TruthBook Religious News Blog

Carolyn Moynihan
15 Jan 2010

We hear a lot these days about giving children social skills, cultivating critical thinking, resilience, emotional intelligence and the like, but it all boils down to character -- a concept neglected for much of the 20th century.

So Family Edge reader Blanca Reilly was excited to stumble upon a great academic article on this subject recently in the US journal Reclaiming Children and Youth (interesting title). In “Building Strengths of Character” Nansook Park, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, reviews the literature in this field and describes a project he is involved in called Values In Action (VIA).

This project has a positive focus, identifying 24 widely-valued character strengths and organising them under six broad virtues. It uses a self-report survey which is available online (http://www.viastrengths.org or http://www.authentichappiness.org)

Please click on "external source" for the complete article, and guidance to sign up for this project.

Labels: Carolyn Moynihan, character, children, education, Values in Action

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The children's questions that parents find it toughest to answer

"Where does water come from?", "why is the sky blue?" and "what is infinity?" are among the questions that parents struggle to answer for their children.

By Lucy Cockcroft
08 Jan 2010]

Another query that has tripped up mothers and fathers for generations is, "where do babies come from?".

Basic questions from children about the planet, outer space and the human body leave most parents unable to give a correct answer, according to a survey of 2,500 parents.

It also reveals some of the strategies and concocted stories parents use to tackle tough questions.

Top of the list is "how is electricity made?", "what are black holes?" and "what is infinity?".

Other baffling questions in the top ten include "why is the sky blue?" "why do we have a leap year?" and "how do birds fly?" and "where do babies come from?".

Of those who opt for myths instead of truths, seven in ten parents use the explanation that "babies are delivered by storks" and 23 per cent say "babies are found under gooseberry bushes".

Other popular answers include "babies come out of your tummy button", "I found them" and "babies are bought in Tesco at night on the top shelf by mums and dads only."

The survey also reveals the common age for parents to tell their children the truth about reproduction is 10 years old.

It also shows that parents find moral questions about God and religion hard to answer.

When asked "where do you go when you die?" four in ten parents told their children they go to either heaven or hell, with 25 per cent of parents saying that "you become an angel".

Meanwhile, one in six parents refuse to give their children a spiritual answer by telling them dead people are buried or cremated.

Other morally difficult questions included "why do people kill each other?", "why are some people born with disabilities?" and "why are people gay?".

The study reveals that modern day parents are increasingly turning to the internet to answer difficult questions from their children -56 per cent said they use the web.

One in ten parents admit to making up the answers as they feel too embarrassed to be shown up academically.

Four in ten parents confess to feeling inadequate when they don't know an answer and 63 per cent answer on a whim even if they think the answer may be wrong.

The survey was commissioned by the makers of a new TV programme What Do Kids Know?, to be broadcast on digital channel Watch on Sunday (Jan 10).

For the complete article, please click on "external source."

Labels: children, Internet, Lucy Cockcroft, parents, questions

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Pope calls for peace in 2010

1/4/2010

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Friday called for respect of all people without discrimination and the protection of children from war and violence as he celebrated the start of the new year.

Jan. 1 is also the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, and the pontiff issued an appeal to all armed groups to "stop, reflect and abandon the way of violence," even if it seems impossible.

"You will feel in your hearts the joy of peace, which you have perhaps long forgotten," Benedict said during the Angelus prayer.

He said peace begins by recognizing that men are brothers, not rivals or enemies.

"Peace begins with a look of respect that recognizes in another man's face a person, regardless of the color of his skin, nationality, language or religion," he said during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica earlier in the day.

The value of respect for all should be taught from an early age, Benedict said. Noting that classes containing children of different backgrounds are common, he said that "their faces are a prophecy of the kind of humanity we are called upon to create: a family of families and peoples."

Labels: children, family, peace, Pope Benedict XVI, war

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Thursday, December 03, 2009

How Best To Teach Children About Religion?

Nov 2, 2009
By Amelia Santaniello and Frank Vascellaro
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (WCCO) ?

According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 92 percent of Americans believe in God. It's a smaller number -- 54 percent -- who attend services regularly.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise when WCCO-TV asked first-graders at the International School of Minnesota if they regularly attend religious services, about half the children raised their hands. Then we asked them if they believe in God. The answer: a loud and collective, "Yes." The children don't just believe. They like God.

Six-year-old Evan said, "God is kind and nice because he brings people happiness." Seven-year-old Jerod said, "I really like God 'cause he made our whole world." Their classmate Anna said simply, "I love God."

If they could ask God anything, what would it be?

Trudie, the class clown, wants to ask God "to give me $1,000." More seriously, Apurva would ask God to "help other people who don't have money, give them more money."

Then there are the big questions.

From Will, "How did you create people?" Victor one-upped that one with, "How did you create everything in the whole entire universe?"

"Some of those are the earliest questions, why and where and how," said Carol Dittberner. "And of course the big question, 'Who made God?'"

Dittberner is the director of religious education at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Minneapolis. For 27 years, she's been teaching children about Catholicism using Maria Montessori's hands-on approach.

What does she think is the best way to teach children about God and religion?

"By example," answered Dittberner. "The best thing is to always include your children when you go to worship, when you go to church, when you say your prayers."

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

Labels: Amelia Santaniello, children, Frank Vascellaro, God, religion

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Survey: Childhood religious involvement often sparks adult faith

November 17, 2009
Survey: Childhood religious involvement often sparks adult faith

Survey data released by the Christian study organization The Barna Group reveals a strong correlation between childhood exposure to faith and church and the continuation of that faith into adulthood.

A sample of 1,000 American adults in July revealed that 78 percent of adults who regularly attended religious services and functions as young children did not have significant changes in their faith outlook as adults. Similarly, 79 percent of adults who continued with exposure to church into their teenage years reported little variance from the faith taught them growing up.

The survey identifies that 69 percent of adults recall having regular exposure to religion as young children or adolescents.

Among the most active as children were Catholics (86%), upscale adults (78%), Midwesterners (76%), notional Christians (75%), college graduates (75%), women (73%), political conservatives (73%), and those ages 65-plus (73%).

Please click on "external source" to access links to the entire study

Labels: children, faith

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Sunday, September 27, 2009

The '2009 Parents of the Year' award goes to…The Duggars

September 16,
Jackie Kass

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar were awarded the title of "2009 National Parents of the Year" by the National Parent’s Day Council. The council insists that the Duggar’s were not selected just because they have a large family of their own children, but because they have exhibited such high standards of parenting. The website states, "Their highly organized household centers around spiritual principles and is obviously filled with huge amounts of love, grace, joy and mutual respect."

However, there is no getting around the fact that the Duggar family is indeed super-sized. Michelle and Jim Bob were high school sweethearts, have been married 24 years and produced 18 biological children (with one on the way!). There are 10 boys and 8 girls ranging in age from 7 months to 20 years. The oldest son and his wife are expecting their first child, making Michelle and Jim Bob grandparents for the first time. Their grandchild is due before their own 19th child. Jim Bob states on his website, "We believe that each child is a special gift from God and we are thankful to Him for each one."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: children, family, God, parents, spiritual values, the Duggars

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Conference says teachers must listen to children who believe in angels

Conference says teachers must listen to children who believe in angels
Thursday, September 3, 2009

Children who believe they have seen angels or had other spiritual experiences often keep it a secret for fear of being ridiculed by adults, the British Educational Research Association conference was told today.

Teachers have a special responsibility to listen to children who want to talk about 'spiritual' experiences that other adults may dismiss as fantasy, says Dr Kate Adams, a senior lecturer at Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln. Both the 1988 and 2002 education Acts require them to attend to children's spiritual development.

She accepts that this legal requirement is daunting, given the difficulty of defining "spiritual" and the almost impossible task of demonstrating development in spirituality. However, Dr Adams argues that teachers can at least grant children the right to have their "spiritual voice" heard. "By doing this we can show them how important this dimension of their life is and begin to combat the disinterest which can make children feel misunderstood and retreat into silence," she says.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: children, spirituality, teachers

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Global survey: Kids doubt God but still put trust in parents

By James D. Davis
August 9, 2009

More teens in Malawi believe in ghosts than God.

Many youths in India make more money than their parents.

Nearly half of young Russians say they've tried to commit suicide.

These are just a few of the startling insights turned up by OneHope, a mission support organization in Pompano Beach. The organization, which distributes Bible portions to children, is conducting a massive survey of beliefs and behaviors of the world's 2 billion children younger than 18.

The survey results are on a new website, spiritualstateofthechildren.com, set up in observance of International Youth Day on Wednesday. Taking in 22 nations — from Armenia to Mexico to Uganda — the website includes photos, videos and documents. OneHope plans to add 38 more nations by 2011.

The goal of the study is simple, according to Chad Causey, OneHope's vice president for global ministry: Get adults to hear the young.

