This week I was in the group that analyzed the article “An Unsecular America” by Roger Finke. In the article, Finke argues that America does not fit into the model of secularization, and that religion is not declining because of modernization. This varies with the conditions of religion in Europe. European religious involvement is declining rapidly. Finke claims that  one of the reasons American religion is not declining like European religion is because “…European countries have traditionally had a close tie between Church and State, and continue to regulate religion, the USA has attempted to separate Church and State and minimize regulation” (Finke 247). The US does have legal restrictions preventing the merging of church and state, however, I do not think that these regulations are always taken seriously. Government legislation has increasingly been influenced by religious values. For example, anti-abortion arguments are often driven by Christian ideals. In addition, anti-LGBTQ+ proposed legislation is often made using religion as reasoning. Candidates for government office appeal to voters by saying that they have “Christian ideals”. People still swear on the Bible in court. I do not think that personal religious beliefs should dictate law. The founding fathers made sure to include the separation of church and state in the constitution to prevent one religion from dominating politics. When we value Christian beliefs and practices in politics over other religions, we are undermining the diversity of beliefs in America. I think that Finke was right about the US attempting to separate Church and State, however, I think that we need to make sure that the boundaries between the two are not blurred.

This past weekend I did a congregation visit. While I was parking in the church lot, I received a bunch of unfriendly stares. As I walked in I could hear a group behind me say “who is that?” It made me begin to understand the categories that McGuire outlined early on in our readings. It was interesting to contrast, right away, the experience I had at the denominational organization vs the sectarian one. But it also gave me an interesting view of the free market of religion in America. This group for example was relatively small, it is truly interesting to think about the uniqueness of a few people with similar beliefs coming together and starting a church. Here, a bunch of similarly stand-offish type of people all found each other. This is something that people in Europe wouldn’t necessarily do. This could explain the diversity of Christian religion in America that isn’t seen in European countries.

Additionally, having grown up Catholic, these congregation visits have proven to be incredibly enlightening. The umbrella term of Christianity was something that I have always been comfortable with as a catch all for all denominations as well as Catholicism. However, it seems nearly impossible to see any commonality between the two during my past congregation visits. I’m glad to have been able to understand that distinction. However, it’s important to note that the distinction is an environment/culture difference while the theology of values might be the same they aren’t something that can be observed during a congregation visit alone.

After being able to hear about several different articles that are centered around secularism, in class last week, the topic had me questioning what I thought I had known about the word “secular”. All of my life I thought that it was a term that categorized certain types of books, music, movies, people, etc. into a group that was deemed to cause one to “stumble” or sin. As we were able to go through the articles last class, it was clear to me that there are so many different aspects to the word than I could ever really think of. The Demerath article which my group was assigned, took so many different aspects and said that to be secular had so many different meanings, and it’s so much more complex than its book definition. All of the other articles that were assigned contained different sub groups of the word, and all combined together were able to define secularism, but not if they were all apart. Most of the other articles pertained to aspects about religion dying out, and how gender plays a role in this – however, from what we discussed, “Secularization serves as a form of adaptation to historical change”, thus based on societal changes occurring, is when the word secular is defined. It isn’t just one set list of things being “bad”, yet it it is set upon the feelings and beliefs occurring within a culture at one set time. As secular things and ideas were different in the 1960s, it is also different in 2019, and will be different again in the next 50 years.

In the reading of Is Religion The Problem by Mark Juergensmeyer there is reflection and discussion on the debates that surrounded the question of how  9/11 was started and the questions that many individuals made on whether or not religion has a fault In these type of events, is religions violent etc. In the case of terrorist attacks and religion in Islam people tend to assume that the religion is the problem. On the other hand, there are now more activist groups arising that are filled with hate on the culture and economy that has any ties to that specific religion. This article made me realize how at risk we are as a nation and even broader, the world,  due to the high rising tension.

What I mean by this is that  due to the all the attacks and terrorism within churches and attacks that happen in public areas  it is now in societies nature to tie  hate to a certain religion. It  is becoming more intertwined than ever. For example, as soon as an attack has made news there is automatic speculation that that plan was brought into place by a terrorist group. Since this group likely comes from an area that all ready has tensions rising in their  own community it is extremely easy for society to come up with different theories about the group. Which results in hate onto others no matter if the people do have relations with the group or not. At this moment in time the word religion and the word attacks can grasp the publics interest in a heart beat where in years past this never use to be the case. As the number of attacks on individuals increase so does the intensity and tension on how society views religions.

Recently, at the beginning of the month, although I have just now heard of it from an opinion piece in the New York Times, the Supreme Court received a case regarding impermissible establishment of religion in the U.S. Although society is now “secular” in theory, this is not always upheld in practice. The Court ruled in favor last year of a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple, and upheld President Donald Trump’s executive order on banning immigration from Muslim countries. This current case involves a cross in Maryland built to honor WW1 victims, however, this cross was built with public funds and on public property.

The Trump administration claimed the Christian cross, on which Jesus died for humanity’s sins and was resurrected, was “secular.” However, even liberal justice Stephen Breyer wondered if because this was built when the nation was not as religiously diverse, it should be allowed to remain, since it did most likely connect with the majority of the fallen soldiers’ faiths.

As the article points out, it is hard to imagine a Wiccan or atheist memorial with public funds being defended in the same way by the Court. However, with religious context, it doesn’t seem fair to say that both are equally inappropriate within a World War One memorial. A Wiccan memorial in Salem would probably be more supported. However, even with this justification, the Supreme Court is beginning to grow extremely worrying to me with its inability to separate church from state. The Muslim death row prisoner not having the same rights as a Christian death row prisoner comes to mind as a prominent example of this. The linking of church and state is not a reflection of the religiously tolerant and pluralistic views of society today.

