TruthBook Religious News Blog

September 5th, 2009

Washington, Sep 5 (ANI): The most religious people are more likely to do their college majors in education and the humanities, a new study has revealed.

However, while the teachers-in-training tend to become more religious over their college careers, religiosity fades for those majoring in the humanities.

"Education majors are clearly safe havens for the religious. Highly religious people seem to prefer education majors, tend to stay in that major, and tend to become more religious by the time they graduate," Live Science quoted study researcher Miles Kimball, an economist at the University of Michigan, as saying.

For the results, the researchers conducted a survey of more than 26,000 individuals who graduated from high school between 1976 and 1996 and took part in the Monitoring the Future Study.

Participants were interviewed in their senior year in high school and every two years or so following the initial survey until respondents turn 35.

They indicated on a four-point scale, how often they attend religious services and how important religion is in their lives.

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Labels: education, Monitoring the Future Study, religiosity, teachers

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2008) —

Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.

Lead researcher Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., characterized the religiosity of 918 study participants in terms of three domains of religiosity: religious service attendance, which refers to being involved with a church; religious well-being, which refers to the quality of a person's relationship with a higher power; and existential well-being, which refers to a person's sense of meaning and their purpose in life.

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

Labels: depression, Joanna Maselko, mental health, religiosity, worship

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Friday, April 10, 2009

More Religious Countries, More Perceived Ethnic Intolerance

by Steve Crabtree and Brett Pelham

This is the second article in a two-part series on religiosity and community intolerance. The first article addressed religiosity and intolerance toward gays and lesbians.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup Polls conducted in 139 countries between 2006 and 2008 reveal that in countries where a higher percentage of citizens say religion is important in their daily lives people are also more likely to say that their communities are not good places for ethnic or racial minorities to live. However, this trend is not linear. Countries with average levels of religiosity -- comparatively speaking -- report about as much intolerance as the world's most religious countries.

"Religious" people in this analysis are defined as those who report that religion is important in their daily lives. Using the percentage of "religious" people in a given country, all 139 countries are divided into five groups, ranging from least to most religious.

Comparing Different Religious Groups

Despite the history of caste systems in some predominantly Hindu cultures, the Hindu American Foundation states, "While tolerance and pluralism are valued by many religions, these concepts are the very essence of Hinduism," and Gallup's findings suggest Hindus are generally true to their creed. It is also important to note that many Hindus do not consider caste to have much to do with race or ethnicity.

After Hindus, Christians are the religious group that reports the lowest level of ethnic intolerance in their communities. In fact, Christians report only slightly more ethnic and racial intolerance than do secularists. In contrast, those in other major faith traditions -- Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews -- are substantially more likely than are secularists to say that the places where they live are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities. Jews are more than twice as likely as secularists to report that their communities are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities.

Local Frictions Have Big Effects

To a great degree, differences among different faith traditions may have more to do with culture than with faith. That is, these group differences may reflect historical and political factors, such as long-standing conflict over territory, rather than religious ideology per se. A case in point involves Jews and Muslims living inside and outside Israel. A majority of Jews and nearly half of Muslims living in Israel say their neighborhoods are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities. Outside of Israel, however, only about one in three Muslims and about one in five Jews say the same thing.

Ethnic and Racial Intolerance and Individual Levels of Religiosity

It is also informative to look within each major faith tradition to compare those who do and do not say that religion is important in their daily lives. In most faith traditions, religious and less religious people report similar levels of intolerance.

The largest gap, at 10 percentage points, is among Buddhists. However, this difference is driven predominantly by the reports of Buddhists in only a few countries, most notably Vietnam and South Korea. In Japan and Cambodia, for example, it is less religious Buddhists who report more community intolerance. In short, this small average difference, even for Buddhists, varies widely across countries.

Why, then, is there a persistent belief among many that religiosity is associated with ethnic intolerance? Perhaps it's partly because there are specific religious sects in which this is more likely to be the case. For example, Gallup Polls taken in 26 countries (mostly in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union) asked respondents to say whether they thought of their religion as "the one true religion in the world," "one of a few true religions in the world," or "just one way, among many different religions." Among Christians and Muslims, those who say that their religion is the one true religion are the most likely to say their communities are not good for ethnic and racial minorities. In some cases then, exclusionary views of religion are accompanied by exclusionary views of race and ethnicity.

A Caveat: Individual Intolerance or Awareness of Discrimination?

It is a well-worn truism in research on discrimination and ethnic and racial intolerance that the answers one gets in a survey depend greatly on the precise questions one asks. This analysis focuses on a question that essentially asks people to serve as informants about their communities at large. Gallup might have observed different results if it had asked people, for instance, if they would prefer to have a member of a specific minority group as a neighbor.

A Glass of Intolerance: Mostly Empty?

