The article “South Dakota Allows State-Funded Adoption Agencies to Turn Away Same-Sex Couples” by Mark Joseph Stern  is an example of the United States government allowing for “religious freedom” in government institutions. However, as the article points out, there is a fine line between religious freedom and discrimination based on religious ethics. This article raises an interesting point about the role of church and state. In a “secular” society, there is a separation of church and state, and at first glance, allowing state-funded adoption agencies to chose who the adoptive couples can be is an exercise of religious freedom. However, in a truly secular society, the state would not allow for discriminatory policies based on one’s sexual orientation. This law is more of a reflection of the feeling towards same-sex couples in South Dakota rather than “religious freedom”. This law not only prevents sam-sex couples from adopting at select adoption agencies, it also provides grounds for agencies to prevent someone who is divorced, an interfaith couple, or a couple who engages in pre marital sex to to adopt as well. America is no where near a “secular society”, as much of the values and ethics that are found in certain areas are based on people’s interpretations of Christian scripture. This law is based on someone’s idea of Christian values, and not religious freedom.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/03/13/south_dakota_allows_state_funded_adoption_agencies_to_turn_away_same_sex.html

The World Council of Churches vs. the Jewish state, once again

The news was Israeli parliament did the vote that would deny entry visas to activists who call for the boycott of the Jewish state, and World Council of Church is attacking that action although WCC was part of reason for this law. WCC has been having negative influence over Israel/semitic-state by leading harsh political warfare. It has biased opinion towards Israel, and has been acting against Israel for while. It also uses Israel open tourist visa policy to promote anti-Israel campaign, so this action can be reaction of Israel.

However, The Economist claimed this ban clearly has possibility of harming relations between the Jewish state and Christianity.  Isolating or banning itself from outside is not good solution, I think, because I feel like that’s what WCC was aiming for. If Israel takes action towards WCC, WCC can raise more voice against Israel “to isolate and demonize Israel internationally”. Since that’s WCC’s campaign is about, Israel should have not taken intense action like this because it just creates more tension.

After reading Marti’s, “Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious Racial Integration in Diverse Congregations”, I began to question the diversity of my own childhood congregation back home and the other congregations I have attended in the past. Marti describes “Affinity with the Congregation”, “Identity Reorientation”, and “Ethnic Transcendence” as three moments that involve the acceptance and acknowledgement of mixing backgrounds within a congregation. I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic church which was predominately white with a few Hispanics and African-Americans. I did not notice the lack of diversity in my church until I attended my friends Hare Krishna (ISKCON) temple in Laguna Beach. In elementary school, I spent many weekend there and I began to realize the diversity there than at my own church. Their temple was made up of an almost equal mix of whites, Indians, Asians, and a few African-Americans. Although not all races were equally represented, it was more mixed than what I had experienced before. For this course, my first congregational visit was at a “progressive” Christian church. The demographic of the church was nearly all white, but they expressed the importance of standing with our multiracial “brothers and sisters” through times of trouble and success. I think that as time and beliefs progress, some churches will grow more mixed and others will become more strictly defined by the attendance of one race.

It is obvious that Trump’s immigration ban was designed to prevent Muslims from moving to the country. This article delves into the idea that the President’s racism and discrimination is partially founded on an unfair stereotype of gender-based killings in relation to Islam. An example of this is his adamancy of Homeland Security to provide America with information regarding the number of U.S. immigrants who commit gender-based violence towards women. It has been noted by people nationwide that Trump is not interested in protecting the safety of women, only when it is at the hand of a foreigner so he may further ingrain his unfair discriminations. Heather Barr, a member of the Human Rights Watch, has commented on the fact that the President has spoken approvingly of sexual assaults and may have actually assaulted women himself.

I relate this back to the class article From a Community of Believers by Caitlin Killian, which discusses the French rejection of Islamic traditions in their country. The French government blatantly says that a person can either be a good French and a bad Muslim or Jew, or vice versa, but nothing in between (Killian 314). The author explains that some of the racism and intolerance may stem from a defense mechanism and serve as “a way to reassert national identity at a time when France is feeling threatened by globalization, the European Union, and immigration” (Killian 308). I read this and find the part about globalization and immigration striking similarity in the intolerance of our President and some of the country. Trump, and others, are nervous that America will not be the supreme country forever, and their fear of losing power results in an intolerance for anyone or anything that does not support American’s perceived superiority. I feel that reading this article about discrimination in France helped me better understand discrimination in America.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-muslim-ban-gender-violence_us_58bd9496e4b033be14670400?section=us_religion

The article that I read was published by Fox News and called “CNN religion quiz needs to take Christianity seriously.” I found this to be a very interesting read because you could sense the tension between the two networks just by reading it. CNN is coming out with a special series for Easter time pertaining to Jesus and Fox accused them of making yet another show where they are going to try and tell people who Jesus really is. As I read this I started to get uncomfortable by the passive aggressive attitude that the author seemed to have. It seems that these two major news networks have a lot of tension and think that the other network has bad intensions. It was also said, that CNN currently has a quiz about how well you know Christianity and the author accused them of having the wrong questions and not asking the necessary questions in order to get to a necessary conclusion. They accused CNN of seeing religion through a blind spot or cloudy view and then put them in the same category of understanding as a “secular” group. I found this very interesting that the article transitioned into a critique on the way that Secularists see the world. This article is proof that even in our media there is much religious diversity and judgement.

“CNN Religion Quiz Needs to Take Christianity Seriously.” Fox News. FOX News Network, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2017. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/19/cnn-religion-quiz-needs-to-take-christianity-seriously.html.

The article Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzing the Fuzzy attempted to understand individual definitions and feelings regarding the state of being religious, spiritual, or both. While the study was fair, thorough, and asked the right questions, for me it lacked significant findings; the way people felt about religious and spirituality was pretty much in accordance with their religion, and could be predicted given the religion’s worldviews and history. For example, the person who identifies with religion and not spirituality (RnS) is often associated with higher levels of authoritarianism, self-righteousness, and church attendance. This could have been predicted given the fact these qualities would likely be assumed to be associated with Christians, which is the religious affiliation that primarily makes up the group RnS. On the other hand, the spiritual but not religious (SnR) are unlikely to engage in organized religion, and value nontraditional New Age beliefs and mystic experiences. Once again, this is not surprising given the fact that a majority of the SnR group identified as New Age.

In this sort of case, it seems to me that it would have been more beneficial to understand the history, culture, principles, and worldviews of a religion if one wants to find out more about how to classify them as individuals in a religious or spiritual terrain. If one looked at the history, culture, and worldviews of Christianity verses the New Age religions, one could easily assume that Christianity would be more organization-oriented, therefore practice with more structure and identify as more “religious”. (Including the fact that Christianity has existed for hundreds of years and has had significant effect on society and politics.) In contrast, New Age movements are primarily new religions that do not have ties to history and/or powerful institutions. Thus, the feelings and opinions of a Christian and a New Age “mystic” concerning spirituality and religion is very likely to coincide with the way their religion or spiritual origin functions.