There is no doubt that the state of Israel with its over 7.2 million citizens has great achievements. First of all, it is rare to find a state that has succeeded to make out of people, who were dispersed through centuries in different parts of the world, a renewed nation. In this process, it successfully absorbed through the years waves of immigrants (close to three million) who came to build a new life—and many arrived after experiencing trauma.
From the beginning the emerging society succeeded in developing a democratic structural system in a region where authoritarian regimes are the rule rather than exception. With the years, this society developed a tradition of freedom of information and media openness, with daily newspapers, many other types of publications, a few TV channels and many radio stations, all carrying vivid debates about Israel and the world. In addition, the Israeli public has openings to various world channels of commutation, including Arab ones, to absorb information and knowledge. During the last decades the society also witnessed the accelerated development of civil society that consists of hundreds of NGOs which raise many different issues and serve as a place for involvement and participation. These trends also indicate a positive ongoing process whereby different excluded societal sectors enter political and social arenas and expand the scope of issues that the society debates.
Also many of the founding fathers, being influenced by socialistic ideas, established a state that took the responsibility for the weak, sick, elderly and needy. Thus Israel enacted already from the beginning a wide range of social legislation and set up extensive social programs for all Israeli citizens and especially for the needy to provide them with a broad range of benefits and assistance. In 1995 The National Health Insurance Law came into effect. This law assures provision of a standardized basket of medical services, including hospitalization, for all residents of Israel. Israel's extensive medical network and high doctor-patient ratio are reflected in the low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000live births) and high life expectancy (82.2 years for women, 78.5 for men). This reflects a high standard of medicine in Israel and high-level training for medical professions, including a very advanced research level.
Similar achievements should be noted in education, in spite of the recent setbacks. School attendance is mandatory from age 5 to 16 and free through age 18, though less than half obtain matriculation which serves as a passport for higher education. Higher education with over 270,000 students is well regarded and plays a pivotal role in the development of the country. The universities are well known and developed and serve together with other R&D (research and development) institutions as vehicles for scientific achievements and technological development. Today, the percentage of Israelis engaged in scientific and technological inquiry and the amount spent on R&D in relation to its GDP are among the highest in the world.
The described achievements are related to economic success. After having enjoyed for many years one of the fastest GDP growth rates of all world economies, Israel is now continuing the economic recovery that began in 2003. Israel’s GDP has been rising at about 5 percent a year, per capita income reached about $21,000 (in 1980 it was about $5,500), unemployment has steadily decreased to 6.6. percent in 2007, inflation is under control, and foreign debt has been eliminated, with Israel becoming a creditor in recent years and very attractive to international investors. This was achieved with very tight budget control and cuts in public expenditures.
International level strides have been made in the fields of medical electronics, agro-technology, telecommunications, fine chemicals, computer hardware and software, food processing and solar energy. Hi-tech industries, which accounted for only 37 percent of industrial product in 1965, grew to 70 percent in 2006 ($29 billion plus another $5.9 billion of hi-tech services) and almost 80 percent of hi-tech products are exported.
In noting the half full glass it is necessary also to look at cultural achievements. The society succeeded in developing out of a dying language a culture that can pride itself on many positive indicators: writers whose works are translated into many languages, films getting awards in major festivals, plays that are performed on prestigious stages of the world. Some 2,500 titles are published annually and may be found, alongside republications of classics and imported books, in many bookshops in every town and city.
All these achievements are taking place under conditions of continuous threats and dangers. Israel is coping with a conflict that broke out prior to its birth. Through the years of its existence Israel has fought at least six major wars and suffered from ongoing hostile violent activities and terror. To be successful in withstanding its enemies, Israel invested enormous efforts in satisfying its security needs, and at present it has the strongest and best equipped army along with becoming a regional power which has great influence over the events in the region.
The Empty Half of the Glass
In discussion about the half empty glass I would like first to highlight two colossal failures of Israeli society and then to elaborate on more specific major defaults.
The first failure consists of the fact that since the establishment of the state many hundred thousands of its citizens (it is estimated about 800,000, but no one can provide a validated figure) emigrated to various countries in the world, mainly to United States, Canada, Germany, Australia and even to Russia. Although the emigration was done in different periods and because of different reasons, this number is staggering and indicates that the state did not succeed in creating satisfactory conditions for its citizens.
The second colossal failure relates to the continuation of the occupation of the territories conquered in the Six Day War in 1967. This occupation underlies many of the problems that Israel is facing and has many negative implications on life in Israel. The continuation of the occupation of the territories touches first of all on the security problems and on the moral soul of the state. The fact that the occupied territories were settled by Jews adds special folly. This act not only negates international law but also constitutes one of the biggest barriers to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict peacefully. In addition, it is estimated that directly and indirectly Israel spent through the years at least 100 billion shekel to build the infrastructure, settlements, and roads and maintain their security, which violate both the Fourth Geneva Convention and Israeli laws. This act will either bring an end to the nature of the state the founding fathers dreamed about, or Israel will have to spend almost a similar amount of money to pay compensation to those who will have to leave their homes, feeling alienation, frustration and anger.
Looking deeper into the crises that the society is going through, I will identify the most serious problems that in my view and in light of my values pose a challenge to the state of Israel today.
The Dominance of Neo-Liberal Policies
When neo-liberalism was questioned for its severe consequences in various parts of the world, Israeli society accelerated its attempt to institute this economic-social policy—a move that began already in the 1980s. With the celebration of the sixtieth birthday the outcomes of this policy are well known. The state is diminishing its role in the life of the citizens, abandoning social responsibility towards them but favoring the business sector. Through the years the government has been decreasing its expenditure on education, health and welfare and as a result these systems are constantly deteriorating and require increased personal spending, which still does not provide the solution to the destructive policies. Also, the economic growth is not equally beneficial to all classes. Over the past twenty years, income inequality has been rising and social disparities have grown to the extent that Israel is now ranked second in the Western world (after the U.S.) in terms of growing gaps between rich and poor (at present one percent of the citizens account for 60 percent of the wealth in Israel). This widening gap between rich and poor coincided with a significant narrowing of the middle class in Israel and a dramatic increase in poverty, even among the working families. In 2007 24.7 percent of Israelis in general and 35.8 percent of the children were found to live below the poverty line (in 1998 only 22.8 percent of the children lived below this line).
Dysfunction of Liberal Democracy
Although the state of Israel succeeded in establishing a well-functioning structural democracy it still suffers from many deficiencies, especially with implementing democracy's spirit and its values (human and civil rights, respect for the law, equality, treatment of minorities, and preserving basic freedoms). One of the major problems is the disregard of laws and ethics practiced by the public at large and even by the state institutions and leaders. A diagnosis of the situation is presented by jurist Moshe Negbi, who describes the process being undergone by the Israeli political culture in recent years as “a slope leading from a government of laws to a banana republic”. A specific example can be seen in the report by attorney Talya Sasson, appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to investigate the functioning of the state institutions with regard to building outposts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She concluded that public authorities such as ministries, the Israeli army, and the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization, as well as municipalities, used their authority illegally to actively assist and/or did not prevent the establishment of the unlawful enterprise. A recent report shows that about one third of the settlements were built illegally according to the Israeli law. In addition, according to the reports of Israel's state comptroller governmental institutions are plagued by protectionism, politicization of the public service, and use of public resources to advance personal-political interests. In this vein of special danger, close connections are observed between the government, capital and mass media, as well as penetration of criminal groups into party centers and the extensive economic and political power of several dozen very wealthy families. Furthermore, a study that was recently carried out determined that Israel ranks sixth among developed countries around the globe in terms of the scope of its black market.