Critics of religion have often noted that religion has historically played a major role in fueling and maintaining ethnic tensions. From the Crusades of the Middle Ages to the ancient tensions that flare daily in the Middle East, religion is certainly connected in some ways to ethnic tensions. This fact notwithstanding, the present findings suggest that most modern religious traditions seem to have made some progress, at least since the Middle Ages, in promoting ethnic understanding and cooperation. Although there are some connections between religiosity and ethnic and racial intolerance, these connections were generally small and inconsistent -- and certainly much smaller than the comparable effects that exist for religious intolerance of gays and lesbians.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted between 2006 and 2008 with about 1,000 adults in most countries (and a sample size range of 446 to 2,006). Confidence intervals vary widely based on the sample sizes of specific groups. However, for the results involving groups of countries that vary in religiosity level, confidence intervals were always less than +1 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Labels: Brett Pelham, ethnicity, Gallup Poll, religion, religiosity, religious intolerance, Steve Crabtree

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Friday, March 06, 2009

Survey reveals makeup of rarely studied group: Muslim-Americans

By The Associated Press
March 2, 2009

Gallup Organization interviews with a random sample of 946 Muslim Americans in 2008 shed light on the demographics of this rarely studied group:

RACE: Muslims are the nation's most racially diverse religious group. At least a third of Muslim-Americans are black — mostly converts or children of converts to Islam. "The significant proportion of native-born converts to Islam is a characteristic unique to the United States," Gallup said. More than a quarter call themselves white, while nearly one in five identified as Asian and about as many classified themselves as "other."

RELIGIOSITY: Muslim-Americans are more religious than other Americans, but less likely than those in predominantly Muslim countries to say religion plays an important part in their lives — 80 percent of Muslim-Americans compared to virtually all in Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Morocco, for example.

IDEOLOGY: Muslim-Americans are the U.S. religious group most evenly spread out along the political spectrum — 29% liberal, 38% moderate, 25% conservative.

PARTISANSHIP: 49 percent of Muslim-Americans called themselves Democrats, 8 percent Republican and 37 percent independent. Gallup found that among all Americans in 2008 34 percent identified as Democratic, 26 percent Republican and 33 percent independent. But voter registration was relatively low among Muslim-Americans.

OTHER DEMOGRAPHICS: Muslim-Americans skew young, with 36 percent age 18-29, double the rate for the general population. They're more likely than other Americans to be single. Forty percent have at least a college degree, compared to 29 percent of Americans overall. Muslims may be slightly more likely than other Americans to report low household income.

Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for Muslim-Americans, 0.2 points for all Americans.

Labels: American Muslims, Gallup Poll, ideology, partisanship, race, religiosity

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Friday, December 12, 2008

For Nanotechnology, Religion In U.S. Dictates A Wary View

ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2008) —

When it comes to the world of the very, very small — nanotechnology — Americans have a big problem: Nano and its capacity to alter the fundamentals of nature, it seems, are failing the moral litmus test of religion.

In a report published Dec. 7 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, survey results from the United States and Europe reveal a sharp contrast in the perception that nanotechnology is morally acceptable. Those views, according to the report, correlate directly with aggregate levels of religious views in each country surveyed.

In the United States and a few European countries where religion plays a larger role in everyday life, notably Italy, Austria and Ireland, nanotechnology and its potential to alter living organisms or even inspire synthetic life is perceived as less morally acceptable. In more secular European societies, such as those in France and Germany, individuals are much less likely to view nanotechnology through the prism of religion and find it ethically suspect.

"The level of 'religiosity' in a particular country is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not people see nanotechnology as morally acceptable," says Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication and the lead author of the new study. "Religion was the strongest influence over everything."

The study compared answers to identical questions posed by the 2006 Eurobarometer public opinion survey and a 2007 poll by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center conducted under the auspices of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University. The survey was led by Scheufele and Elizabeth Corley, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University.

The survey findings, says Scheufele, are important not only because they reveal the paradox of citizens of one of the world's elite technological societies taking a dim view of the implications of a particular technology, but also because they begin to expose broader negative public attitudes toward science when people filter their views through religion.

"What we captured is nanospecific, but it is also representative of a larger attitude toward science and technology," Scheufele says. "It raises a big question: What's really going on in our public discourse where science and religion often clash?"

For the United States, the findings are particularly surprising, Scheufele notes, as the country is without question a highly technological society and many of the discoveries that underpin nanotechnology emanated from American universities and companies. The technology is also becoming more pervasive, with more than 1,000 products ranging from more efficient solar panels and scratch-resistant automobile paint to souped-up golf clubs already on the market.

"It's estimated that nanotechnology will be a $3.1 trillion global industry by 2015," Scheufele says. "Nanotechnology is one of those areas that is starting to touch nearly every part of our lives."

To be sure that religion was such a dominant influence on perceptions of nanotechnology, the group controlled for such things as science literacy, educational performance, and levels of research productivity and funding directed to science and technology by different countries.

The findings from the 2007 U.S. survey, adds Scheufele, also suggest that in the United States the public's knowledge of nanotechnology has been static since a similar 2004 survey. Scheufele points to a paucity of news media interest and the notion that people who already hold strong views on the technology are not necessarily seeking factual information about it.

Labels: Eurobarometer, nanotechnology, religion, religiosity, science, synthetic life, technology

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Sunday, December 07, 2008

Researchers Stepping Up Study of Health And Religiosity

Small Field Devoted To Exploring Possible Link Is Expanding Despite Criticism, Lack of Funding

To critics, the few dozen researchers who met this week for a Washington conference are part of an ideological crusade, a modern-day sham meant to infect science with religious belief.

