TruthBook Religious News Blog

12.18.2009 9:58 am
By David Lancaster

22% of Christians surveyed by the Pew poll believe in astrology.

Yesterday’s Colleen Carroll Campbell column shifts the blame for the secularization of Christmas away from atheists and other no-good-niks and puts it squarely on the shoulders of confused Christians, citing a fascinating Pew poll that reveals an un-biblical stew of religious concepts—including reincarnation, astrology and tree spirits—infiltrating the beliefs of American Christians.

"Theological confusion and consumerism among Christians," writes Campbell, "pose far greater threats to the Christian character of Christmas than anything the ACLU or American Humanist Association could cook up."

I agree that Christmas has evolved into the current orgy of consumption almost exclusively at the hands of Christians. I disagree that a belief in astrology has anything to do with it.

The consumerist nature of Christmas has grown alongside (and abetted) the American economy and parents’ increasing ability to get their kids anything they want. The very basic human desire to provide for the health and happiness of one’s child sees its ultimate expression in the whoops of joy on Christmas morning. There is scarcely a parent on earth of any faith who wouldn’t shower his or her offspring with the equivalent of American Christmas if they had the resources to do so. Our genetically programmed parental instincts armed with greater buying power have de-Christianized Christmas, not theological confusion.

But back to the poll. The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that "large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices, mixing elements of diverse traditions."

How diverse?

Please click on "external source" to find out...

Labels: David Lancaster, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religious practice

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Religious freedom not the rule for majority of world: Pew report

The majority of the world – seven in 10 – lives in countries with high restrictions on religious freedom, according to a newly released Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report.

By Taylor Barnes Correspondent / December 18, 2009

The majority of countries and territories across the world have laws or constitutions calling for freedom of religion. But religious freedom is not the reality for the majority of the globe’s people.

Nearly 70 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with "high" or "very high" religious restriction – that's the finding of a first-of-its-kind Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey. It notes that some of the strictest countries in the world are also the most populous. But no nation is fully free of religious restriction, it adds.

"We found that there’s sort of no discrimination in terms of who gets abused or discriminated against. Every religious group experiences discrimination of one sort or another," says Pew Senior Researcher Brian Grim. For example, he says, even members of a nation’s majority faith often come under restrictions. Largely Christian or Muslim countries, for example, still may discriminate against particular Christian or Muslim sects. "It is an unfortunately shared experience."

The study is unique because it quantifies the levels of social hostilities and government actions that restrict practice of religions in 198 countries and self-governing territories. These include crimes motivated by religious bias and religion-related terrorism, as well as restrictive laws or state favoritism. Countries such as China and Vietnam, Dr. Grim notes, have high levels of government control but relatively low social hostilities among religious groups. (See chart.)

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: government, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religious freedom, Taylor Barnes

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, June 26, 2009

Can Science and Religion Co-Exist in Harmony?

June 22, 2009

Some of the nation's leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2009 for the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life.

Francis S. Collins, the former director of the Human Genome Project and an evangelical Christian, discussed why he believes religion and science are compatible and why the current conflict over evolution vs. faith, particularly in the evangelical community, is unnecessary.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty, the religion correspondent for National Public Radio, discussed how the brain reacts to spiritual experiences and her belief that people can look at scientific evidence and conclude that everything is explained by material means or look at the universe and see the hand of God.

Speaker: Francis S. Collins, Former Director, National Human Genome Research Institute

Respondent: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Religion Correspondent, National Public Radio

Moderator: Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics and Public Policy Center;

Senior Adviser, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

In the following excerpt ellipses have been omitted to facilitate reading. Read the full transcript, including audience discussion at pewforum.org.

FRANCIS COLLINS: I'll spend most of the time [today] talking about the current conflict that appears, at least in this country, to be a rather unpleasant one, where the voices that are arguing that science and faith are incompatible are actually quite loud -- even shrill at times. I'll offer up from my own perspective why that conflict is an unnecessary one and provide some possibilities of how it might be resolved in a way that I think would be good for our future...

Please click on "external source" to read the entire article, and also, to access the full transcript of this most insightful and important discussion regarding the compatibility of science and religion.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, faith, Francis Collins, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, science

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, May 01, 2009

Survey: Half of U.S. adults have switched religions

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

About half of all Americans have switched religions at least once, according to the most in-depth survey on the topic, released Monday.

And that may still be "a conservative estimate," says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pew's new survey is based on re-contacting 2,800 people from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people, released last year. Pew estimated at the time that about 44% of Americans have changed religions. It now says between 47% and 59% have, if you count the millions who once switched but have returned to their childhood faith.

The Flux questionaire was conducted in English and Spanish between Oct. 3 and Nov 7. The findings are focused on Catholics, Protestants and the unaffiliated. There were too few converts to or from Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and other religions to analyze their views, researchers said.

Both the original Religious Landscape Survey, and the new survey are snapshots in time, so it's not possible to tell whether America has always been a bubbling chemistry lab of religious change. But this is the first to spell out the switches in such detail, establishing a baseline to measure future changes, and potential problems.

Please click on "external link" for the entire article. This is only a small snapshot of the information contained in it.

Labels: Cathy Lynn Grossman, Flux, Luis Lugo, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, pew Religious Landscape Survey, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, April 17, 2009

Religion in America: A many splendored thing

By ARTURO MORA

Should America be guided by any specific religious viewpoint? You’d think the answer was obvious, considering the First Amendment.

Yet there are politicians and religious leaders who insist we are a Christian nation, and demand the majority religion should set the rules. They want it to dictate our laws, our education system, and even how we shop. (“There’s a “War on Christmas!” they complain.)

But are we a Christian nation?

The Pew survey also showed a lot of movement between religions. Americans are searching for meaning in their lives, and they care less about specific creeds or traditional faith lines.

For example, few in the survey said they were Buddhists. Yet mindfulness practice and meditation have grown beyond the fads they once were. Popular writers such as Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Thich Nhat Hanh mix Eastern and Western spiritual teachings. God, they say, is not Christian or Buddhist. God is just God.

So even if we were to agree Christianity should set the rules, whose Christianity would that be exactly?

Instead of claiming you’re oppressed, instead of yelling at one another, how about we talk to each other?

A relative of mine, a traditional Christian, called last year during a health crisis, and asked, “Have you thought that maybe the reason you got sick is you’re worshipping the wrong God?”

I explained the Buddha is not a God, and described what God meant to me. We talked for an hour about the role spirituality plays in our lives, and she directed me to a wonderful passage in Philippians (4:6-8), which helped me through my crisis. I go back to it often.

I’d love to have such discussions with many traditional Christians. If you see God and Jesus in a traditional way, or take the Bible as literal truth, I respect your beliefs.

Labels: America, Arturo Mora, Christianity, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, April 10, 2009

Christians' Views on the Return of Christ

April 9, 2009

For many Christians, Easter is the most important religious holiday of the year — a time to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and look forward to the Second Coming. According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, fully 79% of Christians in the U.S. say they believe that Christ will return to Earth someday. There is less agreement among Christians, however, over the timing and circumstances of his return.

Please click on "external source" to access the chart which displays the findings of this survey.

Labels: Christian, Jesus, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, resurrection

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, February 09, 2009

Just before Darwin day, Pew reviews faith and evolution in U.S.

February 5th, 2009
Tom Heneghan

Please see complete article for links to this study. Click on "external source" at the end of this article.

Just in time for Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday next week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has posted an extensive research package examining the debate about evolution, Darwinism and religion in the United States. “The Debate over Evolution” is a treasure trove of information about the debate and especially useful for the lists breaking down views of the main religious groups and the political fight over Darwinism state by state.

Labels: Charles Darwin, evolution, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, The Debate over Evolution, Tom Heneghan

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, January 30, 2009

New Analysis Finds African-Americans are Markedly More Religious Than Overall U.S. Population

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the eve of Black History Month, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life released a new analysis (http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=389) that paints a detailed religious portrait of African-Americans. The analysis finds that African-Americans are markedly more religious than the U.S. population as a whole on a variety of measures, including reporting a religious affiliation, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and the importance of religion in people's lives.

Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another. The analysis also finds that nearly eight-in-ten African-Americans (79%) say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56% among all U.S. adults.

These are among many findings of the new Pew Forum analysis detailing the unique nature of religion in the African-American community. Other highlights include:

* A large majority of African-Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular faith (72%) say religion plays at least a somewhat important role in their lives; nearly half (45%) of unaffiliated African-Americans say religion is very important in their lives, roughly three times the percentage who says this among the religiously unaffiliated population overall (16%).

* African-Americans express a high degree of comfort with religion's role in politics, with roughly six-in-ten saying that houses of worship should express their views on social and political topics and roughly half saying that there has been too little expression of faith and prayer by political leaders. At the same time, most African-Americans support certain restrictions on the mingling of politics and religious institutions, with nearly six-in-ten (58%) saying that churches and other houses of worship should refrain from endorsing political candidates.

* The link between religion and some social and political attitudes in the African-American community is similar to that seen among the population overall. For instance, just as in the general public, African-Americans who are more religiously observant are more likely to oppose abortion and homosexuality and more likely to report higher levels of conservative ideology.

