I was really intrigued by the paragraph McGuire wrote on religious extremism on page 184. She suggests that the changes in modern society has essentially bred this extreme stance. She mentions the “New Christian Right” and the role of sectarian religion in politics, and I realized that this may be true of our current political climate now more than it ever has been. McGuire explains how a religious group may feel forced into becoming increasingly sectarian in response to changes in society. As many in the United States move toward more progressive ideals, Conservative “right wing” politicians attempt to ensure the country stays “traditional”. I trace this back to chapter 3, where McGuire brings up the concept of “anomie”. Members of the Christian Right likely view the trend toward liberal attitudes on topics such as abortion and legalization of gay marriage as a crisis in the morality of the American populace. It seems that our current president was a perfect candidate for many members of the Christian Right, saying things like “I am the law and order candidate” during his campaign.

In chapter 2 of his book, Mark Chaves goes into more detail on the religious right’s influence on American politics. He suggests that the greatest reason behind the decline in those who identify as religious is due to this influence. He essentially states that this involvement in politics has turned many liberal/moderate members of the church away, and the increasingly progressive attitude of the American people has made them less likely to want to affiliate with religion. It might be fair to assume that this decline in religiosity further lends to the Christian Right’s feeling that the country is in a state of anomie, or lack of moral order. To combat this, they will either have to become more denominational, or they will have to become more sectarian. However, the more sectarian the religious right becomes, I suspect it may have the opposite effect and even more people will becomes less religious. Perhaps this is why our forefathers warned us about keeping religion separate from politics; so that this type of conflict could be avoided.

In class we viewed the film “Separate Realities”. This film consisted of two individuals vastly different religious life while only having a street separating their lives. Susie attended St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where she practiced public worship. She always expressed her concerns, questions, conflicts within herself etc., as she went through finding herself within her religion. It was highly important to her that she didn’t have any doubts and uncertainty and must fully believe within her religion. On the other hand, Glenn Stover, a member of the Baptist church considered himself to be born again and found his religion while working through his alcoholism. Stover has lost friends due to drinking less and believing in God more. Both individuals reevaluated themselves in their religion. Both individuals have very contrasting ways in which they express their religion. Glover is verbal on the topic, yet in a way where he wants people to understand God because of how much he believes God has helped himself. Susie is highly reserved with her religion and through the years has believed it to be a private conversation. Today I have been around both types of people; however, many people I am surrounding by specifically the college community tends to fall somewhere in between. Students tend to be open talking about the subject; however, it is rarely brought up in an everyday conversation.   This was interesting in comparison to Chaves chapters 1 and 2 of American Religion where there is explanation of the decline in the number of individuals that believe in a power. Which I believe in today’s society it can be found that many may not believe in a certain power, yet it doesn’t mean they are uninterested or unaware of that topic.  

There are multiple ways to identify an individual and by no means am I suggesting that what I say is the only way to identify individuals’ standpoints and what sect they may partake in. Taking what McGuire lays out in the graphs in chapter 5, it is easily applicable to the individual person. There have been two events this past week where I was able to identify the standpoint of individuals with language alone and using both language and the graph. This first event occurred in class on Tuesday (22-01-97) when we watched the film Seperate Realities. Professor Spickard did give a brief overview of the film and did talk about the individuals in the documentary but I was not able to catch what sect the second person was. When the film started documenting Glen’s reality (the second person), I was trying to identify what sect Glen was. During this time I was listening for keywords and phrases that would help me identify Glen’s stance and sect. It wasn’t until Glen started repeating the words “saved” and “unsaved” that I started to give educated guesses on what sect he is. My initial guess was Baptist only because of the way the term “saved” was used and how he states that “Jesus the savior” changed his life and that “it is a duty” to go and proclaim the teachings of the lord. The second event occurred yesterday where my friend and I discussed other religions. I know that he is a devoted Catholic but I wanted to know where he stood individually so I asked if he believed in the legitimacy of other religions. He replied that he believes there is some legitimacy in other religions. This answer (and from the years I’ve known him) gave me the impression that he is somewhere between denominational, sectarian, and cultic. I am going to ask my friend more questions to see where he truly is but my best-educated guess would put him in denominational but heading towards sectarian.

McGuire, in the opening chapters of our book, asks some interesting questions about religion and the way it transforms generationally and locationally. Though people may unite under the title of one faith such as Christian or Muslim or Jewish, there seems to be no one way to practice any religion. The way that religion is practice varies as much person-to-person as it does by age, class, location, period, etc. It seems to be that religion does not have a single purpose, and its function very much depends on the environment of the believer.

Of Black-American Muslims, McGuire asks,
“How does this religious commitment constitute a form of protest against the values and attitudes of the dominant US. culture? How does religion figure into racism and other intolerance in US. society?”

In modern American society, American Muslims who reveal their religious identities to the public are forced to practice their religion as a form of protest to combat Xenophobic norms. A person who openly practices Islam, who wears a hijab, sets time aside in their place of work to pray, or who unashamedly wears the crescent moon does so with the knowledge that there are many in America who will look down on their beliefs. For Black-Americans that practice Islam, it becomes even more complicated. A Black-American Muslim not only must face backlash against their religion, but against their race (as America has a long and pervasive history of racism that still persists). These identities are compounded, along with the social issues of racism and Xenophobia which will come to effect Black-American Muslim’s social, political, and socioeconomic lives.

The intersectionality of human identities comprise an important part of the way a person will be treated or fit into a society. It follows then that compounding a person’s religious identity on top of other ways they identify will have real-world ramifications for that person. As sociologists, we should look at how the function of religion varies from person-to-person and how it comes to effect people’s relationship with society.

