TruthBook Religious News Blog

Rome, Oct. 30--(AP) Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders met with top European officials Thursday to explore how inter-religious dialogue can help combat terrorism and tensions over immigration while promoting peace.

The one-day gathering came as Italy, France, Germany and other Western European nations have been grappling with the impact on their societies of waves of immigrants of different religions and races.

"Jews, Christians and Muslims have for millennia intertwined their histories in the Mediterranean area," Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, said in opening remarks. "It is necessary that they move on on the path of the fruitful coexistence of cultures ... so that religious diversity becomes a common wealth," he added.

Pisanu, whose country holds the European Union's presidency, said Western societies need to do more to integrate immigrants, arguing that if they are marginalized and exposed to fundamentalist preaching, they might turn toward terrorism. He also repeated calls for his European counterparts to adopt common immigration policies and said aid to developing countries is essential if the West wants to eradicate the roots of terrorism. Pisanu, who repeated calls to his European counterparts to adopt common immigration policies, called "dialogue ... the most effective instrument to avert fundamentalism and build peace."

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Tuesday, October 28, 2003

When 'No Religion' Takes First Place

A 2001 religious identification survey undertaken by the City University of New York, found that Oregon ranked No. 1 in terms of residents who choose "no religion" as their religious identification. In four states, "no religion" ranked highest among available options. The other states were Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming. An article by Jeff Wright published in the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard, reports: "The number of Americans who claim no religious identity in surveys, dubbed "nones" by experts, has roughly doubled in the past decade, making them possibly the third-largest group in the nation, after Catholics and Baptists."

Further evidence comes from the Glenmary Research Center, which reported in 2002 that several cities located in Southern Oregon, and Northern California are those "where Americans are least likely to have a religious affiliation."

These statistics require some further investigation. For one thing, the City University study listed major Christian denominations as individual choices on the survey. Taken together, more participants identified with some form of Christianity than with non-belief. Still, the fact that "no religion" ranked first remains significant.

The Pacific Northwest has long been identified with an independent streak and secular tendencies. Jeff Wright, however, argues that this does not mean that residents are non-religious. "Americans who pick no religion say they believe in God," reports Wright, "and often pray or meditate--habits not that different from the folks who fill the pews each Sunday."

Then again, their beliefs are often very different from those involved in organized Christianity. The Register-Guard article tells of Christopher James, a 28 year old Oregonian, whose spirituality is based in nature. "When I get out into nature, immediately I can feel my body chemistry change, " he said. "It is such a physical experience, it affects the rest of me."

James is one of those who identifies himself as having "no religion." He works for the non-profit Sustainable Forestry Project, and claims, "I do believe in a higher power. For me, it exists more in the order of the universe and everyday life."

This secularizing trend may indeed point to the future of the Pacific Northwest and neighboring states. The more pressing question is whether the rest of the nation will follow these same patterns.

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Sunday, October 26, 2003

Religious dogma causes conflicts

NEW DELHI OCT. 25. It is "not religion but religious dogma'' that has led to so many conflicts around the world. The wars and the violence among the followers of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism were a result of religious fanaticism. Religion should "graduate into spirituality'' to bring peace to the world and peace was essential for progress, development, prosperity and happiness which would all make the world beautiful.

That was the message from the President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, as his three-nation tour ended this morning as Diwali was being celebrated in the country.

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Saturday, October 25, 2003

Worship on the road

In a recent survey, nearly 75 percent of British motorists reported that they pray occasionally while driving, and 22 percent confessed to doing so on a regular basis.

More than half of those who said they prayed said it was for other people who were suffering in some way, or praying and thinking about families, friends and loved ones, the foundation reported.

"A lot of people view motoring as a necessary evil but it might well be the opposite, a necessary good," Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation said in a released statement.

"Society has changed -- with many people choosing to talk to whatever power they worship in ordinary places where they feel relaxed and uninhibited, like motor cars. For some the car has simply become the new church."

For many people, the morning and evening commute may be the quietest time they have during the day. In that sense, it offers an opportune time to speak with -- and perhaps more importantly -- listen for divine guidance.

The Rev. Ian Gregory, a minister in Staffordshire, England, didn't expound as to how commuters might form non-traditional congregations in his statement released by the RAC Foundation.

"Prayer is a great stress buster, and it's good to know that many ask for divine help, although the best prayer is for personal calm," said Gregory, founder of the Campaign for Courtesy. "God can't fix speed camera film or traffic lights. But he can fix people, whether they are driving or whatever."

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Friday, October 24, 2003

Most Americans believe they are going to Heaven

(Ventura, CA) The vast majority of Americans continue to believe that there is life after death, that everyone has a soul, and that Heaven and Hell exist. However, more than 50 million adults are uncertain regarding their personal eternal fate.

The Afterlife

Belief in life after death, like the existence of God, is widely embraced: 8 out of 10 Americans (81%) believe in an afterlife of some sort. Another 9% said life after death may exist, but they were not certain. Just one out of every ten adults (10%) contend that there is no form of life after one dies on earth.

