TruthBook Religious News Blog

RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION |
Rest of the world needs to speak out on minority's behalf

September 30, 2007
BY MARK KIRK

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the stage this week to address students at Columbia University, his government was working at his direction to find and expel students from Iranian universities -- solely based on the religion they practice.

There is a little-told story from Iran -- a story we thought would forever stay buried in the darkness of 1930s Europe. This story is about a religion founded in Iran in the mid-1800s that has become Iran's largest religious minority with over 250,000 members.

As the representative in Congress for the Baha'i Temple of North America, I know the Baha'i faith well -- a faith of tolerance and diversity of thought. These are values we embrace on the North Shore. But in an oppressive Islamic dictatorship like Iran, Baha'is pose a clear and present danger to the regime.

In March 2006, just a few months into Ahmadinejad's presidency, the Command Headquarters of Iran's Armed Forces ordered the police, Revolutionary Guard and Ministry of Information to identify all Baha'is and collect information on their activities.

Two months later, the Iranian Association of Chambers of Commerce began compiling a list of Baha'is serving in every business sector.

In May of last year, 54 Baha'is were arrested in Shiraz and held for several days without trial -- the largest roundup of Baha'is since the 1980s. Then in August, Iran's feared Ministry of the Interior ordered provincial officials to "cautiously and carefully monitor and manage" all Baha'i social activities. The Central Security Office of Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology ordered 81 Iranian universities to expel any student discovered to be a Baha'i. A letter issued in November from one university stated that it is Iranian policy to prevent Baha'is from enrolling in universities and to expel Baha'is upon discovery.

This year, the safety of Iranian Baha'is continued to deteriorate, as 104 Baha'is were expelled from Iranian universities. In February, police in Tehran and surrounding towns entered Baha'i homes and businesses to collect details on family members. The First Branch of the Falard Public Court refused to hear a lawsuit "due to the plaintiffs' belonging to the Bahaist sect."

In April, the Iranian Public Intelligence and Security Force ordered 25 industries to deny business licenses to Baha'is. The Ministry of Information threatened to shut down one company unless it fired all Baha'i employees. Banks are closing Baha'i accounts and refusing loans to Baha'i applicants. Just last week, the Iranian government bulldozed a Baha'i cemetery, erasing the memory of thousands of Iranian citizens.

The U.S. State Department's 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom paints an even darker picture.

"Broad restrictions on Baha'is severely undermined their ability to function as a community. The Government repeatedly offers Baha'is relief from mistreatment in exchange for recanting their faith. . . .

"Baha'is may not teach or practice their faith or maintain links with co-religionists abroad. Baha'is are often officially charged with "espionage on behalf of Zionism. . . . "

"Since late 2005 Baha'is have faced an increasing number of public attacks. . . . Radio and television broadcasts have also increasingly condemned the Baha'is and their religion. . . .

"Public and private universities continued either to deny admittance to or expel Baha'i students."

On Tuesday, the Iranian president addressed the United Nations General Assembly. That will be a defining moment for our new century. The lessons of the 20th century gave us all the warning signs of what will come if we do not speak out.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk represents the 10th Congressional District of Illinois. He is co-chairman of the House Iran Working Group and a member of the Human Rights Caucus.

Labels: Baha'i, Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mark Kirk, religious freedom, Report on International Religious Freedom

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American Buddhism: Eastern faith seeing Western growth

By Ryan Holeywell — The Monitor
September 29, 2007

EDINBURG — Government security forces in Myanmar have reportedly killed at least three Buddhist monks who were peacefully participating in massive, ongoing protests against that country’s military government.

Tensions started to rise last month, when the government drastically raised fuel prices in the impoverished country.

Persecution of Buddhists in Myanmar and Tibet have consistently garnered media attention and cries for justice from activist groups in the United States.

Experts say the number of Americans who actually identify themselves as Buddhists — as opposed to just sympathizing with them — continues to steadily grow.

Appeal to Westerners

About 401,000 Buddhists lived in America in 1990, but by 2001 that number had climbed to more than 1 million, according to a City University of New York survey. There are an estimated 6 million Buddhists living in America today, said Charles Prebish, a professor at Utah State University.

Experts attribute the growth of Buddhism in America to the increased volume of literature on the subject available in books and online, as well as the growing number of university courses about the religion.

“Buddhism tends to appeal to Westerners because it’s very rational,” Kojin Dinsmore, a priest at the Austin Zen Center.

“(Buddhism) doesn’t ask you to believe in anything. It is mostly psychological.”

Those in the Valley drawn to Buddhism say one of its aspects that they find particularly attractive is meditation, a central component of the religion.

“When you meditate you have to clear your mind and think only of the present moment,” said Jen Klement, who lives near La Feria. “That’s not easy to do because these thoughts keep coming in. You mainly focus on your breathing. If you’re thinking about your breathing you can’t be thinking about much else.”

Growth in America

Buddhism first found its way onto the U.S. religious scene with Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the 19th century. It resurged during the Vietnam War era as Asian immigrants came to the United States.

But about 20 percent of Buddhists in the United States are not of Asian descent, which means there are more than 1 million American converts by Prebish’s estimates.

Labels: America, Buddhism, meditation, Ryan Holeywell

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Children of divorce

Children of divorce
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 09/29/2007

Many children of divorce go on to have a complicated connection to faith, according to a study by Elizabeth Marquardt, who questioned 1,500 Americans ages 18 to 35 as part of a three-year survey of young adults from divorced families.

* Only 56 percent of children of divorce say they attended religious services every week or almost every week when they were growing up, compared to 74 percent of young people from intact families.

* Of those children of divorce who regularly attended a place of worship, 2/3 said no one from the clergy or congregation reached out to them when their parents split up; only 1/4 said that someone at church did reach out.

* As young adults, 68 percent of young people from intact families say they are "very" or "fairly" religious, compared to 55 percent of young people from divorced families. Further, 63 percent of young people from intact families, compared to 49 percent of children of divorce, say they are currently a member at a house of worship.

* More than 37 percent of children of divorce agree with the statement, "Religion doesn't seem to address the important issues in my life," compared to 29 percent of people from intact families. Almost half of children of divorce (46 percent) agree, "I believe I can find ultimate truth without help from a religion," compared to 36 percent of their peers from intact families.

* If children of divorce are religious they are more likely to be evangelical. In the survey, 41 percent of young people from divorced families describe themselves as born again or evangelical, compared to 37 percent of their peers from intact families.

* Children of divorce are more likely to say that their relationship with God is an outgrowth of lacking a loving father or parent when they were growing up, with 38 percent of them agreeing (compared to 22 percent from intact families), "I think of God as the loving father or parent I never had in real life."

Labels: children, divorce, Elizabeth Marquardt, faith, families, religion

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‘In God We Trust’ Motto Still Mints Controversy

By Adelle Banks
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON—Fifty years after “In God We Trust” first appeared on U.S. paper currency, those four little words have proven to be the source of big debate in the courts.

Michael Newdow, the California atheist known for trying to strip “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to declare “In God We Trust” an unconstitutional mingling of church and state. In Indiana, the American Civil Liberties Union has gone to district court, arguing it’s unfair for the state not to charge administrative fees for “In God We Trust” license plates when a plate advocating for the environment carries extra fees.

Why, decades after the words were made the nation’s official motto and printed on our dollar bills, do they still inspire ire?

Long before the words were printed on paper money, they first appeared on coins after a Pennsylvania minister wrote to the secretary of the treasury in 1861, suggesting God’s name should be featured on U.S. coins.

“This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism,” M.R. Watkinson wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase in 1861, according to the website of the U.S. Treasury Department. Three years later, U.S. coins began to bear the words “In God We Trust.”

It wasn’t until 1956 that Congress declared those words to be the national motto. On Oct. 1, 1957, they began appearing on the back of dollar bills under the words “The United States of America.”

Newdow, whose case was dismissed by a lower federal court last year, said the words referring to a deity divide society by making non-believers “second-class citizens.”

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, has filed a brief opposing Newdow on behalf of dozens of members of Congress.

“It reflects the heritage of the country,” he said of the debated motto. “It’s something the founding fathers recognized, that our rights and liberties were endowed by a creator. You recognize the source of these rights.”

A 2003 Gallup Poll found 90 percent of Americans approve of the inscription “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. A survey released earlier this month by the First Amendment Center found 65 percent of Americans think the nation’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and 55 percent think the U.S. Constitution establishes it as a Christian country.

About a dozen states have passed laws declaring public schools can post the motto. Five years ago, the American Family Association was involved in a campaign that shipped hundreds of thousands of posters to supporters so they could send them to local schools.

“I think we need to be constantly reminded and, although I don’t look at my coins and my paper money day by day, there is a great satisfaction knowing that it’s there and knowing that our government still recognizes God,” said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss.

Labels: "In God We Trust", ACLU, Adelle Banks, American Center for Law and Justice, Christian, God

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Survey: U.S. to be 'Christian nation'

USNewswire

A recent survey found that 65 percent of Americans believe that the nation's founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55 percent believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the "State of the First Amendment 2007" national survey released this month by the First Amendment Center.

The 11th annual survey also found:

Ninety-seven percent deemed the right to practice one's own religion essential or important.

Ninety-eight percent deemed the right "to speak freely about whatever you want" essential or important.

Seventy-four percent of Republicans endorse the notion of a constitutional provision for a Christian nation; 50 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independent voters agree.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents support teacher-led prayers.

Fifty percent would allow schools to teach the Bible as a factual text in a history class.

The telephone survey of 1,003 respondents was conducted between Aug. 16 and 26. Sampling error is plus-or-minus 3.2 percent.

Labels: Bible, Christian, First Amendment Center, prayer, religion, survey

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Faith -- Defense Department named in suit over religion freedom

9/27/2007 1:30:01 PM
By John Milburn

Associated Press

FORT RILEY, Kan. -- A soldier whose superior prevented him from holding a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians is suing the Defense Department, claiming it violated his right to religious freedom.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., alleges a pattern of practices that discriminate against non-Christians in the military. It was filed last week to coincide with the 220th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.

According to the filing, Spec. Jeremy Hall, a soldier assigned to Fort Riley's 97th Military Police Battalion, received permission to distribute fliers around his base in Iraq for a meeting of atheists and non-Christians.

The lawsuit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Maj. Paul Welborne as defendants.

When he tried to convene the meeting, Hall claims, Welborne stepped in, threatening to file military charges against Hall and block his reenlistment.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which is helping Hall with his lawsuit, said it is the first of many.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a Defense Department spokesman, said that he wasn't aware of the lawsuit but that the military places a "high value" on the right of military personnel to practice their faith.

The lawsuit claims Hall was forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier."

Hall and the foundation are asking the court to block Welborne from establishing "compulsory religious practices" and order Gates to prevent Welborne from interfering with Hall's free speech rights.

Since its founding in 2005, the foundation has received nearly 6,000 calls from men and women in the military raising concerns about violations of religious freedom, Weinstein said.

Most callers, he said, were Christians concerned about coercion from superior officers trying to push their beliefs.

Weinstein this year threatened to sue over what he and others called anti-Semitic Bible studies posted by the Fort Leavenworth Command Chaplain's Web site. The documents, first posted in 1999, were removed after Weinstein's foundation raised complaints.

Separately, seven Army and Air Force officers, including four generals, face possible punishment for violating ethics rules by helping a Christian group in the production of a fundraising video.

A Pentagon inspector general's report released this month found the officers were interviewed in uniform and "in official and often identifiable Pentagon locations."

The report found that none of the officers received approval from superiors to participate in video interviews in an official capacity or in uniform. Air Force and Army officials are reviewing that report.

Labels: Defense Department, John Milburn, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, religious freedom

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Knowledge of Islam, Mormonism lacking

Most Americans know little about the faiths but say their own beliefs have little in common with them, a poll shows.

By Theo Milonopoulos, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 26, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans say they know little to nothing about the practices of Islam and Mormonism but say their own religious beliefs have little in common with either of these faiths, according to a national survey released Tuesday.

Forty-five percent of those polled said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. Nearly 1 in 3 respondents say Mormonism is not a Christian religion, the report said.

The survey of 3,002 Americans was conducted last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Although 58% of respondents said they knew little or nothing about Islamic practices, 70% of non-Muslims said Islam was very different from their own religious beliefs.

Pew Forum senior fellow John Green said that respondents' knowledge of Islam might be even lower than the survey results suggested. Respondents "tend to overestimate their own knowledge, so these figures may well underestimate their lack of knowledge," he said.

The survey found that public attitudes toward Muslims have grown more negative in recent years, with 35% of respondents expressing an unfavorable view. In 2002, the figure was 29%. Respondents who knew a Muslim or who were college graduates were more likely to express positive views about Islam.

But the belief that Islam encourages violence has increased even among groups that have relatively favorable views of Muslims. According to the survey, college graduates are just as likely as those with no college experience to associate violence with Islam.

The survey said Americans were similarly uninformed about Mormonism. Although 53% of those surveyed expressed a favorable view of Mormons, nearly the same amount, 51%, said they knew very little about the faith.

