Category Archives: Uncategorized

Church and Tech

The boom of technology has changed the majority of the people’s way of life. As many benefits as technology has given to our society, it is interesting to view its role in different aspects of life. Perhaps one of the most interesting adaptations to the technology movement is the recent use of certain technological advancements in faith worship discussed in Chaves book and the article “Metro Churches use new tech to reach beyond their pews”(Nicquel Terry). According to Chaves email use in churches has increased by 38% overhead projections by 15% and website use by 27% (60). For many of the younger generations these increase reveal a newer and more relatable way to connect to their faith. The article discusses how not all religions and churches are fully invested in the technological world. Some of the more traditionalistic churches like that of the Catholic faith are more reluctant to the change even though there is a push in the positons of power to use technology (Terry). Immersing the era of technology requires a balance of traditions and technology in order to strengthen and not loose the sense of community that comes about attending and belonging to a church.

Article: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2016/10/21/metro-churches-new-technoly-followers/92551590/

Shutting out different religion

 

138 years ago, the controversy over travel bans and religion was about Mormons from Europe

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/1879-mormon-travel-ban/

 

Everyone worries about Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigrants from seven Muslim countries. However, it wasn’t first time in history that US prevented traveling to US based on religion. I was little bit surprised that this wasn’t first time.

I think the story of Mormons is not perfectly same but still somewhat similar to that of Muslim today. Mormons was treated as un-American, and some of them have attacked/had war against neighbors who were not Mormons. As a result of rising tension, secretary of state in that time requested foreign governments not to allow Mormons to emigrate to US to prevent increasing immigrant joining Mormons at Salt Lake.

The story reminds me of the book, God needs no passport (my group’s case study book) by Peggy Levitt. In prologue of her book, author mentions about this person, Florence, who doesn’t feel comfortable her city to get more people who doesn’t believe in Christianity. Although for Florence it’s not she was attacked or afraid of violence from particular religious group, I think that anxiety/fear is similar. People fear other people because they belong in different groups.

The author talks about difference between tolerance and pluralism, and I think according to that definition Florence is tolerant person. “Tolerant people acknowledge difference. They are willing to lice side by side with people whoa re not like them, but are unwilling to be changed by them. Pluralists believe that no single religion has absolute authority over a single religious truth. They are wiling to engage with and be changed by others, creating something new along the way”(12).

Whether person likes it or not, other religion can change the person, or already changed/affected one’s religion in past.In the book, she mentions about when US was founded, and how Christianity, which she said “American” religious identity, was brought and developed through other countries(18).What person calls different group can be something that made up the group that the person oneself belongs.

The Tragic Ban of Muslims

The article that I read, Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Cowardly and Dangerous, comes from the Opinion Piece section of the New York Times. I felt a connection and appreciation towards this article because it is so raw. We are in the midst of a time in America where we are witnessing the tragic reality that not everyone seems to be accepting the values that our country has always had. America has always been a country that is about freedom, whether that means you have the freedom to say what you want or practice the religion you want. Now that Trump is working hard to remove Muslims from America, we are yearning for the days when our freedom was something we could cherish. Something that I grew up loving about my country was religious freedom because I know how vital my relationship with God is to my life and I want everyone to have the freedom to have that opportunity. Now that this ban has occurred, it makes me reflect back on all of our times spent trying to define religion. It’s hard to accept that Muslims are being targeted because as a religious person, I sympathize for them. I know that outsiders must look in, judge them and make assumptions on their religion based on stereotypes. I praise these people though, for being strong in their beliefs and culture. It’s better to have pride than to be a coward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/opinion/donald-trumps-muslim-ban-is-cowardly-and-dangerous.html?_r=0

No Change in Doctrine

Chapter 5 in “Religion: The Social Context” discusses in-depth the different types of collective religious stances and individual religious orientations.  Within this typology is that of the denominational stance which describes groups that “exist in a positive relationship with society and accept the legitimacy class of other religious collectivities with a denominational stance” (Pg. 157).  In the article, C of E Bishops Refuse to Change Stance on Gay Marriage, the writer talks about the Church of England’s long withstanding orthodox doctrine on marriage.  According to their doctrine, marriage can only be between  a man and a woman.  A ruling like this seems to put the Church of England in a position of tension with the greater society today for refusing to adopt doctrine to fit in with the 21st century.