Moreover, a large majority of Americans (79%) agreed with the statement “every person has a soul that will live forever, either in God’s presence or absence.”

Destinations

Most Americans do not expect to experience Hell first-hand: just one-half of 1% expect to go to Hell upon their death. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) believe they will go to Heaven. One in 20 adults (5%) claim they will come back as another life form, while the same proportion (5%) contend they will simply cease to exist.

Even though most Americans believe in life after death and the existence of the soul, not everyone is clear about their own ultimate destination. One in every four adults (24%) admitted that they have ”no idea” what will happen after they die. Those who felt their eternal future is undefined were most likely to be Hispanics, singles, men, atheists and agnostics, residents of the West, and 18- and 19-year-olds (i.e., young adults who also happen to be the first members of the Mosaic generation to enter adulthood).

Among those who expect to go to Heaven, there were differences in how they anticipate such an end would be attained. Nearly half of those who say they are Heaven bound (43%) believe they will go to Heaven because they have “confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.” Others felt they will get to Heaven because “they have tried to obey the 10 Commandments” (15%) or because “they are basically a good person” (15%). Another 6% believed their entrance to Heaven would be based upon the fact that “God loves all people and will not let them perish.”

One of the intriguing findings from the research is that education and income are negatively correlated with belief in Heaven and Hell. In other words, the more education a person gets or the more income they earn, the less likely they are to believe that Heaven or Hell exists. While most high-income households and college graduates maintain belief in Heaven and Hell, the finding reinforces the popular notion – and, indeed, Jesus’ teaching – that people of economic means and those with considerable education struggle to embrace biblical teachings on such matters.

Contradictions Reign

George Barna, the president of the company that conducted the research, pointed out that “Americans’ willingness to embrace beliefs that are logically contradictory and their preference for blending different faith views together create unorthodox religious viewpoints.” For instance, he noted that among born again Christians - who believe that they will experience eternal existence in Heaven solely because they have confessed their sins to God and are depending upon Jesus Christ to spare them from eternal punishment or rejection - 10% believe that people are reincarnated after death, 29% claim it is possible to communicate with the dead, and 50% contend that a person can earn salvation based upon good works.

“Many committed born again Christians believe that people have multiple options for gaining entry to Heaven. They are saying, in essence, ‘Personally, I am trusting Jesus Christ as my means of gaining God’s permanent favor and a place in Heaven – but someone else could get to Heaven based upon living an exemplary life.’ Millions of Americans have redefined grace to mean that God is so eager to save people from Hell that He will change His nature and universal principles for their individual benefit. It is astounding how many people develop their faith according to their feelings or cultural assumptions rather than biblical teachings.”

The California-based researcher indicated that born again Christians are not the only ones confused about what happens after death. Many of those who describe themselves as either atheistic or agnostic also harbor contradictions in their thinking. “Half of all atheists and agnostics say that every person has a soul, that Heaven and Hell exist, and that there is life after death. One out of every eight atheists and agnostics even believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior probably makes life after death possible. These contradictions are further evidence that many Americans adopt simplistic views of life and the afterlife based upon ideas drawn from disparate sources, such as movies, music and novels, without carefully considering those beliefs. Consequently, the labels attached to people – whether it be ‘born again’ or ‘atheist’ may not give us as much insight into the person’s beliefs as we might assume.”

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If you would like to receive a bi-weekly update on the latest research findings from the Barna Research Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna Research web site (www.barna.org) by providing your e-mail address in the section of the home page that offers The Barna Update.

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Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Viewing death in a new way is essential

Death? Don't think about it, don't talk about it. As if denial can make it go away.

There was recently a two-day seminar in Akron titled ``The Sacred Art of Dying.'' It mainly attracted nurses and other professionals who were able to earn continuing education credits through Cleveland State University. The nonprofit Blessed Foundation, an interfaith group, co-sponsored the event.

Many of the issues raised struck at the heart of how we view life, not just death. Why is it that we, the healthy, are so often inclined to shun those who are dying? Why do we sometimes treat dying people as if they've stopped being the people they always were? Why do we so often promote a lie -- as in pretending someone might get better when everyone, including the dying person, knows there's no chance?

Richard Groves, the seminar instructor, once directed a hospice center in Central Oregon, where he still lives (in a state that allows doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill). More recently, Groves researched the history of hospice care for a doctoral dissertation.

``Terminally ill people say that one of the worst things is when people they've had a close relationship with stop coming around,'' Groves said. ``Or they do come around, but treat them differently.

``More times than not, the most terrible deaths we witness are those of people who are in spiritual agony. By spirituality, we don't necessarily mean formal religion, but the issues of the human condition, such as forgiveness and loss of meaning and hope.''

The hospice movement was built on the idea of tending to the total needs of a dying person. Yet spiritual needs can be easy to overlook, because not everyone feels comfortable approaching these issues.