To participants, they are studying what they say is becoming increasingly obvious: the link between a person's religion or spirituality and their health.

The meeting Wednesday at the Reagan Building represented the growth of a research field that has existed on a small scale for decades but has expanded significantly in the past few years. The researchers include psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, statisticians and others who believe being religious or spiritual has health benefits.

Jennifer Marshall of the Heritage Foundation, one of the conference hosts, said the advocates' goal is to make religiosity one of the benchmarks that policymakers use to measure health, alongside other factors such as socioeconomic status and age.

But to the field's many challengers, empirical proof linking religiosity and health is weak. If being a church member improves one's health, it could be due to the social contact, and being on a soccer team could create the same results, they say. If prayer calms the heart, secular yoga class could as well.

Still, the field is growing. Harold Koenig, a psychiatrist and behavioral scientist at Duke University, tallied about 6,200 published studies on the issue in professional journals before 2000, and 7,145 articles between 2000 and 2008.

Funding, however, doesn't appear to be increasing significantly. The federal government invested in recent studies that produced conflicting results. But interest from the John Templeton Foundation has been a massive boost, Koenig said, adding that it funds about 75 percent of today's research.

The field is working to become more credible, and to overcome early, well-publicized studies that looked at whether people's health would be improved if others prayed for them without their knowledge. Most mainstream scientists dismissed the research and even supporters of the field said the studies were not well done.

About half of U.S. medical schools now have courses on religion's link to health, said Byron Johnson, a Baylor University sociologist.

Columbia University behavioral psychiatrist Richard Sloan, a well-known critic of the research who was not at the conference, said the subject seems to be gaining ground because spirituality and health are booming American trends.

"The confluence of the two is irresistible to the media, and in general," he said. Policymakers are also looking at it more seriously, he said, "for no good reason. Understandable reasons, but none very good."

But measuring religiosity, and how to isolate it from other personal factors, is not possible, he said.

Measuring how often someone attends worship services or prays cannot fully gauge an individual's beliefs. Such measurements also don't capture religion as it is practiced and understood in 2008, with many people moving away from denominational identity and church membership. Instead, conference participants discussed other yardsticks, such as people's perceptions of God, how close they feel to God, and how often they feel supported by their faith community.

Labels: faith, Harold Koenig, health, Michelle Boorstein, religiosity, spirituality

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Religiosity Curbs Teen Marijuana Use By Half, National Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2008) — While many congregations of different faiths preach against drug abuse, it has been unclear whether a youth’s religious involvement has any effect on his risk of drug abuse.

Now a new national study by two Brigham Young University sociologists finds that religious involvement makes teens half as likely to use marijuana.

The study – which will be published October 13 in the Journal of Drug Issues – settles a question scholars have disagreed on in the past.

"Some may think this is an obvious finding, but research and expert opinion on this issue have not been consistent," said BYU sociology professor Stephen Bahr and an author on the study. "After we accounted for family and peer characteristics, and regardless of denomination, there was an independent effect that those who were religious were less likely to do drugs, even when their friends were users."

The study, co-authored by BYU sociologist John Hoffmann, also found individual religiosity buffered peer pressure for cigarette smoking and heavy drinking.

The term religiosity as used in the study has to do with people's participation in a religion and not the particular denomination. Hoffmann said the protective effect of church and spirituality supplements the influence of parents.

Two data sets were used in the study, 13,534 students who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and 4,983 adolescents in a state-wide survey of Utah schools. Individual religiosity was measured by two questions: one asked the students how frequently they attended church and the other asked the students to rate the importance of religion to them.

However, researchers found that religiosity didn’t have the same effect on use of illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Professor Bahr gave his insight as to why:

"There are pretty strong social norms against illicit drugs throughout society," Bahr said. "So even if you aren't religious, you receive many messages against illicit drugs. But that may be less so for drinking, smoking and even using marijuana, which tend to be strongly opposed by many religious groups."

Another result showed that the religiosity within the community as a whole does not play as big a role as formerly thought by researchers.

"Previously, it was thought that if someone grew up in a religious community and went to church, then the community’s religious strength would make a difference,” Bahr said. “We basically found that this was not the case. Individual religiosity is what makes the difference."

Labels: Brigham Young University, drug abuse, marijuana, religiosity, youth

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Friday, October 10, 2008

World Survey: Highly Religious More Giving of Their Time, Money

10/09/2008

A Gallup poll surveying over 140 countries and all major religions found that people who consider themselves "highly religious" are more likely to donate to charity, volunteer, and help strangers in need.

Though donating to charity was more common than volunteering, highly religious people still reported doing more of both than less religious people. The gap is smaller between highly religious and less religious when it comes to helping strangers.

The survey can't conclude whether religiosity makes one more likely to help others, or if generous people are more attracted to religion. Most faiths have traditions of helping others, such as charity among Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.

Labels: charity, Gallup Poll, religiosity, volunteering

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Monday, February 25, 2008

More folks eschew organized religion but not spirituality

Updated February 25. 2008
By Molly Rossiter

As chaplain at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, the Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel lives in a veritable potpourri of faith.