This failure is related to the deterioration of Israeli leadership in the last decade. The leaders have been accused of corruption, lack of accountability, lack of vision, and manipulation of the public and as a result they have been losing the trust of the society members. In a recent survey it was found that 86 percent of the citizens state that the government is not dealing adequately with the country’s problems and 68 percent believe that the people running the country are motivated by personal interests rather than the public good.
Another deficiency with which the Israeli democracy must cope is the growing political power and influence of anti-democratic groups. The centers of these groups within Jewish society are found mostly in the ultra-religious sector, which rejects democracy both as a value and as a mechanism for governing. This view is expanding as about half of the public reject the democratic system. On another level, the trend of undermining democracy is reflected in steady and continuous attempts to undercut the legal system and especially the Supreme Court (even by the present Minister of Justice) by trying to limit its functioning and politicizing its control.
Moral Deterioration
The problem of democratic deficiencies is related to the deterioration of the moral values and standards in the state of Israel. Beginning with the internal problems, corruption has been on the increase dramatically through the years. While in 2001 Israel was in sixteenth place among the world states in the Transparency International Corruption Perception, in 2007 it fell down thirtieth place. In the last decade all the prime ministers, some of the ministers and over a dozen lawmakers were accused in various affairs of corruption. In addition, trafficking by migrant workers became an industry with a staggering annual turnover, officially estimated at no less than $300,000,000 annually. This includes illegal trafficking of women for sex as Israel became one of the major sex trade centers in the world. Moreover, various practices towards them by the mediators, the employers and even the government indicate a consistent violation of human rights.
Institutionalized Discrimination of Arab Minority
Problems of democratic dysfunction are also reflected in the way Israel is treating its Arab citizens, who are an indigenous minority. Israel is probably the only current state among the developed countries that is practicing institutionalized and cultural discrimination of the Arab minority, including legal discrimination. This discrimination has created, in essence, an ethnic democracy and not a liberal democracy—a reality in which structural preference is accorded to the dominant Jewish majority.
Formal discrimination of Arabs by Israeli law and practices is not only restricted to symbolic areas, but is inseparably linked to continuous discrimination in every aspect of life. As a result there are continuously growing gaps between Arabs and Jews in socio-economic and living conditions in all major areas of life such as housing, health, education, land, welfare, employment, and more. The governmental Orr Commission Report, published in 2003, presented for the first time an official recognition of the depth of discrimination and institutional exclusion experienced by Israel’s Arab citizens since the establishment of the state. The report stated that, “the state and all of its governments have failed to cope deeply and with the difficult challenges posed by the existence of a large Arab minority within the Jewish state. The governmental handling of the Arab sector is mostly characterized by neglect and deprivation. The establishment has not demonstrated enough sensitivity to the needs of the Arab sector and has not done enough to assure equal allocation of state resources also to this sector. The state has not done enough, and has not tried enough, to grant equality to its Arab citizens and remove manifestations of discrimination and deprivation”. A special failure is the substantial support of the discriminative practices by Jews in Israel and normative discourse of Arab delegitimization. For example in 2007 it was found that about 45 percent of the Jews in Israel deny existence of Arab discrimination in Israel; about 56 percent of them supported full equal rights between Jews and Arabs, citizens of the state, but only 22 percent support political equality for the Arab minority and about 55 percent support a governmental encouragement of Arab immigration from the state.
The Ruthless Outcomes of Occupation
In my view the most salient sign of the democratic and moral deterioration of Israeli Jewish society is the lasting occupation. During the years of the Israeli occupation, a deep-rooted system of dual sets of legal norms developed in the West Bank: one for the Jewish settlers and one for the Palestinian population. These dual sets enabled the establishment of a system of segregation, discrimination and control on ethnic grounds in the occupied territories, with all the negative implications.
Through the years many thousands of Palestinians, including civilians and children who were not engaged in any violent activity against Israel, were killed or injured by the Israeli forces. More than 600,000 of the Palestinians were arrested through the years of occupation, many thousands spent years in prisons and as detainees, many were tortured, some were expelled and their houses demolished. Many aspects of Palestinian collective and individual lives are controlled by the Israelis and through the years this has had an immense negative effect on the development of their economic, societal and political infrastructure. According to UN 2007 report 57percent of the households in the territories live in poverty. In principle, this occupied population lives without basic human and civil rights under continuous humiliation and discrimination that cannot be accounted for by threats to the security of Israel. As examples it is possible to provide about 100 checkpoints and several hundred roadblocks that turn the lives of the Palestinians into a miserable experience, or the fact that many of the settlements and the outposts were built on private Palestinian land confiscated under false pretexts, or the attempts to build security the fence well beyond the green line in order to take hold of more Palestinian land.
One may claim that this behavior is a result of the threats that the Jews in Israeli society experience because of Palestinian goals and violent behaviors, and another one may claim that it is a necessary element of occupation and that Israel does not differ from other occupying states through the ages, and in fact is more restrained. These arguments, even if they are partially valid, cannot account in my view for the scope and extent of the violations of the Palestinian human and civil rights.
Influence of Religion
Israel is a state which did not separate itself from religion. This has an immense effect on the personal lives of the citizens and violates basic human and civil rights. For example, matters of marriages and divorces as well as of conversion to Judaism are under the monopolized responsibility of Orthodox Jewry. This monopoly creates tremendous problems for many of the citizens of Israel and especially for those who came in the last wave of immigration from the former USSR.
Of special importance is the fact that the ultra-religious sector is growing, with at least two implications. The majority of this sector does not serve in the army, constituting over 11 percent of the potential conscripts, and a substantial portion of this sector (over half of the men) does not work, relying on external financial assistance.
Objections to Peace
In contrast to the well accepted and shared belief among Jews that Israel never missed an opportunity to embark on the road to peace, the accumulated evidence indicates that Israel missed opportunities to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict peacefully and more than once carried out intransigent policies. Examples range from the refusal of Golda Meir to engage in negotiations with Egypt about the cease fire, or to accept the 1969 Rogers Plan, ignoring the possibility to try to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proposed by various security institutions in 1967, the rejection of the London agreement with Jordan in 1987 by Itzhak Shamir, the decision to declare and treat Arafat as a non-partner after the failure of the Camp David meeting in 2000, ignoring the Saudi plan initiated in 2002, up to rejections of the Syrian attempts to begin negotiations in the recent years. Moreover as the stronger side in the conflict it is Israel that has much more power to move the conflict towards its peaceful resolution, but this supremacy rarely is translated into actions.