In July, an article in the British Medical Journal, titled A Healthy View of Dying, stated that spiritual pain often goes completely unrecognized in dying patients, especially those in nursing homes. The article, written by a rabbi, took the view that Western society has been unable to come to terms with the reality of death. Attitudes need to change, the writer argued, so that we're more aware of what constitutes a healthy death, with spiritual support being essential.

There are appropriate ways to offer spiritual support without foisting a set of beliefs on anyone. In Akron, Thomas Strauss, the chief executive of Summa Health System, encourages hospital employees to pray with patients and talk about faith issues -- when the patients want to, and when it's comforting to them. Summa operates nonreligious community hospitals, but there is an openness to tending to people's spirits.

Richard Groves suggested we all might do better dealing with dying people if, as a culture, we better accepted death as a natural part of life.

By 1960, he said, the vast majority of Americans were dying in institutions.

In December, the American Hospital Association and the AARP reported on a survey that found that most people would like to die at home, but that only one in four Americans does. The survey found that only 23 percent of hospitals offer hospice care.

Mother Teresa once said that ``when you are dying, help comes more from faith than from medical practice.''

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Sunday, October 19, 2003

Informal churches spread the word in Africa

A group of uniquely informal churches that marry African traditions with Christian beliefs is experiencing phenomenal growth among black South Africans and is rapidly becoming the new mainline denomination.

"Some of us worship under trees, others in garages or sitting rooms or schools or flats. Our aim is to bring the people together. That is what made the African people survive oppression," Bishop Mshengu Tshabalala said.

Tshabalala heads an umbrella organisation called Ikhaya Leziyoni, meaning Home of the Zionists, who are among the three main groups - Apostolic, Ethiopian and Zionist - that form the emerging African Independent Churches (AICs) in Africa.

South Africa has the single largest grouping of AICs on the continent with an estimated 6 000 congregations.

"There are literally thousands of these churches and it can consist of 20 or 10 000 congregants," said Francois Swanepoel, a professor at the University of South Africa's Bible Centre which is actively involved in the training of AIC leaders.

"It is not this large structured movement but the way in which they work together is unknown to us," he added.

The Zionist Christian Church (ZCC) is the largest of the AICs and achieved a 400 percent membership growth between 1980 and 1996, according to an independent research body, the South African Institute of Race Relations, in its 2002/2003 statistical survey.

The bulk of the dramatic rise happened between 1991 and 1996 when apartheid South Africa was making its transition to a non-racial democracy. The ZCC officially has about four million members, but it is believed to be far more.

The Afrikaner's protestant Dutch Reformed Church is the second largest with about 3,6 million members, but it experienced a mere 1,4 percent growth between 1980 and 1996, marginal compared to that of AICs.

"Fact is, with the political change in South Africa, blacks can now be open and proud about their culture and traditions. The door has opened for them to belong to these churches with dignity and without any stigma," Swanepoel told AFP.

"It is becoming the new main church; half of the (44,8 million) population is now estimated to belong to AICs."

A member of the Zionist church, Ntombi Kayise, said she believed the unique mix between African traditions and Christianity was a major drawcard.

"You don't have to choose between tradition and God," she said. "People have now seen that salvation does not mean you have to leave your culture."

Dawid Venter, who wrote a research paper at the University of Western Cape on the rise of AICs agreed.

"AICs represent the emergence of a new African identity which spans traditional and modern cultural practices," Venter stated.

"AICs flourish because they present a vigorous, indigenous and 'symbolically intelligible' alternative religion which does not reject all traditions out of hand."

AICs originally resulted from a number of breakaways from various mission churches. The first person to break away was Nehemiah Tile, a Wesleyan minister, who pleaded for the independence of the Xhosa-speaking Thembu people.

The turning point came in 1884 when Tile presented an ox at the circumcision ceremony of the son of a tribal chief.

"The church did not really like that and he then broke away. He still maintained a strong Methodist theology, as well as a strong Thembu nationalism. That was the first independent church," Swanepoel told AFP.

AICs hold cheerful services in any available place, they can continue throughout the night with their singing that take preference above preaching, and their holistic approach to religion is in true ubuntu (meaning humanity) style.

"The African is a very strong spiritual being. They help each other enormously. They truly address the needs of their people and have an absolute policy of sharing," Swanepoel said.

"When the leaders started taking classes at Unisa, we had to explain to them what orphanages and old age homes are. They did not know the meaning because in their culture you just take someone into your own home and care for them. Their religion encompasses their whole life."

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Friday, October 17, 2003

Politics, Not Religion, Spurs Violence, Pollsters Told

Most worshippers, even in war-torn areas of the world, see politics rather than religion as the cause of violence and strife, according to a new survey of people of faith around the world.

William Scott Green, professor of religion at the University of Rochester, said a study of the religious beliefs and practices of 11 religious groups in seven countries showed that most people saw religion as a positive thing.

"If you look at Israel and India, where there is violence that we associate with religion, the majority of people in both of those places say that the violence is political rather than religious," Scott Green said.