Members of the Church of England were divided, some stating that the church accepts divorce now and other biblical orthodoxies are no longer taken literally, while the other side says that biblical principles need to be upheld and doctrine should not “bow” to contemporary culture. Despite their ruling, the C of E wants to advocate freedom for gay people and stand against homophobia.  I think these are the kind of rulings that influence the religious orientation of some people.  The changes or lack of in doctrine disagree with an individual’s beliefs or clash with society in ways that cause their religious orientation to shift.  This could lead them to move away from their religious faith to something that matches their beliefs better such as spiritual or cult collectives.

Article Link

Discrimination Disagreement Based on Religion

Ever since Donald Trump has become president, the country has been in an uproar fearful that he will get rid of many minority groups that are present in the United States. Trump signed an executive order on Friday that suspended immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries that have ties to past terrorist attacks, including the suspension of the United States’ acceptance of Syrian refugees. Because of this, many people all over the country protested outside of airports and city streets. Former President, Barack Obama’s spokesman, Kevin Lewis, spoke to ABC News and stated that Obama “is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country,” but that he “fundamentally disagrees” with discrimination based on someone’s faith or religion. Obama and the nation both are afraid that because of Trump’s reign, the nation will have a sectarian orientation. Last class, we discussed the different types of typologies of religious groups and how they treat others. The sectarian group is an organization of people who discriminate against other religions, class, or sometimes political movements. The people of the United States are afraid that this mindset will be okay and certain people’s lives will be negatively effected.

 

Steve Bannon’s Words from 2010

Steve Bannon, former executive of Breitbart, a far-right news organization, was recently appointed as Donald Trump’s chief strategist. In light of this appointment, CNN recovered an audio clip from 2010, when Bannon appeared on a right-wing radio station “Western Word Radio with Avi Davis.” In the clip, Bannon mocks words said by then-president George Bush when he claimed that Islam is a religion of peace. Bannon claimed that “Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of submission. Islam means submission.” These remarks shed very telling light on Bannon’s opinion of Islam, which is particularly noteworthy given the key role he played in Trump’s order to ban Muslims from the United States. It also plays into the discussion we had this week about religious viewpoints and stances. It would appear that Bannon, for instance, views his belief system as the one true way to salvation, as he readily and openly derides Muslim belief systems on live radio. Bannon would likely hold a Sectarian view on religiosity. Having someone this zealous and narrow-minded as a major political figure is a disconcerting and worrisome example of how much religiosity can influence life and social structures.

The Women of Truth and The Mediation Circle

 

The small-scale case study of two sectarian / cultic religions in modern society within chapter four of Religion, the Social Context was in my opinion the most interesting segment of the assigned reading. Going into this social anthropology class with a tabooed definition of both the words “cult” and “sect”, it is fascinating to see both me and my peer’s meanings of these words change while learning more about them. McGuire writes in particular of two modern-day sectarian or cultic groups, the Women of Truth and the Meditation Circle. Before getting into the logistics of each of these groups, McGuire gives us some stats to look at. She states that in the Women of Truth group there are solely women practicing, their age ranging from 35 – 55, “most had some college education, but only about a third had graduated and none had advanced education”, all women were either married or widowed, and lastly, “virtually all were homemakers whose husbands earned middle-class incomes in business or lower-professional generally white-collar occupations” (McGuire 188). On the other hand, the Meditation Circle was a mix of both women and men, ages ranging from 30 – 60, “nearly all had or were studying for college degrees, and about half had advanced degrees”, less than half of the members were married, and “all but two members were employed out of the home. The income range was also greater, with three members who worked in the fine and preforming arts earning near-poverty incomes and some in established professionals (architect, lawyer, psychotherapist) earning enough to be in the upper-fifth income bracket in the region” (McGuire 189). What interested me most was seeing how much freedom and diversity there was within the Meditation Circle and comparing it to the rigidness and structure of the Women of Truth. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a direct correlation between diversity of people with diversity of practice and vice versa (one “type” of person and one type of practice).

