Religion in the News- Week 7

News Item, Uncategorized

http://religionnews.com/2017/03/02/senators-want-20-million-for-jccs-and-other-faith-based-community-centers/

In wake of the stressful political climate and negative views of some religions in the news, two senators are trying to go against other politicians political agenda and create safe havens for religions. A Democrat and Republican are calling Congress to invest $20 million “to improve security at these centers — whether they are Jewish or affiliated with another faith.” The money will not be used towards the establishment of churches, synagogues, or mosques, but rather for community centers which are religiously affiliated. The article highlights the high number of bomb threats that certain centers have received.

This article relates to what we talked about in class because of the duality of forms that religion can take. In this case, civil government is playing a role within religion to help the community and society. However, religion is also the cause of a divide within the same society. It is being attacked by individuals of other religions or who find religion a threat. It is not a “black and white” problem or solution. Religion is a gray area within society.

Where is America’s Religious Tolerance

Uncategorized

The devastating reality that people are after a particular religious denomination has been evident in the news the past few days. The article I read was called, Another Wave Of Bomb Threats Targets Jewish Community Centers. Reading this article was emotionally draining. The anti semitism that is still among us in the United States breaks my heart. I believe that everyone should have the freedom to worship who they want and practice the religion they want without being threatened for it. This all connects back to the intolerance that Muslims have been suffering through in the past few years. For some reason as Americans we have grown up to believe that certain people have superiority compared to others. This is not the case though, our forefathers created the Declaration of Independence and Constitution so that everyone would have freedom. I believe that a big role in these threats is that America is seeing hard times right now. Everyone is having a hard time living as one and learning to accept each other and a big part of this has to do with our current President. In the article it mentioned the way that President Trump was approaching question about what the government was going to do about this. His response was that he was insulted because he took it as if people were asking because they thought he didn’t care about the situation. I personally think that this was the wrong way to go about a response. He should have just answered the question and not taken offense to it. This problem is something we need to handle, whatever the solution may be. It is a right to choose your Religion and people living in fear should not be a result of our freedom.

Work Cited: Domonoske, Camila. “Another Wave Of Bomb Threats Targets Jewish Community Centers.” NPR. NPR, 21 Feb. 2017. Web. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/21/516422832/another-wave-of-bomb-threats-targets-jewish-community-centers.

The Impact of Religion on Social Change Seen in Congregation Visits

Reflection

I found a strong correlation between the matters discussed in chapter 7 of McGuire and Monday’s presentations on congregation visits. Most people in class seemed to have positive experiences at their congregation, and pointed out several key themes. Congregations are indeed getting smaller and older, as our texts have pointed out. As a consequence, congregation leaders are generally excited when new-comers visit, and are eager to attempt to retain their attendance. Most people also pointed out a strong consistency in the demographic of their congregation, meaning that the ethnicity, education status, and economic class was seemingly similar between most members of the congregation.

McGuire’s chapter on the impact of religion on social change is reflective of many of these key themes pointed out in Monday’s presentations. McGuire notes that religion is inherently conservative, and thus often supports the status quo. At the same time, powerful leadership in a congregation can also act as a revolutionary force to promote change within a society. It seemed that some congregations strongly strived to promote social change, where as others fought to preserve tradition. More specifically, the United Church of Christ promoted liberal values and a step in a new political direction. People were encouraged to share their worries and their joys to in order to make the world a better place. On the other hand, some congregations were described as more formal, with a strong emphasis on ritual and tradition, rather than progressive discussion. Whether aiming to enforce the status quo or strive for revolutionary change, it seemed that most congregations happily opened their service to our class.

Pope Francis Encourages Activism and Condemns Exclusion

News Item

In class, we discussed the trend of an increasingly politically conservative attendance in America’s pews. As religious involvement has softened, those who have have remained headstrong in the practice of their official religion are often more conservative, and have a tendency to use the word of God as a justification for their political beliefs on controversial issues such as abortion.