"That's a very important result [because] we didn't ask them if it's associated with their own religion, we just asked the generic question, so that the judgment that the violence is political rather than religious is a judgment in principle about their own religion and about their neighbor's religion," Scott Green added.

John Zogby, whose Utica, N.Y-based international polling firm conducted the research together with staff of the University of Rochester from January through March of this year, said the study found that religion is extremely important to its adherents worldwide.

"It's a very private and personal sort of thing, as well as a familial thing. Most people in most countries told us that they learn their religious values and principles from a parent, from a grandparent or from someone within their own family.

"Fewer told us of the importance of religious leaders among most of the religions that we surveyed," Zogby said.

Pollsters questioned Christians and Buddhists in South Korea; Orthodox Christians in Russia; Catholics and Protestants in the United States; Hindus and Muslims in India; Jews and Muslims in Israel; Muslims in Saudi Arabia; and Catholics in Peru.

Researchers interviewed 600 people in India, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea; 593 Jews, Muslims and Druze in Israel; and 795 Catholics and Protestants in the United States.

In all cases, except among Russian Orthodox Christians, being actively religious is more important than being politically active, Zogby said.

Among the questions asked was: "Should there be more religion in your society?"

"Majorities in most countries said yes, which is not a mandate for extremism as it is more a desire to inject what people consider as very positive in their lives into the values of their society as a whole," Zogby said.

Researchers saw three faces of Islam in the three countries polled and empirical evidence that Islam, like Roman Catholicism, adjusts itself to its national surroundings.

"We have a tendency - and I think here in the States especially - to see religion from the point of view of the most intense leaders and most intense followers utilizing religious symbols for their own political ends, whereas in reality, the people we polled do not see religion intersecting with politics or government but see it mainly as a personal thing, a code of ethics, a measurement for how well they are doing in their society," Zogby said.

Another surprising finding was that most American Catholics and mainline Protestants don't hold exclusive views about their religions, Scott Green said.

In fact, 95 percent of Catholics and 92 percent of mainstream Protestants regard people of other religions as equal to them. Sixty-three percent of Catholics and 61 percent of Protestants surveyed say their religion is but one of many paths to God.

"People believe that a more religious society - we didn't ask about a more religious government, but a more religious society - will help their country, so on a national and religious measure, people think religion will do more good than harm," Scott Green said.

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Hot new TV star: God

The brashly offbeat premise for "Joan of Arcadia," and its sizeable audience in its first few weeks, suggest a swing back to the sacred for TV's truth-seekers.

Airing Fridays at 8 p.m. EDT, "Joan of Arcadia" introduces us to an ordinary 16-year-old girl with a penchant for running into folks who reveal themselves to her as God, then give her chores to do.

The tasks -- like getting a part-time job at a book store or joining the chess club -- may seem like odd things for God to be concerned with. Odder still: He doesn't really order Joan to do them.

"I give suggestions, not assignments," says God, at that moment facing Joan as a sanitation worker. "Free will is one of my better innovations."

The reassuring message of the show: Divine intervention, and the answers it might lead to, can conceivably occur with any personal encounter.

While other series try to solve each mystery surrounding a death, "Joan of Arcadia" confronts the mysteries of life.

"Those are questions people wish they could ask God in person," says series star Amber Tamblyn, explaining why, like them, she identifies with her character.

"Joan is starting to focus on things she's never focused on before. But she's also an adolescent, and I know how that feels," says Tamblyn, 20. "You don't listen to people. You want to stay in your own little world."

'It's about fulfilling your nature'

CBS' "Touched By an Angel," whose nine-year run ended last season, dispatched its angels each week to help people in spiritual distress. A gentle drama preaching an explicit gospel (God loves us), it was tremendously successful. Yet it spawned no imitators, triggered no craze.

Maybe "Joan of Arcadia" will have a broader impact. It presents the sacred less in spiritual terms than as a Learning Annex seminar in character growth, with God himself the instructor. It feels good and it's thought-provoking. And since God in his omniscience can handle any load, it invites countless spinoffs.

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Thursday, October 16, 2003

Supreme Court Accepts Pledge of Allegiance Case

The nation's highest court will now decide whether public schoolchildren can say the entire Pledge of Allegiance, including the words "under God."

The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted a case which will determine whether it is constitutional for children in America's classrooms to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and its acknowledgment of the United States as "one nation under God."

The case, an appeal of the controversial 9th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals ruling declaring the Pledge unconstitutional — carries huge implications, according to Jordan Lorence, a senior attorney at the Alliance Defense Fund: "The issue is: When a teacher, who is a state governmental actor, is leading willing students in saying the Pledge of Allegiance, is that still unconstitutional, because they're saying 'under God?'"

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, agreed that the issues raised in the case are profound.

"If the acknowledgement of God in the Pledge of Allegiance is deemed to be the establishment of religion, then our national motto 'In God We Trust,' and a whole host of other expressions that deal with our religious heritage, would be at risk, as well," Sekulow said.