* On a variety of other questions, including political party identification and opinions about the proper role of government in providing services to the citizenry and assistance to the poor, there are few differences in the views of African-Americans across religious groups. Perhaps most strikingly, the partisan leanings of African-Americans from every religious background tilt heavily in the Democratic direction.

The analysis is based on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Forum in 2007 and released in 2008, as well as other Pew Research Center surveys.

The report is for immediate release and is available online at http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=389.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life delivers timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Pew Forum is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organization and does not take positions on policy debates. Based in Washington, D.C., the Pew Forum is a project of the Pew Research Center, which is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Labels: African-Americans, faith, government, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religious belief

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Role Of Denominations Change In Modern Church

By The Associated Press, Associated Press (AP)
CLAYTON, N.C. -

If American religion is a spiritual shopping center, denominations that once dominated the market are in danger of being boarded up.

A major survey of 35,000 Americans released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life confirms the long-held belief that denominational loyalty is fraying - and those with much at stake include both mainline Protestant and evangelical churches.

Sociologists point to many factors in the erosion of denominational loyalty, including a transient population less anchored to one city or job and the rise of individualized faith, including people who borrow from many traditions.

The Pew survey found many Americans don't want to be associated with denominations, even when they belong to one. People who call themselves "just a Protestant" account for 5 percent of the adult U.S. population.

Even when given the chance to choose from specific denominations, many people said, "I'm just a Baptist," for instance - even though the Baptist family ranges from strongly conservative to smaller liberal traditions.

About 16 percent of Americans are unaffiliated with any religious tradition - an increase from earlier surveys - although many of those say faith is important to them. Nearly half of American adults have left behind the faith tradition of their upbringing.

One key finding of the Pew survey: Nondenominational Protestants are growing in number, and tend to be younger. About three-quarters of nondenominational Protestants fall under the evangelical tradition, said Greg Smith, a research associate with the Pew Forum. But in a conclusion that might surprise some, Pew researchers also identified 20 percent of nondenominational churchgoers as mainline Protestants.

Smith said the mainline tag was applied to people who attended nondenominational churches but did not identify themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, and to those who said they attended "liberal nondenominational" or "emergent" churches.

Many emergent churches borrow the worship and liturgical styles of mainline Protestant churches but hew to a conservative evangelical theology.

The decline of mainline Protestant denominations and rise of evangelical churches in the 20th century is well documented, with many contributing factors: mainline Protestant churches are aging faster, recording lower birth rates, attracting fewer immigrants and embroiled in divisive battles over sexuality and the Bible.

The Rev. Lovett H. Weems, Jr., director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, a United Methodist Church seminary, said growing churches have both a clear sense of identity and meet people's needs in a changing culture.

"They're not just setting up shop and saying, 'This is who we are, these are our beliefs and we will be here if anyone wants it,'" he said.

Whether because of tradition or bureaucracy, mainline Protestant churches have been slow to adapt, but Weems senses that is changing. In Virginia, the United Methodist Church is aiming to develop 250 "new faith communities" in the next 30 years.

The choice of that term instead of "churches" is telling. Rather than traditional congregations, those communities might be one church with several campuses, ethnic churches or congregations that meet in people's homes, Weems said.

The nation's largest Protestant church body, the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, is aware of the sentiment. The proportion of young adult lay people and pastors who serve as "messengers," or delegates, to the convention's annual meeting has been dropping since the 1980s and declined sharply since 2004.

After growing steadily from 1950 to the mid-1990s, the conservative-dominated Southern Baptists have experienced relatively flat growth, causing alarm.

In another sign of the times, more than half of new Southern Baptist churches don't use the word "Baptist" in their name, recent church research found. One older example is blockbuster author Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Southern California.

Labels: faith, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, protestants, religious denominations

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, January 23, 2009

Randy Sheridan: American culture and religion: Is it on the rise or in decline?

January 14, 2009 06:10 pm

In the mid 1700s the Age of Enlightenment was sweeping across Europe like an Oklahoma grass fire.

The European culture’s love affair with liberation theology or better yet, no theology at all was in full bloom. Its theme is akin to the modern day slogan, “If it feels good, do it!”

Some progressive thinkers and prognosticators suggest that America has reached a similar point where religion is no longer a vital part of the fabric in our culture, and its time has come and gone.

Some recent studies might offer some validity to that observation.

A recent Harris Interactive poll suggests a decline of belief in key religious concepts. In 2003, upwards of 90 percent of the post 9-11 populace expressed their belief in God, while five years later that number dropped by 10 percent.

Such decline begs the question: Is the American culture prone to foxhole religion, or is it simply human nature to turn to God more readily during hard times, while holding loosely to our religion during periods of prosperity?

Sounds a bit “Old Covenant like” doesn’t it?

The poll shows even more disturbing trends as Americans continue to discount their belief in heaven, down from 82 percent to 73 percent in that same five-year period. Believing the devil is more mythical than real, a 9 percent drop to 59 percent. Bringing up the bottom, pun intended, the view of hell being real dropped from 69 percent to 62 percent.

What does all this mean? Does it have any bearings on our culture today? And how does this affect you, the average John and Jane Doe of America? Little or much, it all depends on your perspective.

An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Many of these new paradigms are the basis for greater spiritual interests.

Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

More than one-quarter of American adults, 28 percent, have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion or no religion at all.

Just as it was during the Age of Enlightenment, a torrential uprising of spiritual fervor was sweeping across the European continent, so here in America there appears to be a sustaining devotion to all things spiritual in spite of the latest polls.

Simultaneous to Europe’s liberal utopia, America was experiencing the first Great Awakening. Department of Delaware historian Christine Heyrman writes of what historians call “the first Great Awakening” can best be described as a revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s:

Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists alike experienced an increase in seekers in unprecedented numbers. In emotionally charged sermons, all the more powerful because they were often delivered extemporaneously, preachers such as Jonathan Edwards, famously known for “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” evoked dramatic, terrifying images of the utter corruption of human nature and the terrors awaiting the unrepentant in hell.

Although our nation has sunk into a recession, is fighting two wars, and humanism is alive and well — you might be surprised to know that church attendance is holding steady and is even on the rise in many parts of our country. An average of 42 percent of adults in America, say they attend worship services weekly.

On the decline? Possibly, but American psyche has been so thoroughly “blood washed” for the last 300 years, I don’t think we are going away anytime soon!

Randy Sheridan of Burleson is a speaker, counselor and mediator. He can be reached at drsheridan@aol.com.

Labels: America, church, God, Harris Interactive, heaven, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Randy Sheridan, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

No surveys? That would be heavenly!

January 10, 2009

You can make them say almost anything you want. They can leave you not knowing much more than you did before you either took them or studied the results.

It's like listening to a politician making a speech. When finished, you'd swear the candidate had said something -- you just can't quite recall what it was.

Anyhow, a couple of recent surveys add more patches to America's crazy quilt of faith.

A Gallup Poll shows two-thirds of Americans think religion is losing its influence in the nation's life. That's down from about a 50-50 split three years ago.

Ironically, among those who worship regularly, 74% believe religious influence is waning, compared with 24% who say it is growing.

Another survey, this one by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, shows U.S. Christians apparently are a pretty open-minded bunch. Fifty-two percent believe at least one non-Christian religion will give you an eternal Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card.

Among those Christians who believe their faith tradition isn't the only way into heaven, 80% can cite at least one non-Christian faith able to do the job.

It gets even more interesting. Among white evangelical Protestants and black Protestants, there are sizeable numbers who say there's more than one way to heaven. About 47% of white evangelicals and 49% of black Protestants say theirs is not necessarily the one true faith. Among white evangelicals who say many roads lead to heaven, 72% can name at least one non-Christian religion that will get you there. Among black Protestants, the number is 85%.

So how do we to get into heaven? The Pew survey showed a third of Americans think religious beliefs are the key, while 29% believe actions determine who gets in. Another 10% said God will consider a combination of beliefs and actions. The rest aren't sure.

Labels: Gallup Poll, Jim Ketchum, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, surveys

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Pew poll follows up on controversial one

Jan 8, 2009 | by Staff

WASHINGTON (BP)--A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that a significant minority of self-identified evangelicals believe that many religions can lead to salvation, even though some of those evangelicals apparently are confused over what the term "religion" means.

The poll seeks to bring clarity to a much-criticized poll by Pew in June that found 70 percent of Americans, including 56 percent of white evangelicals, believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life." Several Christian commentators criticized that first survey's general wording, saying that Christians often refer to their denomination as their religion. In other words, those critics wondered: Were the evangelicals who were polled saying they believe people within multiple Christian denominations can obtain eternal life, or were they saying that Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus also have a path to salvation?

The new poll asked follow-up questions, and its findings do -- as least partially -- support the claims of those critics. Nevertheless, the poll contains very little good news for the evangelical church.

In the new survey, 47 percent of professing evangelicals said they believe "many religions can lead to eternal life," a decline of nine points from the earlier poll. Pew then asked that same group how many non-Christian religions they believe can lead to eternal life. More than one-fourth (28 percent) said "none," giving credence to the theory that some evangelicals confused "denominations" with "religions." Still, 72 percent of those who said "many religions can lead to eternal life" cited at least one other non-Christian religion.