Religious Involvement

In chapter 4, Chaves discusses the changes in people’s religious involvement over the years as far as how often they attend services in regards to their claims as compared to actual attendance. He mentions how people tend to portray themselves as frequent churchgoers, but upon an actual attendance taken from the service, a large majority of those people are non frequent attendees. Reading this made me think of the discussions in class regarding how religion today is viewed more freely than it was in times before. Today we are given more freedom to choose our own religions rather than to follow that of our family and agreed to traditions that had already been created and set as a standard before us. More people are finding themselves curious about religion in general, which according to Chaves, has sparked a large increase in people who were either not associated with religion, or not frequenters of services, to begin visiting and experiencing different forms of religious traditions. We begin noticing that their claims of how religious they are, or something as simple as their religious attendance, begins to match up with observed attendance. Along with the growing trends of the disappearance of the religious “nones” as those who are becoming more curious about religions, Chaves also mentioned that there is a decrease in those who identify as part of a religious group because we see that a lot of people are beginning to pull away from organized religion in order to find themselves as more spiritual and religious as an individual rather than tied into something. This is a trend we see throughout the coming generation as it grows more and more acceptable, and is something that even I consider myself a part of.

The Trend of Youth’s Religious Conviction (or lack thereof)

In Chavez’s chapter 4, the author explains that “religious involvement in youth is one of the best predictors of religious involvement in adulthood, so trends in the extent to which people grow up in religiously active households foreshadow future trends in involvement” (p. 49). The author gives examples of how the emerging generation live in increasingly less religious households, and are increasingly less active in church than any the generations before. One suggestion the author makes as to why this is the case is that the traditional “family” (two parents and children) is less prevalent in modern America as there are more divorced, separated or single parents, or never married people with no children. This is relevant because married people who have children are twice more likely to attend church services than those who are not married or do not have children. This raises questions of the correlation between family structures and religious involvement in many ways. For one, do people who don’t live a conventional family life feel less inclined to achieve the “perfect” and socially desired life that involves going to church? Or perhaps do people who have children but are divorced spend more time working to provide for themselves and the child, thus not having as much time to attend religious services? Do failed marriages or lack of children make one feel an absence of love, which could translate into an absence of a god? As a millennial who has seen the separation of religious conviction and involvement between my generation and the baby-boomers, I wonder what the religious landscape of America will look like when my generation are mid-aged and have children of their own. I also wonder if there is a shift in religious involvement in the future, how will this affect social norms, political stances, or even the economy?

Official vs Non Official Religion

Before the class and reading chapter four of McGuire’s book I never knew that a distinction between what was considered official religion and non official religion existed. My prior association with acts of unofficial religion was that if it was inspired by an official clergy of some kind that it was too considered to be official. According to McGuire non official religion is “is a set of religious and quasireligionus beliefs and practice…[not] controlled by official religious groups” (McGuire 113). In class, the lecture was about the different aspects of each and how they compare. Perhaps the easiest example to compare the two are through the location in which religions are practice. Official religions are practiced in an official and universally accepted house of worship. Unofficial religion can be practiced anywhere there is one person with a strong belief. Acts of non official religion are more susceptible to be accepted by multiple religious’ beliefs. They can be a similar acts amongst many religions because of the grey boundaries that go into defining a non official religious act. One example of this is the visitation and creation of an alter where loved ones have passed. It is common among many cultures and religious background to honor those who have passed with theses acts of remembrances. Although many people may have tolerance for other’s religions, they may not believe in the exact disciplines like the would in universally accepted acts of non official religions. This brings even the least alike religions together.