A reoccurring interest of mine throughout this class has been McGuire’s religious typology and how it fits into other aspects of the course. Every time I read a “religion in the news” article, or while I read my case study book (Ammerman) I’d think to myself “where would this fall in McGuire’s typology diagram? While working on my case study presentation, I noticed Ammerman made a distinction that stood out to me between Deer Valley Church and Center Street Church. Though both groups referred to themselves as evangelical, Deer Valley Church was described as “nondenominational”, and looking back on the PowerPoint from class, Evangelicals fell under the “denominational’ category. This made me realize that religious typology is quite an important thing to talk about. Diversity within a religion seems to lead to diversity of the people who partake, different ways of practice calls for different kinds of people, this seems somewhat intuitive. But when one looks at it the other way, does the lack of “diversity” of practice of belief correlate with the lack of diversity of members in the church? Personally, I think it does, though my knowledge of scholarly research on the subject is small, so it’s only an opinion at this point. Branching from that thought, more questions pop up having to do with cults specifically. My initial perception of the typology dynamic was that the “tension with society” category has a pretty strong tie with the “one way” of thinking/practicing category. My question is essentially, “why is it that cults fall under the ‘tension with society’ category if they provide ‘many ways’ of thinking? Why is there tension if there’s no definitive right and wrong way of doing things?”

During this past week, I have both presented my book case study on Passionate Journeys as well as have done my congregational observation at the University United Methodist Church. In both instances I have come to the realization that religion is not necessarily the institution which holds in place certain practices, but faith and spirituality, or the idea of religion, comes from the individual.
Reading my book my case study, I found that people from all walks of life find their spirituality through different means in that everyone has their own reasons for searching for religion and seeking out what they believe they need through a religious movement. Much like the United Methodist church, the Pastor’s wife told us that their faith was achieved through one’s experiences and reasoning for wanting to be a part of the faith in the first place. It made me realize that religion is an overall concept which appeals not necessarily to a specific demographic of people, but it tends to a more general variety of the population and it poses as a different role for each person within their own lives (release from sexual repression and lack of family association, Dara Passionate Journeys). Looking at our first lecture in this class and how community, experiences, beliefs, doctrines; all the elements of a religion, come together to make it the way we know it today, I really found that to be true this past week and how people take their everyday experiences and turn them into learning processes which in turn guide them to a community of supporting, loving, and welcoming people who offer something that has been missing, and allow one to, in turn, identify with one religion or another.

The last presentation on the book Passionate Journeys: Why Successful Women Joined a Cult has really made me reflect on how little freedom we have in our everyday lives. In the presentation it was discussed that these women felt a sense of liberation from the everyday social norms that were set on woman like being a good housewife, not experimenting sexually and up keeping the image of normality. What I found most interesting about the presentation is that many of these woman were successful and living what others perceived to be the “perfect” life. This got me thinking are we all under so many constraints and just given the illusion that we are free? After the presentation I am surprised so few people have joined cults like the one in the presentation. My perception of cults was so negative than the one depicted, but I really have an understanding why those women wanted their liberation. The cult granted the woman freedom to explore life without the fear of judgments even if it was outside of normality. On the flip side religion can also constrain the way of thinking of an individual as seen in the Born Again Film. In this example, the way of thinking was very black and white. Obeying the way of God was used as an excuse for their way of thinking giving them power to think anyone who contradicted the religion was wrong. My question to the class is does religion compromise our freedom or does it enable us to have more freedom?

Following the Passionate Journeys presentation I began to really wonder what drew people to different religious organizations and cults. It made me question how an individual in charge of a cult could gain power and how they made the decision to start one. I found this specific group interesting because it seemed like the individuals had everything materialistic they could have needed. Because most did not have to worry about basic necessities, I would have assumed that following a more common religion would have been easier because many focus on the specific ways to live your life to create a happy present life and future. Most of these members were unhappy with their lives and found sanctuary in the cult whether it was through a book or running into other members unintentionally. I am confused on how a religious/spiritual group who saves people could harm and kill strangers in the public. I also wonder what the probability of a cult becoming a more popular religion is. Would the increase of smaller religions decrease the amount of people who followed religions such as Christianity and Catholicism? Would it be more common for older or younger people to follow the smaller organizations? Although I did not read the book for my case study, I thought it brought a different perspective to more modern religions. Before this, I had never heard real accounts of cults and this specific one was as out of the box as I had imagined and stereotyped it to be.

As we discussed in class on Monday and discovered in the reading, religions can hold communities together but they can also tear them apart. Do communities think that it is worthwhile to continue religious activity if it is so obvious that it can destroy them? I am curious to know if religious groups really think about the idea of religion tearing their group apart, and if they take it into consideration when making decisions about the group. Are the religious groups aware of this? I understand that it can depend on the religious group and/or community, but it is interesting for me to think about how religious groups themselves may think about this. In the example of the religious cult presented in Wednesday’s case study about the Rajneeshpuram, was all of the chaos and hardship worth the outcome of the religious community to the members?

As we saw in the case study presentation about the Rajneespuram cult, the community was torn apart fairly quickly and the religious group was ruined. The group was doing extremely well and it was thriving until things went very south. I am really interested to learn more about how these religious groups (or cult, in the instance of the case study) handle situations like this. If a group notices that their community is distant or things are not going well, what do they do? Are there ways to combat these situations? I feel like the idea of religious groups doing harm is an interesting idea because many people view religious groups as the most beneficial things for communities.

McGuire’s interpretation of societies being held together and yet at the same time torn apart by religion is something that I can relate to seeing in our world. Being a member of a church, it has become evident to me that there is beauty in community and when we learn to cohesively be amongst each other, peace can exist. On the other hand, I have seen the turmoil religion can bring to a community when people do not know how to accept others views. It can sometimes be extremely hard to understand why someone would believe something that in your eyes seems so wrong. The aspect of religion I believe we tend to overlook is that tolerance is key. Accepting perspectives that are not our own, helps others feel that they have a sense of belonging even though they may be different. Going beyond the fact that religion works when we all work together, comes the idea of our nation having its own “civil religion.”  Our country believes that it has a special relationship with God and that’s why he is a part of our pledge of allegiance. Every single country has a relationship with God though, it just seems unique to us because it is embedded in much of what we do. I tried to connect what we learned in Chapter 6 to the presentations we had in class and I noticed some unique aspects that directly link to God needs no Passport. The book brought up the topic of the joys that come along with coexistence and I enjoyed this group digging deeper upon this topic and expanding on why God loves us all.

Often, religion has a negative connotation affiliated with the name. Rightfully so, many of the things that religion has been guilty of historically like colonialism, war, social exclusion, etc. can not be forgotten. However, religion has also played an immense role in the social cohesion of societies as well. Even now, with a “separation of church and state” America is considered very religious, and religion binds together the very fabric of the United States. One concept that I found especially fascinating was the idea of “civil religion”, and God’s hand in “protecting” the United States. Looking at America as a “religion” with the symbols being freedom, soldiers, and the president show how religion acts as cohesion with national identity. While the goal for America is to protect what is considered sacred, there are many competing thoughts about what is considered sacred. For some, it is the sanctity of a women’s choice, and for others it is for the life of a child unborn. The division of people found within the political landscape today can be attributed to the competing notions of what is sacred. Civil religion is an example of how “religious ideology” can contribute to both social cohesion and conflict.