As in the case of Islam, respondents with higher educational backgrounds and those who knew a Mormon tended to view Mormonism more favorably. But even more important in respondents' assessment of Mormons was whether they believe Mormonism to be a Christian religion, according to the survey.

Of the 31% of respondents who said Mormons are not Christians, 49% view Mormonism unfavorably, and 42% said they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon for president.

Green said the results suggested that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon and GOP presidential hopeful, could face difficulty persuading white evangelical Protestants to vote for him because nearly 40% of those surveyed viewed Mormons unfavorably.

The survey also reported that 73% of respondents familiar with Pope Benedict XVI have a favorable opinion of him; 75% reflected favorably on evangelist Billy Graham.

Labels: Americans, Islam, Mormonism, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

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Spirituality alive on campus

Religion doesn't always mean going to church, especially for young people
By RACHEL KIPP, The News Journal

Posted Wednesday, September 26, 2007

NEWARK -- When he first arrived at the University of Delaware campus, Isaac Hicks' first taste of freedom was "awesome." For almost three years, he did whatever he wanted to do -- including leaving behind the tradition and teachings of the Christian church in which he was raised.

During junior year, something changed. God reached him, Hicks said, in the only way that could have worked: through a girl.

"We broke up," said Hicks, 26. "But I never stopped chasing the Lord."

Thousands pass Hicks on campus every Tuesday and Friday, when he stands on a corner of College Avenue asking students to leave prayer requests in a box covered with colored construction paper. Many take Hicks up on the offer of cookies, muffins and bottled water -- things he started bringing along after realizing the requests for prayers intimidated students. A few also pause to scribble prayers on slips of paper and drop them in the box. Others ignore Hicks' good-natured entreaties -- "We've got mini-muffins!" -- refusing to look him in they eye or take free baked goods.

Their reactions reflect the different approaches college students take toward religion. The four years or more they spend on campus is the first time many can make their own decisions on what priority faith will take in their lives.

Research shows church attendance is lowest when men and women are in their early 20s. But a multiyear nationwide study by the Higher Education Research Institute shows that even if the traditional trappings of religion have taken a back seat for many college students, spirituality has not.

Search for meaning, purpose

Decades ago, religion was more prevalent in society, and that carried over to college campuses, said Tim Clydesdale, a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey. Clydesdale's studies are focused on the experiences of young adults during the first year of college. He found that freshman year "really isn't a time when students are abandoning faith and it's not necessarily a time when they're really embracing faith."

A majority of students in one survey said they are searching for meaning and purpose in life and think college has an important role in that quest. The survey is part of a multiyear study of spirituality in the lives of college students by the Higher Education Research Institute that began in 2003. About three-quarters of more than 100,000 students queried last fall told the institute that they had spiritual discussions with friends and considered "attaining wisdom" as essential or very important to their lives.

Churches try to appeal to young

Although colleges are criticized for the decline in 20-something attendance at religious observances, the decline is even more dramatic for young adults who don't get a higher education, said Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas.

UD senior Lindsey Kling and a group of friends became the "founding mothers" of the Unitarian Religion on Campus -- or UROCK! -- group a year and a half ago. Kling, who has been attending a Unitarian church since she was a little girl, thinks other students have a tendency to bunch together some of the smaller campus religious groups.

Kling estimates that "50 or 60 percent" of UD students are actively participating in some sort of religious group. But she said that participation is just as likely to include community service or organizing a concert as it is attending services or prayer meetings.

Once a week, Hicks, who received a master's degree from UD last spring, and other members of the prayer group Uniting Campus in Christ, empty the requests from their street-corner prayer box. Then they pray for sick relatives and students feeling lost and alone -- or hoping for an "A" on an upcoming test.

"There are people on campus that are hurting and in our finite minds we don't see," Hicks said. "We're saying to students, 'Someone out there loves you. We love you. God loves you.' "

Labels: college, Higher Education Research Institute, Rachel Kipp, religion, spirituality, youth

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Friday, September 21, 2007

Iraqi Prisoners Get Religion From U.S.

The Skinny:
Military Uses Moderate Muslim Clerics To Steer Detainees Away From Al Qaeda
NEW YORK, Sept. 19, 2007

"The battlefield of the mind."

That's where Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, says he's waging his Iraq war these days, according to the Washington Post. And if the weapons in such a war are words, Stone's got quite the arsenal.

The story's ostensibly about the introduction of "religious enlightenment" and other education program for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11. The religious courses are led by moderate Muslim clerics whose teaching "tears apart" the arguments of al Qaeda, such as "Let's kill innocents," Stone said.

The program has been growing, as the surge has swelled the population of Iraqis in U.S. detention from 10,000 last year to 25,000 this year. More than 800 are juveniles.

But what really emerges from the article - a summary of a conference call Stone held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers - is a portrait of Stone as a formidable character who's almost as fun to quote as Donald Rumsfeld was.

Stone, who reads Arabic and says he reads the Koran daily, said the new religious training helps U.S. forces pinpoint the hard-core extremists. "I want to know who they are," he said. "They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket."

He wants to identify "irreconcilables" and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish just who the extremists are, he said. And when that doesn't work, there's always the polygraph test, which he uses on detainees who promise they will change to "figure out if they're messing with us ... You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys."

The re-education has been working, in some ways better than the military even hoped. On Sept. 2, there was a religious uprising where some detainees turned on others. "We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake ... extremists," he said. "Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them ... I mean, that is historic."

Labels: Al-Qaeda, clerics, extremism, Iraq, Islam, religion

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Faith on campus

Arelis Hernandez
Issue date: 9/20/07

Before junior Adil Zaman came to college, he said saying prayers five times a day during his Muslim upbringing was more of a holy nuisance than a religious duty.

During high school, Zaman said, his Islamic faith took a backseat to girls, friends and trying to fit in. That changed when he stepped onto the campus: Outside the reach of parental pressure, it was suddenly a choice whether to practice his faith - not a requirement.

"When Ramadan came" during freshman year, Zaman said, "I promised myself to do things right."

Zaman is far from alone when it comes to faith and spirituality among college students. Although it was once thought that previous generations of devout college students risked eroding their faith after being exposed to secular academic communities, a new study conducted on the campus shows otherwise.

For all the liberal viewpoints so commonly espoused in the university setting - evolution, gay rights and existential philosophy included - many students are flocking to pews and prayer rugs. More than 63 percent of students here reported attending a religious service frequently or occasionally and 55 percent said that they pray.

Only a tiny number of the 524 randomly selected students surveyed - just 6 percent - said they don't consider themselves on a "spiritual quest."

The results of the survey surprised Office of Campus Programs Director Marsha Guenzler-Stevens, who conducted the survey last year with graduate student Andrew Publicover.

"More students talk about faith than what we would've anticipated, more students pray more than we anticipated and more students discuss religion," Guenzler-Stevens said. "There is a growing interest in faith" on the campus.

Paolo Ugolini, who leads the Disciples of Christ campus ministry, said that the popular view that secular campus life is a powerful influence that leads religious students astray is a mischaracterization.

"When students leave their homes and no longer have a family atmosphere to prop up their beliefs, I think many students simply find that their 'faith' was more a product of the home culture," Ugolini said. "It was not really a faith of their own to begin with."

But it isn't just students who were brought up religious that are finding a spiritual awakening during their college career, Guenzler-Stevens' survey shows...

Labels: Arelis Hernandez, college, culture, faith, religion, youth

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Study: Men Lack Church Support

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter

Thu, Sep. 20 2007

The majority of men in the United Methodist Church attend worship service almost every week but most feel they lack support from friends and from the pulpit, a new report revealed.

With churches struggling to keep men in the pews and women more likely than men to attend church, the Commission on United Methodist Men conducted the Study of Men report, surveying 1,350 people –a sample reflecting the demographics of the total number of men in the United Methodist Church.

The top reason why the church doesn't reach many men is a lack of interest in religion, survey respondents said they believe. They also listed "societal emphasis on individualism/materialism" and "distrust of organized religion" as common reasons churches struggle to reach men.

Despite wider church trends of fewer men in attendance than women, the majority of United Methodist men (86.5 percent) said they attend church almost every week and 65 percent are involved in small groups or a men's program. Also, half of the survey respondents said they had a strong connection to their congregation that is growing stronger and 75 percent said they use a devotional at least several times a week.

While United Methodist men show a commitment to church, the report's findings revealed that they're getting little support.

Only 27.2 percent of the men have a close male friend that knows or supports them and 68 percent said that the senior pastor could do more to support men in the congregation.

Hanke will conduct further reviews on the study with a think tank and the report will be submitted to the 2008 General Conference, the top legislative body of the denomination. The study was undertaken at the request of the 2004 General Conference, according to the United Methodist News Service.

Labels: Audrey Barrick, Methodists, religion, Study of Men report, support

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Faith upon the earth

Sep 20th 2007 |
From The Economist

In many parts of the world, religious groups and environmental scientists are teaming up—albeit sometimes reluctantly

“THERE was a functioning bridge until 1470 AD,” says Praveen Togadia, a Hindu fundamentalist, smoothing out his dhoti. “Due to natural calamities, it was disturbed, and parts went into the sea.” To modern, secular eyes, at least, the “bridge” is a 30-mile (48km) chain of sandy shoals across the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. But millions of Hindus see the shoals as physical proof of their beliefs. The Ramayana, a Hindu text, says a bridge was built by monkeys at the behest of a Hindu god, Ram—who duly crossed over to wrest his wife Sita from a Sri Lankan demon. The shoals are known in India as “Ram Setu”, or “Ram's Bridge”.

Now take a deep breath and consider the conflict over a plan by India's Congress-led government to dredge the strait for a shipping canal. While Hindus loathe the project on spiritual grounds, ecologists have different objections. At the junction of the deep, cold Indian Ocean and the shallow, temperate Arabian Sea, the strait is an ecological prize. So far, 377 endemic species have been found in nearby waters.

On this issue at least, the devoutly religious and the greens are on the same side. But the former, it seems, have more clout than the latter. On September 12th the government told the Supreme Court that the Ramayana was not proof of the existence of Lord Ram; and that science suggested the shoals were made by sedimentation, not monkeys. On the same day, the World Hindu Council, headed by Dr Togadia, staged protests across the country. On September 14th the government, at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, the (Catholic) leader of Congress, put the canal plan on hold: a setback for a government which wanted to save ships from a 24-hour loop round Sri Lanka. With elections due next year, Congress feared giving its Hindu foes in the Bharatiya Janata Party a new slogan.

India's greens have little love for their accidental allies.

In many other parts of the world, secular greens and religious people find themselves on the same side of public debates: sometimes hesitantly, sometimes tactically, and sometimes fired by a sense that they have deep things in common.

One more case from India: ornithologists who want to save three species of vulture (endangered because cattle carcasses are tainted by chemicals) see their best ally as the Parsees, who on religious grounds use vultures to dispose of human corpses.

In China, organised religion is much weaker and conservationists also feel more lonely. But Pan Yue, the best-known advocate of green concerns within the Chinese government, says ancient creeds, like Taoism, offer the best hope of making people treat the earth more kindly.

This month, representatives of many faiths, including a local Lutheran bishop and a shivering Buddhist monk (see above) gathered in Greenland to talk to scientists and ecologists. Patriarch Bartholomew, the senior bishop of the Orthodox Church, led his impressively robed guests in a silent supplication for the planet.

Mary Evelyn Tucker, of America's Yale University, says secular greens badly need their spiritual allies: “Religions provide a cultural integrity, a spiritual depth and moral force which secular approaches lack.”

Martin Palmer, of the British-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation, says faiths often have the clearest view of the social and economic aspects of an environmental problem. In Newfoundland, he notes, conservationists put curbs on cod fishing—and left the churches to care for families whose living was ruined.

Still, one selling point often used by the religious in their dialogue with science—the fact that faith encourages people to think long-term—may be a mixed blessing. The most pessimistic scientists say mankind has a decade at most to curb greenhouse gases and fend off disastrous global warming; that doesn't leave much time to settle the finer points of metaphysics.

Labels: environmentalism, faith, fundamentalism, religion

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The ascension of GodTube: What took this long?

Posted Sep 20th 2007 11:10AM
by Barry Summerlin

Web watcher comScore Inc. has reported that last month, the new site GodTube.com saw traffic climb 973% -- growth unprecedented in the web's history.

Owned and operated by Big Jump Media, Inc., GodTube is exactly what you might guess -- a Christian alternative to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube. In six weeks, it has accumulated more than 20,000 user-submitted clips and streamed more than 800,000 hours of video.

It's fascinating that here we are nearly two decades into the internet, and only now does a dominant faith-oriented web destination start to take shape.

But the opportunity has surely always been there. Since the heyday of Usenet, determined faithful have been debating and witnessing, huddling together on message boards or tugging back and forth on Wikipedia entries.

Just to give you an idea of how often web-going Americans reach to religion, consider these figures from Google. Shown here are the relative volumes of searches for "God," "Jesus," "church" and "Britney Spears," the latter our control for this experiment, chosen since she's the most veteran resident of Lycos' weekly list of 50 most searched people, places and things:

But for occasional spikes, Miss Britney typically places lower than the first three terms, giving some perspective on how in demand she really is (or isn't). Good on GodTube's backers -- who include Norm Miller, chairman of privately-held Interstate Batteries -- for answering that demand for faith with YouTube's viral recipe.

