TruthBook Religious News Blog

By JULIA CORBETT-HEMEYER •
August 27, 2009

The United States is a land of stunning and vibrant religious diversity. All of humankind's religious and spiritual traditions can be found somewhere within our borders. For some people, and I count myself among them, this diversity is an excellent thing. For others, it's threatening.

The 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum (www.pewforum.org) found that most Americans say that their religion is not the only way to salvation. On the other hand, there are also those who very firmly believe that their way is the only way and all others are simply wrong. How we regard religious and spiritual paths other than our own becomes very important with religious diversity, because it influences how we interact with the people who follow them. We can identify five points of view.

"My religion is the only one that's true." This reassures those who hold this view that they are in the right. To many people, it seems appropriate in light of many religions' claim to absolute truth. However, it also harshly excludes all others and sets up an us/them mentality in which dialogue and understanding are difficult, although not impossible.

To see the remainder on the five points of view, please click on "external source."

And for comparison, here's what The Urantia Book has to say about religions:

134.4.4 Religious peace — brotherhood — can never exist unless all religions are willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign.

92:7.3 The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors' living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals.

Labels: diversity, Julia Corbett-Hemeyer, Pew forum on Religion, religion, The Urantia Book

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, December 12, 2008

God and man at Yale

Eboo Patel

Chicago, Illinois - The Commons at Yale University looked like a cross between Hogwarts and Medina. Over 500 students, staff and faculty had gathered for a university-wide iftar, the meal where Muslims break their dawn-to-dusk fast during the month of Ramadan. Linda Lorimer, Yale’s Vice President, gave an opening talk, expressing the University’s commitment to religious inclusivity and interfaith activity.

Omar Bajwa, the University’s recently-hired Coordinator of Muslim Life, thanked Yale for its efforts to accommodate the unique dietary and prayer needs of Muslim students.

And when the Muslims left the dining area for the evening prayer, most of the seats were still occupied. Hundreds of Jews, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, agnostics, Unitarian Universalists and others had come to support their fellow Muslim students, partake in some excellent South Asian food and celebrate the religious devotion and diversity that are increasingly a part of campus life at Yale.

It is a remarkable shift from when I was a student 15 years ago. Identity politics were all the rage then, but they were almost always about race, class, gender and sexuality. Academic departments, leadership programmes and residence halls – prompted by the Los Angeles riots [sparked by the acquittal of police offers charged with beating African American motorist Rodney King] – put on hundreds of diversity programmes every year intended to create a more inclusive campus environment.

Faith might play a role in some people’s private lives, we figured, but it barely registered in our campus discourse. Even as newspapers told of strife in the Balkans, Northern Ireland, South Asia, the Middle East, West Africa, the multicultural movement hardly turned its head. As Harvard professor Diana Eck wrote in Encountering God, “Religion (was) the missing ‘r’ word in the diversity discussion” at universities.”

This is the result of what I call secularisation theory hangover, a condition that afflicted universities long after the rest of society recovered. Secularisation theory emerged from lecture halls in the 1960s, advanced by scholars like Peter Berger and Harvey Cox who stated that as societies modernised they would necessarily secularise.

But an important segment of student life on college campuses was actually heading in the opposite direction. Groups like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ continued to grow, bolstered by a powerful Evangelical movement in the broader society.

Finally, the past two decades have seen the American-born children of the 1965-era immigrants arrive on campus in significant numbers and bring their Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths with them. Sharon Kugler, the Chaplain at Yale, told me that the number of religious organisations at her previous post, Johns Hopkins, skyrocketed from eight to 27 during her 14 years there.

This combination of devotion and diversity occurred on campus just as religion emerged as a central force in the broader culture. 9/11 has done to religion what Rodney King did to race – put it front and centre on the campus agenda.

One way that universities are responding is by hiring leaders like Sharon Kugler – the first lay, Catholic woman in her position at Yale – to transform their historically liberal protestant chaplaincies into fully-fledged multi-faith programs. This means working with the existing Jewish, Catholic and Protestant (both evangelical and mainline) ministries, hiring new staff to work with Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu students, and organising interfaith service projects and multi-faith student councils.

We live in a society starkly polarised around religion. A 2007 Pew Survey found that twice the number of respondents had a negative view of Muslims than a positive view. If the colour line was the problem of the 20th century, as W.E.B. DuBois famously observed, it appears that the faith line will be the challenge of the 21st. And just as decades of campus activism on the issue of the colour line has helped to produce a more racially inclusive society, so will initiatives like Yale’s Ramadan Banquet ultimately produce one characterised by religious pluralism.

Labels: college, diversity, Eboo Patel, God, interfaith, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Religion, sectarianism hampering cooperation among nations

Sushil Khadka
Issue date: 9/17/07

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Professor says religion is key to global view

Knowledge of faiths is central understanding of world events, according to university teacher

By Jean Prescott
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
08/11/2007

BILOXI, Miss. -- As the world grows smaller, and it does so every day, we find "the neighborhood" overrun with new and different people expressing unfamiliar ideas about which we understand little and care not at all.

What to do? Some advise: get smarter.

I don't care what field of endeavor you happen to be in," said Allan Eickelmann, a professor of religion at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast Campus and an ordained United Church of Christ minister, "in this day and age, you'd better have some understanding of human diversity, because the fact is that globalization is not going away, and America is not going to become less diverse. In fact, it is going to become more diverse, if that's possible."

A recent count places the number of religions in America today at about 1,800, Eickelmannsaid. He hasn't had time to keep up with them all.

"Knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding human diversity is absolutely essential for our society to function," Eickelmann said.