During the reading in chapters 1 and 2 of American Religion, Chaves discussed a lot of statistics. One that I found very interesting was people’s belief in God. He states that over nearly six decades there has been a very small decline in the amount of people that believe in a higher power. Although people going to church every week or practicing their religion may have declined, their belief system has never wavered.  It was an interesting concept to think of because, rarely have I heard of a person switching from a religion to an atheist. More than not people will change religions in their lifetime or look into others that were different from how they were raised. He also talks about the tendency for people to trust those that believe in this higher power more than those that do not. In my lifetime I have come across people that do not believe in God and at first it does take me a back, only because it is something that you don’t hear often. However, I have never thought not to trust an atheist or not associate with them. It seems like a very odd concept to me that this would stop people from trusting one another. This goes to show, that even if many people don’t agree on a particular religion or see eye to eye with them, having the sole similarity of believing in God is extremely important for some people to continue social interaction. It goes to show again how much a persons religious beliefs affects their everyday interactions.

I grew up in a Catholic household where my parents took religion very seriously. I was told from a young age to attend mass weekly on Sundays and to be a loyal follower of God. The more I was forced the go to the church the more I felt distant from the religion, at a younger age I was only attending mass to please my parents and not get scolded for not dedicating God one hour of my week.

One incident that I specifically remember is junior year in high school on the first week of school during the annual club rush. I noticed that a group of friends that I knew started a Holy bible talk. I wasn’t ashamed of the club being religious. But the fact that they were that invested in their faith, made it seem like that they didn’t think twice when organizing the club. When I asked them what motivated them to start the club and their answer was that they were encouraged by their Christian church which was the megachurch named “The Rock church” that is a congregational church. Thursdays’ discussion about the types of religions was that this church is considered more of a corporate than a church that had a large population of followers attracted to their church.

Now a days I try to maintain myself occupied with school and work to avoid going to church on Sundays, At some points in my life I ask myself why I still don’t feel as close to a religion as my parents or peers do about their religion? Does this have to do with the lack of experience? Although I have a surrounding community that are faithful in their religion, I have not yet connected to my family’s religion as Catholics or any other religion.

This week’s reading from Mark Chaves, “American Religion”, discussed a lot that had to do with the immergence of more diversity throughout church congregations. I found that very interesting to read because I have never noticed a lack of diversity throughout my own personal congregations, however I definitely do see how that would be the case for other churches. I typically see how certain religions draw one primary ethnicity due to that religion (probably) starting within a certain geographical region. As religion is becoming more diverse, I think that not only has to do with the topic of immigration, but also another topic that Chaves brought up which was that Americans have become more accepting to different religions and have grown a stronger appreciation for them, as well. I think these 2 ideas go hand in hand because as we see how racism is still very much alive in parts of this country, religion is able to be a unifying subject for many people. Religion is obviously a personal belief, and in America the idea is that we are able to practice whatever religion we please. Though there is much argument whether that is true or not, according to statistics in Chave’s book, there is more of an appreciation and acceptance of other religions, not just Christianity, being a path to God, and eternal life. I don’t think that you should be a certain religion based on your race, but I understand how throughout different cultures there is one primary religion in which people are more comfortable with having faith in. Nonetheless, it’s awesome to see this increase because it shows how religion is becoming an outlet for all people to come together, rather than something pushing them apart.

This week we read Chapter 5 of McGuires book, “The Dynamics of Religious Collectives”. This chapter was a lot to digest as it covered a significant amount of material, despite this I found it to be a very interesting introduction to how religion is categorized and influenced by/influential of society. I think the explanation of how religious categories can change and how groups shift and change in focus over time to be very interesting. Previously I had never considered something that could change radically, I thought it was the sort of thing that evolved very slowly over a long period and even then, the changes would be minor. Clearly this is not the case. Another part that caught my interest in the chapter was the discussion of how cults can be incorporated into formal religion. Particularly I was interested in the social component of this, this quote spells it out, “By absorbing local popular cults as optional devotions, these churches were able to build organizations that transcended familistic, localistic, or tribal barriers (153)”. I found that fascinating how organized religion, in this case Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, could integrate cults as a way of strengthening legitimacy and reaching a wider audience. This makes me think of the worship of Santa Muerte and Santeria, and how they are perfect examples of this phenomenon, as cultic faiths that are incorporated into more formal religion as a way of expanding church influence. In this thread I think it would be interesting to examine the impact of colonial rule and religion on indigenous faith in countries undergoing decolonization, especially by using the ideas presented by McGuire in this chapter.

This week opened my eyes to the diversity of religions in America. Since I did not grow up in a religion and my parents never spoke to me about it, I had always grouped all Christian  congregations together. I had friends that belonged to different churches, but they were never very religious and probably wouldn’t be able to distinguish themselves how their practices differed from each other. Watching the film Separate Realities surprised me in how different the two congregations and the individuals who attended them were. These are two congregations I would have previously just classified under the realm of Christianity assumed they were very similar, when in fact they are starkly different. When I was taking notes while watching the film, I did so by focusing on the differences between the two individuals. It wasn’t until we started our class discussion after watching the film that I realized in many ways, Susan and Glenn’s stories are similar. They both had prior issues that religion helped them to deal with and overcome, and they had each found a congregation that was able to satisfy their religious needs. This to me reinforced that different people need different things, especially when it comes to religion. After reading Chapter 5 and learning about different ways of classification, it was interesting to think about where Glenn’s First Baptist Church and Susan’s Episcopal church. Learning about how to classify different religions was another part of what made me realize how diverse Christianity is and how diverse religion in America is as a whole.