Richard Thompson, who heads the Thomas More Law Center, said the outcome of the case is critical.

"If we can't say the Pledge of Allegiance in school, then we are going down that slippery slope where generations from now, we will not know what our Christian heritage is," Thompson said.

Lorence said the case may cause Americans to consider how delicate the balance of power is within the federal government is. He even coined a term for the situation.

"(The case will determine) whether our whole system of representative government is being undermined by some sort of judicial tyranny, a 'judocracy,' where we're ruled by judges," he explained.

The high court decision will be a guide for others in both the federal and state judiciaries, but it will be early summer before a ruling is issued.

According to poll after poll, most Americans not want the Pledge of Allegiance recited in public schools.

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God's approval ratings skyrocket

According to a recent Opinion Dynamics poll, when asked, more than 91 percent of Americans believe in God. Some 85 percent of Americans believe in Heaven and an afterlife, 78 percent believe in Hell and 71 percent believe in the devil. Interestingly, while America's belief in God has remained more or less steady, belief in the devil has enjoyed a strong resurgence – up 7 percent in five years.

The poll found that younger people are much more likely to believe in Hell and the devil than older people and that Republicans are more likely to believe in God than Democrats. Interestingly, the poll also found that Democrats are more likely to believe in astrology, reincarnation, ghosts and UFOs than are Republicans, by margins of 15 points.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans say religion plays too small a role in people's lives today – probably because only a third of them attend church or synagogue weekly.

In any case, it would seem pretty clear – if the Opinion Dynamics poll is to be believed – that virtually all Americans believe in God. From a statistical point of view, God has much higher approval ratings among the American people than any president in history. Far more people know who God is than can name the sitting vice president of the United States, according to other recent polls.

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Monday, October 13, 2003

Europe: Faith Fades Where It Once Burned Strong

Christianity has boomed in the developing world, competing successfully with Islam, deepening its influence and possibly finding its future there. But Europe already seems more and more like a series of tourist-trod monuments to Christianity's past. Hardly a month goes by when the pope does not publicly bemoan that fact, beseeching Europeans to rediscover the faith.

Their estrangement has deep implications, including the prospect of schisms in intercontinental churches and political frictions within and between countries.

The secularization of Europe, according to some political analysts, is one of the forces pushing it apart from the United States, where religion plays a potent role in politics and society, shaping many Americans' views of the world.

Americans are widely regarded as more comfortable with notions of good and evil, right and wrong, than Europeans, who often see such views as reckless.

In France, which is predominantly Catholic but emphatically secular, about one in 20 people attends a religious service every week, compared with about one in three in the United States.

"What's interesting isn't that there are fewer people in church," said the Rev. Jean François Bordarier of Lille, in northern France, "but that there are any at all."

The preamble of a new, unfinished constitution for the European Union omits any mention of Christianity or even God among the cultural forces that shaped Europe, although the pope and other Christian leaders raised vehement objections.

"My own view is that there is a form of secular intolerance in Europe that is every bit as strong as religious intolerance was in the past," said John Bruton, a former Irish prime minister who was involved in the drafting of the document. He lobbied for God's inclusion.

Mr. Bruton's vantage point is Western Europe, but many Eastern European countries — with a few exceptions, like the pope's native Poland — are no more demonstrably devout. Having gone through religious outbursts after their emergence from Communism, they too seem poised to pivot in a secular direction.

Christianity's greatest hope in Europe may in fact be immigrants from the developing world, who in many cases learned the religion from European missionaries, adapted it to their own needs and tastes, then toted it back to the Continent.

A recent report by Christian Research, a British group, determined that blacks and, to a lesser extent, Asians represent more than half the churchgoers in central London on a given Sunday, though they represent less than a quarter of the area's population.

By some estimates, more than 25 million people in England identify the Church of England as their denomination. Only 1.2 million actually go to one of the church's services every week.

"In Western Europe, we are hanging on by our fingernails," wrote the Rev. David Cornick, the general secretary of the United Reformed Church in Britain, in the June-July edition of Inside Out, a religious journal. "The fact is that Europe is no longer Christian."

"In terms of religion, Europe is very complicated," said the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley, the author of "Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium," which was published this year.

Sizable majorities of people in most European countries believe in God, and sizable majorities believe as well that some kind of religious service is important when a person dies, according to the European Values Study, a sweeping survey conducted in 1999 and 2000 and published this summer.

But they are less familiar with, or tethered to, the specific rituals and roots of Christian worship. "If you ask the average European the basic credo or statements of the Christian church, most of them don't know," said Grace Davie, a sociologist at the University of Exeter and the author of several books about religious trends in Britain and Europe.

According to the European Values Study, only about 21 percent of all Europeans said religion was "very important" to them. Although the methodology was not precisely comparable, a Gallup Poll this year showed that 58 percent of Americans defined religion that way.