Among the general population, 65 percent of Americans -- a drop from 70 percent in the earlier poll -- said there are many paths to salvation.

The newest Pew survey found that church attendance made a difference in one's beliefs. It also discovered a striking gap in beliefs between evangelical Protestants and mainline Protestants. Among white evangelical Protestants who attend church weekly, 37 percent -- a drop in 10 points from the earlier stat -- said "many religions can lead to eternal life." But among white mainline Protestants who attend church weekly, 75 percent believe there are multiple paths to salvation, and among white Catholics who attend church weekly, 85 percent hold to that view.

The latest Pew poll surveyed 2,905 adults July 31-Aug. 10.
--30--
Compiled by Michael Foust, assistant editor of Baptist Press.

Labels: church, eternal life, evangelicals, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

What's the Status of Religion and Politics Post-Obama?

Published Jan 1, 2009, by Carol Forsloff

It seems that many Americans have had their fill of churches being involved in politics George Bush in 2001 ushered in a period where the religious right was particularly active in governmental affairs.

In 2001 the airwaves were filled with ministers praising the election of Bush as president. His leadership was treated as something that had been divinely ordained. The Post at the time talked about the number of religious leaders who met with Bush during the first year of his Presidency who testified in their faith in Bush and his ability to lead the country as God-ordained. Web sites encouraged people to pray for the President, to recognize his position as both government leader and spiritual model, virtually a Messiah for the government at the time.

According to the Pew Forum things have changed from 2000 and the election of George Bush and the election of Obama in 2008. A survey finds a small majority of the public now declares religion and politics shouldn’t mix, and ministers and religious leaders should not express their opinions on daily activities or political matters. This change follows ten years when most Americans supported religious involvement in government with Christian leaders able to express their views on political matters.

Pew Research Center research reveals that most conservatives have reexamined their position regarding the involvement of religion in politics, and now only 50% of them express support of it. Four years ago 70% believed that churches should involve themselves in governmental affairs. So there has been a sizable shift in public opinion during the last years of the Bush Presidency. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view. This is likely why it was said that there was only “soft support” among religious conservatives for John McCain.

Despite the fact that Congress is accused of not representing fully the religious views of the rest of the country, the fact is that Pew reports that the composition of the new Congress is similar to that of the population of the United States, although somewhat less diverse in its representation of minority religious groups. The largest main group in the Congress is Protestant, but if the denominations are considered separately the majority group is Catholic. One unique distinction between Congress and the general population is the fact that fewer political leaders claim no religious affiliation (about 1%) than the rest of the United States (16%)

It seems, however, with the public shift towards less involvement of religion in politics, politicians may not longer have to protest their specific religious views in order to be elected. Or the pendulum may swing again, depending upon future issues because that has been the pattern of American history. The country has struggled with the issue of religion and politics since the beginning of the government, with the battle never being fully won on either side. This newest finding just measures citizen opinion at this point in time.

Labels: Barack Obama, Carol Forsloff, church-state, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Survey says most Americans believe in multiple paths to salvation

By Bob Allen
Thursday, 18 December 2008

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- A majority of American Christians believe that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life, says a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Even among evangelicals, a branch of Protestant Christianity identified with the idea that an individual must be "born again" into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in order to be saved, nearly as many Christians said many religions can lead to eternal life (47 percent) as those who believe theirs is the one true faith (49 percent).

The survey, released Dec. 18, followed up an earlier poll that found that seven Americans in 10 believe many religions can lead to salvation while less than one quarter say their faith is the only one that is true. Critics of that study questioned those findings, suggesting that for many Christians, "other religion" might have meant a different Christian denomination instead of a non-Christian faith.

The new study asks those who say many religions can lead to eternal life questions about specific faiths. Sixty-nine percent said Judaism can lead to eternal life, compared to 52 percent for Islam, 53 percent for Hinduism, 42 percent for atheists and 56 percent for people with no religious faith.

While white evangelicals are more exclusive in their beliefs about salvation than the general public, nearly two-thirds said it is possible for a Jewish person to go to heaven (64 percent) and a third said the same about Muslims (35 percent) and Hindus (33 percent). One in four evangelicals said atheists could attain eternal life (26 percent) and a third (35 percent) said it is possible for people with no religious faith.

Catholics (84 percent) and white mainline Protestants (82 percent) are most likely to say that many religions can lead to salvation. White evangelicals and black Protestants, meanwhile, have grown more strict on the question. Last year 37 percent of white evangelicals said theirs is the only true faith. This year that percentage rose 12 points to 49 percent.

Evangelicals who attend church at least once a week are twice as likely as those who attend less frequently to say their faith is the only path to heaven -- 60 percent to 30 percent.

About one third of Americans say one's beliefs determine who achieves eternal life, while an equal number say it depends on one's actions. A tenth of the population say it is a combination of belief and action. The rest say something else determines salvation, they don't believe in eternal life or they don't know.

The survey is based on results of telephone interviews of 2,905 adults conducted in July and August. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percen

Labels: Bob Allen, Christian, faith, heaven, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, salvation

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Majority think heaven is open to other faiths

By Cathy Lynn Grossman • USA TODAY • December 18, 2008

Most American religious believers, including most Christians, say eternal life is not exclusively for those who accept Christ as their savior, a new survey has found.

And 80 percent of people with this open view of heaven's gates listed at least one non-Christian group — Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists — who may also be saved, according to the survey, released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

These views conflict with doctrines of many religions, particularly conservative denominations that view themselves as the "one, true faith."

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., called the findings "a theological crisis for American evangelicals. They represent at best a misunderstanding of the Gospel and at worst a repudiation of the Gospel."

This survey is a follow-up to a controversial finding in Pew's religion survey of 35,000 U.S. adults earlier this year; critics argued that a question on access to eternal life, which 70 percent said was open to many faiths, was too vague. So Pew did a new, more specific survey.

Results reinforce the original finding that "Americans really are thinking quite broadly," Pew research fellow Greg Smith said.

Christians who listed at least one non-Christian faith that could lead to salvation included 34 percent of white evangelicals, even though evangelical doctrine stresses that salvation is possible only through Jesus.

Fifty-four percent of people who identified with a religion and who said they attend services weekly said many religions can lead to eternal life. This included 37 percent of white evangelicals, 75 percent of mainline Protestants and 85 percent of non-Hispanic white Catholics.

The number saying theirs is the only faith that can lead to eternal life increased from 24 percent to 29 percent between 2007 and 2008. The biggest increase was among white evangelicals — up from 37 percent to 49 percent.

Labels: Cathy Lynn Grossman, Christian, eternal life, heaven, non-Christian, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Religion at Work

This lengthy article is worth reading. It expands upon the problems, and benefits, of providing for spirituality in the workplace. Since so many Americans profess religious connection, it is an idea that makes an attempt to incorporate this important aspect of American life into this large part of the lives of American workers.

Many employers are weaving religion and spirituality into company cultures. The push may come from bosses or the rank and file—and their motivations vary. Either way, when religion and spirituality cross the threshold, they result in daunting legal and managerial challenges along with perceived benefits.

By Robert J. Grossman

Bob Pettus spent his entire career with Charlotte, N.C.-based Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated —all with top-level human resource responsibility. Like an Israelite wandering in the Sinai seeking the Promised Land, he engaged in a quest—to find the keys to attracting and retaining high-performing workers and managers. After decades in the wilderness, he was losing heart.

“Our employees’ salaries, benefits and perks were always a little bit ahead of others so we could attract the kinds of employees we needed,” recalls the HR veteran, who retired in 2005 as vice chairman of the nation’s second-largest Coca-Cola bottler with 5,800 employees in 11 Southeastern states. “I would get all excited about giving everyone a 3.5 percent increase, putting in a new insurance policy, adding a new holiday. But when I made the announcements, there was hardly any response except, ‘Hey, that’s what everyone else is doing. You guys should have been doing this a long time ago.’ We spent all those millions, and all we got for it was ‘ho-hum.’ ” ›

Then Pettus—who now consults for the company—saw the light. He was meeting the physical and emotional needs of workers, but what about the spiritual? Did it make sense to keep religion under wraps and require people to leave their faith at the doorstep? Equally important, if leaders really believed in running the business in concert with God and religious values, shouldn’t they say so?

Pettus knew company leaders who answer affirmatively buck convention: Most business leaders are faith-frosty, convinced that the less religious expression at work, the better. They comply with legal mandates and accommodate individuals who require special arrangements, but go no further.

The U.S. educational system and other teachings “say you should compartmentalize faith,” Pettus says. “Folks who are willing to talk about their faith and live it out Monday through Friday often are viewed as fanatical. Someone can go to a football game and scream and holler, throw things in the air and dress like a slob. But at work, if you mention that you should love one another and live right every day—it’s like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ”

Pettus took a stand. Working with the chief executive officer, he drafted a mission and values statement that makes it clear company leaders embrace and honor God. It opens the door to spirituality for all employees and champions stewardship. The statement leads with “Our Values Honor God.”