She may find herself offering guidance to the college's Jewish student group one day, leading a Catholic discussion group the next and guiding Hindu students through their spiritual journeys the day after that.

Quehl-Engel, 40, an ordained Episcopal priest, also finds herself talking with students and community members about a self-proclaimed "spiritual but not religious" identity, a spirituality that does not include organized religion.

"For some people, organized religion just doesn't speak to them or work for them. They'd rather create their own thing," she said.

According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 14 percent of Americans say they don't follow organized religion, and a 2002 Gallup Poll showed that 33 percent of American adults claimed to be "spiritual but not religious." As affiliation with organized religion drops — the ARIS study found only 8 percent of Americans reported no religious affiliation in 1990 — the number of those who claim a spirituality without ties to church doctrine and politics seems to be increasing.

"Part of me thinks that this has been around a lot longer than we think," Quehl-Engel said. "There are people in all traditions who value critical thinking, or they want to ask the big questions, but they don't know if they're allowed to."

Michelle Stafford grew up in a house where her father's family instructed her on the doctrines of Catholicism and her mother's family followed an American Indian spiritual path. Having experienced both sides of the spiritual spectrum, she said she felt free to follow her spiritual needs without an organized group.

"It was easy for me to live that spiritual life; it's much freer, much more loving," said Stafford, 34, of Hiawatha, who works as a spiritual director at Serenity, 5250 Park Pl. NE in Cedar Rapids. "I feel better going to a park and meditating and listening to God that way than sitting in a church, hearing that I'm a sinner and I have to confess my sins in order to go to heaven." Spirituality, she said, does not mean that a person does not believe in God. It's likely the opposite, she said.

"Someone who is spiritual probably does believe in God very much," Stafford said. "They don't need to feel confined by a building to worship God. Spirituality is all-encompassing because it can involve religion but is much broader and open." For some, the words "religion" and "spirituality" are interchangeable. For others, however, they are two different ideas.

For many people, the decision to follow a spiritual path rather than one entrenched in organized religion comes after years of belonging to a variety of religious groups or organizations. Sam Angell, 20, remembers being afraid to tell his mother, an Episcopal priest, that he no longer wanted to attend church youth group. The family had transferred to several churches for his mother's career, "and after three churches, I just didn't want to go to youth group anymore." "I was getting sick of having to re-meet a whole new group of people, find a community at a new church," said Angell, a sophomore religion and history student at Cornell College.

Angell describes himself as spiritual but not religious. He believes in "something greater than myself, something greater than mankind," and uses his studies and readings to get a better grasp on what that might be.

"I look around and I don't believe there's just a random chance of everything being there," he said. "I definitely believe there's something out there, even if I can't define it right now." He grew up in the Episcopalian church, attended Sunday school weekly and went to church camp in high school, but as he got older, his questions became bigger, he said. He was no longer sure he subscribed to everything the church was teaching.

As a college student studying various religions, he said he's had an opportunity to learn more about different faiths and what they believe.

Quehl-Engel said "spiritual but not religious" people prefer to examine faith and theology as a whole, looking at all the various components.

"The religions provide road maps and a language and a story. ... There's so many of them, a lot of us don't want to limit ourselves to just one story line," she said.

Labels: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 2002 Gallup Poll, Catherine Quehl-Engel, Molly Rossiter, organized religion, religiosity, spirituality

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Fasting seen as tool for health, spirituality

February 5, 2008

By JANET ST. JAMES

The history of fasting goes back thousands of years to Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato.

Jesus did it for 40 days for spiritual renewal.

Debbie Ragsdale of McKinney does it once a month, for about the same reason.

Far from starving, a growing number of studies show a periodic fast can do as much for the body as it does for religious beliefs.

After years of being told to eat many small meals a day to rev up the metabolism, research shows giving it a one day rest, once a week or once a month -- may also be beneficial.

Research shows depriving the body of food -- for 24 hours, drinking only water -- can give the heart arteries and pancreas a rest.

"If you're able to fast all day long, except for water, and reduce your insulin secretion," says Baylor University Medical Center Dr. Brian Welch. "There may be some metabolic advantage to that as long as it's not followed by binge eating."

Dr. Welch, a practicing endocrinologist, says there's even evidence partial fasting can extend the lifespan, because eating less sends a message to the brain and cells to use energy more efficiently.

Scientists have seen the proof in rat studies and in real life.

A study recently presented to the American Heart Association looked at Mormons. The study showed Mormon's hearts are much healthier than the average American's -- and not just because their religion forbids smoking and drinking.

Gordon Wright, a Dallas attorney who also happens to be Mormon, has fasted regularly his whole life.

"The appetites that we typically have and just set them aside and focus on more spiritual things. It allows us to focus on things other than the body and the things that drive us day to day," he said.

And Wright says when the fast is over, he's suprisingly not ravenous or obsessing about food. That's because research also suggests that supressing insulin may also reduce the taste for sugar.

Reducing sugar cravings can lead to weight loss over time.

Ragsdale also tries to eat healthy. Once a month, she and friends gather to cook and share a light, healthy lunch, as part of that endeavor.

And, she never misses her monthly fast, for body and soul.