How long can GodTube maintain this growth? That's a question for its users. As is the case with YouTube and other startup smashes like eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace, GodTube is just a meeting place, tasking its unpaid community with the bother of generating content, not to mention policing its appropriateness for the site, which is likely to be an enduring issue of contention.

Labels: Barry Summerlin, Christianity, Godtube.com, religion, video

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Group Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Religion Issue

Yesterday, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and U.S. Army Major Paul Welborne. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, alleges that Army specialist Jeremy Hall, who is currently serving in Iraq, had his First Amendment rights violated last Thanksgiving when he was threatened and otherwise harrassed because he declined to participate in a Thanksgiving prayer ceremony.

According to Hall, who is an atheist, when he refused to join hands with other soldiers and pray, he was told by a staff sergeant (who first had to ask someone what an atheist was) that he could not eat Thanksgiving dinner with his peers. Hall, however, continued to eat his dinner at the table.

According to the complaint, in August, Hall received permission from a military chaplain to organize a group for atheist soldiers, but when the group met, Major Welborne broke it up, and also threatened to charge Hall with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Hall's complaint is not unique. Just last month, the Pentagon's Inspector General responded to a complaint by an MRFF that Defense Department officials violated their own regulations by appearing in a video to promote a fundamentalist Christian organization.

A spokesman for the MRFF has indicated that the Hall lawsuit is just the first of many.

Labels: Army, atheism, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Pentagon

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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Religion, sectarianism hampering cooperation among nations

Sushil Khadka
Issue date: 9/17/07

The world we live in today is more diverse than decades back.

Nationality is surpassing geographical boundaries. Citizenship no longer identifies the national identity; rather, it's a matter of global identification and humanity as well. Day by day, we have been connected to more identification of ourselves. So there are no longer the absolute societies belonging to some particular groups of people.

However, there are still particular schools of thought who are dividing this world with terms like Muslim world, Hindu world, Buddhist world, Jewish world, communist world or capitalist world. The tragedy lies in the fact that these distinctions are becoming the tools to confront each other. Religion and faith have been more pronounced in order to distinguish people and it's been a major cause of global conflict. We can easily observe this, especially in the Middle East. It has also become a major key to the insecurity that is spreading all over the world.

Religion is just a discipline. It shouldn't be made the medium of identifying people and making contrasts of each other. A Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew or Buddhist can also be a(n) Nepali, Indian, Ethiopian, Saudi, American, Israeli, a communist by ideology, a member of Amnesty International, a member of the Human Rights Commission, a member of Congress, a member of an economics association and so on. So a human rights activist in Bangladesh will have something in common with the one in Canada irrespective of their faith.

People are affiliated with each other in some ways and we all belong to the same human race and society. As a matter of fact, we are all equal. It's extremism to view the people of a different faith as the enemy. It's what's happening with al-Qaida and some other radical groups. There is always room for affiliation in democracy and it's also what the 21st century expects.

The world where we live will survive only if we can make many connections within us and respect the differences we hold. As the world is getting more homogenous, we are having identity crises as well. Globalization has made the whole planet like a global village and geographical boundaries are being replaced with technological grounds. Assimilation and affiliation have become more important in the present than in the past and respect for human differences and ideologies will play a vital role in the survival of the civilization we have so far.

Sushil Khadka is a third-year biological engineering major and treasurer of the International Student Association.

Labels: diversity, equality, globalization, religion, Sushil Khadka

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Christians Believe it is Sinful to Gamble

MEDIA ADVISORY, Sept. 18 /Christian Newswire/ --

ChristiaNet.com, the world's largest Christian portal with twelve million monthly page loads, recently asked, "Is it a sin for Christians to play the lottery?" ChristiaNet's president, Bill Cooper commented, "Any action that causes Christians to be poor financial stewards should be avoided."

Out of 1,800 Christians surveyed, 43% believed that playing the lottery was a sin. Many responded with statements like, "Playing the lottery is gambling and gambling is a sin." Others said, "It is a game of chance and the Bible tells us we are to be good stewards with the money He has given us." The most common response to the question centered on the central belief that Christians are to rely on God for their material needs. One survey taker wrote, "Gambling away God's money shows a lack of faith in His Holy Word and His promises."

Thirty one percent of those that took the survey were unsure. This group responded with, "I can't find in the Bible where gambling is a sin," and "I don't think God cares as long as it's in moderation." Many felt that God was in control of whether the gambler lost or won, "The Lord is in control, so it doesn't matter." Some believed that if the winnings were given to a charitable organization or a needy individual, sin wasn't an issue. Comments like, "As long as you use the money for good, it doesn't matter" confirm this opinion.

Twenty six percent felt that it was not a sin. The most popular reason for this answer was that Christians should not live in bondage and are free to spend their money how they see fit. Their perception was that the lottery system was developed to help the state in some way. For example: some states use the proceeds for education, senior affairs and for public transportation. "It's all going for a good cause," and "Christ released my shackles when he died on the cross" were some statements made by survey takers in support. The remaining pollers did not feel that playing the lottery was gambling, "Gambling is when no one benefits but the casino owners."

To help educate Christians about financial situations, ChristiaNet has just released a Free Financial Quiz. Using the latest interactive technology, one can test their Biblical knowledge on issues facing the Christian Community.

Labels: Bill Cooper, Christian, ChristiaNet.com, gambling, sin

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Insights: Two Paths: Religion and Psychiatry

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: September 18, 2007

Of all medical specialties, psychiatrists are the least religious, a survey has found, and the most religious doctors are the least likely to refer their patients to psychiatrists.

The Relationship Between Psychiatry and Religion Among U.S. Physicians (Psychiatric Services)In addition to questions about their own beliefs, the 100 psychiatrists and 1,044 other specialists who responded to the survey were asked about their attitudes toward religion in clinical practice. For example, the survey asked doctors whether they thought it proper to ask about patients’ religious beliefs and whether they had ever prayed with a patient.

Although psychiatrists were just as likely as other physicians to report that religious beliefs influenced their practice — about half said it did — just 29 percent of psychiatrists, compared with 47 percent of other doctors, said they attended religious services more than once a month. When asked whether they described themselves as religious or spiritual, 42 percent of psychiatrists and 53 percent of other doctors said they did. About a third of psychiatrists, but almost half of other physicians, said they “look to God for strength, support, and guidance.” Psychiatrists were significantly less likely to be Protestant or Catholic and more likely to be Jewish or have no religious affiliation.

Most doctors would refer a patient to a psychiatrist for emotional problems. Protestants were about half as likely as those with no religious affiliation to do so, preferring clergy or other religious counselors.

Labels: Nicholas Bakalar, psychiatrist, religion, spirituality

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What do we know about religions?

(Religion Today is contributed by the University of Wyoming's Religious Studies Program to examine and to promote discussion of religious issues.)

Paul V.M. Flesher

“OK, class. Sit down. We’re going to have a test.”

That’s how Boston University religion Professor Stephen Prothero recently began the first class meeting of an introductory course about religion, as he relates in his recent book, “Religious Literacy.”

Nearly all students failed.

Perhaps some of the questions were obscure. For example, he asked them to name a Hindu religious text (any text!). Only a quarter of them could come up with the Rig Veda, the Mahabharata, or the Yoga Sutras, even though Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion. How about identifying the four noble truths of Buddhism, the foundational belief of the fourth largest religion? Few non-Buddhists could answer.

Some questions weren’t quite so foreign, but the results were still disappointing. Most students could not list the New Testament’s four gospels, and just one in eight could give the first five books of the Bible. Only one in six could identify “Blessed are the poor in spirit” as Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.

It is not just students who have poor religious literacy. National surveys reveal adult religious knowledge is just as low. Only half of American adults can name even one gospel, while most cannot identify the Bible’s first book. And, although I cannot believe it, most people in one recent survey said Jesus was born in Jerusalem-even though “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is sung every Christmas.

...this fall I gave a similar test to my own introductory students. They did significantly better when 85 percent could identify all four gospels. Even more knew that Genesis was the Bible’s first book, and about half recognized the first five books of the Bible. Their knowledge of non-Christian religions was not as strong. Although three-quarters knew that the Quran was Islam’s holy book, less than half could identify one of Hinduism’s sacred texts. Interestingly, about 40 percent knew that Ramadan was Islam’s month of fasting.

Overall, my students did better than Prothero’s class and other people questioned in various surveys. What accounts for this difference? Is it that my students were that much more knowledgeable? Not really.

The difference comes from the way we asked the questions. Prothero posed fill-in-the-blank questions. I gave them multiple-choice questions. Multiple choice expects students to recognize the correct answer when presented. Fill-in-the-blank requires test takers to come up with the answer out of their memory with no hints. Like phone surveys (where someone calls when you are in the middle of doing something and expects you to answer questions on some other topic), Prothero’s test was done “cold,” with no studying or warning.

The two question types differentiate between active and passive knowledge. Active knowledge is what we use everyday. We can marshall it at will, whether in carrying out tasks at which we are skilled or in carrying on conversations with our boss or family. Passive knowledge is knowledge we recognize and with which we are familiar, but which we do not think about from week to week or month to month.

Our brains automatically move information we need on a regular basis into the active category and that which we do not need into the passive category. Ever studied hard in a course to earn an “A” but forgot everything during summer vacation? You did not forget; your brain just shifted it from active to passive when you were no longer using it.

Studies such as Prothero’s fail to measure public knowledge accurately. Whether they investigate religious knowledge, historical knowledge, or the names of movie stars, they require passive knowledge to be as accessible as active knowledge.

Like a quiz show, they expect participants to hit the buzzer quickly; there is no time for recollection or preparation. They do not ask for recognition of correct information, but need immediate recall. Our active knowledge of religious information may be weak (since few of us are religious professionals), but our passive knowledge is stronger than most tests and surveys indicate.

Flesher is director of UW’s Religious Studies Program. Past columns and more information about the program can be found on the Web at www.uwyo.edu/relstds. To comment on this column, visit http://religion-today.blogspot.com.

Labels: knowledge, Paul V.M. Flesher, religious literacy, students

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Muslims Begin Ramadan Observance

By Amin Fekrat
Washington
13 September 2007

The month of Ramadan, the ninth month in the Muslim calendar and the holiest month of Islam, has begun. Muslims the world over have embarked on a month of abstinence, reflection, and soul searching. VOA's Amin Fekrat reports from Washington.

Muslims once again started Ramadan under unique circumstances, this time beginning at almost the same time Americans were marking the six year anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks that were carried out in the name of Islam.

President Bush took the occasion to send greetings to Muslims observing Ramadan, saying the United States is enriched by its Muslim citizens. There are estimated to be about 6 million Muslims in the United States.

Imam Elahi, of the "House of Wisdom" in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, says he hopes the followers of other religions will listen to what the president said.

Elahi says the condemnation of the terrorists and terrorism is absolute and without reservation under the Koran and the sunnah, the deeds of the prophet of Islam as recorded and passed to successive Muslim generations.

Elahi says there is a spiritual dimension to Ramadan that is common among all the monotheistic religions, one that could become a more powerful source of strength and solidarity among all faiths. The imam says this bond may enable people to weather the storm of terrorism and the scourge of war. He says peace may not come through violence, but through the power of the human will to depend on God alone.

The Five Pillars of Islam

Fasting
Daily prayers
Alms giving
pilgrimage to Mecca, for those able
Acknowledgement of the oneness of God, with Mohammad as God's messenger

During Ramadan, adult Muslims begin a fast - avoiding food, drink, and sex during daylight hours. They see fasting as a way to cleanse the heart from sin, selfishness, greed, pride, impatience and hypocrisy. They believe fasting brings appreciation for one's life and sympathy for those who suffer. The Koran does not require travelers, nursing mothers, the sick and soldiers on the march to fast - but these people are expected to make up the days missed, as the opportunity arises.

Muslim leaders say the month is about experiencing a spiritual energy, which provides healing and harmony in the human family and creates a stronger personal discipline, a stronger community, and a stronger country.

The holy month of Ramadan starts when the sliver of the new moon is sighted, to the satisfaction of each community or country. This explains the the difference in the first day of fasting among various Islamic countries.

Muslims believe the Koran emphasizes reason, perpetual search for truth, careful observation, contemplation, and transcendence above worldly pursuits. In the process of religious search, Muslims are to find the "signs" and the "clarifiers" that lead to God, as the eternal truth and the source of all existence.

The religion-based Islamic quest became a foundation for scientific method. The discoveries made by early Islamic scholars advanced natural sciences, math, medicine and astronomy in the early centuries of the religion's expansion. Early Islamic scholars and scientists are also credited with preserving much of the classical knowledge of the ancient world.

Since then, ethnic, tribal and cultural differences have superseded the Islamic injunctions for perpetual search. Many modern Muslims are convinced the rise of genuine Islamic revivalism as a positive force may once again place their communities on the right path.

