I read about the siege in Waco, Texas in my other religions class. I knew that the Branch Davidians and the FBI were in a sort of face off, in that the Branch Davidians were preparing for the end time and Judgement Day and that the FBI thought that they were a menace of sorts. I also knew that the siege lasted 51 days until the FBI finally entered the compound and many people died. What I did not know, however, was that James Tabor and Phil Arnold had tried to help the FBI. Both Arnold and Tabor have experience with the Book of Revelation and apocalypticism. They tried to make sense of David Koresh’s monologues in order for the FBI to communicate with the Branch Davidians effectively. Tabor and Arnold discussed the interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals on a radio talk show that Koresh was known to listen to. They thought that Koresh saw himself and his followers as, essentially, bringers of Judgement Day. Koresh was trying to break the Seven Seals and believed he was in the Fifth Seal, which meant that he and his followers would have to die in order to bring about Judgement Day. However, Arnold and Tabor argued on the talk show that Koresh would have to write a manuscript on the Seven Seals before doing so. They were hoping in doing this, that Koresh and the Branch Davidians would not become martyrs. We can assume that this worked since Koresh was, in fact, working on a manuscript. Unfortunately, the ignorance and impatience of the FBI led to a fatal showdown. I knew that the FBI had failed to communicate with the Branch Davidians but I did not realize that they were so close to a peaceful surrender. Now, we can only speculate, but as Tabor explains, Koresh was working on a manuscript and likely would have surrendered once it was completed. Tragically, the FBI were ignorant of the scriptures which Koresh often quoted and were worried that Koresh was stalling and trying to manipulate them. It was a tragedy that I think could have ultimately been avoided.

I have recently been watching a documentary series on America in the 70’s. Overall, the 70’s were a turbulent time. Change was frequent and people called out the injustices in society. The Women’s Liberation movement gained an enormous following due to the call to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The Gay Rights Movement gained traction after the Stonewall Riots and saw the election of Harvey Milk, the first openly Gay mayor of San Francisco. The 70’s also saw the development of the Sexual Revolution, which challenged the monogamous societal standard. However, the gaining popularity of these movements also brought about strong opposition. The Republican party began to paint a picture that these new social movement were attacking religious groups. Religion and Politics became inseparable, and people like Anita Bryant understood how to work that new standard. Many of the Evangelicals that I have met like to point to the 70’s as the “end of times” due to the origins of Gay Rights, Women’s Lib, and the Sexual Revolution. However, I wonder how the perception of the these movements would have changed if religious groups were never told to oppose them. Religiosity in America has been declining for a long while, and I wonder if that would be different if religious groups had shown love rather than hate during the 70’s. How would the religious body of America change if religion had never gotten involved in politics?

I personally believe that religion, having never been involved with politics, would not be on a decline. Religion’s affiliation with politics has painted a negative image of religious groups. They are viewed in society and the media as hateful and close-minded. Calling oneself “religious” is almost synonymous with saying “homophobic” or “prudish,” and makes one automatically affiliated with Conservatism. This is an obvious deterrent to those considering joining a religious group. I believe that religions connection with politics is a large contributor to its decline.

This week we participated in a jigsaw activity in which we were all responsible for teaching and learning from each other. I thought this was really awesome because I’ve learned about the jigsaw method of teaching from a Psychology of Prejudice class I took a few semesters ago, and how the method is supposed to encourage inclusivity and reduce prejudice by making students reliant on one another.

The articles that we were assigned intrigued me because, although many of them analyzed the same religious trends, they all had different conclusions to make about the role of religion in Western life. Some scholars claimed secularization is a myth, while others vehemently defended that secularization is the new reality. Some scholars believe that we are moving toward an era of extreme conservatism, while other scholars disagree. It just illustrates how data alone is not sufficient to make a conclusion; it is people who give data meaning, and people have different interpretations and perspectives, meaning there might not be one objective truth.

