The Chaves readings this past week focused centrally on the shifting prevalence of different religions throughout America over time. One thing that really stood out to me were the statistics regarding belief in God or a higher power. On the General Social Survey, there are six statements that indicate one’s personal belief in a god of some sort, ranging from certain disbelief to certain belief. In 2014, 91% of the American population had some sort of belief in God or a higher power, even if it wavered at times, which is still the vast majority of the United States, but it is undeniable that those with a certain and fixed belief in God has been on the decline. In 2014, 58% of the American population “knew God really exists and had no doubts about that.”

I thought this was really interesting in the context of all that has happened historically between 2014 and in 1964, when 77% of Americans had a total and unshakeable belief in God. The United States endured the stock market crash, the tragedy of 9/11, and a shifting and unpredictable political climate, not to mention the rising prevalence of focus on television, celebrities, and social media. All of these things would shake up an unmistakable belief in God, for even the most devout worshipper. General acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights were on the rise by this time as well, which would probably appall conservative Christians, as well as those from other religions, and make members of the LGBTQ+ community question their faith in return. I would want to know if such a decline in faith could be considered as inevitable over time, if it could be attributed to all the disasters that shake the world every year, or if people just felt more comfortable answering questions regarding their faith honestly over time due to more acceptance?

This past week we looked at the different trends of data on the different religions around the world.  The one topic that stood out to me was the website www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ that we overlooked and analyzed the data.  I found this website to be very resourceful because not only does it have data on what the majority of the population believe in for each individual state, but it also gives the data on different interesting topics as well.  

For example, I found the topic “Education” to be very interesting because it shows the different religions and the percent of people who have completed a degree in high school or less, attended college but didn’t finish, completed a college degree, and completed a postgraduate degree.  It was very fascinating to see that majority of the people earned a degree in high school or less. The data between the people who attended college but didn’t finish and those who completed a degree were pretty similar. Also there were not many people who completed a postgraduate degree.  The one religion that I found surprising was Hindu. Although there was only a sample size of 197, 48% had earned a postgraduate degree. There were other religions that surprised me as well.

The “Education” topic was just one of the many that caught my attention.  There were others that were very fascinating to read about and see what the majority of the population is like.  This next week we are going to be hearing presentations about the different case studies that we all worked on and I am eager to hear what we all have to share. 

In the last half of chapter 3, Chaves assets that while the number of Americans who identify as religious has gone down, the number of Americans who identify as “spiritual” has gone up. It’s interesting to see the stats on this because this is a sentiment that I can confirm I have heard often in my interpersonal interactions. The term “spiritual” seems ambiguous to me, and I’m not quite certain what people mean when they say it, but I would agree with Chaves’ generalization that the term spiritual, when used by people who don’t also identify as religious, seems to describe those people who may not participate in organized religion by going to church or practicing traditional religious customs, but that still believe in a higher power and practice their spirituality in different, non-traditional ways.

Chaves makes a remark in the last sentence of the chapter that I find highly insightful. Chaves claims, “The spiritual-but-not-religious phenomenon…is best seen as one aspect of American’s overall softening involvement in religious tradition…and as a part and parcel of a growing skepticism in American society about the value of organizations and institutions in many spheres of life, including religion,” (page 40). He suggests that this growing demographic of spiritual non-religious people is a reflection of a shift in American society to de-emphazing the role and importance of institutions in regulating people’s lives, which I would for-see as having many interesting ramification for future generations if this trend continues. It seems to me that many young Americans are embracing a new society in which there is a higher tolerance for grey-areas, including in religion, and are re-defining what it means to be a spiritual person.

A part of the reading I found really interesting this week was Chaves discussion of the rise of religious pluralism. This was definitely something that I could relate to as I know that my family has become more accepting of different religions, particularly because, what Chaves describes as, “People’s families and friendship circles are more religiously diverse than they used to be” (Chaves 19). I know that in terms of my extended family, until around the last 15 years, the family and friendship circles of my grandparents was exclusively Catholic. As supported by Chaves, there is strong concentration of Catholics in the Northeast (19). As a result, for a long period of time, my grandparents and their children’s social circle was largely made up of other Catholics, with a few exceptions.

This created strong conflict within my mother’s family when she decided to marry my father, who was raised nonreligious. At the time of my parents’ marriage, it was completely unheard of to marry someone outside of the Catholic faith. However, since then, religious opinions within my extended family have changed significantly. The “Aunt Susan Principle,” named by Putnam and Campbell and explained by Chaves as, “If your Aunt Susan is Catholic or Protestant of Jewish or Muslim or completely nonreligious, and you love her, it is more difficult to despise people whose religion than yours.” (19), was particularly evident in my family’s situation, where previously harbored religious biases were overturned by meaningful relationships and honest discussion. While my extended family was initially wary of my nonreligious father, they were able to become more accepting of religious diversity. This accepting attitude has expanded since my parents’ marriage, and I found it interesting to learn about this experience as a national trend in America.

