It seems that the religious organizations are losing their influence. From what everyone shared in class, people are moving away from the rigidness of organized religion and moving towards a more personalized worship. Majority of people who grew up in a religious family and moved away from the organization still consider themselves a spiritual person. Others have never been involved with organized religion but still feel that there is something bigger then themselves. However, they do not feel that they need to show their devotion by going to a church or mosque.  Religion is becoming individualized, meaning that less people are going to church and more people are finding other ways to connect to their higher being that works for them. I believe this is due to people don’t want another person telling them how they can communicate with their God. I also believe that religion has gotten a bad reputation in the past few years due to how some people use it as ammunition to push their beliefs onto others and into our government. Some people don’t want to call themselves religious because of the stereotypes that come with that so they have started to call themselves spiritual. According to McGuire, religion itself is not fading away, but the need for established religious institutions are. People are finding the community they found in the church elsewhere. People are having deep religious experiences without having to go to a church. Organized religion is losing popularity as people realize that faith is inside of themselves, not within the churches walls.

This week was enlightening about the changing tides of religion. My fellow students and I each got a chance to share our family’s religious history and our current affiliations. Two or three other students and I were brought in different Christen denominations and are still practicing those faiths. However, a vast majority of the class was different. Some were still Christen, but questioned certain aspects of their faith and even developed their own ideas to make up for this. Others were raised in atheist or non-religious families and therefore weren’t religious themselves. Some were from religious families but they stopped practicing that faith, and others from non-religious families became religious or spiritual. Finally there were the people who weren’t necessarily religious but considered themselves spiritual. This brings up an interesting topic. There seems to be a developing group of people who are not actually religious nor belong to an established religious organization. Instead they have their own spiritual beliefs they’ve developed on their own. Some debate whether these peoples’ beliefs count as religions themselves or not. This of course depends on how one defines religion, which is another topic of debate. People also say that we’re becoming less religious. However, according to Meredith McGuire’s book she believes that religion itself is not fading away, but the need for established religious organizations, such as the different Christen denominations, is fading away. (McGuire, Pg. 4-5) Therefore, maybe it is fair to say that this developing group of spiritual people are religious in their own way after all.

In “Silence: Scorsese’s Spiritual Masterpiece,” Craig Detweiler reviews Martin Scorsese’s latest film, Silence. The film explores the nineteenth-century journey of several European priests to Japan to locate the “hidden Christians” there. Martyrdom, of priests and the Japanese Christians, holds an important place in the movie, haunted with images of men drowning or burning for their faith. However, ultimately, the movie explores questions of faith:  “Where is God in times of suffering?” “Is it better to pursue ideal faith, even if it means death, or is it better to stay alive and make some concessions to worldly authorities?”

The characters include Father Ferreira, a world-weary spiritual father who has kept the faith alive in Japan for many years, and Sebastiano Rodrigues, a young Portuguese priest just starting out in his missionary life. Both are Jesuits, part of a highly educated order of priests with a deep spiritual focus. As part of their preparation for the role, they took the Jesuit “spiritual exercises,” an intense 30-day retreat, under the guidance of real Jesuit priests. Detweiler notes the “complete spiritual catharsis” of Scorsese’s latest film, which reaches a level of depth that his previous religious works have not. The film is currently in theaters.