It was also interesting to hear how religiosity differs in Western countries; the general consensus seems to be that in  religion is declining in Britain, but in America religion still plays a big role in people’s lives (even if it is less so than in the past). Knowing that both Britain and America were deeply religious a few hundred years ago, it makes me wonder how this shift occurred. What parts of history influenced each country to create this difference, and what are the potential implications for how this change affects policy making in each nation? One of the reasons why I value sociology so much is that we have the responsibility to connect the dots, to make educated inferences about the ramifications of different worlds trends, and we, as sociologists, can see changes in the worlds through a more analytical lens.

This week I was in the group that analyzed the article “An Unsecular America” by Roger Finke. In the article, Finke argues that America does not fit into the model of secularization, and that religion is not declining because of modernization. This varies with the conditions of religion in Europe. European religious involvement is declining rapidly. Finke claims that  one of the reasons American religion is not declining like European religion is because “…European countries have traditionally had a close tie between Church and State, and continue to regulate religion, the USA has attempted to separate Church and State and minimize regulation” (Finke 247). The US does have legal restrictions preventing the merging of church and state, however, I do not think that these regulations are always taken seriously. Government legislation has increasingly been influenced by religious values. For example, anti-abortion arguments are often driven by Christian ideals. In addition, anti-LGBTQ+ proposed legislation is often made using religion as reasoning. Candidates for government office appeal to voters by saying that they have “Christian ideals”. People still swear on the Bible in court. I do not think that personal religious beliefs should dictate law. The founding fathers made sure to include the separation of church and state in the constitution to prevent one religion from dominating politics. When we value Christian beliefs and practices in politics over other religions, we are undermining the diversity of beliefs in America. I think that Finke was right about the US attempting to separate Church and State, however, I think that we need to make sure that the boundaries between the two are not blurred.

This past weekend I did a congregation visit. While I was parking in the church lot, I received a bunch of unfriendly stares. As I walked in I could hear a group behind me say “who is that?” It made me begin to understand the categories that McGuire outlined early on in our readings. It was interesting to contrast, right away, the experience I had at the denominational organization vs the sectarian one. But it also gave me an interesting view of the free market of religion in America. This group for example was relatively small, it is truly interesting to think about the uniqueness of a few people with similar beliefs coming together and starting a church. Here, a bunch of similarly stand-offish type of people all found each other. This is something that people in Europe wouldn’t necessarily do. This could explain the diversity of Christian religion in America that isn’t seen in European countries.

Additionally, having grown up Catholic, these congregation visits have proven to be incredibly enlightening. The umbrella term of Christianity was something that I have always been comfortable with as a catch all for all denominations as well as Catholicism. However, it seems nearly impossible to see any commonality between the two during my past congregation visits. I’m glad to have been able to understand that distinction. However, it’s important to note that the distinction is an environment/culture difference while the theology of values might be the same they aren’t something that can be observed during a congregation visit alone.

After being able to hear about several different articles that are centered around secularism, in class last week, the topic had me questioning what I thought I had known about the word “secular”. All of my life I thought that it was a term that categorized certain types of books, music, movies, people, etc. into a group that was deemed to cause one to “stumble” or sin. As we were able to go through the articles last class, it was clear to me that there are so many different aspects to the word than I could ever really think of. The Demerath article which my group was assigned, took so many different aspects and said that to be secular had so many different meanings, and it’s so much more complex than its book definition. All of the other articles that were assigned contained different sub groups of the word, and all combined together were able to define secularism, but not if they were all apart. Most of the other articles pertained to aspects about religion dying out, and how gender plays a role in this – however, from what we discussed, “Secularization serves as a form of adaptation to historical change”, thus based on societal changes occurring, is when the word secular is defined. It isn’t just one set list of things being “bad”, yet it it is set upon the feelings and beliefs occurring within a culture at one set time. As secular things and ideas were different in the 1960s, it is also different in 2019, and will be different again in the next 50 years.

In the reading of Is Religion The Problem by Mark Juergensmeyer there is reflection and discussion on the debates that surrounded the question of how  9/11 was started and the questions that many individuals made on whether or not religion has a fault In these type of events, is religions violent etc. In the case of terrorist attacks and religion in Islam people tend to assume that the religion is the problem. On the other hand, there are now more activist groups arising that are filled with hate on the culture and economy that has any ties to that specific religion. This article made me realize how at risk we are as a nation and even broader, the world,  due to the high rising tension.