Over the coarse of the weekend I decided to do my congregational visit at the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ pretty close to the school. I went with my friend and it seemed to be very different from a catholic and christian church that i visited earlier. I was the only person who was not wearing a tie so that was very different from the last church that really didn’t care about attire. The biggest thing I found about the church was that it wasn’t really minister based or had one person that leads everyone. It is more of a community and togetherness that brought people together. Many people would volunteer to do opening prayer and such while people of the church would be given a topic to present on and those people would be the “pastor” for the day. They had a hymn book in the phew which was something I have never seen before but was very helpful for someone like me who didn’t know the words to the songs. After the service we broke out into small groups based on age and gender. I was with the elders group and we talked about Gods love and how he shows us love no matter how much evil there is. We talked about the people of the world and how its hard to view evil people as good and try and find the good in them when they are making bad choices. We should view things ins gods eyes that everyone is equal and try and find the good in people when there is so much bad to cover it up.

For class, I read a very interesting and thought-provoking article by Mark Juergensmeyer called, “Is Religion the Problem?”. The article discussed if religion was the problem of violent attacks, if religion’s shady side had been exposed, or if religion was the problem or the victim. One important point that Juergensmeyer brought up was that besides the 9/11 attacks, almost all other terrorist attacks are Christian. I had never known this before, as I was under the impression all terrorist attacks were due to the Middle East. I think this fact needs to spread and be discussed more to help not only stop discrimination of Muslims around the world, but to also make Americans look internally at our nation. I think that a lot of people don’t want to believe this already because it is easier to have a scapegoat and blame an external source, rather than looking internally at the state of our nation.

Another argument Juergensmeyer makes is that religion is not the problem of these violent attacks, but it is “the medium through which these issues are expressed”(Juergensmeyer 7). I found this to be extremely fascinating, because I had never thought of it like this. People that provoke or participate in violent attacks are expressing their anger of social frustration and marginalization through their religion. One way of doing this is thinking of the attacks as cosmic war, that they are a part of a greater religious battle such as those talked about in their religions. This way they can see themselves as being a part of a greater good and seeing the opponent side as inherently evil or devilish. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the article and got many new aspects of religion and how it pertains to violence.

This past week in class, we read and discussed seven different articles, and took turns presenting the material to the rest of the class. My assigned article was “An Unsecular America” by Roger Finke, which argued that religion is not declining and disappearing as so many of us are inclined to believe. This reading was very interesting because it traced, from a sociological perspective, the prevalence and growth of religion and spirituality in America, and frequently used Europe as comparison to add more context to our perception of our current religious landscape. We have many more religious sects and denominations throughout America, because it is relatively low-cost to create a new church, and to gain new followers; in many parts of Europe religion and state are interconnected and therefore the government can influence how religious sects and denominations are formed. In Europe finding followers and instigating a new religious movement is much more difficult, not to mention costly.
I really enjoyed this particular article because it challenged our ideas of religion in America, and provided an alternative perspective. I feel like religion in America is oftentimes misconstrued, and there is a continuing public dialogue that religion and moral standards are declining in America, but this is not entirely true, as Finke illustrates. I know that for me and many others, religion is still just as much an important part of our lives, and regardless of what minor declines may state. I also appreciated hearing the stories of all the other student’s class articles that gave more context and counterpoints to my assigned article.

The article from Time magazine, “Religious Leaders Fear Armed Guards Must Now Become the Norm After the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting” by Katie Reilly discusses many religious places of worship have proposed and take action in getting regular professional security personnel after many shootings have occurred at churches.

Reilly mentions how the New Reform Temple in Kansas City, Missouri hasn’t hosted a single service without an armed off-duty officer present for the last 4 years ever since white supremacists killed three people outside a Jewish community center.

It is interesting and saddening to read of how temples, churches, and synagogues are now and have slowly been implementing more security breaches due to tragic violent events that have occurred at religious organizations. It is also interesting to hear  what the priest, preachers, and rabbis have to say about the gun policies regarding this issue. Some have stated that stricter gun laws would create an impact on preventing these shootings. Furthermore, some state that they want to push back on having armed guards at their places of worship since they believe that should not have to worry about the situation.

Politics and religion is perceived by many people as something that should be separate or that is separate yet there seems to be an abundance of situations where these two overlap and intertwine and how one is used in the other. Furthermore, there is much correlation between people’s religious affiliations and political party affiliation.

Here is the article below.

http://time.com/5439114/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-armed-guards-debate/

There are six sociological narratives for the views and aspects of religion. There is the idea of secularization which is the idea that religion is becoming less valuable and disappearing from modern world. Some examples include the decline of church affliction, and church attendance. This idea of secularization is being brought up by structural differentiation, politically, socially, due to privatization and also the decline of believe.

The second sociological narrative includes conservative resurgence that dominates the growth of Evangelical Protestantism as well as non-affliction. Also taking into consideration the increase of radical Islam in the Middle East As well as practice in the United States. The third is religions as local communities where for example teens look up to their congregations and adults to build a familiar community of people who practice the same religion, but also having a decline in denominations.

The fourth sociological narrative is religious individualism which is the idea that your actual religion is practiced. For example social relationships culturally and seeking individual meaning in a society that does not provide lasting roles. Also includes religious markets which change the religious structure who see religion as more of a business and members representing customers. So their idea is that the more member in a congregation then the more business produced and market their religion as well as religious products sold to members. In more of an economic point of view includes the sociological narrative of Globalization where the world is now more interconnected compared to past years. A major role that is played is the traditional approach where religion is seen as a safe sanctuary and source of faith for large numbers of immigrants who come to the United States?