Finally, an initiative that was met with an overwhelming positive reaction. When people learn they can live out their faith, Pettus says, “There’s this loyalty, this willingness to go the extra mile.”

Faith Focus

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated represents one of many faith-focused U.S. companies. These organizations proactively conduct business in a manner that embraces the faiths of leaders or owners. Their faiths provide underlying values that motivate and guide the organizations. A few, such as Coca-Cola Bottling, are publicly traded. Many more—such as Austaco Ltd., a privately owned Taco Bell franchisee with 1,800 workers in Austin, Texas—number among the nation’s small and medium-sized and frequently family-owned businesses.

“We classify ourselves as a Christian company—Christ- or God-centered,” says Don Barton, Austaco’s HR vice president. “We do things like say grace when we have a meal, something a typical company might not do. The employees know that our CEO, Dirk Dozier, is open about sharing his Christian faith in personal testimony. Our motto is to serve, which includes serving our employees on a spiritual basis.”

A strong majority in the United States are religious, even as religious affiliation becomes increasingly diverse. According to a 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:

* 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God.
* 83 percent are affiliated with a religious group.
* 54 percent attend religious services at least once or twice
per month.
* Nearly 60 percent pray every day.
* 39 percent meditate at least once a week.
* 74 percent believe in life after death.
* 63 percent say they believe Scripture is the word of God.

Labels: business, Coca-Cola Bottling Co, faith-friendly, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Robert J. Grossman, workplace spirituality

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, December 05, 2008

Obama's inaugural oath

When Obama takes the oath of office, there's no reason not to include his middle name.
November 30, 2008

When George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term in 2005, he began his oath of office with the words: "I, George Walker Bush." Never mind that Bush isn't in the habit of using his middle name (as opposed to his middle initial, which became the title of an Oliver Stone movie). In inaugural oaths, as in baptisms and other ceremonies, the addition of middle names adds an appropriate note of solemnity.

No controversy surrounded Bush's inclusion of his middle name in the oath. The same might not be true of a decision by Barack Obama to take his oath as "Barack Hussein Obama" -- which is precisely why he should do so.

Stripped of such evil intent, the "Hussein" in Obama's full name shouldn't be taboo. Nor should the idea of an openly Muslim citizen deciding to seek the presidency. That point was made eloquently by former Secretary of State Colin Powell when he endorsed Obama. "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" Powell asked. "The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing he or she could be president?"

Most Muslim Americans believe in and are pursuing the American dream, and as Powell also noted, they are sometimes dying for it. Last year, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a survey concluding that American Muslims are "largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world." The survey also found that "Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries."

The way to increase those numbers is to make clear that an American with an Islamic faith -- or an Islamic name -- is not a second-class citizen. When the new president takes the oath, he should say, loudly and proudly: "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Labels: American Muslims, Barack Obama, Colin Powell, inauguration, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, November 14, 2008

Obama backed by all religions, Pew says

Nov. 10, 2008
By Sommer Ingram
Staff Writer

Along with becoming the nation's first African-American president-elect, Barack Obama gained more support in this election from nearly every religious group than Democratic nominee John Kerry did four years ago.

According to the Pew Forum, Obama won 26 percent of the white evangelical vote compared, to the 21 percent that voted for Kerry in 2004.

Although his gains were minimal, Obama seems to have made the religion element work for him in a way other Democrats historically haven't.

Though polls show white Roman Catholics and Protestants backing Republican candidate John McCain, Obama won nearly all of the black and Hispanic Protestant votes. Catholics supported him over McCain 54 percent to 45 percent. He also improved the minority evangelical vote significantly.

These groups have wider and more diverse views than are traditionally publicized."

The traditional concerns of the evangelical world, primarily abortion and gay rights, are not seen as prevalently among younger evangelicals.

Economical issues proved to overshadow the traditional cultural concerns for both parties, which could have also have contributed to his success among the religious electorate. More than six in 10 cited the economy as the nation's top concern.

Despite the fact that white evangelicals between the ages 30 and 64 remained a center pillar in the Republican support base, Obama's concentrated outreach to the religious community resulted in modest gains on Kerry's percentages in Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio.

The Democratic candidate's campaign may signal the beginning of reversing the prevailing stereotype that casts Democrats as worldly and anti-religious.

"I believe we will continue to see various strategies with religious voters," Allman said. "I think we'll have to go through a couple more election cycles to see whether there will be a more varied voting pattern. It's a little early to tell, but however small these movements we saw, they were all in the direction of the Democrats."

Labels: Barack Obama, election, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religious community, Sommer Ingram, voters

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, November 07, 2008

The (step by step) path to worship

Classes, support groups educate, guide new believers

Friday, November 7, 2008
By Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Inside a meeting room at the mosque, the converts stood shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, right hands folded over left.

Now bend at the waist, the instructor told them. Make your back as flat as you can. It is said that the Prophet Muhammad's back was so flat when he prayed that you could steady a glass of water on it.

Newly converted Muslim Vanessa Cross followed along, paying close attention. A few minutes before, she had listened to a lesson in how to perform the nine steps of wudu, the ritualistic washing Muslims complete before prayer.

Cross, 31, of the Northeast Side, attends the New Muslim Support Group at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin.

It is one of many classes where new believers are welcomed and instructed on their religion.

Such classes, offered in many faiths, explain basic beliefs, scripture and worship practices while giving new believers a chance to connect. Instructors give tours of the building and pass out educational literature.

Conversion isn't a unique experience among the American faithful. Twenty-eight percent of Americans have left the faith of their childhood for another religion, or for no religion at all, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In some faiths, the classes are mandatory for new members.

Religious leaders want to help new people feel comfortable and committed as they navigate a new faith, which can be daunting. Some people are coming back to religion after a bad experience in another faith or denomination.

Cross told a group of women that she needed help putting on her hijab, the headscarf many Muslim women wear. When she would bend to pray, it would start falling off, she said.

New Christians get lots of help, too.

Evangelical megachurches such as Grove City Church of the Nazarene and Vineyard Church of Columbus offer seminars that teach about Jesus, reading the Bible and communicating with God.

After deciding to accept Jesus Christ as their savior, people often don't know what to do next, said the Rev. Brady Wisehart, an associate pastor at Grove City Church of the Nazarene.

In the Roman Catholic Church, those wishing to convert undergo the nine-month Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

It's a time for people to decide whether Catholicism is right for them. That's why the program takes several months and provides a thorough study, said Deacon Tom Berg Jr., vice chancellor of the Columbus Diocese.

A class gathered at St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic Church in Dublin recently to get a tour of the church from Monsignor Joseph Hendricks, the pastor.

During the tour, Hendricks explained the significance of the cross and the baptismal font, and gleefully pointed out the fact that from his vantage point at the pulpit, he can see people come late and leave early.

He cleared up misconceptions. Some Protestants think Catholics worship Mary, but they don't, he explained. They simply pray to her for intercession and honor her as the mother of Christ.

For Dan VandenBosch, every bit of information is helpful. The 29-year-old plans to convert to Catholicism from the Christian Reformed Church.

His wife of 10 months, Shannon, 29, is Catholic and will serve as his sponsor. Their first child is due in January.

"This is answering a lot of questions," Mr. VandenBosch said.

Labels: Americans, conversion, faith, Meredith Heagney, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Meditation goes mainstream

Bonna Johnson
October 10, 2008

A report released this year showed an astonishingly high number of Protestants - nearly half - say they meditate at least once a week. Among the public, 39 percent meditate at least weekly, according to a report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

It's no surprise that people are seeking paths to peace and serenity in our high-octane, 24-hour world.

"We're a mentally focused, hard-core, achievement-oriented society," says Dr. J. David Forbes, a medical doctor and meditation teacher in Nashville, Tenn. "People are finding it hard to quiet the brain down."

Once they do, he says, meditation may lead not only to new insights but also to a healthier, happier life, he says. Studies show daily practice can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure and even increase life expectancy in the elderly, he says.

Meditation has been, at times, eyed with suspicion. The Vatican in 1989 went so far as to say that methods such as Zen, yoga and transcendental meditation, can "degenerate into a cult of the body" and be dangerous.

And the notion that meditation is too way out there for Christians, if not rooted in the Bible, still exists today.

"The idea of emptying the mind is not biblically based," says Don Whitney, associate professor of biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. "There can be a danger."

Referring to meditation's long association with Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions, Whitney says, "Some of the yoga stuff, where you're given a mantra, that is rooted in false religions." He sees no problem with stretching, but once you start chanting, you're treading on treacherous ground, he says.

But for many Christians, meditation fits quite nicely into their religious life. They're drawn to biblical Scriptures, such as in the Psalms, which says, "Be still, and know that I am God."

For them, meditation has brought deeper meaning to their lives.

Labels: Bonna Johnson, meditation, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, protestants, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, September 29, 2008

Religion and Politics: Combustible Combination Influences Voters' Choices

September 25, 2008 —

Americans who regularly attend worship services tend to hold more conservative religious views, so if they decide to be similarly dedicated to voting in November, their votes could tip the presidential election to John McCain.

But if Barack Obama can rouse the more lackadaisical Christians among us, they may swing the election in his favor, based on historical trends.