Conclusion
This essay aims to present the problems Israel is facing and encourage World Jewry to be aware of the challenges that preoccupy the great majority of their brothers and sisters in Israel, get involved in the debates and be part of the struggle about the direction Israel should take in view of the current crises. This involvement should be of great importance for the Jews of the world who would like to see Israel as a center for world Jewry, as an example to other nations, and as a place that in moment of emergency they will be able to find their refuge.
World Jewry cannot blindly observe Israel and disregard the problems that it is facing. Israel, on the other hand, should stop the unacceptable and detrimental practice of asking blind support for the Israel which is implied by the term “he/she supports Israel” and viewing any criticism as being anti-Israeli. This relates also to the frequent practice of hiding and omitting the problems that Israel is facing before the Jewish visitors, especially the tens of thousands of youth who come every year to Israel. On the contrary, I believe that supporting Israel means seeing Israel with all its achievements and deficiencies—and then engaging in the ongoing debates and striving to create a better society, which is the best indication of love and care. This is a true nature of patriotism. The clash over the future of Israel is a crucial struggle. Jews of the world should not stand as passive bystanders but be part of the forces that shape the nature of the place where our children and grandchildren live and yours may live in the future.
Daniel Bar-Tal is a professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University
Religion Not Just a Private Affair, Affirms Pontiff
Encourages Prelates to Remove Obstacles to Encounter With God
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 16, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Benedict XVI says that any tendency to treat religion as a private matter should be resisted, and that faith should permeate every aspect of life.
The Pope affirmed this today in an address to the bishops of the United States at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. His discourse ranged in topics from immigration to the formation of priests. As he left the shrine, the prelates sang him "Happy Birthday," -- the Pope turns 81 today.
The Holy Father emphasized the key role of bishops during his address, asking how, "in the 21st century, a bishop can best fulfill the call to 'make all things new in Christ, our hope'? How can he lead his people to 'an encounter with the living God'?"
"Perhaps he needs to begin by clearing away some of the barriers to such an encounter," the Pontiff proposed.
He explained: "While it is true that this country is marked by a genuinely religious spirit, the subtle influence of secularism can nevertheless color the way people allow their faith to influence their behavior.
"Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death? Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted. Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel."
Obstacles
Benedict XVI proposed further obstacles to this "encounter with the living God," perhaps particularly faced by Americans. One such barrier is materialism, he said: "People today need to be reminded of the ultimate purpose of their lives. They need to recognize that implanted within them is a deep thirst for God.
"It is easy to be entranced by the almost unlimited possibilities that science and technology place before us; it is easy to make the mistake of thinking we can obtain by our own efforts the fulfillment of our deepest needs. This is an illusion. Without God, who alone bestows upon us what we by ourselves cannot attain, our lives are ultimately empty."
Another possible obstacle, the Holy Father affirmed, is an overemphasis on freedom and autonomy, which makes it "easy to lose sight of our dependence on others as well as the responsibilities that we bear toward them."
"This emphasis on individualism has even affected the Church, giving rise to a form of piety which sometimes emphasizes our private relationship with God at the expense of our calling to be members of a redeemed community," he noted. "If we are truly to gaze upon him who is the source of our joy, we need to do so as members of the people of God. If this seems counter-cultural, that is simply further evidence of the urgent need for a renewed evangelization of culture."
Public life
The Pontiff further encouraged the bishops to give priority to education and to participate in the exchange of ideas in the public square.
"In the United States, as elsewhere, there is much current and proposed legislation that gives cause for concern from the point of view of morality, and the Catholic community, under your guidance, needs to offer a clear and united witness on such matters," he said. "Yet it cannot be assumed that all Catholic citizens think in harmony with the Church's teaching on today's key ethical questions.
"Once again, it falls to you to ensure that the moral formation provided at every level of ecclesial life reflects the authentic teaching of the Gospel of life."
In this context, the Bishop of Rome encouraged the formation of families: "How can we not be dismayed as we observe the sharp decline of the family as a basic element of Church and society? Divorce and infidelity have increased, and many young men and women are choosing to postpone marriage or to forego it altogether.
He added: "To some young Catholics, the sacramental bond of marriage seems scarcely distinguishable from a civil bond, or even a purely informal and open-ended arrangement to live with another person. Hence we have an alarming decrease in the number of Catholic marriages in the United States together with an increase in cohabitation, in which the Christ-like mutual self-giving of spouses, sealed by a public promise to live out the demands of an indissoluble lifelong commitment, is simply absent."
"It is your task," the Pope told the prelates, "to proclaim boldly the arguments from faith and reason in favor of the institution of marriage. […] This message should resonate with people today, because it is essentially an unconditional and unreserved 'yes' to life, a 'yes' to love, and a 'yes' to the aspirations at the heart of our common humanity, as we strive to fulfill our deep yearning for intimacy with others and with the Lord."
Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology
Posted in: Science nanotechnology Religion
Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.
Addressing scientists here today (Feb. 15, 2008) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on public views of technology in the United States than in Europe.
"Our data show a much lower percentage of people who agree that nanotechnology is morally acceptable in the U.S. than in Europe," says Scheufele, an expert on public opinion and science and technology.
Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering devoted to the design and production of materials, structures, devices and circuits at the smallest achievable scale, typically in the realm of individual atoms and molecules. The ability to engineer matter at that scale has the potential to produce a vast array of new technologies that could influence everything from computers to medicine. Already, dozens of products containing nanoscale materials or devices are on the market.
In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.
In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. In the United Kingdom, 54.1 percent found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable. In Germany, 62.7 percent had no moral qualms about nanotechnology, and in France 72.1 percent of survey respondents saw no problems with the technology.
"There seem to be distinct differences between the United States and countries that are key players in nanotech in Europe, in terms of attitudes toward nanotechnology," says Scheufele.
Why the big difference?
The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."
The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.
He conducted the U.S. survey with Arizona State University (ASU) colleague Elizabeth Corley under the auspices of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU.
The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.
"They still oppose it," he says. "They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn't about informing these people. They are informed."
The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.-University of Wisconsin-Madison
Liberal Christian: 'Dominance of the religious right is finished'
David Edwards and Muriel Kane Wednesday January 23, 2008
Please click on the link to external source for complete article, including a video clip from the Daily Show January 22, 2008.
According to a prominent liberal Evangelical, there is a major political and generational shift going on among Evangelical Christians in America.
Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners Magazine, told Jon Stewart on Tuesday's Daily Show, "Two things have happened since we last talked. I've got some good news and some great news. The good news is, the dominance of the religious right over our politics is finally finished."
As the audience cheered and applauded, Wallis continued, "Even the better news is now a new generation has come of age and they're applying their faith ... to the biggest issues that face us: the moral scandal of poverty, the degradation of the environment -- which we call God's creation -- the threat of climate change, Darfur, human rights, the exclusive use of war to fight evil."
Stewart questioned whether a religious left might not wind up being just as rigid as the religious right, but on the other side. Wallis replied that he wasn't expecting that to happen, because people in this country "don't want to go left or right, they want to go deeper, they want to go to a moral center."
"Politics in America is broken," Wallis said, explaining why he anticipates a new social movement, rather than a new political movement. "Social movements often rise up to change politics when it fails. And the best social movements often have spiritual foundations."