He deals in knowledge -- about the religions of the world and the people who practice them.

"there is no better way to come to an understanding of human diversity than to understand the diversity of religious expression."

In fact, he and a couple of colleagues recently drew a standing-room-only crowd to an Issues=Answers lecture in downtown Gulfport, Miss. Several hundred people turned out to hear them talk about religion and violence, a hot-button topic. The question-and-answer segment that followed their presentations not only did not dissolve into a riotous affair, but many in the audience seemed reticent, unsure of how to frame a question for which they wanted, perhaps desperately needed, answers.

How do we become better informed? "Take a class" is the logical answer, though that can be expensive at the university level (we provide a thumbnail of what's available locally when fall sessions begin).

Why not begin before university? Why not offer courses in religion, something like basic world religions, in high school?

"There are several practical reasons why it's not done broadly," Eickelmannsaid, notable among them being the difficulty of fitting a religion elective into the overall curriculum.

"History, English, math, science all are offered for four years. ... And when you have one or two spots for electives, you probably can offer only one course for religion." A certified instructor is needed, nevertheless, and unless the school has thousands of students who could fill a day with religion classes, "one course wouldn't keep the teacher busy."

And high schools are quite concerned about indoctrination, "which is verboten," Eickelmann said. "The issue of equal access under the law comes up.

"It's all related to the First Amendment," he said, "which has two clauses tied together. The first is freedom of speech, which people in (journalism) know about, and freedom of religion." The framers of the Constitution, he said, declared that if the government (and by extension, public schools) were to favor one particular form of religious expression over another, it would disallow the free exchange of religious ideas. That's indoctrination, and the Constitution prohibits it.

Eickelmann stands by his claim, though, that at this time in human history it is imperative that we understand what motivates even those whom we observe to be least like ourselves.

"If you don't understand diversity, you don't understand how to be an American in the 21st century; you don't understand how to be a citizen of the world."

Labels: diversity, faith, first amendment, Jean Prescott, knowledge, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Diversity may not be the answer

Gregory Rodriguez:

Just existing together won't erase mistrust; instead, we should work toward creating an identity that includes everyone.

August 13, 2007

People all over the planet are on the move, and whether anyone likes it or not, with each passing year Western nations will become more racially and ethnically diverse. But is that a good or a bad thing?

I've always suspected that what's beneath all that celebrating is a deep fear and an article of faith. Armed with hate crime statistics and gang stories, the media love to keep us informed of all types of racial and ethnic conflict. But through it all, assorted do-gooders, foundation program officers and government functionaries still promote the belief that the best solution to the conflicts created by social diversity is diversity itself. That's why they arrange those cheesy multiculti community events and tiresome inter-ethnic "dialogues" in which the African American activist meets the Korean American activist, white kids go to day camp with kids of color, etc., etc. The idea is that more contact breaks down barriers and helps us achieve Rodney King's dream that we'll all just get along.

But according to a provocative new study by Robert Putnam, one of America's preeminent political scientists, it's just not true. No, Putnam isn't regurgitating so-called conflict theory -- the notion that diversity strengthens group identities, thereby increasing ethnocentrism and conflict. He's not predicting racial Armageddon. What he did find in analyzing a massive survey of 30,000 Americans, however, is a whole lot more interesting and complex than either "Kumbaya" or "Crash." Diversity, he argues, is turning us into a nation of turtles, hunkered down with our heads in our shells.

According to the study, there is a strong positive relationship between interracial trust and ethnic homogeneity. In other words, the less diverse your community, the more likely you are to trust the people in it who are different from you. The flip side is also true: The more ethnically diverse the people you live around, the less you trust them. So interracial trust is relatively high in homogenous South Dakota and relatively low in wildly diverse Los Angeles. But don't think it's just because we don't trust people of different races.

In addition to asking respondents what they thought of people from different backgrounds, the survey inquired about whether respondents trusted people of their own race. The answer was surprising. It turns out that in the most diverse places in the country, Americans tend to distrust everyone, those who do look like them and those who don't. Diversity, therefore, does not result in increased conflict or increased accommodation, but in good old-fashioned anomie and social isolation.

According to Putnam, residents of diverse communities "tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less" and to spend more time sitting in front of the television.

Putnam considered and had to reject all kinds of other explanations for his findings. In the end, some adhere to this pattern more than others, but the numbers are discouraging all around: Diversity depresses trust and sociability somewhat more in poorer neighborhoods, but altruism suffers somewhat more in richer areas. It seems to affect sociability more among conservatives, but it's also a problem among liberals. The effect is felt more among whites, but nonwhites are not immune. Twentysomethings seem a bit less distrustful than older generations but not enough to alter the overall pattern. Women are equally as affected as men.

None of this means that we are doomed by diversity. But it does suggest that simply celebrating it and promoting it is not going to help us get along. Putnam points to a need for everyone to construct new social identities. He recalls growing up in a Midwestern town in the 1950s, when religious affiliations acted as strong social barriers between neighbors. Three decades later, he says, Americans had "more or less deconstructed religion as a salient social division." Although it was still personally important, religion's power as a social identity had diminished significantly.

More important, perhaps, whites and nonwhites alike will have to create a more generous and expansive sense of "we." If, as the study suggests, increased diversity leads us to withdraw even from our own kind, we may indeed find some sense of togetherness and common purpose in a truly broad, overarching identity called American. Maybe once we achieve that, we'll volunteer more, vote more and be more willing to pay to fix our bridges.

Labels: altruism, diversity, Gregory Rodriguez, religion, Robert Putnam