Doctors say fasting more than a day at time breaks down muscles, instead of helping the body. And diabetics should talk with their physician before attempting even a one day fast.

Labels: fasting, health, Janet St. James, Mormonism, religiosity, spirituality

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Believers in Community

Atheists Enjoying Social Benefits of Church Even if They Don't Believe in Religious Rituals

By Jonathan Mummolo
Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Statistics suggest that many atheists find a role for religion in their lives. According to a survey released in July by the Barna Group, a religious polling firm, 36 percent said they had prayed to God in the previous week even though they identified themselves as atheists. Five percent said they had read the Bible in the previous week.

The number of atheists remains low. According to last year's General Social Survey by the National Opinion Research Center, 2.1 percent of respondents said they do not believe in God.; 4.3 percent said they are agnostic -- that they are not sure whether God exists and don't think there was any way to find out.

Among those who say they do not believe, some have adopted traditional religious roles.

When Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition for America, which lobbies to keep religion out of government, and her husband were asked to be godparents of her nephews they accepted, seeing it as more of a caretaking responsibility than a religious obligation.

"I looked at it as, they trusted us to be the guardians," said Brown, who identifies herself as a nontheist, adding that she told her in-laws that she and her husband were not religious. "I think it's important to be honest with family members. . . . They wanted people they knew would take care of these kids . . . not so much religious leaders."

To help nonbelievers maintain tradition while preserving integrity, Margaret Downey, president of Atheist Alliance International, set up http://secular-celebrations.com a Web site outlining nonreligious ceremonies that mark marriage, death and the arrival of children.

Downey, who presides over the ceremonies for a fee as a certified secular humanist officiant, recently organized an atheists convention in Crystal City that drew more than 500 people. It featured a naming ceremony for young children as an alternative to baptism.

Such ceremonies include remarks on the significance of the child's name as well as vows taken by parents and "guideparents" to teach and nurture the child. In the text of a sample ceremony on Downey's site, parents vow to help their child "learn to love truth, even when it goes against" them.

"Celebrations and holidays and traditions serve dual purposes," Downey said. "Instead of godparent, [we say] guideparents or mentors, and that way we could participate honestly but under the terms of a secular participation. Now, that might not satisfy the religious component, but it certainly would offer a branch of unity when philosophical differences would tear people apart.''

"We are social animals," she said. "We need these occasions to bring family and friends together into our lives."

Labels: atheism, Barna Group, community, Jonathan Mummolo, religiosity

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Survey: Religion vital for voters

Amanda Shimko
Issue date: 11/29/07

Page 1 of 2 - Please click on "external link" for full article

A September report released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life states that candidates who are viewed by the public as not highly religious seem to top the newest Gallup Polls for both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The nationwide survey, based on telephone interviews from 3,002 adults in August, rated people's perceptions of candidates and their religiosity.

Romney, a candidate with a Mormon background, was perceived as most religious by participants. Of those polled, 46 percent found Romney to be very religious, while George W. Bush comes in at 43 percent.

The latest Gallup Poll, released Nov. 13, shows Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as the frontrunners of the Democrat and Republican Parties. Both candidates ranked in the bottom of the religious survey, ranking 16 and 14 percent, respectively.

While these numbers state the percentage of people who found the candidate to be very religious, 63 percent found Giuliani to be somewhat religious, while Clinton received 53 percent in the same category.

Clinton received the biggest percentage of all candidates, both Democrat and Republican, of those who find her not too or not at all religious.

According to the study, voters in the past have said it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs, and voters tend to express a more favorable view toward those candidates.

But, the report goes on to state, the new study finds that candidates with White House dreams do not have to be seen as very religious in order to be accepted by the public.

James Riddlesperger, professor and chair of the political science department, said religion has always been an important part of American politics.

However, Riddlesperger said, the effect of a candidate's religious preference on the next election outcome remains to be seen.

"We've never had an election this intense this early," Riddlesperger said. "It's too early to tell."

Labels: Amanda Shimko, candidates, election, Gallup Poll, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religiosity

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Monday, November 05, 2007

Survey: Wealthier Nations Less Religious

By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Nov. 05 2007

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Results from a recent survey may agree with that familiar Scripture passage.

A Pew Research Center report recently showed that religion is less likely to be central to the lives of individuals in richer nations than poorer ones.

The survey found a strong relationship between a country's religiosity and its economic status. According to the report, which released last month, African and some Asian countries – which are among the poorest in the world – scored highest on the religiosity scale. Meanwhile, rich Western European countries are among the most secular. Canada, Japan and Israel are also wealthy nations that have low levels of religiosity.

The United States, the wealthiest nation, was "most notably" an exception, scoring higher in religiosity than those in Europe. The level of religiosity in the United States was found to be similar to less economically developed countries such as Mexico. Americans tend to be more religious than the publics of other affluent nations, the survey stated.

Other exceptions include the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim kingdom of Kuwait which has a much higher level of religiosity than its economic situation would predict.

Over the last five years, the percentage of people who think believing in God is necessary for good values has increased in nine countries, stayed about the same in 10, and declined in 13. Sharp decreases were found in Eastern Europe, India and Kenya.

The survey was done as part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys that encompass a broad array of subjects.