Even in Italy, where 33 percent of respondents described religion as "very important," the percentage of Italians who go to church every week is as low as 15 and no higher than 33, according to various polls.

Public schools throughout Western Europe have removed crosses from walls. Many congregations have been forced to close or combine operations, to make do with part-time ministers or to import pastors from the developing world.

There are many suggested reasons for Europe's drift, which happened gradually, over decades, as the continent grew wealthier and better educated.

One is a modern European cynicism about big institutions, grand ideologies and unfettered allegiances, manifest not only in partly empty churches but also in weakened support for labor unions and political parties.

"It's an overarching thing, a diminishing trust," said Rüdiger Noll, director of the Brussels-based Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches, an interdenominational group.

The process of urbanization moved Europeans from quiet places where the church was at the center of life to chaotic bazaars where it got lost in the din.

The Rev. Enzo Bianchi, a Catholic theologian in Italy, said that in today's heterogeneous and often hedonistic European capitals, "there are more and more morals and ethics on the market."

"There's Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age spiritualism, consumerism," Father Bianchi said. "With all these competitors, it's harder for the church to sell."

But in the United States, to name one country, many of the same dynamics have not prompted a similarly pronounced estrangement. Some experts say that in Europe, suspicion of major denominations may run higher because religious leaders directly wielded political power in the past. Others say the unchallenged supremacy of state-blessed faiths in Europe — like the Lutherans in Scandinavia and Anglicans in Britain — perhaps turned out to be a curse.

"Monopolies damage religion," said Massimo Introvigne, the director of the Center for Studies on New Religions in Turin and a proponent of the relatively new theory of religious economy. "In a free market, people get more interested in the product. It is true for religion just as it is true for cars."

"I've been struck by the way in which religion now serves to underpin the divergence between Europe and the United States, and where I particularly saw that over the last year or two was in attitudes about the Middle East," said Philip Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins is a British scholar who teaches history and religious studies in the United States and wrote "The Next Christendom" (2002), about changing patterns of Christian worship around the world.

"Americans still take biblical and religious arguments very seriously, and therefore give a credence to the Zionist project that Europeans don't," Dr. Jenkins said.

He said that for many Americans, the frequency with which President Bush invoked morality and religion in talking about the fight against terrorism was neither striking nor discomfiting. "But in Europe," he added, "they think he must be a religious nut."

Some sociologists say new data suggest a possible reawakening of Christian interest in people under 30, and Christian movements throughout Europe are reaching out aggressively to them.

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Sunday, October 12, 2003

University of Rochester helps in gauging religious attitudes

Most American Catholics and mainline Protestants don’t believe one of the key tenets of many religious faiths — that their religion is the one true path to God.

In fact, those two groups may be the most flexible, least exclusive religious communities on the planet, according to a new survey of people of faith around the globe.

The International Global Religion poll is a joint effort of University of Rochester’s department of religion and classics and Utica-based polling firm Zogby International. It is one of the first attempts at gauging religious attitudes among different faiths.

“Everyone claims to know religion,” said John Zogby, chief executive of the polling firm. “But the truth is humans … know little about our own and even less about those of others.”

The preliminary results of the study were unveiled Saturday during UR’s Meliora Weekend, a blend of reunions, homecoming, family events and lectures. Zogby and UR will formally release the poll, including additional findings, Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Pollsters questioned people in 12 religious communities in seven nations: Christians and Buddhists in South Korea; Catholics in Peru; Orthodox Christians in Russia; Muslims in Saudi Arabia; Muslims and Hindus in India; Jews and Muslims in Israel; and Catholics, mainline Protestants and born-again Protestants in the United States. Among the key findings:

Religious leaders are not necessarily the most important source of religious teaching. For example, among Peruvian Catholics, teachers play a bigger role, while for Saudi Muslims it is friends.

Most worshippers, even in war-torn areas of the world, see politics rather than religion as the cause of violence and fighting. One partial exception is Israel, where 46 percent of Israeli Jews agreed with the statement that religion is “a source of trouble and unrest.” However, 90 percent of Muslims in Israel disagreed with the assertion. “Most Muslims in that area see the dispute as involving land and nationalism, not religion,” said UR religion Professor T. Emil Homerin, who helped craft the survey.

Significant numbers of faithful around the world believe that their religion is not the sole true belief and that there are different paths to God. Those numbers range from a low of 7 percent of Saudi Muslims and South Korean Christians who feel that way to 55 percent of Israeli Muslims, 61 percent of mainline U.S. Protestants and 63 percent of U.S. Catholics. Among born-again U.S. Protestants, only 31 percent agree.

Between 25 and 40 percent of American Catholics, mainline Protestants, South Korean Buddhists and Israeli Jews don’t think there will be any consequences for “disobedience” to their faith. Among all three Muslims communities, at most 1 percent of people shared that belief.

However, those views didn’t always correlate to the notion of people marrying into different faiths, said William Scott Green, UR religion professor. In half the faiths surveyed, a majority of worshippers disapproved of interfaith marriage.