"You see a lot of demographic research on them, but when do you hear from them?" Causey says. "We want to make sure society, and especially the church within society, hears them."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: belief, Chad Causey, children, church, James D. Davis, OneHope, religion

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Friday, July 31, 2009

God and Majors

July 28, 2009

Some parents of faith have long worried about the possible impact of (secular) colleges on the religious observances of their children.

A new national study that looks at trends between study of certain subjects and religious observance provides some evidence to back up those worries, but also may surprise members of some disciplines and some faiths. And the research also finds that religious students are more likely than others to attend college. The study is by four scholars at the University of Michigan and was released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research (abstract and ordering information available here).

Among the findings:

Please click on "external source" for the complete study results

Labels: children, college, faith, National Bureau of Economic Research, parents, religion

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Stand up for fight for the weak, the ill, the persecuted

Wesley G. Hughes, Staff Writer
04/05/2009

I've had a hankering in the last few years to be an ethicist, not one of those ivory-tower or mountaintop kinds of guys but sort of a shade-tree, back-of-the-envelope kind of thinker on things right and wrong.

I'm not sure what impels the thinking of those other ethicists with the letters behind their names but what gets me going is the evil that men do or allow to be done to the weakest, meekest and most innocent among us.

And it's usually not something I've been thinking about for a long time. It's as though someone slapped me in the face with it like a big wet fish. It gets your attention.

A good example of that kind of attention grabber is when I learned of the festering outbreak of child prostitution going on right here in this county and just to the west in the Pomona area. It's not just there and in Ontario and Claremont. Those seem to be the only cities that have acknowledged it and are attempting to do something about it.

It seems unlikely that ethics and war go hand in hand but I promise I'm going to wage war against child prostitution and the evil merchandisers and users of these child slaves in every way I can. And I'll be talking about the enablers who allow it to go on under their noses.

Another example of one of those fishlike epiphanies occurred a couple of years ago. I remember it well, not the exact date but the moment.

It was probably a Saturday. I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking my coffee and reading the paper, looking forward to working the crossword puzzle.

I turned the page and the wet fish got me. There before me was a large photograph of a beautiful child, whose face was disfigured by a cleft palate and lip. It caught me so by surprise that it brought tears to my eyes.

The photo was in an ad placed by The Smile Train...

The Smile Train became my favorite charity and I've written about it in this space before and I wear and never remove one of those rubber wristlets - what do they call those things anyway? - bearing The Smile Train name. There's a pang of guilt that goes with that. It's been too long since I sent a contribution. It's time.

The final fish I'll use today occurred Saturday.

I don't usually stick my nose into religious issues but I'll make an exception for the story that I read in Saturday's New York Times. It was about a 17-year-old girl, who was publicly flogged by a Taliban commander in the Swat region of Pakistan. Someone caught it on video.

Why this incident affected me so, I don't really know. Over time, I've witnessed and read so many vile things done in the name of God that I should not be surprised. That includes the religions granted freedom of worship by our Constitution right here at home.

Fortunately, they don't have completely free reign here. If my neighbors dragged my daughter into the street and flogged her for missing Sunday school, they'd have more than just me to deal with.

They would be prosecuted and punished (if there was anything left after I got through but then of course, I'd be prosecuted too. We have a good system).

This final item came together in my mind Saturday with the children, who are prostituted ...They too are beaten and abused and have no power and no choices. It doesn't matter whether it's done in the name of commerce or the name of religion. It should be stopped.

It extends beyond children to women everywhere. A woman should have every right to live her life with the same freedoms as any man, no matter where on the planet, the color of her skin or the name of her religion, or if she chooses, without religion.

Those are my ethics.

Labels: children, ethics, exploitation, persecution, Wesley G. Hughes, women

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Poll examines faith's role in parenting

Posted on Mar 17, 2009 |
by Mark Kelly

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The vast majority of parents hope their children grow up to live good lives but, for many, parental success does not include faith in God -- even among parents who are evangelical Christians, according to a new study from LifeWay Research, the research arm of LifeWay Christian Resources.

The national survey of 1,200 adults with children under 18 at home found the most common definitions of successful parenting include children having good values (25 percent), being happy adults (25 percent), finding success in life (22 percent), being a good person (19 percent), graduating from college (17 percent) and living independently (15 percent). Being godly or having faith in God is mentioned by 9 percent of respondents.

Parents who attend religious services weekly are particularly likely to emphasize faith in God, but only 24 percent of them identify that as a mark of parenting success, the research found.

INFLUENCES AND GOALS

While the vast majority (83 percent) believes parents should be most responsible for a child's spiritual development, only 35 percent say their religious faith is one of the most important influences on their parenting, according to the study. This leaves nearly half (48 percent) who acknowledge their role in their child's spiritual development, but fail to consider their own religious faith among the most important influences on their parenting.

Pushing out to either end of the religious spectrum, the study found that almost a third of all parents either have no religious faith or say religious faith has little or no influence on their parenting. Conversely, among born-again Christians, 29 percent say faith is not among the most important influences on their parenting.

Asked if they have a written plan or goal for what they want to accomplish as parents, a full 33 percent say they have no plan or goal at all. Among those who attend religious services weekly and evangelicals, 76 percent say they have a plan, either written or unwritten.

FEARS AND REGRETS

In contrast to visions of success, many parents are fearful for their children's futures and some harbor regrets about their parenting, according to the research. A full 82 percent agree they feel fearful when they think about what kind of world their children will face as adults. Asked if they feel a lot of regret about what they've done as parents, 28 percent of parents agree, although only 5 percent feel strongly about it.

Almost six in 10 parents (59 percent) indicate they want their children to experience pain and disappointment so they can learn from it, but about three in four parents (74 percent) say they try to keep their own pain hidden from their children. More than one in three parents (34 percent) say they worry when they think about their children 'leaving the nest.' A full 15 percent say the prospect of their children growing up and leaving home is simply too painful to think about.

Only 14 percent of all parents say they feel they are very familiar with what the Bible has to say about parenting, even though 77 percent identify themselves as Christians. Among those who attend religious services weekly, that number rises to 36 percent.

Labels: children, faith, God, LifeWay Research, Mark Kelly, parenthood

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Friday, February 27, 2009

Survey: Parents Rely on Personal Experience Over Biblical Guidance

By Elena Garcia
Christian Post Reporter
Fri, Feb. 27 2009

Although most parents say they are trying to improve their parenting skills, few look to the Bible or church for guidance, a new study shows.

A majority of parents (60 percent) heavily rely on their own experiences growing up for parenting guidance but only one-fifth say they receive a lot of guidance from sacred text such as the Bible or Koran, the latest study by LifeWay Research found. Even fewer parents (15 percent) look to church as a source of guidance for parenting.

The vast majority (96 percent) agree they consistently try to be better parents but more than 6 in 10 completely ignore parenting seminars and over half don't care for books by religious parenting experts, according to the study.

The study also found that few (14 percent) say they are familiar with biblical teaching on parenting. Among Christian parents, those with evangelical beliefs are more familiar than Protestant parents on the Bible's parenting advice, 52 to 27 percent. Only 7 percent of Catholic parents are very familiar on what the Holy Book says about parenting.

"Christians are routinely neglecting biblical guidance and encouragement in their parenting today, relying instead on their own personal experience," McConnell commented.

When it comes to the home environment, around 7 in 10 parents describe it as supporting, positive, encouraging and active. However, an estimated 6 in 10 do not find their home environment peaceful, nearly 5 in 10 do not describe it as relaxed, and around 4 in 10 do not say it is joyful.

They study also showed that although parents spend time with their families on a daily basis, many do not engage in spiritual activities.

A modest majority of parents (57 percent) usually eat dinner together with their families everyday and 45 percent indicate they watch television together each day.

Prayer is a more common family activity than religious study, with 53 percent of parents indicating they pray together at least once monthly compared to 31 percent saying they hold religious devotionals or studies together at least monthly.

Over 80 percent of parents say they have an excellent family life but 30 percent rate their family's spiritual life as only fair or poor.

Overall, 92 percent of parents say they need encouragement but not many receive it from the Bible or church, the study showed.

Approximately 38 percent of parents who attend religious worship services weekly say they do not receive any encouragement from reading the Bible and 24 percent report not being encouraged from church.

Among Christian parents, Catholics (85 percent) are more likely than Protestants (43 percent) to not find encouragement in the Bible. Catholic parents (71 percent) are also more likely than Protestant parents (39 percent) to say church is not a source of encouragement.

Lifeway Research findings are based on a national survey conducted among 1,200 parents with children under 18 at home.

Labels: Bible, children, Elena Garcia, LifeWay Research, parenthood, religious experience

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Spirituality, Not Religion, Makes Kids Happy

The link between spirituality and happiness is pretty well-established for teens and adults. More spirituality brings more happiness. Now a study has reached into the younger set, finding the same link in "tweens" and in kids in middle childhood.