"Why does it always have to be tied in to faith?" Stewart asked, pointing out that at the same time as the 19th century abolitionists were appealing to religion, so were the supporters of slavery. "Isn't there a way to have a right and wrong?"
"Religion has no monopoly on morality," Wallis agreed, acknowledging that all the great social movements have had a significant component of people of faith, but never exclusively. "And there's a whole new denomination now," he added, "called the spiritual but not religious, that's growing all over the country."
"The two great hungers in the world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice, and the connection between the two is the one the new generation is just waiting for," Wallis concluded.
He cautioned, however, that "when people of faith get to the public square, they shouldn't say, 'My religious view is this.' They should speak in moral language that is inclusive of everybody. ... I care about not someone's religion, but what their moral compass is."
Civil religion quietly unifies and guides American public life
Saturday, 12/29/07 By RAY WADDLE
Opinion
Americans say they're more likely to vote for a homosexual than an atheist when choosing a president, a USA Today/Gallup survey reported in February.
This all-American wariness of unbelief suggests we want leaders to make decisions within a familiar moral tradition (biblical, more or less), with a providential deity somehow assisting.
Civil religion is not Christianity, it's not a denomination, and these days it's not fashionable. Yet it has been a unifying feature of national life for 200-plus years. Will it survive America's 21st century search for identity?
The American civil religion was spelled out 40 years ago by sociologist Robert Bellah, who found it in places small and large — on the currency ("in God we trust") and in inaugural addresses ("here on earth God's work must truly be our own": John Kennedy).
It endorses human liberty and stirs public purpose. It has its own "sacred" texts, such as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and King's Dream speech, stressing sacrifice, rebirth, rededication.
It claims holy days: Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. And hallowed ground: Arlington Cemetery and all other military burial grounds.
Imprecision is the key
Civil religion does not replace traditional religions but functions alongside. Yet it has few defenders these days.
It is too neutral and imprecise for religious partisans, not neutral enough for atheists.
But its imprecision is what makes it work. It declares a cosmic baseline for morality, but it's not overly doctrinaire or aggressive.
It's the religion that people mean when they appeal to the common good or a common moral inheritance, as Mitt Romney did recently in his religion speech.
Civil religion has hazards. It can turn into worship of the nation. But Bellah once argued that true civil religion places us under divine judgment when we stray from our principles. It should inspire self-criticism.
Can American civic life keep its civil religion in the surging face of pluralism? Is there room for non-believers, or must it be scrapped? National civil religions emerged after the demise of the divine right of kings as a way to ennoble national solidarity.
The big question persists. Can there be a public morality that rallies public purpose without reference to a creator?
Notable regimes have tried — Hitler, Mao, Stalin, all discredited. History offers no shining modern examples yet of civil religion without God. Americans, so far, are voting with history.
It's no Mickey Mouse course - prof looks at religion in Disney World
Ken Meaney, CanWest News Service Published: Saturday, December 15, 2007
It wasn't exactly Saul on the road to Damascus, but Jennifer Porter had an epiphany, of sorts, when she visited Disney World in May.
Porter, who teaches religious studies at Memorial University in St. John's, was struck by the religious overtones at the Orlando, Fla. theme park - so much so that she's starting a course on it in January, with the tongue-in-cheek title Religion and Disney: Not Just Another Mickey Mouse Course.
"The theme park productions, fireworks displays and so on always involve a morality tale and a requirement of the audience to believe in the power of good, and believe in the power of wishes," she said.
"So I'm interested in that - does that affect Disney audiences? Does that affect how they see the world?"
Films "speak about religion on a number of levels," Porter says.
Porter started out studying contemporary religions, later combining that with a yen for science fiction. She teaches and has published books and scholarly papers on the portrayal of religion in Star Trek, Star Wars and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who she says is shown as "a feminist Christ figure."
Porter began thinking about Disney -_the man and the corporation he founded - after discussing the Chronicles of Narnia in one of her courses. The interest took off at Disney World when she discovered Star Wars-Disney crossover fans debating whether Disney toys like Mickey Mouse dressed as a Jedi knight should be considered canonical - as officially part of the Star Wars universe.
"What I was struck by was the strangeness, to me, that someone would argue Disney products should be canonical," she said.
In her course, students will learn about the life and faith of creator Walt Disney, first and foremost a businessman, but also a talented artist. Raised in a religious household, she said, he made a conscious effort to exclude organized Christianity from his films - replacing it with supernatural elements like fairy godmothers, songs instead of prayers.
Still, "there is this overarching message (in the movies) of a good power that will look out for you if you believe, if you have faith," she said.
"At the same time, there has been a change in Disney films and theme parks since the death of Disney himself (in 1966), and one of the things that's interesting to explore is how religions and the supernatural and morality might have shifted from the time of Walt Disney himself to more recent Disney entertainment products," she said.
The Southern Baptist Convention boycotted Disney for eight years - initially because the company had extended benefits to same-sex couples. They later accused Disney of being too liberal. Other critics called the company too conservative.
What would Disney himself think of the fuss?
"Would it bring more people to his theme park?" she said, laughing. "His concern was always for the bottom line."
Porter said she wants to find out if there is an identifiable religion in Disney and whether Disney fandom can be considered a religion. Enrollment for her new course filled up quickly.
"There's a lot of interest. People are really engaged by popular culture. To me, it seems a wonderful way to get people interested in the impact of religion in the world, which is wonderful."
New research shows five kinds of Christians in America. by Eric Reed, Leadership managing editor
A new report in the Fall issue of Leadership journal shows great disparity among people in the United States who call themselves "Christian." In fact, this nationwide survey of more than 1,000 self-identified adherents reveals five distinct types of practitioners with very different views on salvation, the Bible, morality, and the cultural impact of their faith.
For news reporters and news consumers, this diversity requires careful attention to the variety of opinion among people generally labeled "Christian." Not all Christians think alike on cultural issues, and the survey makes the reasons clearer.
The survey was conducted for Christianity Today International (publisher of Leadership journal) and Zondervan Publishers by the research firm Knowledge Networks. It is one step in the development of NationalChristianPoll.com, a new research database for surveying the opinions of Christians in the United States on a variety of issues.
Who Are my Christian Neighbors?
While between 70 and 80 percent of people in the United States identify themselves as Christian according to a number of studies, what those people mean by the term varies widely. Respondents to our new survey were almost evenly divided among five categories:
Active Christians (19%): Committed churchgoers, often in positions of church leadership; believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ; Bible readers.
Professing Christians (20%): Similar beliefs to Active Christians, but less committed to church attendance; focus more on personal relationship with God and Jesus, less on Bible reading or faith sharing.
Liturgical Christians (24%): High level of spiritual activity; regular churchgoers, recognizing the authority of the church; predominantly Catholic and Lutheran.
Private Christians (24%): Largest and youngest segment; believe in God and have spiritual interest, but not within the church context; only one-third attend church at all, almost none are church leaders.
Cultural Christians (21%): God aware, but do not view Jesus as essential to salvation; affirm many ways to God; express little outward religious behavior.