Many of today's Muslims are dismayed that their religion is tarnished by terrorism and violence. "Islam is a religion that teaches compassion," says Imam Elahi, "during Ramadan and throughout the year."

Labels: Amin Fekrat, God, Imam Elahi, Muslims, Ramadan, spirituality

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For the Next 7 Generations: The Grandmothers Speak

Thirteen elder women, representing 13 tribes of earth, join to share their wisdom with the world.

Labels: grandmothers, prayer, religion, video, wisdom, women

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Nobel winner speaks about science, religion

Physicist Charles Townes visited the University of Redlands this week and gave several lectures

DAVID JAMES HEISS, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 09/14/2007

REDLANDS - Perhaps there are more than four dimensions - possibly 11, according to some scientific theories.

Humans and religion might fall into those seven "unknown" dimensions - in a spiritual dimension, perhaps, suggested Charles Townes, 1964 Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is visiting and giving guest lectures at the University of Redlands this week.

Townes, 92, won the Nobel Prize in physics for developing the laser.

"Science and religion are much more parallel and similar than people think, and are destined to come closer and closer together," said Townes...

"Questions of science and faith are basically the same. We tinker with things and so on. As an astronomer, I can observe the stars, but I can't tinker with them. We watch people and observe them and make observations. But what about intuition? It's very common in science.

It's very important to science and very important to religion. Then there's revelation. There's logic and reason. They make sense in both science and religion. They're all parallel."

"All the laws of science have to be right for us to be here. How did that happen? Some people don't want to say that it's that simple.

"Quantum mechanics and general relativity work amazingly well, but are logically inconsistent with each other," he said.

Quantum theories include dark matter, an unseen force that seems to pull stars and galaxies together with mass five times denser than what humans know, and dark energy, an invisible phenomenon that seems to push galaxies farther and farther away - yet their effects "must have 75 percent of the total mass of the universe," Townes said.

Another phenomenon he addressed was free will.

"Free will is simply not allowed by science," Townes said. "I can move my hand this way and that and any way I want. Very few scientists could disagree that free will exists. There are many things we don't understand. Where is this free mind," he said, referring to "the creator" who might have had a hand in designing the universe?

"Maybe free will and humans are on another dimension," he suggested, "a spiritual dimension. We need to be open-minded. Is there extraterrestrial life? We don't know how life began on Earth.

Is there life out there? We'll continue looking." "Scientists and religious people wonder how we're going to change as human beings," Townes said, and brought up the fact that humans have the capability to genetically engineer or alter themselves.

How refreshing to hear a brilliant mind say, 'I don't know' " when it comes to questioning why certain things are in science or religion.

"He dares us to think new thoughts," Walsh said and called Townes "a brilliant man."

Labels: Charles Townes, David James Heiss, faith, religion, science

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Religion 2.0: Can't make it to church? You can tap into your spiritual side online

Posted on Sat, Sep. 15, 2007
BY SCOTT ANDRON
sandron@MiamiHerald.com

Every Sunday morning, while hundreds of South Floridians converge on Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Stephanie Smith boots up her computer and joins the services -- from 1,400 miles away.

Instead of attending a bricks-and-mortar church near her home in Fort Worth, Texas, Smith hooks her computer up to her big-screen TV and watches a live, web-based videocast via Flamingo Road's ''Internet Campus.'' Some Sundays, she invites family and friends to join her.

Smith is one of a growing number of Americans for whom the Internet plays a central role in their spiritual lives.

Many pastors are coming to see the website as a ministry in itself, not only as a way to bring people to church, but as a way to bring them to God -- even if they never set foot in the physical building.

While most houses of worship now have websites, few use them as aggressively and creatively in seeking new converts as evangelicals, for a variety of reasons.

For Roman Catholics, important sacraments like communion are hard or impossible to translate into binary digits. Jews generally don't seek new converts, although the Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch sect, for example, has extensive Web offerings aimed at attracting non-observant Jews.

LIFECHURCH.TV

For at least one church, the Internet is so central that the church has a ''dot'' in its name.

Lifechurch.tv has 11 campuses in six states, including a new congregation that meets at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington. Its 12th campus is on the Internet, and the church tries to give online participants the same experience as those worshiping in person.

YOUTH MOVEMENT

Thanks to online shopping, online dating, online social networking and online darn-near-everything-else, many young Americans don't distinguish between their friends from school and those from Facebook. These youngsters just see them all as friends, said David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, a consulting firm that conducts survey research for churches and other religious groups.

In fact, Kinnaman's firm predicts that by 2010, 10 percent of Americans will rely exclusively on the Internet for their religious experience.

But no one is predicting that the Internet church will replace the physical church -- at least not yet.

'The big fear, especially in the mid '90s and late '90s, was, `Would people leave the pews?' '' said Heidi Campbell, a professor of communication who studies religion on the Internet at Texas A&M University.

That didn't happen -- at least, no faster than it was happening before. In fact, many people Campbell has interviewed say they would prefer to participate in church in person if their life circumstances allowed it.

You'd get no argument from Smith. While she likes participating in Flamingo Road over the Web and introducing family and friends to the church, her longer-term hope is to have a branch campus in Fort Worth.

It may take some time to get there, but the church also would like to see it happen.

Labels: church, Internet, ministry, Scott Andron

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Friday, September 14, 2007

US Religion Report Faults Iraq, China, But Commends Vietnam and Saudi Arabia

By David Gollust
State Department
14 September 2007

A U.S. State Department report said Friday that political violence in Iraq has significantly impaired religious freedom there. But the annual world-wide survey cited improvements in conditions for religious adherents in, among other places, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

The annual report, which this year covered 198 countries and territories, is required under an act of Congress, and countries found to be significant violators of religious freedom are subject to U.S. sanctions.

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom John Hanford said the past year saw progress against religion-based discrimination in a diverse list of countries including Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Bangladesh and India.

But he said half the world's population continues to live under persecution or serious restrictions of religious freedom in many countries, among them Iran, Eritrea, Burma and China.

The report says conditions deteriorated sharply in Iraq though Hanford said that was not due to government policy but rather insurgency-related violence targeting all faiths but especially religious minorities.

Hanford stressed continued progress in expanding religious freedom in Vietnam, which last year was taken off the State Department list of "Countries of Particular Concern" because of strides made in several areas, including the official recognition of once-banned Protestant congregations.

The U.S. envoy said the Saudi Arabian government, which officially recognizes only the Wahabi branch of Sunni Islam, has undertaken to curb incitement against other faiths and allows at least private observances of non-sanctioned religions.

The report says despite senior-level U.S. appeals, China continued to repress Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and the Falon Gong spiritual group.

Ambassador Hanford said foreign religious activists have also been denied visas or expelled from China in what could be a crackdown related to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Eight countries - China, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan - were designated as "Countries of Particular Concern" by Secretary Rice late last year.

A revised list is expected to be issued in November based on the new report. The delay is intended to give countries facing the designation and possible U.S. sanctions an opportunity to undertake reforms.

Labels: David Gollust, Iraq, persecution, religion, religious freedom, US State Department

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Don't know much about basic freedoms

9/14/2007 5:56:18 AM
Daily Journal

BY ERROL CASTENS
Daily Journal Oxford Bureau

OXFORD - Americans claim to treasure their freedoms, but most of us don't know what they are.

A survey released Wednesday by the Washington- and Nashville-based First Amendment Center shows few can even name all the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Sixty-four percent of respondents could name freedom of speech, but only 19 percent named freedom of religion. Freedom of the press and the right of assembly each were named by just 16 percent of respondents, and only 3 percent could recall the right to petition the government.

Fudging on the freedoms

Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, presented the results of the organization's survey Thursday to students, faculty members and professional journalists at Ole Miss.

More than 25 percent said freedom of religion was never intended to extend "to religious groups that the majority of the people consider extreme or on the fringe." Policinski reminded the audience that at different times in American history, both Roman Catholics and Baptists were considered "on the fringe."

"When we begin to marginalize religion, it does harm to what I think the Constitution provides," he said.

Labels: Errol Castens, First Amendment Center, religious freedom, US Constitution

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Theologian Küng: Christianity Gets on Many People's Nerves

For Catholic theologian Hans Küng, religion has again become a power factor. While Islam and Buddhism are getting more popular, Christianity isn't. The controversial theologian spoke to DW-WORLD.DE about the reasons.

Born in 1928, Catholic theologian and church critic Hans Küng made his mark as a promoter of dialogue between religions and as president of the Global Ethic Foundation. In 1979, the Vatican withdrew his license to teach after the Swiss native questioned the infallibility of the pope. In the fall of 2005, Pope Benedict XVI invited Küng to a private meeting.

DW-WORLD.DE: Professor Küng, people -- and not only in Germany -- are again enormously interested in religious issues. Can we speak of a return of religions?

Hans Küng: "Return of religions" -- that is an ambivalent term. Religion never disappeared. Just like music, religion is something that stays, even if it is suppressed for some time. It is true, that since the new awakening of Islam, since the creation of the Islamic republic of Iran in 1979, Europeans have realized that they don't rule the world by themselves. For a long time, secular Europe had not realized that it was an exception, and that elsewhere, religions is a power.

"No peace among the nations, without peace between the religions! No peace between the religions without dialog between the religions!" Those are two central sentences of your World Ethic principle. In a time of globalization, there are many undreamed-of possibilities for communication on the Internet. The access to knowledge is easier than ever before. Can this development improve the dialog of religions?

In principle, I would say yes, even though this brings many problems. It's a positive thing that today we can know a lot about other religions. A different question, of course, is whether we do want to be in the know. There are people who don't -- they already know everything, without studying the Islam.

Who doesn't want to know?

For one, the fundamental Christians who take everything the Bible says literally and say they don't need any other religions. Then there are the very secular people, dogmatists of laicism. They get worked up simply when the word religion is mentioned, and they think that we should not talk about it in schools. They have issues with the fact that religion, again, is a powerful factor in world history.

According to a survey, not Christianity but Buddhism is the most likeable religion for Germans. How do you explain that?

Buddhism, in the West, is perceived as being free from dogmas, as a religion without many rules. It is a religion that's turned to the inside and that emphasizes meditation. It is a religion, which has no anthropomorphic, concrete picture of the last reality.

The other is that Christianity -- with its concentration of power -- gets on many people's nerves. When we have a pope, who claims that -- as theological Lord of the world -- only those who are with him are true Christians and that only his Roman-Catholic Church is the true church, it gets on many people's nerves. Even though they don't protest publicly, they will turn away and say they don't want to have anything to do with that.

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Germany, Global Ethic Foundation, Hans Küng, Islam, religion

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Madeleine L’Engle, Writer of Children’s Classics, Is Dead at 88

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: September 8, 2007

Madeleine L’Engle, an author whose childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation, most memorably in her children’s classic “A Wrinkle in Time,” died on Thursday in Litchfield, Conn. She was 88.,

“A Wrinkle in Time” was rejected by 26 publishers before editors at Farrar, Straus & Giroux read it and enthusiastically accepted it. It proved to be her masterpiece, winning the John Newbery Medal as the best children’s book of 1963 and selling, so far, eight million copies. It is now in its 69th printing.

In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Marygail G. Parker notes “a peculiar splendor” in Ms. L’Engle’s oeuvre, and some of that splendor is owed to sheer literary range. Her works included poetry, plays, autobiography and books on prayer, and almost all were deeply, quixotically personal.

But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for answers to the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.

“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”

The St. James Guide to Children’s Writers called Ms. L’Engle “one of the truly important writers of juvenile fiction in recent decades.” Such accolades did not come from pulling punches. “Wrinkle” has been one of the most banned books in the United States, accused by religious conservatives of offering an inaccurate portrayal of God and nurturing in the young an unholy belief in myth and fantasy.

Ms. L’Engle, who often wrote about her Christian faith, was taken aback by the attacks. “It seems people are willing to damn the book without reading it,” Ms. L’Engle said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “Nonsense about witchcraft and fantasy. First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, ‘Ah, the hell with it.’ It’s great publicity, really.”

The book begins, “It was a dark and stormy night,” repeating the line of a 19th-century novelist, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. “Wrinkle” then takes off. Meg Murry, with help from her psychic baby brother, uses time travel and extrasensory perception to rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from a planet controlled by the Dark Thing. She does so through the power of love.

The book uses concepts that Ms. L’Engle said she had plucked from Einstein’s theory of relativity and Planck’s quantum theory, almost flaunting her frequent assertion that children’s literature is literature too difficult for adults to understand.

“Wrinkle” is part of Ms. L’Engle’s Time series of children’s books, which includes “A Wind in the Door,” “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” “Many Waters” and “An Acceptable Time.” The series combines elements of science fiction with insights into love and moral purpose.

Ms. L’Engle’s other famous series of books concerned another family. The first installment, “Meet the Austins,” which appeared in 1960, depicted an affectionate family whose members displayed enough warts to make them interesting. (Perhaps not enough for The Times Literary Supplement in London, though; it called the Austins “too good to be real.”)

By the fourth of the five Austin books, “A Ring of Endless Light,” any hint of Pollyanna was gone. It told of a 16-year-old girl’s first experience with death. Telepathic communication with dolphins eventually helps the girl, Vicky, acquire a new understanding of things.