Those were some of the links between religion and politics highlighted by Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who spoke Monday evening at a University of Virginia Center for Politics event.

Lugo presented findings from the Pew Forum's recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which was based on interviews with more than 35,000 American adults.

The survey found strong correlations between Americans' degree of religiosity, as measured by church attendance, and voting patterns in the 2004 election. Survey respondents were asked to describe how often they attended church: more than weekly, weekly, monthly, a few times a year, or seldom to never. Those who attend church more than weekly chose Bush over Kerry by 64 percent to 35 percent, while 58 percent of weekly churchgoers voted for Bush.

In a nearly symmetrical reversal of those preferences, those who seldom attend church favored Kerry by 62 percent to 35 percent. The preference for Bush declined steadily in correlation with attending church less often.

This so-called "God gap" is more accurately described as a church attendance gap, Lugo said, and the Obama campaign is absolutely determined to close this gap.

Political preferences can also be broken down by religious affiliation, Lugo said. White evangelical Protestants, who make up nearly a quarter of the American electorate, voted for Bush at a 78 percent clip in 2004. In contrast, even higher percentages of Jews and black Protestants favored the Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004.

But despite all the efforts of Obama to appeal to Christians, surveys show that he has made no progress appealing to self-described white "evangelical" voters. About 71 percent of them back the McCain-Palin ticket, according to a Pew survey conducted Sept. 9-14 — up from 61 percent in June, and about the same proportion as supported Bush in 2000, said Lugo.

Catholics make up nearly 20 percent of the electorate, and they have become a key swing vote in American politics, Lugo said. Gore won the overall Catholic vote by 3 percentage points in 2000, but Kerry lost that bloc by 5 points in 2004.

While about two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics favored both Gore and Kerry, white Catholic voters were much more evenly divided, with Bush garnering 52 percent of their vote in 2000 and 56 percent in 2004. How these white Catholics vote will be critical to the upcoming election, Lugo predicted.

Religion has always been important in American public life, with attitudes only shifting gradually, and over decades. From 2000 through 2008, a steady 70 to 72 percent of Americans agree with the proposition: "It's important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs." In the 1950s, Americans were much more open to electing an atheist or someone without strong religious convictions, Lugo said.

The increase in pro-religion sentiments in the past 50 years was spurred in part by facing the "godless" enemy of communism in the Cold War, said Charles Mathewes, a professor of religious studies. If Americans continue to face a significant threat from fundamentalist Muslim terrorists for the next 30 to 40 years, he wondered, will the importance of religion in public life wane?

As for this year's election, the "fundamentals" of an unpopular Republican president, a tanking economy and a derided war appear to favor the Democrats, Lugo said. But current polls show a very tight presidential race.

"In this election, everything is against the Republicans," Lugo said. "To be honest, I'm just surprised it's so close. ... I guess there's a lot of underlying discomfort in closing the deal with Obama."

— By Brevy Cannon

Labels: Barack Obama, Brevy Cannon, church, election, John McCain, Luis Lugo, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, August 08, 2008

Religion, the Election, and the Media

By: Welton Gaddy
Thursday August 7, 2008

The Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have published a report that confirms my suspicions about the use of religion on the campaign trail. The study found that we are in the midst of an election for a Pastor-in-Chief rather than a Commander-in-Chief.

An analysis of over 13,000 news stories from January 2007 through April 2008 revealed that religion is playing a disproportionate role in this election. Religion accounted for roughly ten percent of all stories that did not focus on political strategy or tactics. By comparison, foreign policy issues garnered 14 percent of these stories, and stories about race and gender only made up 11 percent.

The United States is in the midst of two wars, one of which is costing our taxpayers $6 billion every month. Terrorism represents the greatest foreign policy crisis of our generation. At the same time, American society is being transformed as Senators Clinton and Obama challenged traditional stereotypes of who is best fit to be president. And despite these profound changes and challenges, religion is receiving almost as attention in the media as foreign policy and race/gender issues. And the scary thing is that George W. Bush, who revolutionized using religion for partisan gain, isn't even on the ballot.

There is much blame to go around that explains this troubling trend. The presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle were more willing than ever to seek the endorsement of religious leaders, incorporate religious rhetoric into their speeches, and promote their religious affiliation as a misguided proxy for sound judgment and clear vision.

Both Senators McCain and Obama had some buyer's remorse after seeking the support of controversial clergy. But candidates cannot have it both ways. They cannot continue to use clergy for political gain and then discard them when it no longer fits their agenda.

The media deserve much of the blame as well. Last summer, CNN's Soledad O'Brien asked Senator John Edwards to name his biggest sin. Multiple debate moderators asked various candidates to name their favorite Bible story.

These types of questions have no bearing over a candidate's ability to serve as president. The media are the staunchest supporters of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and press, yet it appears they have not read Article VI of the Constitution, which prohibits imposing a religious test for public office.

The problem is not that religion is being incorporated into the presidential campaign. Rather the problem is that religion is being used as a divisive tool instead of a unifying power. The candidates need be less concerned with appearing "holier than thou" and focus instead on explaining the role their values play in their political worldview. The media needs to stop asking irrelevant (and irreverent) questions about the candidates' religion and start asking the candidates to outline their views on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

If we can nurture a more positive relationship between religion and politics, a survey result like this one would be encouraging rather than lamentable.

Labels: America, Barack Obama, John McCain, Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion, Welton Gaddy

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Americans believe in miracles, heaven, power of prayer: report

Americans believe in miracles, heaven, power of prayer: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Around three-quarters of Americans believe in miracles, more Americans believe in heaven than in hell, and nearly six in 10 pray every day, a report based on a survey of 35,000 US adults showed Monday.

Of those who pray regularly, around a third -- 31 percent -- say God answers their prayers at least once a month, and one in five Americans said they receive direct answers to prayer requests at least once a week, the report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said.

Seventy-four percent of those surveyed for the report, called the US Religious Landscape Survey, said they believed in heaven as a place where people who have led good lives are rewarded, while only around six in 10 believed in hell, where unrepentant evil-doers languish in eternal punishment.

Nearly eight in 10 American adults (79 percent) believe that miracles occur, the survey, conducted between May and August last year, showed.

But perhaps most striking in the report was the near unanimous belief in God, held by more than nine out of 10 Americans.

"While this survey finds that more than nine in 10 Americans believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, it also shows that there are considerable differences in the nature of this belief," Pew research fellow Greg Smith said.

"Six in 10 adults believe God is a person with whom people can have a relationship, but one in four, including about half of Jews and Hindus, see God as an impersonal force," he said.

Oddly, one in five of those who identified themselves as atheists in the survey said they believe in God.

"But this also shows us the complicated way that people think about their faith. Many people who identify as atheists may not be telling us they don't believe in God, but that they don't like organized religion," he said.

"There is a lot of complexity in American religion," Greene summarized.

The survey also showed that religious affiliation tends to translate into social and political leanings.

"Mormons and members of evangelical churches tend to be more conservative in their political ideology, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists tend to be more politically liberal than the population overall," the report says.

As the United States gears up to elect a new president in November, that translates to the simple fact that "there are votes to be had by the Democratic and Republican candidates by making appeals to religious groups," said Greene.

Labels: God, heaven, miracles, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, prayer

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Believers see many paths to heaven

Most Americans believe in God but not dogma

By CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN • USA Today • June 24, 2008

Newly released data from a major survey find that most U.S. adults range far from knowing or caring about the distinctive teachings of their professed faith.

They believe overwhelmingly (92 percent) in God and 58 percent say they pray at least once a day. But when it comes to specific religions they're all over the map, say the latest data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey questioned 35,000 Americans, nearly three in 10 of whom profess no religious identity but sometimes go to church. Most evangelicals, whose denominations teach that Jesus is the sole route to salvation, instead say people who have "led good lives" go to heaven. Only one in three Catholics say their church should preserve its traditional beliefs rather than change with the times or adopt modern practices.

Pew released demographic data in February from the survey, conducted in May through August 2007. This new installment focuses on questions about religious beliefs and practices, spiritual experiences, and views on society and politics.

Diversity and complexity

This analysis, based on a questionnaire that never mentions Jesus, portrays a nation of "free-flowing spirituality," said Pew Forum Director Luis Lugo, who finds the declining adherence to dogma "stunning."

When Green and Lugo factor in Pew's February findings that 44 percent of adults say they've switched to another religion or none at all, Lugo said, "You have to wonder: How do you guarantee the integrity of a religious tradition when so many people are coming or going or following ideas that don't match up?"

You can't, said the Rev. Frank Page, of Taylors, S.C., immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Page said people don't know their faith because "Gospel, once clearly preached in virtually every Protestant church, is rarely heard in the 21st century. The number who teach a clear doctrinal Christianity are a minority today. How would people know it when they never hear about how to be saved?"
Individualism vs. church

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sees in the numbers that Catholics, like everyone else, are shaped by an individualistic culture. "People are trained to trust only their own spiritual experience," he said.