We found that almost 9 in 10 Active and Professing Christians said "accepting Christ as Savior and Lord" is key to being a Christian, while Liturgical, Private, and Cultural Christians favored a more general "believing in God" as important to being a Christian. For half or more of the people in America who call themselves "Christian," Christ is not the defining figure in their faith.
In the current debate between science and religion, Plato’s Symposium has a lot to offer. First of all, it reminds us that we should exhibit the good fellowship and enthusiasm of brothers and sisters (OK, they excluded women in those days) and of kindred explorers of the boundless marvels of the universe. Allied with this, it proposes that reality is a banquet (a frequent alternate translation of “symposium”)—unbelievably tasty and enormously filling. The image and implication of intoxication is a telling one since one can and should be inebriated and delighted by the splendor of the real, as opposed to sinking into the dour servitude of gouty dogmatism of whatever flavor.
If we adopt this stance, we discover that not just love but also truth is a “many-splendored thing.” That is a primary lesson we need to grasp before proceeding any further in the debate between science and religion. We need to stretch our minds and hearts and let them roam free outside of the narrow prisons and blinkered perspectives in which we tend to incarcerate them, and let ourselves embrace and be braced by the currents of reality around us.
So, as we enter the dining hall, let us begin by establishing our rules of etiquette, our epistemological table manners, so to speak. Those who prefer appetizers (science, let us say—no value judgment implied!) have every right to their tastes, and they may refrain from dessert, if they wish (religion, let us suppose). Others may leap right to the dessert, and skip the appetizers. Many will say, perhaps rightly, that both groups are missing out on something tasty; but, what they eat is their own decision. What we cannot allow is a discourse in which one group chastises the other as idiots or hypocrites because of their particular preference. De gustibus non disputandum. So, both science and religion beware!
What therefore might the intellectual gourmet’s assessment of these various courses, whether in the culinary or university sense? Modern civilization has discovered (despite its roots in Aristotle, who didn’t yet make all the necessary distinctions) the magnificence and the unimaginable fruitfulness of empirical science, and its mathematical models. The scientific method, based on observation, hypothesis, and experiment, has rightly brought untold benefits into our lives. It has its proper object—material and measurable reality—and its particular methods.
Similarly, religion has brought almost unfathomable depth, excitement, perspective, guidance, and compassion into the world. It, too, has its own object (God and the spirit world, and all in relation to God) and its own methods (ultimately human spiritual experience), though often employing philosophical systems or artistic means to help express the inexpressible. Of course, since notoriously fallible and fickle human beings are the ones who actually practice science or religion, much that is nasty has been introduced in the name of both (nuclear bombs and inquisitions, for example). Yet that is not a defect of the food but of the diners and their appetites—not a fault of the field itself but of those who are walking in the field.
Still, if these various fields yield wondrous crops within their own spheres, their seeds will not sprout outside of them. Science, for example, never can nor ever should speak about God. It is completely outside its realm of competence. The existence and operations of God can never be either proved or disproved by science. The experience of God, however, or discourse about God, is certainly not outside the competence of human beings, with their multilayered reality. Thus, although science cannot speak about God, a scientist may do so, if she or he wishes, only simply not as a scientist, but as a person. For the same reasons, God neither can nor should be invoked within scientific discourse, as a cause or explanation of any sort, simply because God is not an object of empirical science, and can never be proved scientifically. It does not mean that God may not be a legitimate cause on another level of discourse (philosophical, theological, or mystical). But God should not be called in to bail out or short-circuit science in its own domain.
The problems arise, of course, when there is an apparent conflict of interests, when one seems to be treading on the other’s turf. In other words, the boundaries among these various categories of discourse, or rather, our perception and understanding of them, may often be somewhat sloppy and in need of challenge. Such difficulties have arisen quite spectacularly in history on a number of occasions (Galileo and Darwin, for example, which we can explore another time in more detail). In these instances, what seemed to have been the province of religion turned out to be the province of science. Or, to express it differently, these clashes provided an enormously exhilarating opportunity for those with open minds to re-examine their understanding of certain elements of their religious belief, and grow to a maturity of appreciation that was unthinkable before. Thus, the whole reassessment, over the past 200 years, of how to read the scriptures in Christianity—not as treatises in science or history but as bearers of spiritual insight and truth—was facilitated, and to a degree, even made possible, by the scientific revolution. To be sure, as Francis Collins rightly asserts in his Discover Interview in the February issue, St. Augustine reminded his readers 1,600 years ago that our understanding of the six days of Genesis should never be slavishly literal (in fact, Origen had pointed out the same more than a century before that), or taken to be a scientific or historical eyewitness account of how events unfolded. Rather are we dealing with a mythical and mystical treatise whose depth of truth is vastly more challenging and astonishing as a metaphor of our spiritual journey than just as an account, however glorious and poetic, of the origins of our material universe. Immense and innumerable currents of Jewish and Christian mystical writing bear this out. And, as the Dalai Lama has famously said in recent years, if other beliefs of religion were to be challenged by science, then, upon examination, we would have to humbly integrate the insights, certain that religion itself would only profit in the end.
Historically speaking, however, we know that proponents neither of religion nor of science often exhibited this tranquil breadth of spirit, this self-possessed openness to challenge and change, that circumstances genuinely required. Indeed, official positions and widespread popular understanding were often rife with fear and its concomitant dogmatism, and this remains so today in many quarters. Once again, however, this is the fault of the practitioners, and not of science or of religion itself.
Another possible area of conflict, which is considerably more contentious, is that of morality. I would propose that scientific research is intrinsically amoral; by its own rules, science would simply go out and do whatever it is capable of doing at any time. This is a limitation, but not a fault. Problems arise, however, because its object is often part of a much more complex reality. For example, not only do people do science, but people are often the object of science. What is more, they are not simply the subjects and objects of science, they are also the subjects and objects of psychology, art, ethics, philosophy, theology, and mysticism. Hence, these other levels of exploration and discourse have the right not to do science but to challenge the scientist, when a value known and embraced at another level is threatened by a science that is fundamentally without values. This is obviously the case in the life sciences: biotechnology, biochemistry, etc. Even if cloning, stem cell research, and reproductive advances represent scientific progress, are they truly and necessarily progress for the totality of the human person and for life in society? These are crucial questions that have to be faced out of respect for the complexity of our human and epistemological reality. But likewise, there must be caution on the other end of the spectrum: Are we so sure about our ethical and spiritual understanding of the human person that we would be justified in imposing limits on science in such and such a case? Humility and circumspection are needed on both sides.
Perhaps what is best in our humanity is what can likewise help reconcile science and religion in practice: the sense of wonder, of openness, of exploration, the exhilarating intoxication that I mentioned above. These sentiments are the inspiration, both Maritain and I would argue, for both science and religion—indeed for any passionate pursuit. Grounded in this sort of breadth of spirit, which is secure, serene, and confident in itself, we can hopefully learn— whether in science or in religion or in any human endeavor—not only to tolerate but to glory in the experience of not knowing. The feverish demand for instant certitude seems a Western neurosis. After all, whether we consider ourselves loyal scientists or loyal members of a religious tradition or both, an awestruck sense of respect before the unknown is the only loyal attitude towards whatever reality is the object of our exploration. As Maritain pointed out, there is more mystery in a grape between the teeth than in all of our discourses that would attempt to explain it. So, may we avoid anorexia of the spirit, and let the “banquet” continue!