Chapter 4 of Chaves’ book was about religious involvement. Data collected has shown that there has been a decline in America’s religious involvement over recent decades. Weekly attendance at worship services has declined as well as the percentage of new generations of Americans who have been raised in a religiously active family. The changes in American family household and structures has caused religious involvement to decline, showing that religion has become less important in contemporary America. Chaves emphasizes church attendance, saying that people report they go to church more often than they actually do, but although church is an important factor in religiosity, I do not think it is the end all be all in regards to explaining just how “religious” one is.

I say this because when looking at my mom, church attendance is not nearly as important for her as simply staying connected to God is. I think that claiming poor church attendance is a reflection of declining religiosity is faulty because people still are involved in church and religion without having always to physically be there. My mom for example, does not always make it out to church but when this happens, she makes sure to watch a church service that is broadcasted on television. She may not physically be in a seat at church— which is how data has been collected for church attendance— but she still makes it a point to stay involved. I just found it interesting that there is a great emphasis on the correlation between church attendance and religious intention, but one can still be religiously or spiritually involved without having to go to church on a regular basis.

What stood out to me the most in the Chaves reading was the rise in spirituality while belief in God stayed relatively the same. What I took from this is that, people are not any less religious, they are just categorizing themselves differently. Terminology is important here because the term religious has a specific definition whereas spiritual is not as concrete.

Just this weekend I was speaking to an older woman, who was having a conversation with her daughter. The conversation was about religion and her daughter says, “mom you’re not religious, when’s the last time you went to church?” this claim caught the women off guard. She was shocked that her daughter would question her beliefs. She responded with “Just because I don’t go to church doesn’t mean I don’t have faith. I consider myself to be more spiritual than religious.”. BINGO I said to myself. Here was the Chaves reading, and our class conversations come to life. Was this just an extreme coincidence that someone would be having this conversation during me studying this topic or was it that I am now more aware of this distinction and the terminology?

In class, we talked about the idea of “if that’s religion, than I want nothing to do with it” Which makes sense to me, especially considering the shifting political climate that has happened in the past few decades. As religious institutions draw clear boundaries and align themselves politically, members will drop off. Like the example with the Catholic Church condemning contraceptives. It makes me wonder if the future of religious institutions looks more similar to businesses than to our previous conceived notions of a church. Either way, religious institutions and religious individuals are making choices, and when people are faced with leaving a religious institution, it doesn’t seem to be because of a change of faith but instead a change of politics?

While understanding religion and society through statistics we were presented with the Pew study that allows the access to a wide range of information. While reviewing the information I chose an emphasis initially on Illinois. While traveling and working throughout the United States building water parks, I had an opportunity to live in Burlington, Iowa for a month. While exploring the area I traveled across the Mississippi into Illinois. A short drive through farmland landed us at Nauvoo. This was the site of Mormon history. Because of my experience in this area I had a long-standing belief that Mormonism must be a commonality amongst a large population of individuals in Illinois. While looking at the Pew data it was discovered that my assumptions were unfounded. The statistics read that less than 1% of the population in Illinois is Mormon. This was shocking to me but while in class it was explained that the large population of Mormon individuals was such a long time ago and the population of Chicago, Illinois is so large and contains so many not native to Illinois that these factors are in play when reviewing the data.

Another aspect of the data in the Pew study in which I found interesting was the views on homosexuality. In instances such as Louisiana, 53% of individuals stated that they believe that homosexuality among adults should be accepted while only 42% stated that they are in favor of same-sex marriage among adults. This trend was also the case in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, California, New York, and Alabama. In fact, every state I had compared had these similarities of a higher percentage stating that homosexuality should be accepted over the amount stating that they believe in same-sex marriage. This is interesting because, in my opinion, this data depicts that individuals believe that they are okay with people in same-sex relationships if they do not get married.

During our class session on January 22, we watched a documentary called Separate Realities that documented the experiences of two individuals involved in churches in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The woman that was interviewed belonged to an Episcopal church, and the man belonged to a Baptist church. I found it intriguing that their experiences were so different because those are both Christian denominations.

The woman felt that religion was more of a psychological experience and it was more personal. I remember her saying that the making of a spiritual life has to come from a “breaking of yourself”. There wasn’t an evangelical aspect of religion in her life. However, that was the complete opposite of the experience that the man in the Baptist church had. He was very loud and vocal about his religion, and he believed that “[God] saved us for a special reason…to tell about Christ.”

My life was very similar to that of the man in the Baptist church. I went to a non-denominational megachurch for about 14 years of my life, and we were always told the great mission was to be “great among the nations…and an offering of salvation to a world of broken hearts”. I have struggled with my identity because of this calling that I thought was my own for my entire life, so it is comforting to hear that there are other options than this. Hearing about the woman’s journey through the Episcopal church opened my eyes to new religious experiences. I enjoyed hearing both perspectives because they were very different.