What I mean by this is that  due to the all the attacks and terrorism within churches and attacks that happen in public areas  it is now in societies nature to tie  hate to a certain religion. It  is becoming more intertwined than ever. For example, as soon as an attack has made news there is automatic speculation that that plan was brought into place by a terrorist group. Since this group likely comes from an area that all ready has tensions rising in their  own community it is extremely easy for society to come up with different theories about the group. Which results in hate onto others no matter if the people do have relations with the group or not. At this moment in time the word religion and the word attacks can grasp the publics interest in a heart beat where in years past this never use to be the case. As the number of attacks on individuals increase so does the intensity and tension on how society views religions.

Recently, at the beginning of the month, although I have just now heard of it from an opinion piece in the New York Times, the Supreme Court received a case regarding impermissible establishment of religion in the U.S. Although society is now “secular” in theory, this is not always upheld in practice. The Court ruled in favor last year of a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple, and upheld President Donald Trump’s executive order on banning immigration from Muslim countries. This current case involves a cross in Maryland built to honor WW1 victims, however, this cross was built with public funds and on public property.

The Trump administration claimed the Christian cross, on which Jesus died for humanity’s sins and was resurrected, was “secular.” However, even liberal justice Stephen Breyer wondered if because this was built when the nation was not as religiously diverse, it should be allowed to remain, since it did most likely connect with the majority of the fallen soldiers’ faiths.

As the article points out, it is hard to imagine a Wiccan or atheist memorial with public funds being defended in the same way by the Court. However, with religious context, it doesn’t seem fair to say that both are equally inappropriate within a World War One memorial. A Wiccan memorial in Salem would probably be more supported. However, even with this justification, the Supreme Court is beginning to grow extremely worrying to me with its inability to separate church from state. The Muslim death row prisoner not having the same rights as a Christian death row prisoner comes to mind as a prominent example of this. The linking of church and state is not a reflection of the religiously tolerant and pluralistic views of society today.

Over the coarse of the weekend I decided to do my congregational visit at the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ pretty close to the school. I went with my friend and it seemed to be very different from a catholic and christian church that i visited earlier. I was the only person who was not wearing a tie so that was very different from the last church that really didn’t care about attire. The biggest thing I found about the church was that it wasn’t really minister based or had one person that leads everyone. It is more of a community and togetherness that brought people together. Many people would volunteer to do opening prayer and such while people of the church would be given a topic to present on and those people would be the “pastor” for the day. They had a hymn book in the phew which was something I have never seen before but was very helpful for someone like me who didn’t know the words to the songs. After the service we broke out into small groups based on age and gender. I was with the elders group and we talked about Gods love and how he shows us love no matter how much evil there is. We talked about the people of the world and how its hard to view evil people as good and try and find the good in them when they are making bad choices. We should view things ins gods eyes that everyone is equal and try and find the good in people when there is so much bad to cover it up.

For class, I read a very interesting and thought-provoking article by Mark Juergensmeyer called, “Is Religion the Problem?”. The article discussed if religion was the problem of violent attacks, if religion’s shady side had been exposed, or if religion was the problem or the victim. One important point that Juergensmeyer brought up was that besides the 9/11 attacks, almost all other terrorist attacks are Christian. I had never known this before, as I was under the impression all terrorist attacks were due to the Middle East. I think this fact needs to spread and be discussed more to help not only stop discrimination of Muslims around the world, but to also make Americans look internally at our nation. I think that a lot of people don’t want to believe this already because it is easier to have a scapegoat and blame an external source, rather than looking internally at the state of our nation.

Another argument Juergensmeyer makes is that religion is not the problem of these violent attacks, but it is “the medium through which these issues are expressed”(Juergensmeyer 7). I found this to be extremely fascinating, because I had never thought of it like this. People that provoke or participate in violent attacks are expressing their anger of social frustration and marginalization through their religion. One way of doing this is thinking of the attacks as cosmic war, that they are a part of a greater religious battle such as those talked about in their religions. This way they can see themselves as being a part of a greater good and seeing the opponent side as inherently evil or devilish. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the article and got many new aspects of religion and how it pertains to violence.