Subjects primed with words like 'spirit,' 'divine' and 'God' gave more money to strangers than control group, researchers say
David Wylie, CanWest News Service Published: Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thinking about religion really does make people treat their neighbours as themselves, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of B.C. found that priming people with words, such as "spirit, divine, God, sacred and prophet," prompted them to be more generous, said post-graduate student Azim Shariff.
"I was quite surprised that something that subtle would have this big of an impact," said Shariff, 26. "This is a twist on an age-old question -- does a belief in God influence moral behaviour?"
In the study, to be published in September in the journal Psychological Science, 125 participants were asked to unscramble sentences. Then they were given $10 and had to decide how much to keep and what amount to give away to a stranger.
Sixty-eight per cent of those who unscrambled sentences with religious words gave about half the money away. Meanwhile, most members of the control group, who worked on non-religious sentences, kept nearly all the money.
"I thought there would be some effect," Shariff said. "I didn't think it would be double."
Shariff and UBC associate professor Ara Norenzayan conducted their research between September 2005 and July 2006.
The method they used is a popular one in social psychology, Shariff said.
Shariff said he was inspired to study religion because its effect is "the central debate of our age." With a rash of anti-God books being released, the psychology student said he wanted to know what effect that message would have on people.
"If you have these books telling you that God doesn't exist, will that make you cheat more?" he asked.
In a second study, researchers investigated the strength of a "religious prime" compared to a "secular prime." They obtained almost identical results using concepts of civic responsibility and social justice with words, including "civic, jury, court, police and contract."
"These are compelling findings that have substantial impact on the study of social behaviour because they draw a causal relationship between religion and acting morally -- a topic of some debate," Shariff said. "They by no means indicate that religion is necessary for moral behaviour, but it can make a substantial contribution."
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.
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
A new Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by CanWest News Service and Global National finds that half of Canadians think schools are more dangerous today than five years ago. They blame bad parenting, society's disintegrating moral fabric and violence in the media as the prime culprits. One-third of respondents identified absent, lax or poor parenting as the root cause of school violence, and about one-quarter citing a perceived "lack of morals, conscience and respect" as being to blame.
Only 15 per cent thought "gangs" are the primary cause of escalating violence in Canadian schools, and just 11 per cent blamed the availability of guns - notwithstanding the histrionics of anti-gun lobbyists and some fellow-travelling politicians such as Toronto Mayor David Miller.
Convenient scapegoats
The public gut differs from many politicians, the media and various special-pleading activists who continue to blame rising adolescent depravity on the Internet, guns, video games and Hollywood violence. These are convenient scapegoats for much deeper distempers afflicting our culture - ones the left/liberal, self-styled elites don't want to acknowledge or address.
The root of the problem is that an ideology of moral relativism has been uncritically assimilated by three or four successive generations, rendering many people incapable of judging right from wrong.
Interestingly, science tends to corroborate grassroots perception more than leftist social theorizing. In criminological literature, "bad" parenting is frequently portrayed as a risk factor for unhealthy social development and, in turn, antisocial behaviour.
For instance, a study by M.R. Gottfredson and T. Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime, (Stanford University Press, 1990) finds that a propensity to engage in crime is the prime cause of involvement in crime and deviant behaviours. It argues that ineffective parenting is the reason children fail to develop self-control - lack of which is a characteristic that persists across the lifespan, predisposing individuals afflicted to lifetimes of criminal behaviour.
Gottfredson and Hirschi contend that children raised in unstructured environments fail to develop the ability to control their behaviour, and are therefore prone to engage in risky behaviours that give them either a short-term reward or relief from momentary irritations. It is failure of parents to make the effort to instil internal control that leads to childhood, and later adult, misconduct.
The baby-boomer and boomer-shadow parents of today's crop of adolescents and pre-teens are arguably the most disastrously ineffectual cohort of parents in history. Steeped in the post-1960s cult of permissiveness and a constellation of other half-baked leftist notions, they have, in the main, failed miserably at executing their parental duty of nurturing ethics of civility, duty, self-control, and responsibility in their offspring.
Reflexive contempt for self-sacrificial virtue and rejection of real religion in favour of facile, feel-good "spirituality" have robbed these postmodern parents of the tools needed to combat the malignancies today's depraved popular culture inflicts on their children. Too many parents are themselves afflicted with "perpetual adolescence syndrome," identifying with their loutish kids against teachers and other authorities as agents of oppression to be opposed at every turn.
Christina Hoff Sommers, a philosophy professor at Clark University, says many of her students are "incapable of making one single confident moral judgment."There is really no such thing as right or wrong, they tell her. Each person has to work it out for himself.
"The trouble is," laments Hoff Sommers, "that this kind of answer, which is so common as to be typical, is no better than the moral philosophy of a sociopath."Today's kids have been deceived by aggressive advocacy of bad philosophical values - the sort that are big on "rights," and "self-esteem," very light on things like responsibility, respect, duty, honour, self-control, self-sacrifice and other quaint qualities that used to be revered as unquestioned virtues in our society.
Moral naivete
This increasing moral naivete combines catastrophically with a popular culture of violent, sex-saturated entertainment, dysfunctional family life, abdication of parental authority; social science quackery in the educational system and in the social work and judicial arenas; an aggressive consumer/materialist ethos; and the pervasiveness of drugs, booze, violent entertainment, and promiscuous sex in youth culture.
Under these circumstances, it's no mystery why some kids turn predatory. Until the parenting problem is addressed, there is no hope of turning the tide of youthful anarchy, anomie and alienation.
At least the new survey reveals that public perception is finally clueing in to the actual causes and nature of the distemper. Getting people to implement the remedy will be another matter.
Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotian freelance writer and editor whose articles, features, and commentaries have appeared in more than 40 magazines and newspapers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.
The State of Schools in American Perception: From Dissatisfaction to Religious Necessity
Daniel Downs May 26, 2007
When it comes to education, over 82% of Americans still send their kids to public school. So why are Americans not happy with public education? As will be shown, secularism, an offshoot of American socialism and humanism, is the problem.
According to the most recent Gallup Polls, 52% say they are very dissatisfied with America’s education, and only 37% are only somewhat satisfied. The educational reform No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not the reason for the negativity about public schooling. If most Americans really understood NCLB, they would probably feel something is finally being done about our educational problems. The dissatisfaction is not about school safety either. For only about a third voiced any concern about school security. More emphasis on academics does not appear to be a major problem. Only between 30% and 40% of Americans believe there is not enough emphasis on the 3Rs, History, Science, Health, Arts, and Foreign Languages. Although a significant number of people think better teachers are needed.