Pope Francis seems to be an exception to this trend. Although the same is not necessarily the case for all Catholic congregations, Francis has consistently spoken against hateful, exclusive rhetoric, and has taken up a more liberal agenda. He has articulated concerns over President’s Trump behavior and platform, and has instead encouraged the world to be loving and accepting of all. Francis has recently released a new letter, which was read at the U.S. Regional World Meeting of Popular Movements in Modesto, California, encouraging people to be activists against populism. He said that the resolution of current and pressing issues in our world is dependent upon “people’s involvement and participation”. He noted that xenophobia is a danger to the success of our society, insinuating that we must hold our institutions accountable for loving behavior and practices.

Although Francis did not directly mention President Trump, his words are clearly motivated by Trump’s agenda. Francis said that we should not condone leaders that rely on “fear, insecurity, quarrels, and even people’s justified indignation, in order to shift the responsibility for all these ills on to a ‘non-neighbor.'” On the day of the inauguration, Francis spoke of Hitler’s strategies of manipulating a crowd, and again in this letter, he is seemingly warning our population to stay smart, active, and true to our values.

Francis has also recently alluded to the events in Standing Rock in regards to the Dakota Access Pipeline, defending a “right to prior and informed consent” as to what happens to one’s land. Francis also has also protested against “social walls” and “false prophets”. By doing this, he has reminded us that Christianity promotes values of peace, love and inclusion to all. Although he is not taking a direct political stand with a named platform, he has vocalized his values and his interpretation of God’s word in order to encourage good will in his following.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/17/in-a-new-letter-pope-francis-tells-activists-to-stand-up-to-populists/?utm_term=.3e95f1163b66

Conservatives Want Religion on Classroom Walls

News Item

According to the Huffington Post, due the conformation of Betsy DeVos as the new Secretary of Education, the Council for National Policy (CNP) released a document recommending DeVos to promote “Judeo-Christian principles” in American public schools. This basically means that public schools would put the Ten commandments on the walls, implementing bible study, and teaching US and world history “from the Judeo-Christian perspective” for middle school and high school history. This a violation of separation of church and state, but that is not the issue that I have with the CNP’s recommendation. Religion is a big part of many peoples lives and I understand that they want their children to learn about it, but my problem is that it can’t just be taught with a Judeo-Christian lens. If the CNP wants to put religion into schools then they should have to put all religion into schools. Children in America should be taught all religions on an equal playing field so they can be informed and make the decision of which one they want to identify with on their own. If DeVos goes through with the CNP’s suggestion then it would put a bias on the children of which religion they join because they only learned about one in school. The CNP are also wanting to tell history from the Judeo-Christian perspective which isn’t as objective as normal history classes. Overall, I would welcome the idea of teaching world religions to the younger generation but to promote tolerance of each others religions, not just telling the story from one side.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lets-be-clear-conservatives-want-religion-on-classroom_us_58a9b56ce4b0fa149f9ac774

Concert in church

Uncategorized

I thought Reinventing American Protestantism was really interesting case study. Compare to the church I visit, and other stories that I heard about church, the “sandal church” sounds much more fun. It looks like going concert and have community.

The story of pastor reminds me the pastor from “Born again: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church”. The people, not just pastor, in that movie had experienced the fall out of life at some point and turned into religious and have personal relationship with God. However, different from those in “Born again”, the way of sandal church is more suited to the people and period. What I have felt about that film was that it is not right way to attract people (well that film was in 1987 so that make sense). And the sandal church, I thought, is inventing new style of religion that attracting people in this period (maybe not including old people or people who like traditional way). As they said in presentation, they are successful because they fulfill the needs of people. The church I visited was diminishing the size because there is not enough people attending. They were discussing about what to do about that, and maybe they need to invent something like sandal church (maybe not exactly something since one of member of that church was complaining about loud music playing in other church) to get more people in church.

Congregation Visit #1

Reflection

For my denominational congregation visit, I attended a service at the Second Baptist Church, located in Redlands. As someone who has only attended Catholic masses, it was an extremely different experience which I enjoyed very much. I was almost overwhelmed at how kind and welcoming everyone was towards me. Many gave me hugs or a hand shake when I said that I was a new visitor. They asked me why I was there and when I told them I was there as part of my Sociology and Religion curriculum they were thrilled. Their way of worshipping was fascinating to observe from a sociological stand point. Live music, dancing, jumping, shouting, and out loud praising were all ways in which they worshipped and worked specifically towards this group because of their cultural similarity. These are aspects that I found appealing because it kept me consistently engaged throughout the 2 hour service, something that I had difficulty with at the Catholic churches that I had attended. I was also able to make several connections between what I observed and what I had been reading in “The Social Context” and “American Religion”. It gave several explanations as to why this congregation functioned in the way that it did. When the service was over, I found myself wanting to come back again and I don’t even consider myself a religious person. Yet the people and sense of community that I felt was powerful. I would encourage any one to attend a service at Second Baptist.