Labels: economics, Nathan Black, Pew Global Attitudes Project, religiosity, wealth

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Religious Doctors No More Likely to Care for Underserved Patients

Newswise — Although most religious traditions call on the faithful to serve the poor, a large cross-sectional survey of U.S. physicians found that physicians who are more religious are slightly less likely to practice medicine among the underserved than physicians with no religious affiliation.

In the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital report that 31 percent of physicians who were more religious—as measured by "intrinsic religiosity" as well as frequency of attendance at religious services—practiced among the underserved, compared to 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none.

Physicians have many compelling reasons to avoid spending the bulk of their time caring for the poor. It can mean forgoing professional prestige, free time and academic opportunities. It often comes with reduced salaries, decreased support staff and constant bureaucratic interference.

But physicians who care for the underserved receive intangible rewards in exchange, such as a sense that they make a difference in society, have a positive impact on the lives of large groups of patients and have aligned their jobs with their altruistic aspirations.

To find out which religious, spiritual and personal factors were most often present in doctors who care for the underserved, Curlin and colleagues surveyed 1,820 practicing physicians from all specialties; 1,144 (63%) responded.

The survey contained questions about what the researchers called intrinsic religiosity—the extent to which individuals embrace their religion as the "master motive that guides and gives meaning to their life." Physicians were asked if they agreed or disagreed with two statements: "I try hard to carry my religious beliefs over into all my other dealings in life," and "My whole approach to life is based on my religion." They were also asked how often they attended religious services.

The survey also included questions about whether the physicians considered medicine a calling, whether their religious beliefs influence their practice of medicine, and whether the family in which they were raised emphasized helping those with few resources.

The researchers found that 26 percent of physicians reported that their patient populations are considered underserved. These physicians tended to be younger and were more likely to report working in an academic health center and receiving loan repayment in exchange for working where they do. Physicians who receive educational loan repayment are often obliged to work in underserved communities.

Physicians who strongly agreed that their religious beliefs influence their practice of medicine were more likely to report practice among the underserved. However, physicians who were more religious in general (as measured by their intrinsic religiosity or their frequency of attending religious services) were not more likely to practice among the underserved. Even the more religious physicians who reported that their families emphasized service to the poor and that, for them, the practice of medicine was a calling, were no more likely to practice among the underserved.

Curlin and colleagues also noted that those who identified themselves as very spiritual, whether or not they were religious, were roughly twice as likely to care for the underserved as those who described their spirituality as low. "Part of this divergence between religion and spirituality can be traced to a rift between Christian denominations in the late-19th and early-20th centuries," explained Curlin, who describes himself as an orthodox Christian in the Protestant tradition.

About a hundred years ago, he said, many of the mainline and liberal Protestant churches began "to emphasize efforts to right social injustices, while the more conservative churches tended to stress doctrinal orthodoxy. Research indicates that those who consider themselves spiritual but not so religious are more likely to be formed in the more liberal denominations."

Policy makers and medical educators hoping to increase the physician supply for underserved populations should take these results into account cautiously, said the authors. "No one knows how to select medical students in a way that would actually increase the number of physicians eager to serve the underserved," Curlin said, "but our findings suggest that admissions officials should ignore both the general religiousness of candidates and their professed sense of calling to medicine."

The Greenwall Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program funded this study. Additional authors include John Lantos and Marshall Chin of the University of Chicago and Lydia Dugdale of Yale New Haven Hospital.

Labels: John Lantos, Lydia Dugdale, Marshall Chin, medicine, religion, religiosity, underserved

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Toppling A Taboo: Businesses Go ‘Faith-Friendly’

Religion comes knocking at the workplace.

Knowledge@Wharton

Evidence of faith percolating through the workforce abounds. Prayer breakfasts, once confined to Capitol Hill, are now popular among executives in unexpected sectors such as technology and real estate. Companies are hiring corporate chaplains to do everything from performing marriage ceremonies to visiting sick employees and offering drug and alcohol counseling. The Academy of Management's five-year-old interest group on spirituality and religion has attracted nearly 700 members, and a quick trawl through Amazon or your local bookstore reveals enough spirituality-at-work titles to fill a small chapel.

Is this just evangelical Christians flexing their business muscles? Or members of non-Western religions appealing for recognition? It's all that and more, argues Miller. It's a genuine social movement, a confluence of forces including an increase in non-Western immigration, rising religiosity among management-level baby boomers, and a search for meaning prompted by 9/11. This faith-at-work movement, says Miller, will ultimately shape business culture as profoundly as the push for civil rights and equal pay has shaped the environment for minority workers and women.

"The old paradigm of leaving your beliefs behind when you go to work is no longer satisfying," says Stew Friedman, practice professor of management and director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project. "More than ever, people want work that fits in with a larger sense of purpose in life. For many people, that includes a concept of God, or something like it."

Do Ask, Do Tell

At Fannie Mae, a leader in the diversity and inclusion field, recognizing religion has been a natural outgrowth of responding to employee needs, according to Emmanuel Bailey, vice-president and chief diversity officer at the Washington, D.C.-based home finance giant. In addition to conducting a biannual employee survey, the diversity office also initiates conversations with its 16 employee network groups, five of which are religiously based.