Specifically, the study shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships — both measures of spirituality, the researchers claim — are happier.

Personal aspects of spirituality (meaning and value in one's own life) and communal aspects (quality and depth of inter-personal relationships) were both strong predictors of children's happiness, said study leader Mark Holder from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues Ben Coleman and Judi Wallace.

However, religious practices were found to have little effect on children's happiness, Holder said.

Religion is just one institutionalized venue for the practice of or experience of spirituality, and some people say they are spiritual but are less enthusiastic about the concept of God.

Other research has shown a connection between well-adjusted and well-behaved children and religion, but that is not the same, necessarily, as happiness.

Spirituality trumps temperament

In an effort to identify strategies to increase children's happiness, Holder and colleagues set out to better understand the nature of the relationship between spirituality, religiousness and happiness in children aged 8 to 12 years.

A total of 320 children, from four public schools and two faith-based schools, completed six different questionnaires to rate their happiness, their spirituality, their religiousness and their temperament. Parents were also asked to rate their child's happiness and temperament.

A child's temperament was also an important predictor of happiness. In particular, happier children were more sociable and less shy. The relationship between spirituality and happiness remained strong, even when the authors took temperament into account.

However, counterintuitively, religious practices — including attending church, praying and meditating — had little effect on a child's happiness.

And therein may lie some useful information for parents.

More on teens and spirituality

Another research project recently added weight to previously known links between spirituality and happiness among teens.

This researchers compared teenagers with the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with their healthy peers. The analysis showed that while spirituality helped all the kids cope, it was especially helpful for the ones with IBD (which causes abdominal pain and other nasty symptoms, as well as higher risk for psychosocial difficulties and mental health problems; it is more serious than and not the same as IBS or spastic colon). The exact cause of IBD is not known, and there is no cure.

The researchers, Dr. Michael Yi and Sian Cotton at the University of Cincinnati, defined spirituality as one's sense of meaning or purpose in life or one's sense of connectedness to the sacred or divine. Again, they weren't talking about religion, church, temple or mosque.

Teams led by Yi and Cotton collected data on socio-demographics, functional health status and psychosocial characteristics as well as spiritual well-being for 67 patients with IBD and 88 healthy adolescents between the ages of 11 and 19.

One of the most important predictors of poorer overall quality of life for both the healthy and the sick teens was having a poorer sense of spiritual well-being, Yi said, although personal characteristics such as self esteem, family functioning and social support were similar between adolescents with IBD and their healthy peers.

Less depression, more well-being

Cotton's analysis of the same 155 adolescents found that higher levels of spiritual well-being were associated with fewer depressive symptoms and better emotional well-being.

The results were detailed in recent online versions of the Journal of Pediatrics and the Journal of Adolescent Health. Yi's and Cotton's research was funded by career development awards by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Labels: children, Dr. Michael Yi, happiness, relationship, religion, Sian Cotton, spirituality

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Friday, November 28, 2008

Children are born believers in God, academic claims

Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic.

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent

24 Nov 2008

Children are born believers in God

Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.

He says that young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God.

"The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to be built into the natural development of children's minds than we once thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"If we threw a handful on an island and they raised themselves I think they would believe in God."

In a lecture to be given at the University of Cambridge's Faraday Institute on Tuesday, Dr Barrett will cite psychological experiments carried out on children that he says show they instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose.

In one study, six and seven-year-olds who were asked why the first bird existed replied "to make nice music" and "because it makes the world look nice".

Dr Barrett said there is evidence that even by the age of four, children understand that although some objects are made by humans, the natural world is different.

He added that this means children are more likely to believe in creationism rather than evolution, despite what they may be told by parents or teachers.

Dr Barrett claimed anthropologists have found that in some cultures children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them.

"Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."

Labels: anthropology, belief, children, Dr Justin Barrett, faith, God, Martin Beckford

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Survey warns of 'faith bullying'

Almost a quarter of young people have been bullied because of their religion, a charity report says.

Beatbullying said it had encountered a disturbing level of religious segregation and intolerance among the children it had studied.

Chief executive Emma-Jane Cross said that schools were cultivating "at best a lack of understanding and at worst a lack of tolerance of other faiths".

The survey was based on 800 under-18s who visited the charity's website.

It was published to mark the start of Anti-Bullying Week.

Some 23% said they been bullied because of their faith, while 9% said they had been singled out for wearing religious symbols.

Lack of assistance

The charity - which runs government-funded bullying-prevention programmes in schools - claimed that many children subjected to faith bullying resorted to self-harm and drug abuse.

This bullying took the form of racial abuse and physical attacks, as well as being spat at, mugged, and even stabbed.

The findings from our survey clearly indicate the lack of support and direction our young people have to openly discuss and understand faith-based issues with their peers

About one-fifth (19%) of those who participated in the study said they chose to mix largely with friends of the same religion.

A small minority - 6% - said their families did not approve of their having friends from other religions.

Beatbullying criticised what it claimed was a lack of assistance for those suffering faith bullying.

"The findings from our survey clearly indicate the lack of support and direction our young people have to openly discuss and understand faith-based issues with their peers," Ms Cross said.

Labels: Beatbullying, bullying, children, Emma-Jane Cross, religious intolerance, schools

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Should Kids Learn to be Spiritual?

Posted May 20, 2008

Instead of viewing spirituality as the holiest or the highest, what if we considered it to be a foundational coping skill, a guide for every action in our lives?

That's just how the teachers at a unique program called Spirituality for Kids (SFK) view spiritual values--not as beliefs to adopt, but as skills to learn because they help us cope. They claim that spirituality can and should be taught; and that (in today's harsh world) the people most in need of it are children.

Currently offering their special training program to kids (all the way from New York's Lower Eastside to the Middle East), last week in New York City, a lively team of SFK teachers gave an assembly for adults hosted by designer Donna Karan at the Stephan Weiss studio in New York City. Donna herself is a SFK strong supporter.

"Simple activities can be so powerful and kids really get it," Donna told me. "As they add their bead to a necklace, they understand that this is my individual bead, but together with all the other beads, there's a necklace. We're connected and we need each other. Without the connection, there's no necklace."

At her event, panels alternated with exercises, giving adults a taste of the SFK approach. Lighting each other's candles to share the "inner light," dialoguing with one's inner "opponent," or learning that feeding one's neighbor was the way to receive nourishment oneself. It may sound silly but it was surprisingly moving even for the cynical among us.

For myself, I've spent countless hours in retreats, workshops, and practices, learning these kinds of lessons. But experiencing them in this embodied and playful way was both heart warming and team building. My classmates, adults some of whom regularly practice adult-style spirituality, felt the same way.

Karen Berg, the founder of SFK, (whose husband directs the Kaballah Center) views the program as the vehicle to "give the gift of interconnection."

"Schools emphasize the skills of reading and writing," she told the assembly. "But the skills that endow emotional intelligence are equally vital. You carry them into life."

A recent Rand Corporation study conducted by policy analyst, Sarah Gaillot, found that the SFK's offerings produce tangible benefits, building in young people four key areas of resilience: in social skill, self-esteem, sense of purpose, and problem solving. Those skills are crucial for all children; but they are especially vital for children facing great duress.

In Malawi, one million AIDS orphans have grown up stigmatized, nursing sick parents, and living under the cloud of their parents' immanent death. Sylvia Namakhwa, a Malawian who directs the SFK program in her country told the group that she viewed SFK as a life-saver for the kids she teaches.

"Before SFK, the kids regularly wound up on the streets or in prisons. It was every man for himself. Now they have a way to cope, and a reason to join together."

In her world, spirituality is not high minded, but practical. With the resilience they develop through experiencing SFK, Namakhwa's Malawian youngsters are more likely to stay in the shelters where they can receive the minimal food and social services, rather than taking to crime.

So--why should kids learn to be spiritual? To cope with the world we adults have created or allowed to be. When the day comes that we've create a social and global order based on spiritual values like connection, inclusion, and sharing, then hopefully children can learn to be spiritual just by watching us.

For more information on SFK, please go to: SFK.org. To join the Better Health Campaign, please sign up at: www.Health-Journalist.com For more on Donna Karan's initiatives, go to www.urbanzen.org

Labels: children, Donna Karan, Karen Berg, spirituality, Spirituality for Kids

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Child Happiness Linked to Spirituality

CBN News
March 27, 2008

CBNNews.com - New research shows spirituality is a major factor in children's overall happiness.

A study conducted by the University of British Columbia measured how a child's spirituality, and factors like temperament, affect the child's sense of well being.

"Our goal was to see whether there's a relation between spirituality and happiness," said Mark Holder, an associate professor of psychology and the study's co-author. "We knew going in that there was such a relation in adults, so we took multiple measures of spirituality and happiness in children."