So why then are so many Americans dissatisfied with American schools? The answer may surprise you, but the real problem with America’s public schools is the lack of religion. Sixty percent (60%) said they believed America has too little religion in its public schools. The survey does not give us any clear idea of what Americans mean by it. However, over 92% think prayer should be allowed and over 76% would support a constitutional amendment allowing voluntary prayer in state-run schools. It gets even better. Most Americans think creationism and intelligent design should be taught along with evolution in science class. Fifty-four percent (54%) were for creationism, 22% were opposed, and 23% were unsure. Concerning intelligent design, 43% favored it, 21% were opposed, and 35% were uncertain. The relative large number of people who were uncertain indicates insufficient knowledge about the issue.
It is encouraging to see that most Americans hold to at least some of the core views and values held by our predecessors at our nation’s founding. Early Americans debated not about whether religion should be taught but rather who should be responsible for teaching it to America’s school children. The issue was not a conflict of church versus state. It was one between federal and state governments, which also extended to state versus local jurisdiction. The outcome of the debate was defined by Congress in the Northwest Ordinance. This legislation regulated the creation of territories, states and local communities. The Ordinance specified land to be set aside for community schools in which religion would be taught among other subjects. Notice, the same Congress that established our nation and constitutional form of governments also authorized public schools--not Sunday Schools--to teach religion. Why? Because a free self-governing people require the moral understanding and discipline only religion adequately provides.
What kind of religion did early Americans propose? Most believed biblical religion was the best of all possible religions. When early Americans spoke of religions they usually meant Christian denominations such as Congregationalist, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics, and the like. However, they often included in their discussions discussed the religions of Buddhists, Mohammedans or Muslims and Jews. Complementing a pluralist view, many early American leaders held to a type of religious universalism. They believed all world religions taught the same basic morality. The only real difference was the extent each religion comprehended the moral laws of human nature. Most, if not all, early Americans thought Christianity had obtained the fullest understanding both by revelation and by reason of the divinely created moral law in human nature and human society. (For more on early American views concerning education and religion read Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic written in 1786 by Benjamin Rush.)
Why do modern Americans think more religion is needed in public education and what kind of religion do they propose? Again, a clear answer is not found in the Gallup Polls. It is reasonable to assume most Americans still agree with the founders and their views. For example, nearly 70% say America is a Christian nation, according to a Pew survey. Most Americans (59%) see religion is losing its influence in society. They regard it as a bad trend. Only 34% of Americans think the public influence of religion is increasing, and the majority (62%) says it is a good thing.
The importance of religion’s public influence goes back to the historical necessity of moral discipline. It is a prerequisite to living in a free self-governing society. While 71% of Americans want more religion in the public square, 51% want more religious influence in political or law-making affairs. When we consider the fact that early America was dominated by Puritan ideals and that Puritans were called evangelicals, it should be less difficult to understand why 60% of evangelicals still believe the Bible should be the most important influence in shaping laws. The same is generally true for most Protestants but oddly enough not for Catholics and certainly not for liberal Protestants. Put in perspective, the majority of Americans (63%) say the ‘will of the people’ (law of consensus) should be the most important influence in law, while only 32% say it should be biblical precepts and biblical law.
Now, we have a paradox. Americans say they want more religious freedom. They want more religious influence in schools and in society including government, but Americans also say they do not want social law to be shaped by that influence. If by religious influence Americans mean its affects on people in schools and government some of whom make legal decisions, they still hold to the founding ideals. However, early American law reflected biblical precedents. Why? Because they applied the moral ideals and laws derived from the Bible to laws governing human behavior in society. It is likely, therefore, that what most Americans mean when they say they want more religion in society, government, and education is more of religion’s moral influence in all aspect of life. (For more on biblical precedents of American law read Biblical Law in America by John W. Welch.)
If so, the hope for America’s future is much brighter than imagined, one in which life, liberty, equity, equality, prosperity, and happiness may remain supreme. The one obstruction to fully realizing this hope is like minded leaders. If Americans will only insist on having moral leaders of this kind, leaders who genuinely support religion and morality will arise to the demand, but Americans will also have vote them into office at local, state, and national levels of government. When America do, restoring religion to public education will then be possible.
"’Religion and morality are critical to how students think about politics and form opinions on political issues,’ said Jeanne Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor and director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, which conducted the poll."
Harvard students are not as irreligious as prior. They are more and more relating their lives to the soul and invisible. Therefore, administration realizes that faith molds political views.
Consequently, the university is buzzing with the twosome "religious centrist."
Instead of the usual hard-line atheism-agnosticism rant common at Harvard, there is a call to play that down. May that playdown also relate to Harvard Divinity School. When I was there in the early 60s, it was popular not to believe, though studying for ministry or religious vocations of some sort.
"Jesus" was mentioned but in the context of demythologizing Him, that is, cutting out the miracles, including his virgin birth and resurrection. His divinity was always in question.
Apparently now with the world is sad shape more Harvard students are coming upon a spiritual hunger that’s real, personal. I doubt if that has changed the divinity school that much, however, for in the mailings I still receive regularly there is the usual accent on yoga, feminism, politically correctness, Unitarian-based liberalism, and same ol’ same ol’ whatever.
Peter Gomes, gay pastor of Harvard Memorial Church, said once, when learning there would be an evangelical professor onboard at the divinity school, that it would be refreshing to have someone teaching who actually believed. That is, the evangelical professor would be a biblical Christian. Gomes admitted that would be welcomed for its rarity. I can imagine his clever smile showing when he addressed his audience with those prophetic words.
Someone on the divinity faculty who truly personally had faith in the biblical record. How unusual. I wonder if the money offered to the school for that "evangelical chair" actually ever brought about such a personage on staff. I can’t recall reading anything about its actuality. Must check up on it. If so, must also check to see if the evangelical member survived the "camaraderie" of other faculty and liberal student body.
According to Jennifer Harper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES: "College students are becoming more religious, and it's affecting their political views, according to a new Harvard University survey of this potentially influential voting bloc. ‘Religious centrists’ rule, according to the university.
"A full 70 percent say religion plays an important part in their lives, with a quarter saying their spirituality has increased at college. Six out of 10 say they are concerned about the moral direction of the country, according to the poll of 1,200 students from across the country, conducted March 13 to 27 and released Tuesday.
"The Harvard study advises political parties to woo the spiritually inclined, a demographic that the popular press mostly deemed the exclusive territory of the ‘religious right’ in the past two presidential elections.
"’This analysis foreshadows the 2008 general election campaign for president where religious centrists, nearly a quarter of the student vote, will be the critical swing vote ... and likely the most influential group in American politics for years,’ according to the survey.
"A breakdown of collegiate party preferences reveals further complexities. Republicans are composed of 34 percent traditional conservatives, 30 percent religious centrists, 20 percent secular centrists and 16 percent who consider themselves traditional liberals.
"Among Democrats, 59 percent are traditional liberals, 24 percent are religious centrists, 9 percent secular centrists and 7 percent are traditional conservatives."
author Scott Cooper discusses the importance of teaching children about issues of faith and ethics in his latest book
Published: Wednesday, Mar 7, 2007
When it comes to education, much attention is paid to making sure children learn the three R’s: reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic. A lot of attention is also given to teaching kids how to work as a team through sports, and an appreciation for the arts through music programs. But it seems another critical aspect of education is being somewhat overlooked — the development of their inner morals, beliefs and values.