“The cosmic battle between light and darkness, good and evil, love and indifference, personified in the mythic fantasies of the ‘Wrinkle in Time’ series, here is waged compellingly in its rightful place: within ourselves,” Carol Van Strum wrote in The Washington Post in 1980.

“Why does anybody tell a story?” she once asked, even though she knew the answer.

“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Labels: author, children, Christianity, faith, Madeleine L'Engle, religion, science

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Americans Not Concerned About Their Spiritual Condition

by Dr. George Barna

While most Americans value their faith and regularly engage in faith practices, surprisingly few say they have specific challenges related to the development of their faith. A national survey of Christian parents commissioned by Good News Holdings and conducted by The Barna Group discovered that four out of every 10 Christian parents of children between the ages of three and 18 said they do not face any spiritual challenges in their life. Among those who identified the presence of any spiritual challenges, the most common issues related to the spiritual development of their children.

Wide Range of Concerns

When asked to identify their biggest personal challenges related to faith or spirituality, the most common response related to raising moral children or youngsters with a strong faith. In total, one out of every seven parents (14 percent) who identified themselves as Christian listed this as their spiritual challenge. Only one other response – the need to personally invest more time in religious activities, such as reading the Bible or praying – was mentioned by at least one out of every 10 parents (10 percent).

More than 100 different responses were provided by survey respondents, reflecting the breadth of spiritual issues that Americans struggle with. Other categories of concerns mentioned included the desire to more consistently exhibit faith-driven behavior (eight percent); the need to be more involved in a church (seven percent); effectively dealing with the declining moral values and inappropriate media content in our society (six percent); handling various lifestyle challenges that weaken their faith (five percent); confidently coping with health matters (four percent); and having a deeper or more substantive faith (four percent).

Specific Challenges Posed

Parents were also asked to rate the significance of each of eight specific challenges related to their faith. Overall, the responses suggest that most Christian parents do not perceive themselves to face major challenges regarding their faith.

One out of every three parents (34 percent) said having enough time to devote to their faith was a major challenge. Almost as many (30 percent) said helping their children to become more spiritual was a major challenge.

About two out of every 10 parents listed each of the other six possibilities as major challenges. Those included enabling their spouse to be more spiritual (23 percent); growing spiritually, personally (21 percent); understanding what’s in the Bible (20 percent); finding a church or faith community that’s right for them (19 percent); getting a sense of direction from God (18 percent); and practicing the faith principles they had learned (18 percent).

George Barna is an author, pastor and the founder of The Barna Group in Ventura, Calif., a firm specializing in conducting research for Christian ministries and non-profits.

Labels: Americans, Barna Group, children, faith, George Barna, spirituality, survey

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Where do all the prayer notes go?

By Ari Rabinovitch
Sun Sep 2, 8:19 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - People from around the world place their prayers in Jerusalem's Western Wall or mail them to "God, Jerusalem." It's Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz who clears them up.

Millions of people a year visit the Western Wall -- one of Judaism's holiest sites -- and leave a written prayer on pieces of paper wedged into the cracks of the ancient stones.

The tradition has been adopted by members of many faiths around the world. It is very common for Christian pilgrims traveling through the Old City of Jerusalem to stop by the Western Wall and leave a note, the rabbi says.

As Rabbi of the Western Wall, it is up to Rabinowitz to make sure there's room for future paper wishes. Twice a year his team collects hundreds of thousands of notes and buries them on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives.

At most hours of the day the Western Wall is lined with people deep in prayer. Many lean forward and touch their foreheads to the stones. With eyes closed, they whisper their wishes and kiss the wall when they have finished praying.

Rabinowitz and a dozen workers sweep the wall with wooden sticks in order to reach up high to snare the notes closest to the heavens.

They never read them and have never counted the number of scripted prayers, but in each collection there are enough to fill about 100 shopping bags, each with thousands of notes, Rabinowitz said.

The rabbi's office, which manages the site, estimates that more than 5 million people visited the Western Wall in 2006. Israel's Tourism Ministry said that about 1.5 million of them were foreign tourists.

Because the notes are never read by those who collect them it is impossible to know the religion of the people who sent them, the rabbi said.

"You can ask for anything. You spill your heart and then you leave strengthened," said Moshe Azolai, 29, who visited the site with relatives from the United States.

REMNANT

The Western Wall is a remnant of the compound of the Second Temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. It stands today beneath a religious plaza known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The entire wall stretches about 500 meters (1,650 feet), although much of it is concealed underground. The exposed part where people gather to pray is about 50 meters (165 feet) long and about 15 meters (50 feet) high.

Israel captured the Western Wall together with Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

The tradition of leaving notes started nearly 300 years ago when a rabbi sent his students with a prayer in writing because he was unable to make the journey, Rabinowitz said.

BURN OR BURY

An entire chapter in one of Rabinowitz's books deals with the issue of discarding the Western Wall notes.

"There is an old argument about whether to burn the notes or bury them," Rabinowitz said.

According to Jewish law, it is forbidden to destroy holy texts. Instead, prayer books and scriptures are "reposited" in containers and often buried in Jewish cemeteries.

But long before notes were stuck in the Western Wall, it was custom for religious Jews to place prayer notes at the graves of rabbis considered holy. Traditionally, these notes are burned.

Rabinowitz said burning is a pure way to deal with the notes, but burying them according to Jewish tradition is more honorable.

Even with the rabbi's twice-a-year cleaning -- the next one will take place before the Jewish New Year in mid-September -- finding a snug spot in the wall for a note can be a challenge.

Yaniv Singer, 28, who led a tour group that visited the Western Wall, had trouble placing his prayer.

"It fell out of about three places before I managed to stick it in a crack way up high," he said.

Labels: Ari Rabinovitch, Judaism, prayer, Western Wall

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High-tech focus on higher power

September 8, 2007
Associated Press

Godtube.com is just what it sounds like: Youtube, but only for Christian content

ANDERSON, Ind. -- On any Sunday morning, members of Faith Church in Anderson expect to sing several hymns and listen as Walt Weaver preaches. They also expect to watch some TV without leaving their pews.

Weaver has been sprinkling his services with multiple video clips for more than a year.

More churches are turning to new technology in the hope that it will engage their congregations and stop the national decline in church attendance.

Godtube.com, a new Christian video-sharing site, makes it possible for people to bypass the bricks and mortar and experience their faith in a completely digital format.

The site hosts more than 20,000 clips. They range from amateur home videos to professionally produced television segments, and they include sermons, music videos, comedy bits and infomercials.

Like Youtube.com, Godtube allows anyone to share a video. But videos on Godtube must pertain to Christianity.

Many religious sites have copied nonreligious models. My Church.org is similar to the social networking site MySpace.

More than any other religious Web site, Godtube seems to be billing itself as an alternative to the physical church. A release from the company cited statistics on declining church attendance and a Pew Internet Study that found 82 million Americans use the Internet for a faith-based reason, which is more than the number of Americans who use it for banking or dating.

Weaver said his congregation bucks that national trend and hasn't seen its membership decline. And although he likes Godtube for the videos it provides, he said the site also makes him nervous for the impact it could have on future attendance.

"We like to think of ourselves as the Switzerland of Christianity," said Christopher Wyatt, Godtube's founder and CEO.

He officially launched the site on Aug. 8, but test versions have existed online since January. Within 60 days of going live, the site became the most popular Christian site on the Internet, Wyatt said.

Its growth has continued at a breakneck pace. In July, Godtube users watched about 300,000 hours of video. This month, Wyatt said, he expects them to watch close to 2 million hours.

A former TV producer with CBS, Wyatt now attends seminary school in Dallas. The idea for the site came to him after he learned of statistics describing future downward trends in church attendance.

He calls the trend of Christians going online and using new technology, such as file-sharing and streaming video, to experience their religion the "Jesus 2.0 movement."
But the movement is somewhat restricted due to Godtube's ban on anything it deems objectionable.

Labels: Christianity, Christopher Wyatt, church, Godtube.com, religion, social networking, video

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Friday, September 07, 2007

The Banquet Where Science Dines with Religion

Michael Holleran

In the current debate between science and religion, Plato’s Symposium has a lot to offer. First of all, it reminds us that we should exhibit the good fellowship and enthusiasm of brothers and sisters (OK, they excluded women in those days) and of kindred explorers of the boundless marvels of the universe. Allied with this, it proposes that reality is a banquet (a frequent alternate translation of “symposium”)—unbelievably tasty and enormously filling. The image and implication of intoxication is a telling one since one can and should be inebriated and delighted by the splendor of the real, as opposed to sinking into the dour servitude of gouty dogmatism of whatever flavor.

If we adopt this stance, we discover that not just love but also truth is a “many-splendored thing.” That is a primary lesson we need to grasp before proceeding any further in the debate between science and religion. We need to stretch our minds and hearts and let them roam free outside of the narrow prisons and blinkered perspectives in which we tend to incarcerate them, and let ourselves embrace and be braced by the currents of reality around us.

So, as we enter the dining hall, let us begin by establishing our rules of etiquette, our epistemological table manners, so to speak. Those who prefer appetizers (science, let us say—no value judgment implied!) have every right to their tastes, and they may refrain from dessert, if they wish (religion, let us suppose). Others may leap right to the dessert, and skip the appetizers. Many will say, perhaps rightly, that both groups are missing out on something tasty; but, what they eat is their own decision. What we cannot allow is a discourse in which one group chastises the other as idiots or hypocrites because of their particular preference. De gustibus non disputandum. So, both science and religion beware!

What therefore might the intellectual gourmet’s assessment of these various courses, whether in the culinary or university sense? Modern civilization has discovered (despite its roots in Aristotle, who didn’t yet make all the necessary distinctions) the magnificence and the unimaginable fruitfulness of empirical science, and its mathematical models. The scientific method, based on observation, hypothesis, and experiment, has rightly brought untold benefits into our lives. It has its proper object—material and measurable reality—and its particular methods.

Similarly, religion has brought almost unfathomable depth, excitement, perspective, guidance, and compassion into the world. It, too, has its own object (God and the spirit world, and all in relation to God) and its own methods (ultimately human spiritual experience), though often employing philosophical systems or artistic means to help express the inexpressible. Of course, since notoriously fallible and fickle human beings are the ones who actually practice science or religion, much that is nasty has been introduced in the name of both (nuclear bombs and inquisitions, for example). Yet that is not a defect of the food but of the diners and their appetites—not a fault of the field itself but of those who are walking in the field.

Still, if these various fields yield wondrous crops within their own spheres, their seeds will not sprout outside of them. Science, for example, never can nor ever should speak about God. It is completely outside its realm of competence. The existence and operations of God can never be either proved or disproved by science. The experience of God, however, or discourse about God, is certainly not outside the competence of human beings, with their multilayered reality. Thus, although science cannot speak about God, a scientist may do so, if she or he wishes, only simply not as a scientist, but as a person. For the same reasons, God neither can nor should be invoked within scientific discourse, as a cause or explanation of any sort, simply because God is not an object of empirical science, and can never be proved scientifically. It does not mean that God may not be a legitimate cause on another level of discourse (philosophical, theological, or mystical). But God should not be called in to bail out or short-circuit science in its own domain.

The problems arise, of course, when there is an apparent conflict of interests, when one seems to be treading on the other’s turf. In other words, the boundaries among these various categories of discourse, or rather, our perception and understanding of them, may often be somewhat sloppy and in need of challenge. Such difficulties have arisen quite spectacularly in history on a number of occasions (Galileo and Darwin, for example, which we can explore another time in more detail). In these instances, what seemed to have been the province of religion turned out to be the province of science. Or, to express it differently, these clashes provided an enormously exhilarating opportunity for those with open minds to re-examine their understanding of certain elements of their religious belief, and grow to a maturity of appreciation that was unthinkable before. Thus, the whole reassessment, over the past 200 years, of how to read the scriptures in Christianity—not as treatises in science or history but as bearers of spiritual insight and truth—was facilitated, and to a degree, even made possible, by the scientific revolution. To be sure, as Francis Collins rightly asserts in his Discover Interview in the February issue, St. Augustine reminded his readers 1,600 years ago that our understanding of the six days of Genesis should never be slavishly literal (in fact, Origen had pointed out the same more than a century before that), or taken to be a scientific or historical eyewitness account of how events unfolded. Rather are we dealing with a mythical and mystical treatise whose depth of truth is vastly more challenging and astonishing as a metaphor of our spiritual journey than just as an account, however glorious and poetic, of the origins of our material universe. Immense and innumerable currents of Jewish and Christian mystical writing bear this out. And, as the Dalai Lama has famously said in recent years, if other beliefs of religion were to be challenged by science, then, upon examination, we would have to humbly integrate the insights, certain that religion itself would only profit in the end.

Historically speaking, however, we know that proponents neither of religion nor of science often exhibited this tranquil breadth of spirit, this self-possessed openness to challenge and change, that circumstances genuinely required. Indeed, official positions and widespread popular understanding were often rife with fear and its concomitant dogmatism, and this remains so today in many quarters. Once again, however, this is the fault of the practitioners, and not of science or of religion itself.