Spirituality accounted for about five percent of happiness in adults, but a surprising 16.5 percent of happiness among children.

"From our perspective, it's a whopping big effect," Holder said. "I expected it to be much less. I thought their spirituality would be too immature to account for their well-being."

The study tested 315 children ages 9 to 12.

Next, researchers hope to survey children in a country where Christianity is not prominent and compare the results.

Source: Religion News Service

Labels: children, happiness, Mark Holder, spirituality, University of British Columbia

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Book Review: How did we become so anxious?

by Judith Timson
March 18, 2008

In her compulsively readable new book, A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine), Toronto author Patricia Pearson reports that more than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety.

Ms. Pearson herself has battled her way back from debilitating anxiety attacks, one of which involved frantically ordering crates of freeze-dried vegetables in case the pandemic flu hit and there was no fresh food available.

After reading her book, rich in humour and insight, I came to the grateful conclusion that I was (barely) within the normal range of anxiety. I know people who are not so lucky, burdened with clinical anxiety that inhibits their lives.

But how did we all get so anxious? It can't all be from watching CNN.

Ms. Pearson thinks anxiety is spreading through our culture because "we need, on a collective, cultural and spiritual level, to grow." There's also the matter of control - we wish desperately to control what is going to happen to us, and if modern life has rammed home anything to us, it is that we have little control.

Workplace angst is a major component of this modern condition. Julie McCarthy, a professor of organizational behaviour at the Rotman School of Management, says new statistics show that "in North America, 25 per cent of workers feel anxious most days in a week and that 44 per cent are anxious about losing their jobs."

I can believe that. Our jobs are insecure, the demands of new technologies are overwhelming and our bosses, suffering from bottom-line anxiety themselves, just aren't very nice to us any more. Hence the feeling of working throughout the day with your stomach clenched.

Of course the flipside of workplace anxiety involves workaholics using their jobs to keep all their other anxieties at bay. Self-medication through BlackBerry use. If I'm at work, the feeling goes, I can control the universe. If I'm at work, I don't have to be thinking about all the other things in my life that make me anxious.

But it's the kids I'm really worried about.

Ms. Pearson argues that anxiety in young adults is about the search for emotional attachment, but my guess is that low-grade (and not clinical) anxiety is exacerbated by a number of factors - including seeing their parents worried about money, work and health all the time, not to mention transmitting a hyper-realized state of global anxiety (cyber-terrorist attacks, anyone?). Children's anxiety can also be heightened by overweening parenting. (I shudder when I remember how overprotective I was of my children, "streetproofing" them into such paranoia that they probably thought they were living in a Martin Scorsese movie).

And certainly there's the foreboding sense many kids of all ages have that they simply have to succeed. Or else. A long-time philosophy professor told me he has never seen such driven students as the ones today: "They know that the world is no longer their oyster, that they can't depend on it to validate them, and that they have to differentiate themselves."

It's no wonder, then, with all this anxiety, that people young and old are desperate for ways, pharmaceutical and otherwise, to calm down and cope.

Ms. Pearson, having given up on medication, hints that visiting her local church is doing her a world of good. Others look to yoga and its calming properties, and there are lineups to get into "mindfulness programs," which teach people how to find the "stillness" at the centre of their beings.

The birth of anxiety as the disease of our times has actually been a progression from the paranoia of the 1960s, which became the depression of the 1980s and 1990s, and is now presenting as anxiety in the 21st century. What's next?

It would be nice to think that all our relaxation techniques will eventually pay off, that serenity will rule and the calm will inherit the earth.

Labels: A Brief History of Anxiety, Americans, anxiety, children, church, control, Judith Timson, Patricia Pearson, workers

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Are we robbing our children of their childhood?

By Joseph M. Cachia
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Mar 13, 2008

‘The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.' --Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Today children are under increasing pressure to grow up quickly and are not being allowed to enjoy their childhood. Children are entitled to a proper childhood and parents need help to realize this right. This is as much their right as giving them food, shelter and education.

‘The boundaries between adulthood and childhood are definitely becoming eroded,’ says Dr. Karen McGavock, an expert on childhood. Children are being seen as miniature adults. We are making them more miserable by forcing them into a premature adulthood. Childhood itself is disappearing in our society and the media, foremost the TV, are to blame. We need cultural safeguards against the erosion of childhood as this poses a threat of damaging effects of the mental and sexual health of our children.

Considering the time spent in front of a screen -- whether TV or computer -- and the tender age of our children, one is constrained to confess that to allow children to continue to watch this much screen media is an abdication of parental responsibility -- a truly hands-off parenting.

Perhaps it’s time to enact a legislation punishing failing mothers and fathers for bad or negligent parenting, as this is not simply a private matter and consequences of such are constantly being shouldered and suffered by all of us.

It is now an accepted fact that the vast majority of contemporary families cannot get by without women’s income. Unfortunately, this is the bitter choice! Parents are compelled to choose work and money over family time. If we really love our children, we should establish a formula by which parents work shorter hours for pay which may be lower, but still allows a higher living standard overall.

As a matter of fact, I see no sense or reason in those trying to discourage mothers taking up work. We can never turn back the clock to the good old village life. Of course, we must be careful of not becoming abusers of our own children by succumbing to the vice of greed and profit to the detriment of the proper upbringing of our children.

And what’s wrong with working mothers? Really, I mean those women who have a job outside their homes, as actually most women do, whether at home or outside, are engaged in some kind of work. And I don’t mean only the women who have toiled, alongside their husbands, in the fields and cattle farms. At that time, younger children were brought up much closer to nature -- romping around in the countryside. Of course, older children stayed home helping their grandmothers to cook, do the cleaning and caring for the younger siblings.

Children being cared for by someone besides their mothers is nothing new! Researchers on this issue have found that there was virtually no difference in attachment whether children were at home, cared for by a mother or father, or in day care or cared for by a relative. Although this did not cause any big stir, at least it did dispel the scare stories about day care. However, it must be admitted that parents have a far more powerful impact on children than being in day care does. I do not think that non-maternal childcare is about to disappear very soon.

But what ‘values’ are we transmitting to our children? Probably that money and power are top priorities. However, the spiritual (not necessarily religious) formation is the utmost and indispensable obligation. We ensure that they do not fall out with society and keep them in line with fashionable social conceits of the mob. Peer pressure is having the better of us. Religious stories should never be told to children to frighten them into behaving themselves so as to achieve this ambition. We never seem to realize that indoctrinating children into religion is a form of psychological child abuse. Parents could encourage religious literacy, and teach their children what they believe to be true, but definitely without any indoctrination.

The bigger concern should be about the quality of parenting. We should be more conscious of raising moral and ethical children than we are with teaching them a particular religious tradition. Teaching children about peace-making and non-violence is the most important component of spiritual development. Raising our children to think and decide for themselves is what really works for us!

Praise your children by letting them know what is good. Never encourage them to act impudently in any situation. No example of mature conduct is manifested by approving or complimenting your child for being a ‘smart-alec.’ Why isn’t discipline what it used to be and why can’t we let children be children for a while longer?

Joseph M. Cachia resides in Vittoriosa, Malta.

Labels: children, Joseph M. Cachia, parenthood

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

And a Child Shall Lead Him

And a Child Shall Lead Him

Published: February 20, 2008

We celebrated the baptism of our fourth on Sunday. He’s the one without the beard in my head shot. As with our other three kids, the ceremony was a family-only matter at the log chapel on Notre Dame’s campus. Being in such familiar surroundings, the baptism gave me the chance to think about my own spiritual state and what an influence my children have had on it over the last eight years—even though I’m the one who is supposed to be influencing them.

I believe that parents are as responsible for their children’s spiritual well-being as they are for their children’s physical, intellectual, and emotional health. Having gone from calling myself an “agnostic” to a “faithless Catholic” and now being in a state of what I’ve dubbed “surrender,” I often wonder how qualified I am to teach my kids about spiritual matters. Even now, I don’t have much of a plan for maintaining my own spiritual health. Gone are the days when I could strike out hiking on a whim with friends, spend the summer reading thought-provoking books, or just take time to reflect on my life. My days are now consumed with the billable hour, dirty diapers, Bionicles, trucks under feet, and third-grade book reports. What little time I can steal for myself is more often spent on movies and sports than anything truly fulfilling.

Despite the busy-ness of my life, I still owe it to my kids to give them some spiritual guidance. They don’t need to share my own beliefs. But without some spiritual foundation, how can I expect them to live fully? So we’ve turned to what we know, what we grew up with. It was a practical compromise—for me especially. We agreed that we would get our kids through their first Communion. It would allow them to participate in the Catholic mass. At the time, the bargain was made in the context of our kids going to mass with their grandparents. But I now wonder if it wasn’t really for our own sakes.

