  We have learned that religion plays a significant aspect of many people’s lives and although there are many different types of religions that people believe in, there are four key elements that all religions have in common: experience, image, story, and community.  During class we used these four points and implemented them while sharing our religious background. There were people who had unique backgrounds and who still believed in their religion till this day. There were also others who didn’t believe in any type of religion but a some kind of spirit.  However, the majority of the class had one common thread; they were no longer associated with their religion.

The reading this week was the first chapter of McGuire’s book.  She introduces us to what religion is and explains some of the important aspects to religion.  For example, she explained how every religion has different religious beliefs, rituals, experiences, and last but not least community.  Now that I am aware of the sociological perspective of religion, I am curious to learn about what religion means to others. What made people still stick with their religion?  What made others drift away from it? What makes others believe that there is a spirit in their world? I also wondered what if religion didn’t exist? Would people still have the same outlook on life?  These are just a few questions that I have always wondered about religion that I hope to find answers to in the next few chapters.

As discussed in class, religion in general is a source of faith for people to have the image and interpretation just depends on communities ethically and by experience. Today there are a variety of different religions that we as college student may have never heard of.
Growing you in Southern California I grew up in a Catholic family. The majority of my family and friends were also Catholic but that is mainly because my community were mostly Hispanic Catholics. I was raised to know that I had to attend mass, and be an active Catholic as well as finish my commandments in order to marry by church to someone who is also Catholic. My parents made me attend youth group classes once a week for two years to meet my confirmation requirement. Every week we were taught about how to maintain our faith and also defend our religion in case of doubt or teach others who are not fully in sync with God. In these talks I was taught that Catholicism is a branch from Christianity and the only difference is that as Catholics we believe in Saints and the Virgin Mary. The more I attended these youth group classes my doubts only grew while my faith or thought of a God was rapidly fading. SInce then I do not identify as being religious or Catholic, but only seem to somewhat have an interest to please my parents
After reading McGuire’s first chapter as well as my peers religious background stories has opened my mind and interest in learning about other religions and how different communities adapt to certain religions. While also raising questions on why people who are surrounded by religious family or friends mostly tend to drift away from religion. I also think to myself that there are other forms of having faith which doesn’t necessarily have to pursue or identify with a religion or a “God”.

In the reading for this week, McGuire discusses the impacts of meaning on belief systems. Chapter two explains how religious people give an experience its meaning by the choice of their interpretations of that experience; people associate meaning with events to help them understand the event itself. Specifically, meaning is significant in religious institutions as it is the church’s members who keep the meanings of their beliefs consistent and alive. If such members were to simply not exist, the meanings of those beliefs could be gone or could be skewed to signify something completely different than its original given meaning. Though a foreign concept to me, “Plausibility structures,” or the social interactions within a network of persons sharing a meaning system, plays an interesting role in the significance of belief systems. The structure protects those with same beliefs and fosters it because there are no outside beliefs that may change or challenge the current meaning of the beliefs already held. Being with people of the same faith engenders the same or similar beliefs, but it can become challenging in a situation of religious exile. McGuire explains that for exiles, they become cut off from members of their society but are also cut off from the social support for their meaning system. Ultimately, this means that there is less protection for the beliefs of the exile as well as less protection for the person. I had never thought about the idea of cutting someone off from a meaning system— it allows one to be exposed to other beliefs that may not align with their own, one can encounter different interpretations of those same beliefs, or they can also encounter ridicule for their beliefs. Having a homogenous group of people allows them to create a space where similar meanings are associated to their beliefs, ultimately allowing those beliefs to stay consistent.

Welcome back!

The Spring, 2019 version of the University of Redlands’ Saints, Sects, and Society course has begun.  Follow this space to see what our students are thinking and learning.

— JS