Another possible area of conflict, which is considerably more contentious, is that of morality. I would propose that scientific research is intrinsically amoral; by its own rules, science would simply go out and do whatever it is capable of doing at any time. This is a limitation, but not a fault. Problems arise, however, because its object is often part of a much more complex reality. For example, not only do people do science, but people are often the object of science. What is more, they are not simply the subjects and objects of science, they are also the subjects and objects of psychology, art, ethics, philosophy, theology, and mysticism. Hence, these other levels of exploration and discourse have the right not to do science but to challenge the scientist, when a value known and embraced at another level is threatened by a science that is fundamentally without values. This is obviously the case in the life sciences: biotechnology, biochemistry, etc. Even if cloning, stem cell research, and reproductive advances represent scientific progress, are they truly and necessarily progress for the totality of the human person and for life in society? These are crucial questions that have to be faced out of respect for the complexity of our human and epistemological reality. But likewise, there must be caution on the other end of the spectrum: Are we so sure about our ethical and spiritual understanding of the human person that we would be justified in imposing limits on science in such and such a case? Humility and circumspection are needed on both sides.

Perhaps what is best in our humanity is what can likewise help reconcile science and religion in practice: the sense of wonder, of openness, of exploration, the exhilarating intoxication that I mentioned above. These sentiments are the inspiration, both Maritain and I would argue, for both science and religion—indeed for any passionate pursuit. Grounded in this sort of breadth of spirit, which is secure, serene, and confident in itself, we can hopefully learn— whether in science or in religion or in any human endeavor—not only to tolerate but to glory in the experience of not knowing. The feverish demand for instant certitude seems a Western neurosis. After all, whether we consider ourselves loyal scientists or loyal members of a religious tradition or both, an awestruck sense of respect before the unknown is the only loyal attitude towards whatever reality is the object of our exploration. As Maritain pointed out, there is more mystery in a grape between the teeth than in all of our discourses that would attempt to explain it. So, may we avoid anorexia of the spirit, and let the “banquet” continue!

Labels: conflict, Michael Holleran, morality, Plato’s Symposium, religion, science

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God & Man on The Trail

A Pew poll out today draws a fine line: It is important for presidential aspirants to be seen as religious, but most do not get a big bump from being perceived as "very religious." The new data also show how little the public knows about the religious and social views of the top presidential contenders as the campaigns kick into high-gear.

Across the board, if people believe a candidate is "not too" or "not at all" religious, they are not likely to view that candidate favorably. But there are smaller, if any, rating differences between those who say a candidate is "very" vs. "somewhat" religious. For example, 77 percent of those who see Giuliani as very religious rate him favorably, as do 73 percent of those who find him somewhat religious, but that dips substantially to 43 percent among those who find him less religious than that.

And faith matters: In the June Post-Kaiser-Harvard poll, 13 percent of Americans said a "strong religious faith" was an "absolutely essential" candidate quality, another 30 percent called it "very important." And both those numbers spiked higher among Republicans. (Religiosity trailed other candidate qualities in the poll; more, nearly half, mentioned "honest and trustworthy" as absolutely essential than any of the seven items tested.)

But underneath this finding is a broader point - many people have not yet focused on this important aspect of the campaign. In the new Pew poll, large percentages volunteered that they did not know enough to rate the candidates' religiosity. Nearly two-thirds say so about Thompson, more than half about Romney. And more than two in 10 couldn't rate Clinton's level of faith.

There is even lower awareness of Giuliani's position on abortion. Overall, about seven in 10 are not sure about the mayor's position on abortion (historically he has staked out a pro-choice stance). Among Republicans, six in 10 didn't give an answer. And more critically, Republican and GOP-leaning voters who know Giuliani is pro-choice are about as likely to view him favorably as those who are not sure.

The poll also reinforces the notion that Romney's Mormonism may have a negative impact on some voters. Here, a quarter of people say they'd be less likely to vote for a Mormon for president, while only 5 percent say they'd be more likely to support a Mormon.

A Muslim candidate would start with a even greater disadvantage - 45 percent would be less likely to support a Muslim candidate - but the biggest negative among those tested in the Pew poll would be a candidate who does not believe in God. More than six in 10 would be less likely to vote for a non-believer. That is another reason it is crucial for candidates to be seen as religious, even if not deeply so.

--Jon Cohen

Labels: candidates, faith, God, Jon Cohen, Pew Research Center survey, politics, religion

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

They can pray; can they lead?

September 4, 2007
Sandy Sasso

This past summer a survey by the Pew Research Center highlighted those characteristics that would make a person less likely to support a presidential candidate. Some of the results were heartening. The majority of respondents said that it made no difference if the candidate were black, Hispanic or a woman. When race, ethnic background and gender no longer determine a person's electability, then we have reason to celebrate.

Such knowledge about the American electorate might help to refocus the questions addressed to candidates. We can stop worrying about whether a person is black enough or woman enough or charismatic enough and start focusing on whether an individual is wise enough, visionary enough and knowledgeable enough to be president.

The survey offered other good news. More than half the people questioned indicated that it made no difference if a candidate were divorced or even had an extramarital affair. Perhaps this is an indication that Americans have decided it is time we stopped prying into candidates' private matters and making soap operas out of the lives of politicians. There is too much at stake for our country and the world.

The truth is that a person who might not be a good choice for a spouse might just be a great president. The truth is that we might just have more people interested in running for office if they had to worry less about skeletons in their home closets and more about domestic and international issues that will affect how secure we feel in our own homes.

But the survey pointed to some reasons for concern. The majority of respondents, 63 percent, indicated that they would be less likely to support a candidate who did not believe in God. That figure is more than 20 percent higher than the 46 percent of people who would be less likely to support a candidate who had no college education. And while Americans seem less concerned than in the past about what particular faith an individual politician affirms, a significant 39 percent would be more likely to support someone who is Christian.

There is reason to worry when issues of faith trump education, when what individuals believe is more important than what they know, when praying is of greater significance than learning.

Those running for office are well aware of the American predilection for belief in God. So they clamor to outdo one another in showing just how pious they are. They know that they have to be religious enough to get elected.

I am a member of the clergy, but I do not feel any more confident in a candidate's ability to run our country when I see him or her coming out of church, synagogue or mosque fresh from worship.

There is no doubt that belief in God can be good. It can be the foundation of moral character, responsibility and compassion. It can be a bulwark against complacency, selfishness and greed. But it isn't always. We all know of those who have professed belief in God and lived immorally. Everywhere in the world, there are people who oppress and go to war in God's name.

Religion can make good people better, but it can also make bad people worse by allowing them to believe without question that their decisions are already endorsed. The results of bad religion continue to make headlines in acts of terrorism, bigotry and violence.

We shouldn't be judging candidates by their professed belief in God or how many times they are seen attending worship services. It doesn't really tell us anything about how they would lead our country. We should rather be examining what policies they endorse, what they have to say about health care, education and poverty, about terrorism, international diplomacy and peace. In the end, that will tell us more about what they really believe in and what kind of leaders they will be.

Labels: clergy, God, leadership, Pew Research Center survey, politics, religion, Sandy Sasso

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Women More Spiritual Than Men

Poll Finds Gender Gap In Beliefs, In Church Attendance And In Practice

By Lynn Doan
September 5, 2007

Kay Bartel and her husband, Fred, went to church every Sunday after they married.

She joined church groups, organized church events and volunteered for church projects.

He put $5 in the offering plate.

"That was the extent of his religion," said Rocky Hill resident Kay Bartel, a 70-year-old Protestant whose husband died in 2000. "He never did do anything else."

Bartel and her husband reflect a persistent, nationwide difference in how women and men view the role of religion in their lives - a difference confirmed in a recent poll of Connecticut residents for The Courant. Thirty percent of women, including Kay Bartel, ranked their religious beliefs as "extremely" important in their lives compared with 22 percent of men in the telephone survey conducted last month by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut.

A significantly larger percentage of women than men also reported attending religious services at least once a week and praying every day, according to the poll, which included the responses of 225 men and 263 women. The margin of sampling error is 4.4 percentage points.

"It's a nationwide phenomenon that women tend to be more spiritual than men," said Monika McDermott, research director of the center.

This "religion gender gap" has baffled experts for decades.

David A. Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, has been studying the gender phenomenon for 40 years, "and I'm still not fully sure why it exists," he said.

"It's just been one of those persistent characteristics of religion in the U.S. that nobody has ever been able to empirically explain," he said. "There have been lots of theories. Back in the '50s, it was because men were in the workplace and women were at home. The workplace was a hard, rash place. Home was a place of nurture."

Then, he said, women joined the workforce and the gender gap remained. Experts began instead attributing the gap to the psychological makeup of men and women but nothing has been scientifically proved, Roozen said.

Manisha Desai, director of the women's studies program at UConn, said women's traditional role as caretakers and "culture-bearers" is what brings them closer to their faiths.

"Women are traditionally the ones who pass down the values of culture and religion," she said, "so they'd of course be more likely to consider their religion more influential in their daily activities, whether it be going to church or watching television."

Thirty percent of women polled said their religious beliefs play a major role in deciding which movies or television programs their families watch compared with 19 percent of men.

Elinor Greenblatt, a poll participant from Norwalk, said she was surprised that the percentages of men who reported attending religious services and praying daily weren't lower. Forty-two percent of men said they pray every day compared with 64 percent of women, and 27.2 percent of men said they attend religious services at least once a week compared with 36.7 percent of women.

"I didn't think there could be that many men [going to religious services]," said Greenblatt, 68, who continued taking her ailing husband to Jewish services in the last years of his life. "If I hadn't pushed it, it wouldn't have happened."

Greenblatt said she even drove her husband every Friday to an Orthodox synagogue, where her presence "didn't count" because she was a woman.

This irony, of some women's fierce loyalty to patriarchal religions, has been the subject of many studies by women's studies experts.

"What we've found is that women can differentiate between the patriarchal religion and the need of all human beings to have a set of beliefs and values as a basis on how to live their lives," Desai said. "We all need music and poetry in our lives, and religion provides the poetry, the music, the companionship, the sharing and the socializing with others."

The Rev. John Gatzak, spokesman for the Hartford Archdiocese, said parishioners also understand that "while we are a church with a male clergy, women have always been the spark of faith that has ignited the hearts of both men and women to take a greater look at God's presence in our lives."

Gatzak said he wasn't surprised at the poll results.

"God speaks to our hearts," he said, "but he takes a lot longer to get through to the heart of a man."

Labels: belief, Center for Survey Research and Analysis, church, Connecticut, gender, God, Lynn Doan, religion, spirituality

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Is West Seattle’s Skate Church an Open-Minded Extension of Religion’s Embrace of Secular Culture?

Or a classic bait and switch?
By Maggie Mertens

The sun is hanging low over the water at Alki Beach, casting streaks of pink and gray that sparkle off the waves as they crash into the sand. Guitar chords float over the crowd of teenagers who have gathered here on a Wednesday evening in late summer. The area around them is littered with guitar cases and skateboards, as a 17-year-old named Jono stands and speaks over the quiet guitar riff.

"I don't know where you are in your walk with God right now, but if you have any doubts, just look at that," he says, turning and pointing at the now-glowing horizon. "Looking at that, there is no way there could be no God; there is no way scientists or whoever could be right about us being created from some blast in space. That should be all the proof you need."

Jono is a member of Skate Church, a West Seattle congregation that hosts youth-focused events ranging from skateboarding to rock concerts to paintball excursions. "We believe having fun is not a sin," says 20-year-old Pastor Brennan Pebbles, when asked what makes Skate Church different from most youth groups today.

Pebbles can be found most days at TORN, an Alaska Junction skate shop that doubles as Skate Church's sanctuary. The rectangular store has couches instead of pews, energy drinks and candy instead of coffee and doughnuts, and a drum set and several amps in its worship center. Pebbles wanted to create a place where teens would choose to come and hang out, and not just once a week. He believes "just coming together on Sundays is not church, because church should be something that is happening all the time." To keep the congregation coming back the rest of the week, the store also contains a PlayStation video game console, skating footage projected on a huge hanging screen, and skateboard decks and related paraphernalia for everyone to drool over and consider purchasing.

After bouncing from space to space for about five years in search of a place that would play host to their youthful vision, Skate Church's founding pastor, Serena Wastman (a parent of one of the youth congregants), hooked up with the open-minded Foursquare denomination, which agreed to help the congregation find a permanent home. Foursquare, which was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923, has a fairly tolerant faith doctrine, and church planting and missionary work are among its foremost goals.

On June 22, TORN opened its doors on California Avenue, selling skateboarding products at discount prices, thanks in no small part to the church's nonprofit status and all-volunteer staff. Here, name-brand skate decks go for up to $20 less than at the store's secular counterparts, and flyers advertise TORN as the best place for candy and energy drinks because the shop is "cheaper than 7-11...closer than Safeway."

Like the handful of churches that are experiencing youthful population growth right now, Skate Church is giving teens what they want: life answers, an accepting peer group, and plenty of energy drinks to boot. Says 16-year-old member Chris Redman, "When we started thinking about starting a church, skating was just starting to blow up, and we thought...kids will just, like, flock to us."