Taking a child that far into religious education requires a big commitment from her parents. My wife and I had to make more of an effort to make it to church. And of course children have questions. I have pondered—and I believe given reasonable answers to—questions such as “Why is church boring?” and the very direct, “Is God real?” I have also had to conform my own behavior to what we are asking our children to do. I now sing in church. Even if I’m just going through the motions, the fact is, I am minding my own spiritual health more diligently than I likely would have without kids.

And the payoff has been surprising. The thankfulness I often feel has a context. The details of it all may be fuzzy, but I understand that I have been given gifts in the form of each of my children. Often the gifts are moments from my children themselves. The peace of lying next to my daughter as we both read books quietly on the couch. The amazement of watching my five-year-old assemble a complex new Lego toy with focus and determination. The mirth of my three-year-old’s singing and dancing. The pure joy of seeing my baby boy smile at me for the first time. Each of these things fills my soul. And every hug, kiss, and unsolicited “I love you” from my kids sustains me.

So, as I dutifully committed to the religious upbringing of my newest child on Sunday, I had to wonder if we don’t have it backwards. Shouldn’t I have been asking this vibrant innocent baby to lead me, if only a part of the way, on my spiritual journey before he strikes out on his own?

Labels: baptism, children, family, parenthood, religious education, spirituality

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Can Religion Offset the Effects of Child Poverty?

October 23, 2007
By Melissa Lafsky

What steps can poor parents take to counterbalance the effects of poverty?

According to Rajeev Dehejia, an economics professor at Tufts University, one answer may be to join a church. Dehejia, along with Thomas DeLeire, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Erzo Luttmer and Josh Mitchell, from the Harvard economics department, have written a new working paper called “The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth.” In it, they test the impact of religion on more than 20,000 children raised by “disadvantaged” families, as defined by factors like family income, the parents’ levels of education, and “child characteristics including parental assessments of the child.” Using the National Survey of Families and Households, they questioned each child on the amount of involvement his or her parent had with a religious organization, then observed the child’s outcome 13 to 15 years later, as measured by education, income, and levels of health and psychological well-being.

Their findings are summarized as follows:

Overall, we find strong evidence that youth with religiously active parents are less affected later in life by childhood disadvantage than youth whose parents did not frequently attend religious services. These buffering effects of religious organizations are most pronounced when outcomes are measured by high school graduation or non-smoking and when disadvantage is measured by family resources or maternal education, but we also find buffering effects for a number of other outcome-disadvantage pairs. We generally find much weaker buffering effects for other social organizations.

Of course, a parent’s decision to practice a religion may coincide with other traits like self-discipline, community involvement, and mentoring skills, all of which will likely affect a child’s upbringing. Not to mention the fact that the authors offer no analysis of whether a parent’s including the child in the religion has any effect:
Our data do not allow us to determine to what extent the buffering effects are driven by religious organizations actively intervening in the lives of disadvantaged youth (through tutoring, mentoring, or financial assistance) as opposed to providing the youth with motivation, values, or attitudes that lead to better outcomes.

Still, it appears that, particularly where education and smoking habits are concerned, a parent’s heading to a church, synagogue, or mosque might be useful in counteracting the negative effects of child poverty.

Labels: children, Melissa Lafsky, National Survey of Families and Households, parents, poverty, Rajeev Dehejia, religion

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

'Compass' author's atheism stirs debate on film's message

by Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
6 December 2007

Nina Hemmer is a reader. The 11-year-old Shorewood, Wis., girl is plowing through the Bible and hopes “to get to the part about Jesus’ birth by Christmas,” said her mother, Cathy Pinter.

But Nina has also read and is a fan of a series of books that some say challenges or at least questions scriptural dogma and even the very notion of God—a series of fantasy novels for young people under the umbrella title of “His Dark Materials.”

Philip Pullman, the author of the award-winning, critically acclaimed and commercially successful series, is an atheist who has said that the books—“The Golden Compass,” “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass”—are about “killing God,” and that he is trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.

And some Christian groups are urging a boycott of the film “The Golden Compass,” starring Nicole Kidman, which will be released Friday.

Despite all this, Nina has escaped Pullman’s clutches unscathed and with her faith intact, said her mother, who was unaware of any controversy.

She is not alone in her enjoyment of the books, whose millions of readers include adults such as James B. South, chairman of the philosophy department at Marquette University.

South discovered that Pullman’s books bore a “striking similarity” to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” in that they offered “a fully created world, a well-thought-out moral system, clearly delineated bad guys and an incredibly entertaining story.”

It could be argued that the Roman Catholic Tolkien, the Protestant C.S. Lewis, writer of “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, and Pullman—who all attended Oxford University—are using the fantasy genre to engage in a literary debate on faith and Christianity, with Pullman as the skeptic.

“The Golden Compass” is set in a world similar to ours but where people have animal alter egos, called daemons.

It is governed by a church-like body called the Magisterium, which has dismissed a metaphysical substance called Dust as the equivalent of original sin, but that others believe to be of divine origin and purpose. The Magisterium has also declared a belief in the existence of parallel worlds to be heresy.

Lyra has a compass called the alethiometer that only she can manipulate and that is perhaps powered by Dust. With the help of a polar bear, witches, angels, a nomadic race called Gyptians and a cowboy with a hot-air balloon, she uses it to save children from Magisterium experiments to sever their daemons. She follows the explorer Lord Asriel from the ends of her world into others, where his armies are gathering to battle a God-like figure called the Authority.

On the one hand, it is the stuff of fantasy and adventure with a loyal and brave central character, common to children’s literature.

But at a deeper level—with its references to “Paradise Lost” and the book of Genesis, words of Greek origin and the institutional tyranny of the Magisterium—it is the sort of dense allegory that is open to interpretation. So interpretations abound.

“Christians would (call a daemon) a guardian angel. It’s the element of ... divine breath that sustains us at all times.”

He called the alethiometer “a moral compass” and an “archetypical articulation of the subconscious.”

And Isbouts, who interviewed Pullman, called Dust “the matter that creates self-awareness. He told me that it’s a metaphor for human consciousness.”

After Pullman’s father died when he was 7, Pullman, now 61, spent his formative years with his grandfather, a clergyman, and “of course God existed—one didn’t even think of questioning it,” he said in an online interview at Surefish (snipurl.com/surefish ).

Pullman said he lost his faith as a teenager when “I began to look around and see how other people thought about things.”

“The Golden Compass,” was first published in 1995 in England as “Northern Lights.” Pullman was influenced by John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and William Blake’s illustrations.

Isbouts believes the series retells the fall of Adam and Eve as “the pivotal moment in the evolution of mankind ... where we become cognitive.”

While such interpretations are fine for adults, some worry that the books and film could have a corrosive effect on the faith of youngsters.

“We live in a culture where kids are bombarded by ideas and images, many of which are contradictory to Christianity,” said Adam Holz, associate editor of Plugged In Magazine, a Focus on the Family publication. “We want people to know seeds are planted in the minds of kids you don’t want planted there.”

Pullman, he said, “is writing with an agenda. And anytime an author has a strong agenda, it’s good to know what that agenda is,” Holz said.

Father Peter Schuessler, associate director of spiritual and human formation at the Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wis., believes the church Pullman is portraying in his books “is the medieval church” of the Crusades and Inquisition. Children are no more likely to be “led to believe that God is dead” by reading them, “any more than watching `Bambi’ is going to teach them that animals speak,” said Schuessler, who read the books with his fantasy book club.

In fact, Donna Freitas, an assistant professor of religion at Boston University, encourages parents to “give your kids the books, see what they say and sit down with them if they have questions.

Similarly, Pullman’s trilogy “is one of those works of literature you can enjoy as a child ... and come back to as a college student and study for literary references, and even as an adult reading it to a child as a parent.”

Many of the criticisms directed at Pullman, she said, are just “juicy sound bites” and are “taken out of context.” She said that the “thrust of the book is very Christian and theological” and deals with God, the soul, virtue and salvation.

The godlike Authority in the books is really a false God, who, Freitas said, “tricks everyone into believing he was the creator.” The death of the Authority “opens everyone’s ability to see what I look at as the true God, which is Dust.”

Nina Hemmer came up with a similar conclusion on her own.

“When I got to the part with the angels,” she said, “I thought, `This is kind of leading up to God.’”

___

Labels: C.S. Lewis, children, Christian, Duane Dudek, His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, Tolkien

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Monday, November 19, 2007

'Golden Compass' Film Angering Christian Groups -- Even With Its Religious Themes Watered Down

By Jennifer Vineyard

Thought Harry Potter was blasphemous? That was kids' stuff compared to the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, in which God is an imposter, angels are sexually ambiguous and the Church kidnaps, tortures and assassinates to achieve its goals, one of which is stealing children's souls.