Scott Cooper, a Petaluma author and member of the city of Petaluma’s youth commission, addresses this topic in his latest book, “I Don’t Want to go to Church! Practical Ways to Deal with Kids and Religion (Whether You’re Religious or Not).”
“Based on Gallup Poll data as of the early 2000s, about 84 percent of young people considered religion to be very important to them,” said Cooper, who is a parent himself. “A study that came out in 2002 suggests that kids’ interest in faith has increased over the last few years. There’s no doubt that on a nationwide basis, young people are interested in issues of faith.”
Cooper has been writing on youth topics for a number of years and is best known for being an anti-bullying advocate. He’s been involved with teaching, coaching basketball and serving on education and drug-prevention boards. Having an interest in issues of philosophy and religion, Cooper wanted to write a book that provided parents with ways to teach their children about faith, morality and ethics.
And what issues of faith are kids interested in? “They are certainly interested in the big questions,” said Cooper. “One of the things that religion contributes to is our world view. It also addresses questions of purpose and where we come from and so forth. They have great interest in the larger issues of life and finding something they can grab hold of; having something bigger than themselves they can find comfort in and draw strength from.”
With the same Gallup Poll reporting that 95 percent of teens in the U.S. believe in the existence of God or a higher power, the issue of spirituality is one that needs to be addressed. In his book, Cooper discusses how at least some religion is important to children in that it aids in the teaching of morals, values and beliefs.
“High levels of faith connections are linked to lower levels of delinquency such as theft, vandalism and so forth,” said Cooper of a 2002 child trends report on children and religion. “The link between religious involvement and decreased teen alcohol and drug abuse is strong. It helps steer teens away from having sex too young. In early adolescence, it also helps develop in them positive associations and socially and altruistic attitudes and behaviors. Religious connections can keep children away from harmful influences, and on the other hand, help enhance positive social behavior, a sense of purpose and a positive guilt response. I mean positive guilt response in that it’s a healthy response to when you’ve done something wrong — you feel bad about it. Not all guilt is bad.”
Cooper added that helping children to develop morals, beliefs and values doesn’t require parents to be or become religious. “Most parents, regardless of whether or not they believe in God, certainly believe that life is unique and that something bigger than us created the universe, whether it was natural or supernatural. They also believe that it’s better to do good in this life and refrain from doing harm. I think most parents agree with the larger moral issues such as kindness being better than hate and nonviolence being better than violence. Most parents can agree on these core values whether religious or not.
Teaching kids about these issues can be done formally or informally. It can be faith-oriented through church or religious books or through non-religious activities such as spending time with your kids in nature just talking. “There are a number of things parents can do, religious or not.”
The most important thing, though, is to talk. “Something by way of grounding them in terms of faith and morality is critical, more so now than ever before,” said Cooper. “Given the Internet and the entertainment venues, if they don’t get it from their parents, they’re going to get it from somewhere else; being taught things we don’t want them to be taught. Sometimes we don’t have the support of society in trying to prompt our children to choose good.
“Sixty-seven percent of teens in the U.S. expressed a need in their lives for spiritual growth. If we’re not filling that in some form, there’s going to be a lack that they will find other ways to fill. Regardless of how formal we provide that direction, or informally, something needs to be provided for them in terms of religious and moral training. If you’re not religious, you can still provide them with a reverence for life and moral guidance.”
In addition to opening the dialogue between parents and children about these issues, Cooper said it’s also a good idea to get them involved with community service projects as a means of teaching. “Parents need to step-up and engage their children. Requiring them to experience community service can help them develop their inner lives, their morals, beliefs and values — the things that lead to happier lives.
(Contact Yovanna Bieberich at yovanna.bieberich@ arguscourier.com)
Survey Finds Link Between Decline in Values, Waning Belief
Payton Hoegh Correspondent
(CNSNews.com) - A majority of Americans believe the nation's moral values are declining, according to a survey gauging the state of American culture. It also found a correlation between the shift in values and a reduced emphasis on religion.
In the survey by the Culture and Media Institute, 74 percent of respondents, including a majority in each major demographic, said moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago.
Forty-eight percent felt moral values were much weaker than two decades ago.
Using the data, the CMI classified American adults into one of three value groups -- Orthodox, Progressive, and Independent.
"Orthodox" Americans, comprising one-third of the adult public, are those who believe in God, think religious values should be reflected in government, and see moral issues in black and white, the survey said.
"Progressives" represent the one-sixth of adults who are fundamentally secular, opposed to religious values in government, and see moral issues in shades of gray.
"Independents" -- about half the adult population -- did not fully accept the values of the other two categories.
Ninety-one percent of the "Independent" respondents were found to believe in God and to be more "Orthodox" in questions of politics and sexual morality. But they also tend to be more "situational" in viewing moral issues and to side with "Progressives" in questions of right and wrong.
__At a press conference Wednesday launching the survey, CMI Director Bob Knight said the organization "wanted to take a snapshot of America and show [the culture] for what it is - good or bad."
The results showed that religion played a large role in the morality of the nation, he said.
Knight noted that although 87 percent of all respondents said they believe in God and a significant majority showed a commitment to classical virtues such as integrity and honesty, their actual decisions in particular situations did not always reflect it.
"In reality, there are three groups out there. The group we call the Orthodox believes in obeying God above all ... the Progressives want to write their own moral rules [and] ... the Independents respect God and tradition, but still like to do things their own way."
Using the results of its survey, CMI argues that "attitudes toward God and religion" is the crux of the conflict over culture in America.
CMI argued that if more Americans adopt "Progressive" values, the country could "expect to experience even greater moral confusion."
"The battlefield in America's culture war is the hearts and the minds of the Independents ... reversing America's moral decline will require a renewed acceptance of Orthodox values which implies increased acceptance of God's authority."
CMI said Americans should demand that the media "strive to more fairly represent all views, including those of the Orthodox."
CMI is a division of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of Cybercast News Service. Its mission is to "preserve and help restore America's culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media elite."
'No worse than any other time'
Lori Brown of the Atheist Coalition for America challenged the conclusions of the study, saying it incorrectly implied that if two things happen at the same time, then one must have caused the other.
"This shows how much misunderstanding there is of the morality of those of us who don't hold a God belief," Brown told Cybercast News Service . "If a person believes that this is the only life we have and this is the only world there is, than there will be great impetus to make it the best world possible.
"Those of us who don't believe in those concepts [of God] feel a tremendous obligation to live moral, ethical lives and to help people less fortunate then ourselves," she said.
Brown noted that when Christians gather on May 3 for the National Day of Prayer, atheists plan to observe a "Gift of Life Day," when they will donate blood rather than pray.
She also argued that the idea of a nation in moral decline is nothing new and could probably be said of any decade.
"I find people all over the country who are loving, kind, generous, and help each other, so I don't think the nation is in any worse of a decline than at other times ... people just notice this particular moment and don't put it into perspective," Brown said.
Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family welcomed the report, saying, "I don't think any American could look at the culture toda