Labels: Americans, Cathy Lynn Grossman, church, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, June 23, 2008

Part II of U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

WASHINGTON, June 23

Part II of U.S. Religious Landscape Survey details Americans' religious
beliefs and behaviors as well as their social and political attitudes

WASHINGTON, June 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life today released its second report on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which finds that while many Americans are highly religious, most are not dogmatic in their approach to faith. This new analysis examines the diversity of Americans' religious beliefs and practices as well as their social and political attitudes. It follows the first report of the Landscape Survey, which was published in February 2008 and detailed the size, internal changes and demographic characteristics of major religions in the United States.

"The fact that most Americans are not exclusive or dogmatic about their religion is a fascinating finding," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. "Most people will be surprised that a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including a majority of evangelical Protestants, say that there isn't just one way to salvation or to interpret the teachings of their own faith."

Based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a nationally representative sample of more than 35,000 adults, part two of the Landscape Survey includes a wealth of information on the religious beliefs and practices of the American public. It also explores the social and political attitudes of religious groups, including members of many small religious traditions - such as Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics - not typically analyzed in public opinion surveys.

"This report illustrates, chapter and verse, the amazing diversity and dynamism both between and within religious traditions in America," noted John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum. "And this diversity of affiliation, belief and practice matters when it comes to social and political questions."

The second report of the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds:

* Although many Americans are highly religious, they are not dogmatic in their faith. Seventy percent of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions - not just their own - can lead to eternal life. Most also think there is more than one correct way to interpret the teachings of their own faith.

* This does not mean, however, that Americans take religious matters lightly. Most, in fact, say they rank the importance of religion very highly in their lives, and a plurality wants to preserve the traditional beliefs and practices of their faith, while only a small minority wants to accommodate their religion to modern culture.

* There is tremendous diversity of religious beliefs and practices in the U.S. Important religious differences exist between the major religious traditions, but there are also important differences within religious traditions.

* While more than nine-in-ten Americans (92%) believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, there are considerable differences in the nature of this belief. Six-in-ten adults believe that God is a person with whom people can have a relationship; but one-in-four - including about half of Jews and Hindus - see God as an impersonal force. Similarly, seven-in-ten Americans say that they are absolutely certain of God's existence, while roughly one-in-five (22%) are less certain in their belief.

* Three-quarters of Americans report praying at least once a week, with large majorities among most religious traditions saying they pray on at least a weekly basis. Even among the unaffiliated, roughly one-in-three pray on a weekly basis. At the same time, however, there are those among all faith groups who pray much less frequently; overall, one quarter of the public says they pray a few times a month or less often.

* Almost two-fifths of Americans report meditating at least once a week. This practice is particularly common among Buddhists, but nearly half of evangelical Protestants and Muslims say they meditate at least weekly. About one-quarter of the unaffiliated report weekly meditation. These patterns may incorporate elements of both Christian and non-Christian traditions.

* Politics and religion in the United States are intertwined, and religion is highly relevant to understanding politics in the U.S. Yet while the diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice translates into important differences on many social and political issues, differences on other issues are less pronounced.

* Religion is closely linked to political ideology. The survey shows that Mormons are among the most politically conservative groups in the population. Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, by contrast, are among the most likely to describe their ideology as liberal.

* People who regularly attend worship services and say religion is important in their lives are much more likely to identify as conservative, and this pattern extends to many religious traditions. For example, within the evangelical, mainline Protestant, historically black Protestant, Catholic, Mormon and Orthodox Christian traditions, those who attend church weekly are significantly more likely than those who attend less often to describe themselves as political conservatives. And among Jews, those who say religion is very important to them or pray every day are more likely than others to be politically conservative.

* The connection between religious engagement and political attitudes appears to be especially strong when it comes to hot button social issues such as abortion or homosexuality. For instance, about six-in-ten Americans who attend religious services at least once a week say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, while only three-in-ten who attend less often share this view. This pattern holds across several religious traditions.

* On other topics covered in the survey, such as views on the role and size of government and foreign policy attitudes, the role of religion is less clear and there appears to be greater consensus across and within religious traditions. For instance, a majority of nearly every religious group supports stricter environmental regulations and believes the government should do more to help Americans in need. Similarly, most Americans, including majorities of most faiths, say it is more important to focus on problems here at home than to be active in world affairs.

In conjunction with the release of this report, the Pew Forum is updating its online presentation of the findings at religions.pewforum.org. Updated features include interactive mapping by state, dynamic charts and a variety of other tools that allow users to explore the beliefs and practices as well as social and political views of major religions in the United States.

Subsequent releases will include a re-contact survey that delves deeper into the relationship between religious and political identity, issues related to conversion and attitudes toward religious pluralism in America.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life delivers timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. The Forum is a nonpartisan, non-advocacy organization and does not take positions on policy debates. Based in Washington, D.C., the Forum is a project of the Pew Research Center, which is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

SOURCE Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Labels: beliefs. practices, God, meditation, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, prayer, religion, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, June 20, 2008

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life to Release Part II of U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

Posted : Thu, 19 Jun 2008
Author : Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Study details Americans' religious beliefs and behaviors as well as their social and political attitudes

WASHINGTON, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a noon EDT conference call for journalists on Monday, June 23, 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life will release the second report of a landmark survey that examines the tremendous diversity of Americans' religious beliefs and practices as well as their social and political views. This new analysis follows the first report of the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which was published in February 2008 and detailed the size and demographic characteristics of religious groups in the U.S.

Based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a representative sample of more than 35,000 adults, part two of the Landscape Survey includes a wealth of information on the religious beliefs and practices of the American public. It also explores the social and political attitudes of religious groups, including groups that are as small as three-tenths of 1 percent of the adult population.

Topics explored in the report include the importance of religion in people's lives; belief in God and the afterlife; attitudes toward the authority of sacred writings; frequency of worship attendance, prayer and meditation; and views of religion and morality, among others. The report also examines ideological and partisan orientation; attitudes on abortion, homosexuality, evolution and other social issues; views on helping the needy, the environment, and the size and proper role of government; and opinions on foreign affairs.

Subsequent releases will include a re-contact survey that delves deeper into religious-political identity, issues related to conversion and attitudes towards religious pluralism in America.

Labels: afterlife, Americans, God, morality, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, prayer, religion, social issues

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Keeping faith with the American voter

Saturday April 19, 2008
FOO YEE PING

The Catholic vote has become the focus of both Democrat presidential hopefuls with Pope Benedict XVI visiting the United States.

THERE is a mantra going around that the best way to know how Americans vote is to find out where they are on Sunday.

Over the past five decades, the Gallup Poll frequently surveyed Americans on the role of religion in their lives. Very often, at least 55% indicated that their faith was “very important” to them.

Women, Southerners, senior citizens, non-whites and lower income people were more inclined to say that religion was huge for them.

This week’s first official trip by Pope Benedict XVI to the United States has led to discussions about the Catholic vote; and how the Democratic presidential candidates are chasing it.

In the critical Pennsylvania round this Tuesday, an estimated 36% of the voters are Catholics.

According to news reports, Obama have tried to connect to this group of people by speaking about his time attending a Catholic school during the four years he spent in Indonesia as a child.

Clinton, a Methodist, has been reported as saying that she had felt the presence of God in her life ever since she was a little girl. “And it has been a gift of grace that has been, for me, incredibly sustaining.”

Back in 1960, there had been concerns about John F. Kennedy being a Roman Catholic. But he was a young candidate who offered a different kind of fresh politics to voters, who were also assured that faith would not interfere with any state decisions.

So, what role does religion play in secular America?

“Some people say the United States is the most religious nation in a secular set-up. With the state having no role in promoting religion, the state, too, has an obligation of not interfering in the private lives of its citizens,” Wang said.

“Thus, religion outside of the state flourishes. It plays an important role in America in determining political decisions. No where in the western world would the focus of an election include matters such as abortion.”

But how religious are Americans? USA Today reporting on a survey last year, noted that 60% of Americans could not even recall five of the Ten Commandments.

“Being religious does not mean being ritualistic or having a strong sense of religiosity,” Wang said. “It’s not about taking a quiz to determine a person’s faith.”

He explained that the changes in western society in the past 30 years included individuals trying to be more spiritual than ritualistic.

“At the same time, the tendency to equate religion with morality is prevalent in America,” he added.

In that sense, Americans would never vote for an atheist.

“As religion equals morality, atheism is seen as the end of morality, turning society into chaos,” Wang said.

“Americans, although firm believers in individual freedom and a free market, can accept protectionism or even a soft socialist as their president, but they will never accept an atheist.”

Jimmy Carter, for example, was left leaning but voters liked his strong Christian beliefs, he said.

Republican Mitt Romney failed in his bid for his party presidential nomination because Americans were mostly uneasy about his Mormon faith.

“He also did not succeed because he tried to pretend to be someone he isn’t, He tried to be more conservative than he actually is,” Wang pointed out.

Both Clinton and Obama have employed Catholic officials to speak on their behalf in their clamour to win over the faithful. A vast majority of the earlier arrivals among working class Hispanics are professed Catholics, too.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found in a recent survey that one in four Americans aged 18 to 29 declared they were not affiliated with any religion.

Be that as it may be, a person’s personal faith and religious views is a weighty factor in determining the choice of political candidacy in the United States.