If this sounds like a church only a teenager could dream of, that's because it is. But while their alternative looks may suggest the sort of open-minded beliefs usually associated with the skating scene, chip away to Skate Church's conservative ideological core, and the whole pierced-eyebrow facade begins to look a lot like a classic bait and switch.

Among the photos that plaster the walls of TORN, one stands out. It shows a picture of a boy dressed like Marilyn Manson: the long hair, the piercings, the makeup, the black leather. The words next to this portrait read: "What is wrong with this picture?" Underneath that: "Absolutely nothing."

Youth pastor Pebbles goes on to explain Skate Church's cultural tolerance thusly: "Jesus says you should be in the world, but not of the world. We should be hanging out with the druggies on the street, but not like them. And sure, I love all the crazy music out there.If you start doing what the music says, though, that's another story."

In the words of Katie Corcoran, a Ph.D. student who teaches sociology of religion at the University of Washington, Skate Church "can give [young people] the best of both worlds: a strong religious identity, but also allow them to be a part of that secular world that is so important to youth of today."

While Jono hopes people will become more tolerant of the clothes his congregation dons and encourages people to "look on the inside," this mind-set apparently only holds for certain societal deviants. These Christian teens may be clamoring to escape what they deem "conservative" churches, but don't think that means the religious right is going to topple any time soon—it's just getting a face-lift.

One Sunday evening at a Skate Church service, Wastman, the senior pastor, encourages the young evangelists not to "believe for one minute what I have to say, or what any televangelist has to say. You go home and you look it up." Wastman then holds up her Bible, emphasizing her belief that open-mindedness ends somewhere between the books of Genesis and Revelation.

A well-respected granddad to the Seattle skating scene, Inner Space Indoor Skatepark owner Mike Martinez has watched Christian groups embrace skateboarding for the last decade to varying degrees. And while he feels some of these organizations are mostly harmless, he adds, "Skateboarding is a cool thing because it's artistic and kind of free. To use it as a tool to get people into religion, I don't really support that."

On the other hand, one of Martinez's best friends, Scott Yamamura, is a skater for West Coast Christian skating group Boarders for Christ. Martinez even hosts BFC events at his park, explaining that the group doesn't use skating as an evangelical tool. "When they throw a contest, it's just a regular contest," he says. "It's not really preaching; they are just supporting skateboarding."

Recently, though, Martinez attended a skating event in Redmond that he knew was being put on by a Christian skating group. He assumed it to be like the BFC events: mostly skating, not so much praying. Martinez says he was more than appalled by what he found when he got there.

"It felt like it was a cult," Martinez says, sounding genuinely disturbed as he describes the fenced-off, deserted area surrounding the event, the booths of preachers and groups of kids praying and preaching, and the skating gear being sold that was designed to look just like popular skating brands—but actually contained Christian messages. His language grows colorful as he remembers the image that greeted him when he first walked in: "Big huge posters of aborted fetuses, not just one, but five in a row.[They're] the first thing you see, and I'm thinking, 'Holy shit! What the hell is going on?'"

But for the most part, skaters aren't fazed anymore by the Christian involvement in their sport. Martinez, who witnesses the skating demographic daily at his park, agrees. "There is definitely a section of skateboarding that is Christian, but it's not as dominant as [Christians] would want it to be. Most kids are just like, 'Fuck that shit. Whatever.' A lot of kids laugh at that stuff."

Chris Redman is playing with his skateboard under his feet at the front desk of TORN. Redman came to Christianity without any prior religious experience; in fact, he came because he was falling in with a bad crowd. A few years ago, he was spending his time hanging out with a group of skaters who were into vandalism, drugs, and drinking, and after getting arrested a couple of times himself for vandalism, Redman followed a friend to Skate Church.

"When I was, like, 13, I had to look up what being baptized was. I wasn't exposed to anything until I started going to youth group," he says. Today, Redman takes that experience of knowing what troubled teens are looking for to the streets, and to skateboard parks. "We don't try to slam kids with a whole bunch of church stuff. We just hang out, maybe skate, and become friends [with them]; then we'll do what we do...[and] that gives them a choice whether they want to follow us and follow God, or just watch."

Reaching out to the younger generation is a goal many churches have found themselves struggling with of late. The "old people in pews" stereotype that Roberts refers to at more traditional churches may become a reality as the young-adult age group dwindles.

Pastor Don Horrell at Haller Lake Baptist Church in North Seattle describes his congregation as "the mostly 55 and better crowd." Haller Lake holds two services on Sundays, the people sit in pews, and congregants are promised "a welcome smile and a warm handshake," as well as "traditional coffee time" after services.

Facing the problem of disappearing youth, Horrell has begun to blend the traditional hymns sung at Sunday service with a few contemporary Christian songs, but without much benefit. When it comes to secularism, though, Horrell draws the line deep, without even considering touting music that isn't found in the "Christian music" section as acceptable. "Rock music can be Christian music; we can certainly use Christian rock music," he says. "There is nothing inherently right or wrong about that."

While churches like Haller Lake struggle to reach out to the youth generation without giving up their traditional theologies, churches like Mars Hill in Ballard (with a satellite congregation in West Seattle), which employs elements of popular culture in its sermons and puts on edgy Christian music concerts, and South Seattle's Christian Faith Center, which podcasts youth sermons on its Web site and has youth services that look more like rock concerts, have two of the largest youth congregations in the Seattle area.

According to UW's Corcoran, churches that embrace secular culture are becoming increasingly popular as a way to reach out to youth. "In the past, groups have had very conservative theologies that haven't really ever attracted youth, specifically if it says you can't listen to rock music," she says. "Now they are keeping their theologies the same but are changing the packaging and saying that [youth] can still listen to rock music or skateboard, but can do so in a way that's still religious."

Skate Church's teaching pastor, 16-year-old Jackson Neumiller, experienced this antipathy for the traditional Christian setting at a young age. She often tells people, "I did grow up going to church, but I didn't like it. I was the kind of kid who skipped Sunday school.I never came to Christ when I was younger because I couldn't relate to a 59-year-old man in a robe."

Neumiller wasn't the only one contemplating religious rebellion at age 10. Her good friend Natalie Wastman and a group of skating seventh-graders all felt as if they were a burden to the rest of the church they were attending at the time. Their old church may not have realized the role secularism played in their unhappiness, but Serena Wastman, Natalie's mother and current senior pastor of Skate Church, sure did.

Wastman, a retired Microsoft employee, fits right in with the young congregation. A woman of small stature with a youthful, pretty face, she walks around the TORN store barefoot. Folding her legs under her on the couch next to Natalie and her friends, she joins in on jokes about explosives on the Fourth of July and discusses horror movies.

"This is completely run by the kids," she insists, before pausing for a moment and smiling at the group around her. "But, you know, we have to have adults around, just to make sure nothing insane happens."

Jono rings up a boy for a snack-size bag of Cheetos and a Dr Pepper at the TORN cash register during West Seattle Summerfest. Around TORN, Jono is a leader: He knows the products they sell, organizes people at events, and wants to go to school to become a youth pastor and a cop. His jovial personality and sweet demeanor peg him immediately as the lovable, high-school class-clown type. He was a skater when the group was just beginning, but later shattered his ankle, an injury from which he is still recovering.

While having to quit skating didn't keep Jono from his Skate Church friends, it had other impacts on his social life. "I used to have a whole bunch of friends [who were skaters but not Christian]," he says. "[But] over the years, I lost connection with them. Those friends did a whole bunch of stuff I just wasn't into."

Having to make social sacrifices is one thing, but when it comes to religion, many kids face resistance at home as well. "My parents say they're Christian, but you know, they don't go to church or anything," says Jono. "My dad thought I was being brainwashed or something."

For teens who see other kids getting themselves in trouble every day, the ability to choose Jesus over drugs is a lot easier when you have a group of friends who will support your decision. Shiloh Mulkin, 17, goes to Chief Sealth, a school he describes as "very nonreligious." But even when he is laughed at or turned down when he invites people at school to Skate Church events, he still stands strong in his desire to change the skater image for the benefit of his, as well as future, generations. "A lot of the skating scene that I've witnessed is drugs and stuff, and we're just trying to give kids a different alternative," he says. "We don't want people to see just smoking and doing drugs and skating, and see them as all together."

Different churches are treating secular influences with varying degrees of acceptance. "It is probably healthier to find out where it is that God is moving and get in on that, rather than saying, 'This is where the culture is at, let me get in on that,' and bring God there," says Seattle First Covenant Church's pastor, Mark Nilson.

Serena Wastman and her Skate Church charges, however, know exactly where the culture is moving and aren't afraid to incorporate it into their religion. Pebbles remembers thinking when they first had their vision of a youth church that catered specifically to skaters, "We could reach out to the more lost or harder to reach—skaters, alcoholics, those type of people who love music—[then] develop a way to draw them in by [using] events, demos, and heavy-metal music."

Pebbles himself was a skater when the church started, and like many of the other founding members, he had a desire to become the shepherd for their "more lost" skater friends. Catering to this crowd, however, means the leaders of Skate Church don't expect perfection. One afternoon, a group of teens are gathered at TORN, and a boy playing PlayStation screams, "Oh man! What the hell was that!?" as his character dies on-screen.

Natalie Wastman, Neumiller, and Roberts don't even flinch at this outburst. Natalie explains that at Skate Church, things like swearing are accepted—even encouraged, if that's how you would normally act. "We always say who you are away from church is who you should be at church, too," she says. "So if you swear outside of church, then you should feel comfortable to swear here. Then we work on our problems together, here, as a group.

These youth might tell you it is God's choice as to what words come out of their mouths, but regardless of what they say, naturally these lessons of faith will be a lot more credible to other teens when they hear them from people their own age.

The elder Wastman welcomes everyone to service, while behind her the worship team begins to play music, and she opens in enthusiastic prayer. "We pray that thy kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven," she says. "We lift up Jesus as a banner; Lord God be glorified in every way. We lift you up, we give all glory and honor to you, Lord Jesus; we lift you up. In Jesus' name, Amen." She then cues the worship team: "Let's rock! Amen."

Chris Redman pounds the drum set in front of him, closing his eyes at times while his lips move to the lyrics of the Christian song. The pounding syncopation and piercing electric guitar inspire a moshlike atmosphere in the front two rows. Pebbles encourages the congregation to "lose it for God," saying God won't answer them unless they clap and raise their hands energetically.

Serena Wastman joins the crowd, barefoot and full of energy, jumping up and down and throwing her hands in the air. Whooping along to the music, she runs circles around the rest of the congregation, which claps and sings, rocking out for Jesus.

Labels: God, Jesus, Maggie Mertens, religion, Seattle, Serena Wastman, Skate Church, teenagers

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Shrinking religion

SURVEY | A third of psychiatrists do not believe in God -- so where does that leave religious patients?

September 3, 2007
BY Jim Ritter

A new survey has found that psychiatrists are much less religious than other doctors.
Decades after Sigmund Freud declared religion an "illusion," the rift between religion and psychiatry seems to be as wide as ever.

The survey found that 17 percent of psychiatrists have no religious affiliation, compared with 10 percent of other doctors.

One-third of psychiatrists do not believe in God and fewer than one-half believe in life after death. Only 29 percent attend religious services twice a month or more, compared with 47 percent of other doctors.

"Religious patients who prefer to see like-minded psychiatrists may have difficulty finding a match," University of Chicago researcher Dr. Farr Curlin and colleagues wrote in the journal Psychiatric Services.

Researchers asked non-psychiatrist doctors how they would refer a hypothetical patient who is deep in grief two months after the death of his wife. Religious doctors were more willing to refer patients to clergy members or religious counselors and less willing to refer to psychiatrists.

Researchers surveyed 1,144 doctors, including 100 psychiatrists. Twenty-nine percent of psychiatrists were Jewish, compared with 13 percent of other doctors.

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, knocked religion. While psychiatrists have largely replaced Freud's talk therapy with drug therapy, Freud "remains a very dominant figure within psychiatry," said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, a Duke University psychiatrist and co-author of the study.

Religion is faith-based, while psychiatry is science-based. Some psychiatrists have expressed fears that religious influences might destabilize patients, Koenig said.

Koenig has heard anecdotal reports that as recently as the early 1990s, patients in at least one psychiatric ward were prohibited from having Bibles, and chaplains could not visit without a psychiatrist's permission.

Clergy as competition?

Some psychiatrists also might see the clergy as competition, Koenig said, although as many as 80 percent of patients with mental disorders could benefit by seeing clergy members.

Some studies have shown practicing religion can be good for your mental health. And in recent years, there has been a movement to merge psychiatry and religion. Christianpsychiatry.com connects patients to psychiatrists and other providers who believe prayer "can be a powerful adjunct to their treatment."

Despite such fledgling cooperation between religion and psychiatry, "the long-standing tension seems to be an enduring one," Curlin said.

Labels: God, Jim Ritter, mental health, Psychiatric Services, psychiatrist, religion, Sigmund Freud

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Sunday, September 02, 2007

Doing Good, and Feeling Better

Why Giving Back Could Make You Happier … and Healthier

By John Stossel and Sylvia Johnson
Aug. 20, 2007

How good would it feel if someone just gave you $1,000?

