This week for my religion in the news article, I wanted to focus on an aspect of religion I have not been paying all that much attention to, spirituality. While looking through my New York Times phone app to find some articles that stood out to me, I discovered one by Rivka Galchen and Benjamin Moser called Which Canonical Work is Frequently and Frustratingly Misread? Though I didn’t did not expect to use this particular article for my religion in the news post since it had no clear religious connotation within the title, I soon realized I was wrong and changed my mind once I started reading.

The article is split into two sections, one written by each author, I’ll be focusing on the section by Galchen, which was about Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote. I remember reading this book in my high school Spanish class and having a whole unit on Don Quixote de la Mancha, analyzing Cervantes’s book and theorizing about its contents. The article really had no outward tie with religion, but it did with spirituality. Galchen received this book her freshman year in college two weeks before her dad unexpectedly passed away, and this book held such a significant meaning in her mind because of that reason, “[i]t wasn’t only because it was the last that I had heard from him that the gift felt coded and meaningful”. This really reminded me of the kind of thing Ammerman was looking for in her book Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes, she wanted to see where religion or spirituality took place in one’s everyday life, and to me, this seemed like a prime example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/books/review/which-canonical-work-is-frequently-and-frustratingly-misread.html?_r=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americans-rate-jews-highest-muslims-lowest-on-feeling-thermometer_us_58a3579fe4b094a129ef90e9?section=us_religion

In this article from The Huffington Post, it talks about a study conducted by Pew Research Center, which surveyed approximately 4,000 Americans to see how accepting they are towards other religions. The results of this survey showed that Americans are increasingly becoming more accepting towards other relgions, as compared to a similar survey conducted by Pew in 2014. Jews and Catholics received the “warmest” rating, while Muslims received the “coldest.” I think this article is really interesting because I never would have assumed in today’s political climate that Americans are feeling more accepting towards thsoe of different religions. If anything, I would assume that there would be a decline in acceptance, especially with the large controversy surrounding Trump’s travel ban which targets Muslims, and the severe increase in threats towards Jewish community centers. While this article is surprising, it does give me hope that our soceity today is recognizing the need for acceptance, and hopefully acting on it. This article relates to our class discussions on Monday because we all gave a short three minute summary of our congregational visits, and every person who spoke had a positivie, peaceful experience. While some students were greeted and welcomed a little more enthusiastically that others were, no one spoke of being turned away or not accepted at their congregation, which really demonstrates how peaceful and welcoming many religions can be, regardless of how others “feel” about them.

President Trump was heavily criticized in his statement on the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Not once in his speech did he acknowledge the millions of Jews that lost their lives or the fact that anti-Semitic feelings are still present today. His speech many felt was inappropriate and missed the mark completely, however the white house refused to comment when asked why he left out central themes. According to the article “Trump has been accused of trafficking in anti-Semitic stereotypes and his campaign has been accused of employing anti-Semitic tropes.” (Gibson). On top of those accusations leaving out a core part of Holocaust Remembrance is only accentuating his anti-Semitic views indirectly.

In order to be successful in the congregation visits students had to go into the church service with an open mind. One of the main advantages of an open mind way of thinking is the ability to empathize with other religions and people. The contrast between the southern Baptist and the Catholic Mass could not have been more distinct, but learning about them both made me more understanding of their beliefs and traditions. We are also able to compare across the board why some congregations are successful and the different ways they each measure success.

Source:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/27/trump-fails-mention-jews-holocaust-remembrance-statement/97150252/

https://thewire.in/109052/understanding-religions-fundamental-to-citizenship/
The article’s point was learning and understanding religion is necessary nowadays to citizenship. You see different religion everywhere, and  religion is key that brings conflict among different viewpoint about anything such as justice, freedom, etc.

As McGuire said in the book, religion brings not only conflict but also cohesion. But in order to have debate that walk towards cohesion rather than attack each other, knowing and understanding other religion is so important that “In educational theory, religious literacy could be considered a ‘threshold concept’ for 21st-century citizenship”.

This article uses the word tolerance, but in Levitt word I think it’s more pluralism. As tolerant (in Levitt definition) people are afraid, the article says that becoming more religiously literate can change “will not necessarily lead to more agreement – indeed, it might even steel our convictions. But it will lead to being able to ‘disagree better’ (the aim of the Scriptural Reasoning movement) by tampering cheap stereotypes and petty caricatures”. I define myself as tolerant person. I sometimes wonder why I want to study religion anyways if I don’t like to be changed by religion. Want to know about something I don’t know is one, but I think “disagree better” also makes sense to me. I don’t mean I want to disagree with people to attack, but want to disagree to get something out of it, so I can become more pluralistic.

This week’s news article discusses the tragic vandalism of dozens of headstones at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis. According to the article police are in the process of reviewing security footage, and are not yet prepared to declare whether or not the act was a hate crime. However, on the same day as the vandalism occurred, 11 Jewish community centers were targeted with another wave of bomb threats; the fourth this year. The FBI is currently looking into the matter. The cemetery in question is the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, which was founded in 1893 and has been serving the community for more than 125 years. According to the cemetery foundation’s website, “It operates in accordance with Jewish tradition as is telling from its name: Chesed – loving kindness; and Emeth – Torah Truth and integrity.” This is a very tragic occurrence, and highlights our recent discussion about religious conflict among different congregations and society at large. Assuming this act of defamation was indeed a hate crime, it is truly tragic what this indicates for the political situation in America.

Source: http://religionnews.com/2017/02/21/vandals-wreck-headstones-at-historic-jewish-cemetery-in-st-louis/