Labels: Barack Obama, faith, Foo Yee Ping, Hillary Clinton, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, April 14, 2008

Hispanics help reshape US Church

Hispanics help reshape US Church

By Kevin Connolly
BBC News
April 14, 2008

In the remote village of Chimayo, where the mountains of New Mexico swell up out of the desert scrub, the faithful pray for miracles, and offer a clue to the pressures and influences helping to reshape modern American Catholicism.

One of the faithful gathers "holy dirt" - believed to have mystical powers

The ancient tribal peoples of the region believed that the fine, sandy soil from the local hillsides had mystical powers to heal broken bodies and broken lives, and there are plenty of 21st century American Catholics who agree with them.

The soil is kept in a small, dry, shallow well in a side chapel of the church, and the faithful queue to collect it, using a children's plastic beach shovel to pour it into containers brought from home. They touch samples of the soil to affected areas, they offer it to dying relatives, they ask priests to bless their sample. And they believe.

"I definitely felt the Holy Spirit in there; the presence is everywhere here, whether the healing is spiritual or physical," she told me.

Folk beliefs

Hispanic immigrants bring with them a vitality and a tradition of folk beliefs

Like many other churches across the south and west of the United States, the decor at the church of Chimayo and the tone of worship are set by Hispanic immigrants, who bring with them not just the Spanish language, but a vitality and a tradition of folk beliefs that are very different from the values of Catholics in the colder cities to the North.

Immigration from Latin-American countries though (and the high birth rates among those groups) are more than making up for the decline. About a half of all American Catholics under the age of 40 are Hispanics, and that proportion will continue to grow.

"Church of immigration"

Luis Lugo of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says that is simply evidence of an old historical pattern repeating itself in a new community.

"The growth (of Hispanic influence) has really been since the major changes in US immigration policy in the mid 60s, so it really would once have been very much a European Catholic church: Irish, Italian, German influence," he says.

The truth is that while Chimayo creates an awkward dilemma for the modern Church (several people there told me of miraculous cures, but there's no sign that the Catholic authorities intend to start to promoting or publicising them).

On the one hand, it inspires claims that might be difficult to substantiate under the scrutiny of modern science. But on the other, there is a spirituality to the place that helps to bring a much-needed vitality back to a Church over which the priestly child sex abuse scandals of recent times still throw a long shadow.

Damaged confidence

The crisis created difficulties at many levels, chief among them, of course, is the trauma suffered by the many victims whose suffering was eventually publicised after years of secrecy and shame.

For the Church, the cost of compensating those victims is crippling and will continue to be a drain on resources for years to come.

But perhaps more importantly, it damaged the confidence of ordinary Catholics in their priests and bishops.

Even Father Funtum, an engaging and convincing spokesman for the spiritual energy at Chimayo, had his story of being falsely accused of perversion by a parishioner who happened to see him pat a small child on the head at a church social.

That charge was absurd but it is a demonstration of the extent of how almost every conversation about American Catholicism (like mine with Father Jim) ends up being dominated by the issue of abuse.

We will know soon the extent to which Pope Benedict intends to address the subject, but it's highly unlikely that he will get through the visit without it being raised.

We already know that the Pope won't be heading for Chimayo - not this time around anyway - and in a way, it's a shame.

If he wanted to get a feeling for how the American Church will look in the future - more Hispanic, more charismatic, more populist and perhaps more mystical - he could do worse than to travel into New Mexico's mountains to see for himself.

Labels: Catholic, Chimayo, Hispanics, holy dirt, Kevin Connolly, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, March 24, 2008

Marketing The God Business

by Laurence D. Cohen

Few enterprises know the marketing challenge of attraction and retention more profoundly than the God business, the churches, religious denominations and faiths and cults and Obama worshipers.

It was sort of easy in the old days. Your parents were some sort of Presbyterians or something, you burst from the womb — and a new Presbyterian was born.

The latest national survey on religion from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests a marketplace more akin to fast food and cars. The general market leader, Protestants, is losing market share faster than Ford and General Motors. Protestants will soon be less than 50 percent of the American market.

Even among Catholics, where brand loyalty was pretty high, Hispanics are gravitating to the evangelical products — and remaining Catholic customers are calling the 1-800 number and demanding to speak to a manager.

Disgruntled Prayer People

The Catholics did a major brand overhaul a while back, modernizing and updating the product line and sales pitch. As you might expect, many of the existing customers were furious. They don’t want no suburban, guitar-strumming, banner-waving Mass with a cool, new post-Vatican II liturgy and a with-it priest.

There are few barriers to entry in the American religion market; the Hindus and Buddists can open up a church on the corner with much the same ease as more mainline American faiths — and even among the mainline Protestants, there is a casualness among the faithful as to where they attend and to what degree they claim allegiance to one denomination or another. Crest and Colgate receive more loyalty than that.

The Pew survey suggests that about half the adult American population has changed religious affiliation.

The need for sharper marketing among the mainline Protestants has been apparent for years. A poll in 1996 indicated that the only thing most Americans knew about the Lutheran faith, for example, was that it was some sort of religion.

Some of this loss of marketing focus and denominational identity was intentional, of course. One suspects that many students at Wesleyan University in Middletown don’t know why the school is, or was, called Wesleyan — and at Trinity, students might be somewhat fuzzy about why the Book of Common Prayer was the volume of choice in the Trinity College chapel. Yale recently dropped the chapel’s formal United Church of Christ affiliation, without prompting a religious war or even a whimper.

The turmoil in the religious marketplace may or may not be a “crisis.” Many of the Founding Fathers encouraged such competitive energy, to avoid the tyranny of a dominant faith. James Madison praised America’s multiplicity of faiths, “for where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”

There’s a hint of anti-trust law in that. Praise the Lord.

Labels: affiliation, Catholic, Laurence D. Cohen, marketing, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, protestants, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

American faith: A work in progress

American faith: A work in progress
Politics and a new view of morality have radically altered the religious landscape.

By Stephen Prothero

Numbers lie, but they also tell tales, untrustworthy and otherwise. So the key question stirring around the much discussed U.S. Religious Landscape Survey released in late February by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is what tale does it tell about the religious state of the union.

For some, the story of this survey, based on interviews in multiple languages with more than 35,000 U.S. adults, is the strength of American religion.

Not too long ago, I wrote that American atheism was going the way of the freak show. As books by Christopher Hitchens and other "new atheists" climbed the best-seller lists, I caught a lot of flak for that prophecy. But atheists make up only 1.6% of respondents to this survey. And 82% of respondents report that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives.

Others find in this new data a nation of religious shoppers: 44% of the Americans surveyed have traded in their original religious home for another. Apparently, the grass is also greener at the church, synagogue or mosque next door.

Still others, noting that only 51% of Americans describe themselves as Protestants, see Protestantism teetering on the verge of becoming a minority.

Catholicism is at least by some readers of the tea leaves in trouble, too, now that ex-Catholics constitute 10% of the population.

Diminished safeguards

The tale I take away from this study is that shifts in the political and moral winds are transforming American religion. Many believe that the Founders separated church and state in order to save the federal government from the interference of overzealous ministers. Not so. The purpose of the First Amendment's establishment clause — which prohibits the federal government from passing laws that favor any one religion (atheism included) — was to safeguard religion against the encroachment of politics. And this new survey suggests that those safeguards are, well, going the way of the freak show.

The key subplot here is the rise of "nones," a category growing faster than any other religious group. Of all adults in the USA, 16% say they are religiously unaffiliated, while 7% were raised that way. Moreover, 25% of younger Americans (ages 18-29) report no religious affiliation at all.

It is important to emphasize that this march of the "nones" is by no means beating the drums for the old secularization thesis, which posited that as societies embraced modernization they would shun God. This is because many "nones" are quite religious. In fact, many Americans refuse to affiliate with any religious organization not because they do not believe in God but because they believe in God so fervently that they cannot imagine any human institution capturing the mysteries of the divine. In this study, only about a quarter of all "nones" call themselves atheists or agnostics. In other surveys, about half the unaffiliated typically affirm the Christian God.

Two related factors seem to be at play in the rise of the "nones": a decline in the stigma of being a religious free agent, and an increase in the stigma of being a church member. According to Darren Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University who has written widely on religious demographics, Americans have long "overconsumed religion because of social constraints." It used to be that you were considered a bad citizen, a bad marriage prospect and a bad employee if you didn't show a little faith in faith. And plainly it is still imperative for presidential candidates to pledge their allegiance to God as well as flag. But in recent years, the moral failings of Ted Haggard, John Geoghan and other men of the cloth have been broadcast from National Public Radio to YouTube. As the almighty have fallen, atheists have felt empowered to stand up and ask whether religion really is any sort of guarantor of moral behavior. What is so moral about affiliating with gay-bashing gay evangelists or pedophilic priests?

Plainly, the Republican Party gained ground over the past quarter-century by attaching itself to family, morality and God, even as the Democratic Party lost ground by focusing on such matters as rights and reason. In the process, the Republicans became the party of God and the Democrats the party of secularism — not a good strategy for the Democratic Party in a country where 96% of voters believe in God. So Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both taking pains to pitch their party as a party of prayer and piety.