Last fall, Oprah Winfrey thrilled audience members with these words: "You will each go home with $1,000."

Then she said there was a catch: "You have to spend the money on someone other than your family."

They still applauded, but the smiles looked a little forced.

Yet maybe she did her audience a favor, because even though the audience had to give the money away, it could get back even more than they gave.

Stephen Post explains why in his new book, "Why Good Things Happen to Good People."
He reveals that new science shows giving -- money or time -- not only feels just as good as getting, but can actually improve your health.

"Giving is as good for the giver as it is for the receiver. Science says it's so. We'll be happier, healthier, and even -- odds are -- live a little longer if we're generous," Post said.

"Public health isn't just about bugs and staying away from lead. It's about doing unto others, and at the right dose, science says it's very good for you," he said.

Arthur Brooks, author of the new book, "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," also knows a lot about the current research on charity.
Brooks said, "There's evidence that it helps people with their asthma, in cardiovascular disease, weight loss, insomnia. When people have a lot of happiness, they do a lot better in their health as well."

Helping Others, Healing Themselves

That was true for former heart patients at Duke University Medical Center.
They were asked to visit current heart patients -- no particular agenda, just to listen and lend support. By doing that, the volunteers had better health after their heart attacks.

A similar study at the University of Miami by Dr. Gail Ironson followed HIV patients who volunteered, like Katherine Marshall Scott, who talks to teenagers about avoiding infection, and Stephen Baker, who counsels fellow HIV survivors.
These and other HIV patients who helped others had lower stress levels and higher immune resistance.

Scott's disease-fighting cells went up, from 200 to 800.

Baker says he could feel how volunteering improved his health.

"To get involved with someone else's problems makes your problems look a lot less," he said.

Service Learning

Many high schools require their students to volunteer.

It's called service learning. And oddly, even though the charity is forced, it still brings happy results. Teachers say students who volunteer raise their grades, and get higher SAT scores.

Abington High School student Jeff Rohrback said, "After service learning started, I got so involved into it, I started paying attention more, picked up my grades."
So "20/20" decided to see whether we could find a similar effect.

We put an ad on Craigslist recruiting people who were not currently volunteers. We introduced them to Post, and asked them to try it for one week.

But first, Post had them fill out a questionnaire that asked how they felt about life, like how often during the week they felt calm and peaceful.

Children for Children, whose mission is to get children involved in giving, agreed to help us, as did the Salvation Army, which has many different programs, from soup kitchens to after-school activities for kids.

Then off they went -- bringing donated books to children at an elementary school, then reading to the kids and making scarves with the kids. One spent time in a truck handing out food to the poor. All four worked at a Harlem soup kitchen.

One week later we had them answer that questionnaire again.

This time their answers about how often they felt "calm and peaceful" changed from some of the time to most of the time.

The Helpers' High

"The helper's high has been measured physically," Post said. "We know there's an actual physiological state. It's quite euphoric."

The helper's high shows up in MRI brain scans.

People who give money show brain activity that's associated with feel-good chemicals like dopamine -- the same brain activity that happens when you receive money.
National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Jordan Grafman showed us the brain scans.

"Those brain structures that are activated when you get a reward are the same ones that are activated when you give. In fact, they're activated more," he told us.
We asked our volunteers after their week of service who had gotten more out of the experience: the people they helped, or they themselves?

Volunteer Daniel Smith didn't hesitate with his answer. "No brainer. Me, definitely."

Lelani Clark also felt renewed from her single week of volunteering.

"I just felt energized," she said. "We were so caught up in this energy of helping that it was like a buzz -- like a spiritual buzz."

Winfrey's audience members reported that, too. After a week of giving money away, many said they were changed.

Maybe we should call it selfish to help others, because it seems to help the givers more.

"If you want to define selfishness so widely as to include the warm glow that people feel in the aftermath of selflessly giving to others, guess what, we need more of it, not less of it," Post said.

So try it.

Get out and give your money or your time. You'll help someone else. … And you'll feel good, too.

This story originally aired on December 1, 2006.

Labels: 20/20, Arthur Brooks, charity, generosity, health, John Stossel, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Post, students, Sylvia Johnson

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Saturday, September 01, 2007

Religion Shaping Race and Defining Candidates

August 27, 2007
New York Daily News

NEW YORK - A crowd cheered fervently in Iowa this month as Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback quoted Mother Teresa telling him, "All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus."

Barack Obama's recently launched Spanish-language radio ad in Nevada tells the targeted Hispanic audience, "Barack Obama is a Christian man."

Hillary Clinton doesn't hesitate to let voters know the importance of prayer in her life, while Rudy Giuliani awkwardly dodges questions about his standing as a Catholic.

And then there's Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Everywhere he goes, Romney faces questions about his Mormon faith.

Religion has played a role in presidential elections throughout history. But not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic elected to the White House, has it been as omnipresent on the campaign trail.

Historians and political experts say it's unlikely religion - or social issues embraced by Christian conservatives - will dominate the 2008 path to the Oval Office because the war in Iraq and homeland security seem uppermost in voters' minds.

"Nothing in the conversation, thus far, makes it sound like gay marriage and abortion are going to outshine the war," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center.

But there's no escaping religion on the campaign trail. While other issues loom large, voters want to know where candidates stand when it comes to faith.

Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School and professor of church history, said the campaign now under way showcases the nation's "continuing religious saga."

A century ago, "nobody would have believed" a Catholic could be elected president, Leonard said. The 2008 race is "just another illustration of the power of pluralism in American religious experience, that indeed a Catholic was elected and that indeed a Mormon is running as such a potentially viable candidate."

Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center survey revealed religion continues to play a role in shaping voters' decisions. Nearly four in 10 Americans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is Christian, and 63 percent would not support a candidate who doesn't believe in God.

The poll showed 30 percent of Americans admitting they were less likely to vote for a Mormon. That hurdle rises to 46 percent for a Muslim.

For Clinton and Giuliani, the two New Yorkers seeking the Oval Office, the role of religion in their campaigns is a study in contrasts.

Clinton, a Methodist, talks freely about the power of prayer in her life. She's spoken publicly about how religion helped her overcome tough struggles, most notably her decision to forgive infidelity in her marriage.

"Obviously, my faith was crucial to the challenges I faced," Clinton recently told The New York Times, when asked whether her religion influenced her to stay married to Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky affair.

But Giuliani, who had an affair with his current wife while married to his second wife, took a virtual vow of silence when asked in Iowa this month about his religious beliefs.

"My religious affiliation ... and the degree to which I am a good or not-so-good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests," said Giuliani, who once considered becoming a priest.

Former Sen. John Edwards, a Methodist, sparked controversy when he cited his faith as influencing his opposition to same-sex marriage. Later, at a forum on gay issues, he recanted. "I shouldn't have said that," said Edwards, drawing applause.

Many candidates, especially Democrats, feel compelled to discuss religion openly because President Bush's profession of faith played a prominent role in his successful 2000 and 2004 White House bids, giving the religious right plenty of political clout.

But when it comes time to pulling the lever, most experts said they doubt religion will be the deciding factor.

"There are some regions of the country where religious ideology and a certain kind of (faith) shape voters' decisions very much," Leonard said. But bottom line, Americans "want to know who is going to get us home from Iraq, and are any more bridges going to fall down, and what do we still do about New Orleans."

Labels: Barack Obama, faith, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Pew Research Center survey, politics, religion, Sam Brownback, voters

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Scientists, Evangelicals Team Up For Alaska Expedition

Date: August 30, 2007

Science Daily — The historic collaboration between leading scientists and Evangelicals to protect the environment, spearheaded by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) continues this week with a trip to Alaska.

A group of five scientists and five evangelical leaders began traveling together on August 25th to observe first- hand the dramatic effects of climate change on local people and on the land, ocean, plants, and wildlife of the nation's northernmost state.

"The goal of our trip is to witness together what human-caused climate change is doing to our world," said co-leader of the trip Eric Chivian, who shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize and is Director of the HMS Center. "While this collaboration may come as a surprise to some, it makes perfect sense. Both scientists and Evangelicals see life on earth as sacred and share the same deep sense of responsibility about protecting it."

"The idea is for all of us to experience what human activity is doing to God's Creation so that we can understand the urgent importance of caring for it," added expedition co- leader Rev. Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the NAE. "We dare to imagine a world in which science and religion cooperate, minimizing our differences about how Creation got started, to work together to reverse its degradation."

Led by a naturalist from Homer, Carmen Field, the group began its journey with a two-day stop in Shishmaref, a traditional Inupiaq Eskimo village in the Bering Strait with a population of about 500 people. The Inupiats have inhabited this village, located on Sarichef Island in the Chukchi Sea, for over 400 years. Because of melting sea ice and permafrost, however, the village is at high risk from storm surge erosion, and already 14 houses have fallen into the sea in recent years, raising concern that the village will soon need to be relocated to the mainland.

"People in the Arctic are among the most vulnerable on Earth due to the impacts of climate change," said James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University, an expert on climate change and the Arctic, and President-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific society. "They depend on intact sea ice and permafrost, both of which are rapidly disappearing, for their hunting and fishing, indeed for their very lives."

The group will also stop at Portage and Exit glaciers to witness the rapid, unprecedented melting of glacial ice, and at the Kenai Peninsula, where more than three million acres of spruce forests have been killed by exploding populations of Spruce Bark Beetles, brought on by warming temperatures.

During the week-long expedition the group will meet with scientists, physicians, local church leaders, and evangelical pastors in Shishmaref, Anchorage, and Homer to learn directly from Alaskans about how they are coping with the effects of climate change. Leith Anderson, Senior Pastor of Wooddale Church and President of the NAE said, "It is very important to involve Alaskan pastors in our work, for they are central in helping to spread the message about the importance of Creation Care."

The Scientists-Evangelical Alaska Expedition grew out of a collaboration that began at a two-day private retreat in December 2006 attended by 30 leaders from the scientific and evangelical communities. The retreat led to close relationships of mutual trust and understanding among the participants and to the release in January 2007 of an "Urgent Call to Action," a pledge that these leaders would speak with one voice in their shared commitment to protect life on Earth.

Trip Participants:

Leith Anderson D.Min, M.Div., President, National Association of Evangelicals; Senior Pastor, Wooddale Church
Eric Chivian M.D., Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School; Shared 1985 Nobel Peace Prize
Richard Cizik M.Div, M.A., Vice President for Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals
Deborah Fikes M.A., Advisor, Ministerial Alliance of Midland, Texas; Special Advisor to Governor Kim Moon-soo, Republic of Korea; Advisory Committee, Senator Sam Brownback; President; D.H. Fikes International Inc.
Peter Heltzel Ph.D., M.Div., Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology, New York Theological Seminary
Harry Jackson D.Div, M.B.A., Bishop and Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
James McCarthy Ph.D., Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University
Camille Parmesan Ph.D., Associate Professor, Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas
Peter Raven Ph.D., President, Missouri Botanical Garden; George Engelmann Professor of Botany, Washington University
Carl Safina Ph.D., President, Blue Ocean Institute; Adjunct Professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Harvard Medical School.

Labels: Alaska, evangelicals, global warming, God, Harvard Medical School, National Association of Evangelicals, religion, scientists

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The Relationship Between Psychiatry and Religion Among U.S. Physicians

Farr A. Curlin, M.D., Shaun V. Odell, B.A., Ryan E. Lawrence, M.Div., Marshall H. Chin, M.D., M.P.H., John D. Lantos, M.D., Keith G. Meador, M.D. and Harold G. Koenig, M.D.

OBJECTIVE: This study compared the religious characteristics of psychiatrists with those of other physicians and explored whether nonpsychiatrist physicians who are religious are less willing than their colleagues to refer patients to psychiatrists and psychologists.

METHODS: Surveys were mailed to a stratified random sample of 2,000 practicing U.S. physicians, with an oversampling of psychiatrists. Physicians were queried about their religious characteristics. They also read a brief vignette about a patient with ambiguous psychiatric symptoms and were asked whether they would refer the patient to a clergy member or religious counselor, or to a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

RESULTS: A total of 1,144 physicians completed the survey, including 100 psychiatrists.

Compared with other physicians, psychiatrists were more likely to be Jewish (29% versus 13%) or without a religious affiliation (17% versus 10%), less likely to be Protestant (27% versus 39%) or Catholic (10% versus 22%), less likely to be religious in general, and more likely to consider themselves spiritual but not religious (33% versus 19%).

Nonpsychiatrist physicians who were religious were more willing to refer patients to clergy members or religious counselors (multivariate odds ratios from 2.9 to 5.7) and less willing to refer patients to psychiatrists or psychologists (multivariate odds ratios from .4 to .6).

CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatrists are less religious than other physicians, and religious physicians are less willing than nonreligious physicians to refer patients to psychiatrists. These findings suggest that historic tensions between religion and psychiatry continue to shape the care that patients receive for mental health concerns.

Labels: mental health, psychiatrist, Psychiatry Online, religion

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