But try as the filmmakers might to take religion out of the equation in the first installment — "The Golden Compass," due December 7 — Christian groups are gearing up to protest and fans are urging New Line not to water down the provocative material in remaining films.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which most recently protested a picture of Britney Spears sitting provocatively in a priest's lap — the image appears in her new album, Blackout — takes this issue a little more seriously. The anti-defamation group accuses the film of "selling atheism to kids" and has produced its own booklet in response, "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked," which it's been distributing to churches and other Christian groups.

Also, Snopes.com, which typically debunks urban legends, claims that the assertion that the film has "anti-religious" themes is "true." (Kansas State literature professor Philip Nel posted an open letter in refute, saying it would be more accurate to call it "a matter of debate.")

Ironically, this debate was exactly what New Line was trying to avoid by softening the religious references in "The Golden Compass." (Whether religion would reappear in "The Subtle Knife" or "The Amber Spyglass," producer Bob Shea told MTV News that plans weren't firm yet: "One film at a time!") So in "Compass," the revisionist Church is simply referred to as the "Magisterium," because the focus is the power of the agency, not the agency itself.

"Religion is at its best when it's far from power," author Philip Pullman said during his Times Talks appearance Tuesday. "When a religion gains power, it goes bad."

"The Church is a symbol of oppression in the books," HisDarkMaterials.org webmaster Ryan den Rooijen said, "and they've retained that essence. Even if they don't name it as the Church, it's not a terrible loss. The story is still retained."

"We'll have to deal [with God and the angels] when we get to the next bit," said "Golden Compass" director Chris Weitz. "I don't think anyone here sees it as a particularly [controversial] series of films that we're making."

"This is the least offensive of the three, and they're watering down the most despicable elements, so why the protest? Not because it's going to be so shocking," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said. "The protest is this: It's being done at Christmastime, and when parents don't find the film troubling, they're going to buy the books for their kids as Christmas gifts. They're doing it through the back door, in a stealth fashion, because each book becomes more provocative, more aggressive and more anti-Christian. I've never seen anything quite like this before, to use a movie like this."

Defenders of Pullman's works — who range from liberal Christians to religious scholars to readers of the books — counter that the Gnostic and Nietzschean ponderings in the series shouldn't make conservative Christians fear that their kids will be "seduced" into atheism. Calling the online chatter "fearful to the point of hysterical," Boston University religion professor Donna Freitas argues on BeliefNet.com that the challenges to traditional images of God should be welcomed, not protested, as part of a "lively dialogue about faith."

Though independent Christian groups may be opposed, not everyone in the Church is upset about that dialogue. Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams has even proposed that "His Dark Materials" be taught as part of religious education in schools.

"I found that to be one of the most provocative elements, the religious overtones, aspects, ramifications of the thing," said actor Sam Elliott, who plays Lee Scoresby in "The Golden Compass." "It's thought-provoking, is all. It's good material, good stuff. But why not deal with it? That's how I feel. It's provocative material, and deal with it as such."

Labels: atheism, children, Christmas, church, God, Jennifer Vineyard, oppresion, religion, The Golden Compass

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Sunday, November 18, 2007

A dose of God to help doctors connect to families of sick kids

Posted November 15th, 2007
by Mohit Joshi

Giving physicians a little training in religion and spirituality could help them build bridges with the families of very sick children, a new study has suggested.

The finding is based on a survey of 74 pediatric hematologists and oncologists at 13 elite hospitals from the U. S. News & World Report ranking of "honor roll hospitals. "

The survey was conducted by researchers at Brandeis University and the University at Buffalo.

It found that 47.3 percent of paediatric oncologists describe themselves as very or moderately spiritual, and 37.8 percent describe themselves as slightly spiritual.

However, what was also noted that while most oncologists say they are spiritual, and many are open to connecting with the families of very sick children through religion or spirituality, they typically lack the formal healthcare training that could help them build such bridges.

"Increasingly, religion and spirituality are being recognized as important in the care of critically ill patients and we know that many parents draw on such resources to cope with their child's illness, " said coauthor Wendy Cadge, a Brandeis sociologist.

"This study suggests that we should consider training to help physicians relate spiritually to families confronting life-threatening illness such as cancer.

"Research shows that many patients do not feel the medical system adequately meets their spiritual needs. By shedding light on how religion and spirituality connect to the practice of medicine, this study is a first step toward addressing such needs of patients and their families during a profoundly threatening chapter of life, " said Cadge.

The study appears in the journal Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. (ANI)

Labels: children, families, God, hemaologist, Mohit Joshi, oncologist, Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, pediatrics, physicians, religion, sickness, spirituality

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

New Survey Refutes Claim that Taking Kids to Church is Harmful

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Nov. 14 2007

Most Americans, even those who no longer attend religious services, say their childhood experiences of attending worship has had a positive impact on them, a new study showed.

The latest Ellison Research study, released Tuesday, found that 66 percent of Americans believe their religious attendance before age 18 gave them a good moral foundation and 62 percent say it's something they are glad they did. Even among those who have currently abandoned regular worship attendance (once a month or more), a majority says childhood attendance has been more positive than negative.

Fifty-six percent of Americans who no longer attend services say their attendance as a child has had a positive influence on their life; 55 percent feel their childhood attendance gave them a good moral foundation; 51 percent say they are glad they attended as a child; 48 percent say it gave them important religious knowledge; 35 percent believe it helped them grow spiritually; 34 percent feel it helped them prepare for life as an adult; and 27 percent say it deepened their spiritual faith.

On the negative side, 31 percent of adults currently not attending services say their childhood attendance turned them off to organized religion; 24 percent believe that past experience is not relevant to their life today; and 13 percent believe it sent them down a different spiritual path than the one they were on at that time.

Only 9 percent of adults who currently attend worship say childhood attendance turned them off on organized religion and 19 percent of all surveyed adults say the same. Fifteen percent of all adults say it is not relevant to their life today and 13 percent feel it helped send them down a different spiritual path than the one they were taking at that time.

The vast majority of Americans have attended religious worship services regularly at some point in their lives. Only 7 percent have not had any point in their lives when they regularly attended. Currently, 51 percent of adults say they attend religious worship services of some kind once a month or more.

However, attending worship services as a child is becoming less common, according to the study. Among Americans who do not regularly attend worship services today, 24 percent of those under age 35 also did not attend as a child, compared to 13 percent of people age 35 to 54 and 9 percent of those 55 or older.

Still, most Americans who look back on their childhood attendance view it in a positive way. Fifty-seven percent of all adults believe it gave them important religious knowledge; 50 percent believe it helped them grow spiritually; 47 percent feel it helped them prepare for life as an adult; and 44 percent say it deepened their spiritual faith.

Seventy-eight percent of those who currently attend religious services feel their childhood attendance has made them more interested in religion as an adult compared to 30 percent of adults who do not currently attend services. Also, only 8 percent of those who currently regularly attend say childhood religious involvement decreased their interest in religion as an adult compared to 30 percent of adults who do not currently attend services regularly.

Only 8 percent of all adults and 13 percent of adults currently not attending services said childhood attendance has had a negative influence on their life. Also, 18 percent of all adults and 30 percent of those who have stopped attending services feel it has had no real influence.

Sellers noted that the survey findings should have some influence on parents.

The study was conducted by Ellison Research, a marketing research company located in Phoenix, among a representative sample of 1,007 American adults. The sample was balanced by gender, age, income, race, and geography.

Labels: adults, Americans, Audrey Barrick, children, church, Ellison Research, religion, spirituality

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

UF study: Men more traditional than women about marriage, children

October 24, 2007.
GAINESVILLE, Fla.

Women view childlessness much more favorably than men do, likely because parenting places greater demands on mothers, especially those juggling work and family responsibilities, a new University of Florida study finds.

Parenthood has very different consequences for women compared with men, said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a UF sociologist whose study is published in the November issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

The study also found women to be less optimistic about the benefits and permanence of marriage. Women were more likely than men to disagree or give neutral responses to such statements as “it is better to marry than to remain single” and “marriage is for life.”

“The results suggest that women regard both childbearing and marriage as being less central and more optional in women’s lives,” Koropeckyj-Cox said. “Because opportunities for women have changed more rapidly than they have for men over the last 30 years, and with it women’s lives, their attitudes may have also changed in ways that reflect new options and challenges. Women may be asking more questions about whether everyone needs to follow the same path.”

The study of 11,043 adults 25 and older uses data from the 1980s and mid-1990s that were part of two large-scale surveys, the National Survey of Families and Households and the General Social Survey. It assessed attitudes about childlessness by asking such questions as whether “it is better to have a child than to remain childless” and whether “the main purpose of marriage these days is to have children.”

The study found that white women were most accepting of childlessness, followed by black women. Men, regardless of race, were least accepting. Among whites, women were twice as likely as men to have favorable impressions.

The gap in attitudes was particularly wide between college-educated men and women of childbearing age, Koropeckyj-Cox said. Men in this group were the least accepting of childlessness of any group in the study, she said.