"We want a corporate culture that retains employees, so that they value Fannie Mae as a great place to work," says Bailey. "We ask, 'From your own perspective, what could we do to improve the culture here?' We had the Jewish, Muslim and Hindu groups say, 'We always see an acknowledgement of Christmas, but we never see any acknowledgement of Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan or Diwali,'" says Bailey.

The issue came up again recently, when Fannie Mae was rushing to complete its financial restatement following charges that it misstated earnings from 2001 to 2004, among other allegations. "Some of our divisions had to work on a six-day-a-week, 12-hour-a-day schedule," recalls Bailey. "From our employee network groups we learned that this decision cut into certain people's religious observances. That's what led us to the multicultural calendar."

The calendar, available company-wide, notes religious celebrations throughout the year. When holidays approach, says Bailey, employee groups write an article about the holiday's meaning and history, which is then posted on the company intranet; at the bottom is a note directing managers on how to accommodate employees celebrating the holiday.

Avoiding Bad Business Decisions

Whether it's prayer breakfasts, study groups or workplace ministries, much of the faith-at-work movement has evolved outside of the church - in large part because churches in recent decades have been uninterested in, if not hostile towards, the business world, according to Miller, a former senior executive in the financial sector. "Although there are pockets of interest in some churches, it's fair to say that churches, whether evangelical, mainline Protestant or Catholic, have abdicated their theological and pastoral interest in the workplace," Miller says.

A thriving evangelical culture is gradually reversing this trend, however. David Roth was a vice president for business development and marketing at J.B. Hunt Transport when he attended a leadership conference at his Arkansas megachurch several years ago. When the conference ended, Roth's pastor announced the creation of a new ministry to bridge the gap between faith and work.

"That message penetrated me like a laser beam. I spent 25 years of my career as Christian on Sunday, but come Monday, it was all about success and money," Roth recalls. When the church ministry was spun off to form a separate, non-profit organization called WorkMatters, Roth quit his VP post to become its first president. Today, the organization advises companies large and small on how to integrate religion and spirituality into their corporate values, and provides individual employees with a template for starting faith-based groups at work.

Meanwhile, leveraging employee religious knowledge to assist product design "can help companies avoid a lot of dumb mistakes," such as Liz Claiborne's decision to embroider verses from the Quran on the rear end of its DKNY jeans, says Georgette Bennett, president of the New York City-based Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, a pioneering organization in the field of religious diversity in the workplace. "Cultural competence is a big buzz word right now. But you can't be culturally competent without understanding something about religion, because religion is the largest component of culture. You have to figure out how to tap into your internal diversity resources."

Corporate leaders resistant to the idea of being faith-friendly may be persuaded by evidence that religion and spirituality already exist in their workplace, says Bennett, pointing to a 2005 NBC poll in which nearly 60% of respondents said religious beliefs played some role in making decisions at work, and an even higher number said such beliefs influenced their interactions with co-workers. Similarly, recent figures from the U.S. Census show a dramatic rise in the rate of immigration from non-Western countries; one-third of human resources professionals surveyed in 2001 by the Tanenbaum Center and the Society for Human Resource Management said the number of religions in their company increased in the past five years.

Legal Hot Spots

Proselytizing in the workplace is one legal hot spot, according to Deborah Weinstein, who teaches employment law for managers in Wharton's legal studies and business ethics department. "Courts across the country have interpreted this issue very differently. In a 2006 case in California, the court said persistent and blatant proselytization is prohibited because it could constitute harassment. But other courts, in Colorado, for example, have said employers need to bend over backwards to accommodate those who [believe they] need to proselytize," says Weinstein, whose Philadelphia-based Weinstein Firm provides legal and consultancy services on workforce issues.

Employers may be surprised to learn the extent of religious expression legally protected in the workplace by the Constitution and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating on religious grounds and requires them to make "reasonable accommodations" for employees' "sincerely held beliefs."

Another contentious issue right now is what Bennett calls "diversity backlash," in the form of Christian employee affinity groups opposing domestic partner benefits, hrefusing to sign diversity statements that include homosexuality, or asking management not to recognize Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender (GLBT) affinity groups. While Bennett says these conflicts make some companies "scared to death" of religion in the workplace, Nicole Raeburn, a University of San Francisco sociologist, says many of these disputes have been successfully resolved, sometimes with the help of outside mediators.

"It's a red herring to presume that evangelical Christians are by definition going to be at odds with GLBT groups," says Miller. "Yes, [companies] will stub their toes sometimes. But they need to be realistic: Good outcomes require struggle."

Taking the "Faith-Friendly" Plunge

For managers used to keeping religious belief - or non-belief - under wraps from nine to five, talking about religion in terms of company policy can feel as strange as wearing your underwear on top of your slacks. Miller suggests leaders use the term "faith-friendly" to ease into the topic, because it accommodates both popular, general spirituality and more specific, orthodox religion.
Like underwear, faith-at-work is not a one-size-fits-all product: Companies have to choose the approaches that fit best. The menu of options for meeting religious and spiritual needs is short but growing. Popular picks right now include allowing employees to swap holiday time; modifying cafeteria food to meet religious dietary restrictions; providing spaces for prayer or meditation; and allowing employees to start faith-based affinity groups.