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New center at Yale focuses on workplace spirituality

Bridging the divide between spirituality and work is the latest frontier for corporate America, and a new center at the Yale Divinity School hopes to provide some direction.

Over the past 50 years, the workplace has responded to societal pressures to incorporate new policies that are race, gender and family friendly.

"I think we are seeing now in the late ’90s and ’00s that the next natural progression is to be faith friendly, with all the complications that go with that," said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at the divinity school.

He is heading the new Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace program at the school to help "people integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work."

Miller is essentially transferring and expanding the mission of The Avodah Institute, which he co-founded in 1999 in Princeton, N.J.

Avodah, which comes from the Hebrew word for worship and work, seeks to help business leaders apply their faith to meet the challenges of the corporate world.

The idea is to integrate "the often separated worlds of the university, the marketplace and the church," he said.

"There is an increasing body of research coming out ... that companies that have a sort of spiritual dimension to them, tend to have employees that have higher morale, lower absenteeism, more creativity, a better ability to adapt to change and a tendency to have higher ethical standards," Miller said.

The spirituality that Miller refers to, points, on the one hand, to helping executives set an ethical tone, as well as getting them to recognize the spiritual dimension of their employees.

"If you are treated with dignity and respect, if your whole identity is honored, race, gender, spiritual identity, you are probably going to feel pretty good about going into that workplace," Miller said.

He said scholars are realizing that sociology, psychology and technology alone are not going to solve all of society’s problems.

"For several years we have cut religion out of the debate, and now people are realizing that theological traditions do have something to contribute to the conversation," he said.

Miller’s expertise is in leading discussions with corporate executives, who he said "find it really exciting" to come together with others in their same orbit "and let their hair down."

Can these kinds of discussions help avoid future Enrons?

"If people understand that the big boss really cares about certain issues, it gives other people empowerment" to make the right decisions, he said.

At the same time that corporate managers are tapping their faith traditions for more meaningful connections with their work, business students are crying out for more ethical direction from their professors.

A survey commissioned by the Aspen Institute found that today’s business students are more interested in values-based decision making.

Delivering the bottom line at all costs no longer flies, Miller said.

"There is a sort of value neutral, almost an amorality to the teaching (in business schools), and they are very critical of that," Miller said of the survey.

Miller said students are looking for guidance from their professors. He said wise executives and teachers can get students thinking about the bigger issues of social justice and treating people fairly, in addition to competently running a company.

Then, "hopefully when they are out there leading organizations, they can have something more than maximizing profits as a mantra to turn to," he said.

"I don’t think there are simplistic answers. I think it is complicated and messy and tricky" when executives are faced with tough decisions, such as layoffs, he said.

The important thing is to treat people with dignity and respect and "hopefully mitigate the pain of transition."

"I don’t want in any way to minimize that (a layoff) is a hard thing, but like a lot of hard things in life, how you do it is sometimes more important than what you are doing," he said.

Miller said he was struck by all the stories about the happy companies in the Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom, with their pool tables and wine and cheese parties.

Then, when they ran out of money, "we heard all these horrible stories of how people were fired within seconds and treated like trash."

He attributes some of it to a lack of maturity, but they were also places "where faith might have mattered" if the executives were "motivated not just by fun and by money, but by trying to treat your people as well as you can, even in hard times."

Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace aims to:

• Develop models for living ethically in the marketplace.

• Convene conferences and seminars and conduct research.

• Hold a multiyear conference on moral leadership, in conjunction with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

• Integrate the often separated worlds of the university, the marketplace and the church.

• Work with companies to help them develop faith-centered mission statements.

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Friday, October 10, 2003

Iranian activist wins Nobel prize

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian campaigner for human rights, noted for her work in promoting the rights of women and children.

Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the five-member selection committee, paid tribute to Ms Ebadi's work both at home and abroad saying that she understood that "No society can be seen as democratic without women being represented".

On hearing of her victory 56-year-old Ms Ebadi, who is in Paris at the moment, said: "I'm a Muslim, so you can be a Muslim and support democracy. It's very good for human rights in Iran, especially for children's rights in Iran. I hope I can be useful."

Ms Ebadi, a lawyer well known throughout Iran, was the country's first female judge, but was forced to resign following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The Nobel committee emphasised that its choice should be seen as a statement about human rights.

"This is a message to the Iranian people, to the Muslim world, to the whole world, that human value, the fight for freedom, the fight for rights of women and children should be at the centre," Mr Mjoes said.

LAST 10 YEARS OF WINNERS
2002 - Former US President Jimmy Carter
2001 - United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
2000 - Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung
1999 - Medecins Sans Frontieres
1998 - David Trimble and John Hume, Northern Ireland
1997 - Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, United States
1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor
1995 - Joseph Rotblat, Britain, and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
1994 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, Israel
1993 - Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, South Africa

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Saturday, October 04, 2003

Americans want double standard on display

The majority of Americans approve of the display of a Ten Commandments monument in a public building but disapprove of a similar display featuring a verse from the Koran, Islam's holy book.