Reflection February 19

Uncategorized

The diversity of the presentations this past week was astonishing. From a discussion of a cult and freedom, to the strict aspects of women who choose a life of Orthodox Judaism, the experiences varied. While all the presentations this week were interesting, two stuck out to me: Traditions in a Rootless World and Reinventing American Protestantism. I think they interested me more because of the opposite experience individuals were seeking for their religious life. For the women who chose to be Orthodox Jews, they lived strict lives with guided rules and structure. Their traditions consisted on following concrete rules which in a very specific way. On the other hand, Reinventing America Protestantism focused on the idea of a casual experience with God and your religious practices. While both can be considered to be based on more conservative ideals, the experience of these ideals vary.

One question that the group on the Paradigm Church proposed to the class was “do you think the popularity of the mega church will lead to the extinction of the type of churches and religious institution that have come before it?” This question stuck out to me because I think this trend has always been a part of religion. There has not been a time where a church or another community has come from another and gained more popularity than the more traditional counterpart. However, early churches such as the Eastern Orthodox or Jewish traditions such as Orthodox Judaism are still in existence. It is obvious that the numbers in America differ between the mega churches and more traditional, but that is religious freedom. Each person is seeking something different and we have the ability to search for what we are most attracted to. In my opinion the paradigm churches are very unattractive. I don’t want it to be as “relatable” as social media or other things. I want to church to feel like it is other worldly, but I might be the only one. The beauty of having a choice is being able to do what you think is best.

Book Presentations Recap

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I am happy that I was able to present to the class this week “Shared Parishes” the book written by Brett Hoover.  The challenges the parishioners had to deal with from sharing a church facility or the integration of people from different backgrounds is something everyone in America has gone through. With the promise of the “American Dream” how can we blame others for wanting what is best for themselves but also for their family? With President Trump bringing up a great deal of hate in the country the fear that has been burden upon people is unimaginable. In my opinion and as seen through my case presentation the faster we adapt to change and are willing to be open minded to the ways of other cultural background the happier our country will be, and the more likely we will all grow as individuals.

Listening to the presentations I came upon one reoccurring theme; religion has such a positive influence on follower’s no matter what faith members practice. Perhaps my favorite presentation this week was the one done on the Paradigm churches. After the presentation was done I understood why they are so popular, the fact that there not a hierarchy, that they use all the senses to portray their message and how they focus in on smaller focus groups reminds of me so much of school at U of R. All of these elements make for the ideal learning environment. The genius behind this way of preaching is that by creating a place where people feel empowered and motivated to learn is the best way to get a message across.

Sacred Spirituality?

Reflection

In listening to the case study presentations given this past week has been a great way to learn about and explore different perspectives on many topics in religion. One presentation that was really memorable to me was on Nancy Tatom Ammerman’s Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life. After hearing what the group presented on the book, and learning the objectives of the case study, I became interested in reading the book after the fact, just to learn more about the different religious perspectives, and the presence of spirituality in different peoples’ lives. I related to the idea of subconsciously practicing means of spirituality throughout one’s day. Forcing myself to think of all of the things that I routinely do that may be perceived as spiritual made me realize just how much I do. Such a revelation has me somewhat baffled, because I have never really thought of myself as being religious even though I acknowledge my own spirituality. I correlate my overlooking of spiritual practices to the way in which I was raised, which seemed to normalize the spiritual, like a daily meditation or grounding oneself to nature. Because of this, I had a moment of confusion when I went to do my congregation visit and as part of the service, we were asked to silently pray for a couple of minutes; I realized I did not know how to pray. This confused me in the moment, because I could not distinguish praying from my own meditations and mantras and chants that went along with it. This revelation gave me a new perspective, and made me realize that perhaps what I deem my own spirituality has more in common with other religions, in that there is a certain way and order in which I go about my spiritual rituals throughout the day.