Positive attitudes toward childlessness also were greater among young and middle-aged adults. Within this age group, women were nearly 80 percent more likely than men to report favorable attitudes toward childlessness, the study found.

Among religious groups, the study found that Baptists and Jews were least likely to support childlessness, while fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics were not significantly different from other Protestants or those reporting no religion.

Receptiveness to childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with Americans waiting longer to become parents, Koropeckyj-Cox said. The average age of first-time mothers is now over 25, and more than a quarter of adults remain childless into their 30s, she said.

Kathleen Gerson, a sociology professor at New York University and author of the book “Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career and Motherhood,” said Koropeckyj-Cox’s “important findings make it clear that changes in women’s lives are here to stay. While it may seem surprising that women view childlessness more favorably than men, her study should prompt us to jettison our lingering stereotypes and focus instead on helping contemporary women — and men — blend work with parenting.”

Labels: children, Journal of Marriage and Family, marriage, men, Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, University of Florida, women

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Children of divorce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

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

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: September 8, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Americans Not Concerned About Their Spiritual Condition

by Dr. George Barna

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

Wide Range of Concerns

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

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

Specific Challenges Posed

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

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Survey Reveals Biggest Spiritual Challenges for Christian Parents

by Audrey Barrick, Christian Today Correspondant
Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 8:33

The biggest spiritual challenges Christian parents identified are related to the spiritual development of their children, a new survey found.

Only four out of every 10 Christian parents of children between the ages of 3 and 18 said they do not face any spiritual challenges in their life, according to The Barna Group. Among those who do, 14 percent said the biggest personal challenge related to faith is raising moral children with a strong faith, which was the most common response.

Ten percent identified the need to personally invest more time in religious activities, such as reading the Bible or praying, as their greatest faith challenge.

When asked to rate the significance of eight specific challenges related to their faith, most do not perceive themselves to face major spiritual challenges.

Only 34 percent said having enough time to devote to their faith was a major challenge; and 30 percent said helping their children to become more spiritual was a major challenge.

"Our studies show that the faith principles and practices that a child absorbs by age thirteen boldly shapes their spirituality for the duration of their life,” said George Barna, who directed the survey. “Parents have a greater impact on that process than anyone else.

"This was a study exclusively of Christian parents with young children in their household. Given companion surveys showing that such parents often convey dismay over the eroding cultural environment for raising children, and how difficult parenting is these days, we anticipated a broader emphasis upon the challenges related to bringing up spiritually whole and healthy children.”

Evangelical Christian parents were three times more likely than other Christian segments to identify responding to the declining morals and values of society as a major challenge. They were also more likely than other Christian parents to feel they failed to devote enough time to their faith.

Among other challenges identified, 23 percent overall said enabling their spouse to be more spiritual; 21 percent said growing spiritually, personally; 20 percent identified understanding what's in the Bible; 19 percent named finding a church or faith community that's right for them; 18 percent said getting a sense of direction from God; and 18 percent identified practicing the faith principles they had learned.

Hispanics were the most likely ethnic group to identify challenges related to parenting and family matters with one out of every three Hispanic parents listing the challenge. Meanwhile, only one out of six white parents and one out of eight black parents listed the same challenge.

Black parents were much more likely than others to name faith-driven behavioral challenges. And white parents were much more likely than others to list participating in more religious activity as their major spiritual challenge. At the same time, white parents were substantially less likely than parents of other ethnic groups to indicate that growing spiritually and understanding the Bible were major challenges.

Other findings showed that notional Christians – those who are not born again but consider themselves to be Christian – were twice as likely as born-again parents to list attending church more often as a major challenge.

Regionally, Christian parents in the Northeast were the least likely to feel challenged to have enough time to devote to their faith and to feel that growing spiritually was a major personal challenge.

Those most likely to identify helping their children grow spiritually as a major challenge were parents in the South. Meanwhile, parents in the western states were among the least likely to feel that growing spiritually and finding a viable church or faith community were major challenges.

Christian parents in the Midwest were the least likely to feel that helping children grow spiritually was a major challenge; least likely to identify exhibiting spiritual-driven behavior as an issue; and least likely to say they had no faith-related or spiritual issues facing them.

"Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen – Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith – helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture.”

The survey was conducted in October and November 2006 among 601 adults who described themselves as Christian.

Labels: Audrey Barrick, Barna Group, children, Christian, faith, morality, parents, spirituality

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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Survey Reveals Biggest Spiritual Challenges for Christian Parents

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Sun, Aug. 05 2007

The biggest spiritual challenges Christian parents identified are related to the spiritual development of their children, a new survey found.

Only four out of every 10 Christian parents of children between the ages of 3 and 18 said they do not face any spiritual challenges in their life, according to The Barna Group. Among those who do, 14 percent said the biggest personal challenge related to faith is raising moral children with a strong faith, which was the most common response.

Ten percent identified the need to personally invest more time in religious activities, such as reading the Bible or praying, as their greatest faith challenge.

When asked to rate the significance of eight specific challenges related to their faith, most do not perceive themselves to face major spiritual challenges.

Only 34 percent said having enough time to devote to their faith was a major challenge; and 30 percent said helping their children to become more spiritual was a major challenge.

"Our studies show that the faith principles and practices that a child absorbs by age thirteen boldly shapes their spirituality for the duration of their life,” said George Barna, who directed the survey. “Parents have a greater impact on that process than anyone else.

"This was a study exclusively of Christian parents with young children in their household. Given companion surveys showing that such parents often convey dismay over the eroding cultural environment for raising children, and how difficult parenting is these days, we anticipated a broader emphasis upon the challenges related to bringing up spiritually whole and healthy children.”

Evangelical Christian parents were three times more likely than other Christian segments to identify responding to the declining morals and values of society as a major challenge. They were also more likely than other Christian parents to feel they failed to devote enough time to their faith.

Among other challenges identified, 23 percent overall said enabling their spouse to be more spiritual; 21 percent said growing spiritually, personally; 20 percent identified understanding what's in the Bible; 19 percent named finding a church or faith community that's right for them; 18 percent said getting a sense of direction from God; and 18 percent identified practicing the faith principles they had learned.

"In addition to making parenting a 24/7 priority, we found that parents must have an authentic and vibrant faith in order to provide meaningful spiritual guidance to their children," said Barna. "Children rarely embrace spiritual principles and practices that their parents fail to demonstrate in their lifestyle.”

Hispanics were the most likely ethnic group to identify challenges related to parenting and family matters with one out of every three Hispanic parents listing the challenge. Meanwhile, only one out of six white parents and one out of eight black parents listed the same challenge.

Black parents were much more likely than others to name faith-driven behavioral challenges. And white parents were much more likely than others to list participating in more religious activity as their major spiritual challenge. At the same time, white parents were substantially less likely than parents of other ethnic groups to indicate that growing spiritually and understanding the Bible were major challenges.

Other findings showed that notional Christians – those who are not born again but consider themselves to be Christian – were twice as likely as born-again parents to list attending church more often as a major challenge.

Regionally, Christian parents in the Northeast were the least likely to feel challenged to have enough time to devote to their faith and to feel that growing spiritually was a major personal challenge.

Those most likely to identify helping their children grow spiritually as a major challenge were parents in the South. Meanwhile, parents in the western states were among the least likely to feel that growing spiritually and finding a viable church or faith community were major challenges.

Christian parents in the Midwest were the least likely to feel that helping children grow spiritually was a major challenge; least likely to identify exhibiting spiritual-driven behavior as an issue; and least likely to say they had no faith-related or spiritual issues facing them.

“Many of the same people who claim that their faith is very important to them and that they are absolutely committed to Christianity also say that they face no spiritual challenges in life," Barna noted. "Many other adults are only vaguely aware of such challenges, and do not put much energy into addressing them.

"Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen – Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith – helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture.”

The survey was conducted in October and November 2006 among 601 adults who described themselves as Christian.

Labels: Audrey Barrick, Barna Group, children, Christian, faith, family, parents, spirituality

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

The possibility of God

Religious studies is enjoying a boom. But in a multicultural society, what is it now for?
Victoria Neumark reports
Tuesday July 10, 2007
The Guardian

Niqabs in the classroom, creationism knocking at the door of the science lab, the threat of suicide bombers: big challenges face religious education (RE) in UK classrooms. A critical report by Ofsted last month demanded that RE "contributes strongly to pupils' understanding of the changing role of religion, diversity and community cohesion". It said children should be taught more about religion's role in a modern world under the threat of terrorism - and that they should learn that religion is not always a force for good.

How timely, then, that Oxford University has appointed its first professor of religious education for 27 years. Neither a woolly-jumpered vicar nor a wild-eyed evangelist, Terence Copley is an enthusiast for the very virtues of tolerance and reasoned discussion that Ofsted advocates. "We shouldn't run away from difference in a false and superficial attempt to create multicultural harmony," he says.