Even so, for much of the past generation, "Christian" and "conservative" have seemed to be interchangeable terms. It should not be surprising if at least some on the left who once upon a time might have described themselves as "Christians" have decided to jettison that affiliation for political reasons. Such reasons, it should be emphasized, are basically the same ones why so many Europeans have divorced themselves from their country's established churches: because the marriage of a given church with a particular political regime is never eternal, and when it ends it leaves a lot of angry children in its wake.

Customized religion

Another story buried in the data of this new survey is the power of evangelical Protestantism, and particularly non-denominational churches. Of those surveyed, 44% called themselves "born again" or "evangelical" Christians, and among religious options non-denominational Protestantism is one of the fastest growing.

The story behind the numbers of this latest survey is not that religion is in trouble. It is that religion is morphing into something new. Faith is becoming more political. But it is becoming more personal at the same time.

Stephen Prothero is the Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University. He's also the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't.

Labels: Americans, Christian, evangelicals, faith, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Stephen Prothero, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, unaffilIiated

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, March 10, 2008

Expanding, not dumping, our definition of God

Mark Morford
March 5, 2008

...God is mutating, becoming slightly less appealing as a dogmatic force of sit-down-and-shut-up paternal scowling and becoming perhaps more dynamic, unspecified, something you actually want to take into your heart and into your mouth and lick until you find the rich, creamy center and then define that taste for yourself, blissfully independent of what your parents or priest or president tells you, until you reach that point of deeper knowing where you can't help but go aha.

It's all part of that big study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, released recently and ready to be spun a thousand different ways, the one that contains the whopper of a statistic that says 28 percent of Americans have abandoned the religion they grew up with and have taken up another one, or none at all, or maybe more than one because polytheism certainly sounds tasty and, you know, what the hell, right?

But it's always good to be reminded that 1) try as they might, no one system can ever have a lock on the divine experience, 2) more people are at play in the Wal-Mart of the lord than our leaders, preachers and godmongers might imagine, and 3) despite the disturbing number of evangelicals in America (26 percent), there might yet be hope for the nation to evolve and grow and bust out of the archaic straightjacket of religious authority once and for all.

Or maybe not.

Given the high rate of turnover, it's easy to see religious choice in America as essentially a dour marketplace, a consumer good, each system vying for your attention and your devotion and very much your dollar because, if you think it's all about deep personal enlightenment, I've got this noxious library of "Left Behind" books on tape to sell you, cheap. The pothole on the road of religiosity is obvious, and enormous. As the saying goes, most people use religion the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: as convenient support, not illumination.

Still Christian

Ah, but what of the big stunner of a number, the one that says 78 percent of Americans still identify as Christian, no matter if they actually pray or attend church or run for Congress or secretly snort meth and visit gay hookers as they run an evangelical megachurch in Colorado? It certainly seems like an impressive number - no matter how many new beliefs spring up, we are overwhelmingly, devoutly Jesus-happy.

I'm not buying it.

I suspect a huge chunk of respondents merely check the "Christian" box for lack of something else, because they felt they needed to choose something, even though they don't actually follow Scripture in the slightest, but since they're not technically atheists and they've never really ventured out on a unique spiritual quest of their own, they merely choose "Christian" as the default American position, the fallback, the safe bet, sort of like checking "average" on a customer satisfaction survey or saying "fine" when your barista asks you how you're doing today. Thoughtless, automatic, convenient.

Which brings us to perhaps the most interesting stat of all, wherein 16 percent of Americans (and 21 percent of godless, sinful, heathenistic Californians, both much larger percentages than perhaps anyone expected) don't hook into any religious affiliation whatsoever, thus making them/us the fourth largest "religious" group in America - and growing fast.

They are the unaffiliated, the wayward ones, not just agnostics and atheists but also the poets and the grazers and spiritualists, the mystics and the explorers and the cosmically, intellectually, divinely self-determined. (Or maybe they're all just actors and bass players and trust-funded art students. But let's try to be optimistic.)

A new secular age?

It's a heartening number, and it brings up a delicious question, pondered for ages and yet seemingly more pertinent than ever: Are we headed for a more secular age? Is dour organized religion finally losing its grip? Does it all point to something grander, perhaps more luminous for us as a society, as more people abandon religion's authoritarian hammers for spirituality's exquisite seeds?

And what of the other big question, the one no one really talks much about and certainly no one really teaches you? How does one actually abandon a religion? How do you dump your God and choose another, or none or the one deep inside yourself?

Tentative answer: Maybe you don't. Maybe it's not about abandoning God, and instead merely broadening your definition of the divine so as to encapsulate and swallow it all, every God, every dogma, every attempt to corner the market on belief and put it into cute little boxes and break us all up into angry tribes who stomp our feet and wave our little gilded books and launch wars over promised lands and chosen peoples and crucifixes and crusades and witches and pagans and gays.

In other words, maybe you abandon God by realizing it's all God, it's all divine, all hot, thrumming, vibrating connection in all places in all things at all times, and hence to try and parse it and restrict it and beat it into submission and claim it for one people, one history, one country or church or authoritarian body, is actually the highest form of divine insult.

Or, you know, grand cosmic joke.

Same thing, really.

Labels: Christian, God, Jesus, Mark Morford, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, secular, unaffilIiated

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Journeys of faith can take different paths

March 8, 2008

By Rosa Salter Rodriguez

...many Fort Wayne-area residents who responded to a request from The Journal Gazette last week to discuss changing faiths say they’ve gone on journeys that led them away from their religious roots. Residents were asked for their stories in light of the findings of the Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one of the largest studies of its kind.

Several said they pursued their decision to switch although it was upsetting to family members or friends.

Some of those who switched faiths said they were prompted by unpleasant experiences in their former churches.

Others say they switched because they no longer believed what their previous church taught.

Experts say economic, social and geographic mobility, marriage among members of different religions, the rise of minority religions in America such as Buddhism and Islam, and individualized faith styles are key reasons for the religious turnover. About 16 percent of Pew respondents said they were unaffiliated with any tradition, although many of those said personal spirituality was part of their life.

Regardless of where local faith changers have landed, most say they respect and learned a great deal from their former faiths.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article.

Labels: affiliation, belief, church, faith, Fort wayne, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, Rosa Salter Rodriguez

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, March 07, 2008

I'll have a side of Christianity with that

Amy Baack
Issue date: 3/7/08

We live in an era of freedom of choice. Everything in our society is designed to provide us with options; we like feeling we are in control of our own lives. Don't tell me what to watch on TV - let me choose from 100-plus cable channels. Burger King's slogan sums up our choice-driven culture, as it encourages Americans to "Have it your way."

A recent study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows Americans are beginning to shop around more when it comes to selecting their spiritual beliefs. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that more than 40 percent of the survey respondents said they changed their religious affiliation since childhood.

In addition, 16 percent of those surveyed call themselves "unaffiliated," meaning they do not identify with one particular religion or do not have any definitive spiritual beliefs. This number is startling - it is twice as large as figures from past surveys.

Americans today are simply not willing to mindlessly absorb information thrown at them about what to believe. People no longer stick to one religion, and some are not committing to any religion at all.

The survey results indicate an important trend: Americans are challenging authorities and not accepting ideas as truth simply because they were raised with them, instead they first explore multiple sides of the issue.

The survey also found that among Americans aged 18 to 29, one in four respondents are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

An additional study by Pew conducted in February examined the spirituality of college students during their undergraduate careers, with spirituality defined as "the students' search for meaning and purpose, … their values … and their self-understanding."

College is supposedly a monumental stage in one's life, when one's values and beliefs are solidified; the fact that students gain spiritual maturity throughout their college years is no surprise.

Our generation has been raised to demand choices, and it makes sense that in our pivotal 20s, we are exploring multiple religions and questioning our faith. What is unusual is that the rest of America seems to be following our lead in this collegiate route of self-discovery.

One of the strongest American values is freedom, and Americans are now applying it to their spiritual pursuits, exploring multiple religions to try to figure out what they really believe.

The survey also found that Protestantism, the leading religion in America for generations, is actually on its way to becoming a minority faith. In the 1980s, 65 percent of Americans called themselves Protestants, but the results of Pew's survey indicate this number is now down to 51 percent.

America is becoming more of a nondenominational country, freed from the boundaries of religious institutions. People are exercising their First Amendment rights and exploring whatever religions strike their fancy. As a result, religion is being shaken out of its traditional cut-and-dry mold as Americans begin to piece together their own individual beliefs, creating a sort of custom religion derived from a sampling of sources.

Spiritual beliefs are not one-size-fits-all; they are intensely personal, and we are beginning to treat them as such. No one can tell me what to put on my iPod playlists, and I can certainly practice whatever religion I choose. I don't need to settle on one religion at all; I can create my own. People are free to believe whatever they want; this is the beauty of modern America.

Religion is just the latest part of our culture to receive the choice-filled menu treatment. So what will it be today? Would you like to try some Judaism, or perhaps a bit of Scientology? I hear the Buddhism is fantastic.

Labels: America, Amy Baack, belief, choice, college, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality, students