The contradiction was highlighted in a new Gallup poll for USA Today and CNN.

The poll, taken Sept. 19-21 and reported Sept. 30 in USA Today, found 70 percent of U.S. adults approve of the display of a monument to the Ten Commandments in a public school or government building, while 29 percent disapprove and 1 percent had no opinion.

But the percentages were practically reversed concerning display of a monument with a verse from the Koran in a government building or a public school. In that case, 64 percent of those polled disapproved of display of a Koranic verse, while 33 percent approved and 3 percent offered no opinion.

A similar disparity in views was displayed in answers to questions about funding social programs such as those providing day care or drug rehabilitation.

Asked about the use of federal funds for such programs if they are run by "Christian religious organizations," 64 percent approved, 34 percent disapproved and 2 percent had no opinion.

But responses to a similar question regarding use of federal funds for social programs run by "Islamic religious organizations" showed 56 percent disapproved, 41 percent approved and 3 percent had no opinion.

Views were more mixed about the possibility that government might harm people's rights when it promotes religion. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they lean toward the view that "any time government promotes the teachings of a religion, it can harm the rights of people who do not belong to that religion." Forty percent said they would more likely agree with the view that "government can promote the teachings of a religion without harming the rights of people who do not belong to that religion."

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Courts traditionally have interpreted that to mean if government allows recognition of any religious perspective, it must allow similar recognition of all other religious perspectives. Thus, if the door is opened for a display of the Ten Commandments, equal opportunity must be given for a like display of other religions' documents.

The survey results were based on telephone interviews of 1,003 adults ages 18 and older and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Religiosity increases sexual morality: Study

A recent study by two sociology students in Washington reveals increased religiosity in countries affects attitudes toward sexual morality.

Roger Finke and Amy Adamczyk, doctoral students in sociology, presented their findings recently at the annual American Sociological Association conference meeting. They used data from the 1998 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) "Religion" module and the 1997 World Values Survey (WVS), both international in scope. Their study focussed on 46 nations and 63,158 individual participants.

They said, citizens with high levels of religious belief voice greater disapproval of divorce, homosexuality, abortion and prostitution -- issues involving sexual morality.

Interestigly, however, increased religiosity does not stop them from cheating on taxes or accepting bribes in public office.

"In nations with lower levels of religious activity (e.g. Sweden, Denmark, Japan, the former East Germany), the positive influence of individual religiosity on sexual morality will be reduced," Adamczyk notes.

In these cases, people tend to be deterred less by religious beliefs and rituals than by secular laws that apply to believers and non-believers alike.

The analysis defined religiosity as a set of beliefs and rituals centering on a personal, all-powerful and morally concerned God or Gods. Such is the situation in countries like the US, the Philippines, Poland and Nigeria where statistical analysis reveals high levels of religiosity.

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What God imagines

There's no nice way to say this: Americans shell out almost 50 times as much money on fast food in one year as they spend helping poor kids.

Every 12 months, $240 goes to McDonalds and friends, $5 to impoverished children.

So says a new study from Ventura, Calif.-based Barna Research Group, which also found that 50 percent of the respondents' households hadn't given anything -- anything -- to causes or organizations helping the poor in the past year.

You may be asking yourself why this is the case.

Survey says: Six in 10 Americans don't think it's their responsibility to help poor children abroad.

Interestingly enough, 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians and 95 percent say they believe in God.

In his new book, "What Jesus Meant: The Beatitudes and a Meaningful Life," Erik Kolbell examines Jesus' beloved sermon. In that mountainside teaching, Kolbell writes, Jesus' words must have "unnerved some as they ennobled others: If you want to see what the kingdom of God could look like, if you want to live a blessed life, he told them, take the world as you know it and turn it on its head....

"Imagine the hungry fed and the just vindicated, the poor satisfied and the pure sanctified. Imagine a world governed by an urge for compassion rather than a will to power. Imagine all this, he tells them, because this is what God imagines, because these are the people God has deemed blessed and this is what God wants us to make of ourselves. Imagine such a world, he told them, and then, having imagined it, live in accordance with it. Live it into being."

One way to do so, Kolbell indicates, is to "reject the superficialities of difference that distinguish us from one another by embracing the inherent goodness and dignity of every human being."

Every human being.

That includes children, regardless of where they're born and regardless of where they live now.

"Every time we tend to the need of the other before satisfying the desire of the self, we are inclining ourselves however infinitesimally toward the kingdom, and we are bringing others with us," Kolbell writes. "It is these and other such wonderful, joyful, courageous and foolish deeds that form the brick and mortar, the sweat and toil, with which the kingdom of the blessed poor will be built."

It's a tall order, but I think we can do it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: No, you don't get fries with that. You get freedom.

(Kristen Campbell is the religion reporter for the Mobile Register. You may call her at 219-5680 or send her e-mail at kcampbell@mo bileregister.com )