Hiring corporate chaplains, who do everything from conducting weddings to visiting sick or injured employees in the hospital to advising managers on meeting ethical standards, is another possibility. Tyson, for example, has a director of Chaplain Services, a manager of Chaplain Operations and 122 part-time chaplains working throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Becoming "faith-friendly" is "not a formula; it's a mind-set," Miller adds. He encourages companies to make faith-friendliness an explicit part of company policy - a move that could heighten a company's appeal to potential employees.

Wharton's Friedman advises companies, when introducing any work/life integration program, to encourage a "grass-roots approach," in which employees take responsibility for asking the company to meet their individual needs. "Let's say you need to pray several times during the work day. How does your being able to pray during the day make the company more effective? If it's something you really care about, you'll find a convincing way to make your case. This inverts the normal antagonistic way of thinking about your company meeting your needs," he says.

And how does one create an environment where employees feel this sense of personal responsibility? "That's the job of a progressive, smart company: motivating people to bring what they've got so it can help both them and you," says Friedman. "Most people want to have more of themselves alive and active in their work. The more they can be a whole person at work, the more energy, focus and motivation they have to offer.

Labels: church, culture, faith-friendly, religion, religiosity, social movement, workplace spirituality

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Many Alzheimer's caregivers seek help in God

About a third of those who take care of loved ones with the disease feel 'more religious' because of their experiences, a new national study says.

By Tami Abdollah, Times Staff Writer
March 14, 2007

A survey to be released today indicates that...about one-third of people caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease felt "more religious" because of the experience. The study, which surveyed 650 adults nationwide, was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the Alzheimer's Foundation of America.

The survey found that 36% of respondents, who identified themselves as religious or nonreligious, said they felt "more religious." This feeling was more pronounced among African American respondents, with 48% saying that's how they felt.

More than 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative illness characterized by memory loss and disorientation, among other symptoms. Alzheimer's disease, more common in the elderly, worsens over roughly a 10-year period and is fatal.

There is no cure, and only "modestly successful" treatments exist, said Dr. Jeffrey L. Cummings, founder and director of the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Center.

About 20 million Americans are caring for someone with Alzheimer's, according to the foundation. Most of the caregivers are family members, spouses or adult children.

Because caregivers bear heavy burdens — for example, the frustration of patients who frequently do not remember that they don't remember — they may die younger and can lapse into substance abuse and depression, Cummings said.

"It's been called, the '36-hour day,' " Cummings said. "Because there is no minute in which the caregiver can afford not to be vigilant over the patient, and that makes for a very trying kind of challenge."

Lemuel Chavis, a former Los Angeles elementary school principal, used to be upbeat, his intelligence obvious, his wife said. Married nearly 12 years ago — it's his third marriage and her first — they enjoyed taking short trips to San Diego or Palm Springs. Sometimes they went to the beach.

Many evenings, she said, he would read poetry to her, including "If" by Rudyard Kipling and "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes. But still, a "tough guy," he rarely cried.

Now, Chavis said, she sees her husband reduced to tears a couple times a week, complaining of the "splitting" in his head or his inability to do something. Like caregivers for Alzheimer's patients all over, she watches helplessly. And so she pushed herself closer to God.

"Who would I turn to?" she said. "I've tried talking to my friends, I've tried having a cocktail or two, I've tried … thinking about other things…. And I know it's going to get worse."

The experience, Chavis said, has taught her to trust in God's ways. She recalled moments of prayer: "I would say, 'You made him, you made the universe, you have to help me. You know the answers, I don't.' "

Peter Hill, a psychology professor at the Rosemead School of Psychology at Biola University in La Mirada, said that for some people, facing a loved one with a terminal illness is what makes them aware of their own mortality. The experience causes them to search for meaning beyond themselves, for "a sense of transcendence," he said.

Sometimes spirituality can help caregivers deal with the dissonance between the person the caregiver once knew and the person who is before them, said Glen Milstein, an assistant professor of psychology at City College of New York.

"The real bottom line to all of this is that care-giving for persons with chronic illnesses is hard," Milstein said. "So you're going to use everything that will help you cope. What is it to mourn a living person? What is the ritual of mourning a living person? Where else but religion would the human go?"

In the United States, there are more than 260,000 religious communities — synagogues, parishes, mosques and other centers of worship — and about 80% of Americans affiliate themselves with a religious institution, Milstein said.

Chavis said she has found comfort and strength in her religious community, its prayers and hymns, particularly the song "The Battle Is Not Mine, It's the Lord's."

According to the Alzheimer's Foundation, the disease affects nearly 50% of those over age 85. By 2050, almost 16 million Americans are expected to have it.

"When it gets down to illness and you are facing the ultimate realities, you could have all the science in the world," said Kowalewski, the St. James rector. "But you're really facing humanity. There's an old saying, 'there's no atheists in the foxholes,' and it's sort of like that."

Resources for caregivers: Alzheimer's Assn., http://www.alz.org , and Alzheimer's Foundation of America, http://www.alzfdn.org

Labels: Alzheimer's, caregivers, God, religiosity, spirituality, Tami Abdollah