Copley has been a Quaker for decades, "though I am very happy to site myself in my family's Methodist tradition". He taught for 15 years in schools in the Midlands and north and ran a world-beating department of religious education at Exeter University from 1997. He believes in God -and in opening minds.

"I've learned a lot from going to other faiths' places of worship. I've not just looked on, but felt the ripples of experience," he says. "That's more challenging; it's real. But as a Christian I can worship with Jews, Muslim, Hindus, Sikhs very happily. At the same time, it's important not to pretend that big differences don't exist." As Ofsted acknowledges, the political and social significance of religion is changing. Is RE's potential to help build a more cohesive society being realised?

Copley is optimistic. The UK's multicultural society is a wonderful resource. He says RE teachers have to get stuck into teaching religion as the ways in which humanity searches for truth. "We've got to teach the possibility of God, and it's up to children to accept or reject it."

Sticking point

Copley says he is unapologetic about "the three-letter word": God. For non-believers - whose children still have to take RE until they are 16 - this is the obvious sticking point. "In all my years of teaching, I always made sure God was in there and talked about. People might find it embarrassing, but it is the key to engagement."

Ofsted criticised the twin aims prescribed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which straitjacket RE in schools: learning about religion and learning from religion. Copley would replace them with "engaging with religion and other life stances". RE lessons could feature science teachers talking about Darwin or the local imam explaining what the experience of Allah means to Muslims. "You should never directly attack or dissolve any child's views in the classroom," he says. Or, as Miriam Rosen, Ofsted's director of education, said: "More needs to be done if the subject is to develop in students a more profound understanding of the significance of religious commitment and diversity and its impact on society."

Copley's recent book, Indoctrination, Education and God: The Struggle for the Mind, looks at how indoctrination, secular or religious, stops education, stops questioning and stops thinking. "RE should introduce children to a big human debate. What children don't like is having answers rammed down their throats."

Young people nowadays are fascinated by religion and moral issues. Ofsted reports RE booming after decades of indifference. Secondary schools hunt RE teachers; primaries are crying out for in-service training. Oxford, boasting the country's largest theology department, has started a new PGCE in RE. Though student interest is at a peak, to some RE remains halfway between a hot potato and a big yawn. Copley is determined to challenge that. "Who wants to have on their tombstone the worthy but dull words: 'He or she was a useful RE teacher'?" he asks. "But we can't treat RE as so potentially divisive that we dare not discuss anything, either." He agrees with Ofsted that RE teacher training is due an intellectual upgrade. Terrorism, creationism, the veil in Islam and global warming should all be grist to the RE classroom mill. "You need a pinboard or whiteboard, with The Good, The Bad and The Dotty items from religion in the news up on it each day."

The practice of palming off RE on the sports teacher who goes to church must end. "In Britain, we tend to see religion as a hobby and God like a fire extinguisher, there for the last resort. But most of the world is not like that. How can we expect people to understand that some will die for religion if we portray it as so bland?"

Climate change

All in all, he says, "I've had a great time". With more than 40 books under his belt, including guides to teaching biblical narrative, biographies of Thomas Arnold of Rugby and Simon Wiesenthal, and a series of mystery quest novels for children, he is now working on Inventing an RE for the 22nd Century. This will focus on the spiritual and social results of climate change.

"We'll need to change, to be more aware of locality, to abandon our feelings of mastery, which are based on living inside 90% of the time and controlling our environment; we need to become more accustomed to living in the weather ... What is our place in the universe as a whole?"

As for contention over the veil, Copley says: "It's clear that within a global religion like Islam, practice varies and culture plays an important part ... The majority of British Muslim women don't find it necessary to cover their face ... This is a debate within Islam as well as the wider UK. RE should note the different Muslim views involved and the legitimate concerns of non-Muslim members of our society. But the central aim in teaching Islam in RE shouldn't get lost in veils. It should be to get children to explore Islam's experience of the centrality of God. British culture does not take God very seriously, but Islam does."

It's all in the great liberal tradition. But still, there is one sticking point. Respecting difference, demanding equality, Copley, along with Ofsted, firmly espouses compulsory RE. "There is no legal, moral, educational right to exclude RE from children's school experience. I'm passionate that RE should not have a withdrawal clause. If it is education not indoctrination, there should be no right of withdrawal. The withdrawal clause should be removed from RE or, logically, extended to embrace all subjects."

Spirit of the times

1944: The Education Act legislates for "religious instruction" (the classroom subject plus school worship). Parents are allowed to withdraw children. An 1870 clause prohibiting denominational teaching except in denominational schools was retained.

1988: Education Reform Act now uses "religious education" to refer to classroom subject only. World religions must be taught. RE required "to take into account that the religious traditions of the UK are in the main Christian". Withdrawal clause retained. RE is outside the national curriculum, with locally determined syllabuses, but must be taught to all children in state schools from entry to 16.

1997: Introduction of short-course GCSE

2004: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority national framework for RE published 2006: QCA publishes schemes of work for ages 5-14.

2005-06: Entries to short-course RE GCSE: 239,000; GCSE: 145,200 (more than music, equal to PE); A-level: 14,900

Labels: children, God, morality, religion, religious education, Terence Copley, Victoria Neumark

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Sunday, July 08, 2007

God Is In The Details

The Washington Post summarized a new Pew Research Center survey that shows there are significant foundational shifts in Americans’ understanding of what constitutes marital happiness and success.

In a front-page story on Sunday, reporter Donna St. George looked at the most substantial attitudinal change over previous years:

Children rank as the highest source of personal fulfillment for their parents but have dropped to one of the least-cited factors in a successful marriage, according to a national survey to be released today.

In a study that shows how separately marriage and children are viewed, Americans expressed great passion for their sons and daughters but clearly did not see them as the glue of their adult relationships.

On a list of nine contributors to success in marriage, children were trumped by faithfulness, a happy sexual relationship, household chore-sharing, economic factors such as adequate income and good housing, common religious beliefs, and shared tastes and interests, the nonprofit Pew Research Center found.

The article is very interesting and shows just how rapidly Americans are separating sex, marriage and children. As you might expect — along with a reader who passed along the story — there are some dramatic religious ghosts lurking inbetween the paragraphs of this story.

You’re probably not as nerdy as I am, by which I mean I like to read every survey, Supreme Court opinion and piece of legislation I can get my hands on. So you may not want to read the 91-page report [PDF] on which St. George wrote her story. But if you did, you would find that religious differences correlate with major differences of opinion recorded in the survey.

White evangelical Protestants and people of all faiths who attend religious services at least weekly hold more conservative viewpoints on pretty much the whole gamut of questions asked on the Pew survey. This is true across all age groups. For example, white evangelical Protestants are more likely than other religious groups to consider premarital sex morally wrong.

They are more likely to consider the rise in unmarried childbearing and cohabitation bad for society and more likely to agree that a child needs both a mother and father to be happy. They also are more likely to say legal marriage is very important when a couple plans to have children together or plans to spend the rest of their lives together. Further, white evangelical Protestants are more likely than white mainline Protestants to say that divorce should be avoided except in extreme circumstances and to consider it better for the children when parents remain married, though very unhappy with each other. In sum, white evangelical Protestants have a strong belief in the importance of marriage and strong moral prescriptions against premarital sex and childbearing outside of marriage.

The pattern is the same among those of any faith who attend religious services more frequently, compared with less frequent attendees.

Another interesting division in the survey was between white evangelicals and white mainline Protestants. Seventy-three percent of evangelicals consider it important for couples to legally marry compared with only 35 percent of white mainline Protestants, 43 percent of Roman Catholics and 20 percent of seculars. Of those who attend church more regularly, 69 percent say marriage is very important compared with 36 percent of the less religious and 27 percent of those who never or almost never attend church services.

The Pew report tried to paint a picture of people with traditional marriage views and, again not surprisingly, the religious angle appears:

Compared with other parents, they’re more likely to be white, well-educated and well-off economically. They also have a distinctive religious profile. They are more likely to be Catholic (32% vs. 21%) than other parents. They also are more observant; some 47% attend church weekly or more often compared with 38% of other parents. Politically, they’re more inclined to be Republican than other parents, and, ideologically, they’re more inclined to be conservative.
A majority are happy with their lives — some 55% report being “very satisfied” with their lives overall, compared with just 40% of the rest of the population.

That last sentence is interesting. The headline for the Washington Post story is “To Be Happy In Marriage, Baby Carriage Not Required.” That headline may be eyecatching for the aging baby boomers who make up the paper’s audience, but I’m not sure it’s quite right.

Stories about surveys tend to have a very short shelf life, but perhaps other reports will look into some of the religious ghosts.

Labels: children, Donna St. George, evangelicals, happiness, marriage, Pew Research Center survey, protestants