TruthBook Religious News Blog

The Associated Press

Americans are learning more about Islam, and familiarity with the faith makes people more likely to view Muslims favorably and less likely to believe Islam encourages violence, according to a new study.

The survey by the Pew Research Center also showed that Americans still believe Muslims face far more discrimination than the nation's other religious groups.

The findings can be linked because increased knowledge about Muslims is tied to more sensitivity about bias they face, said Greg Smith, the report's senior researcher.

"To say that Muslims are discriminated against ... it's not the same thing as expressing an unfavorable view of Muslims. In fact it's just the opposite," he said. "People who are most sympathetic to a group are more likely to see that group as being discriminated against."

In the annual survey released Wednesday, 58% of Americans said there was "a lot" of discrimination against Muslims. Jews were seen as the religious group with the next highest level of bias against them, with 35% saying they faced a lot of discrimination.

Homosexuals were the only group seen as facing more discrimination than Muslims, with almost two-thirds of Americans saying homosexuals are discriminated against a lot.

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Labels: bias, discrimination, Islam, Pew Research Center survey, violence

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Friday, July 24, 2009

Muslim men join together to prevent violence against women

by J. Samia Mair
July 21,2009

Violence against women is epidemic. According to a CDC Fact Sheet on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), each year in the United States about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes are committed against women. Women account for 75% of the IPV-related deaths.

Violence against men is also a major problem. Each year, men experience about 2.9 million intimate partner-related physical assaults.

The CDC defines IPV as:

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is abuse that occurs between two people in a close relationship. The term "intimate partner" includes current and former spouses and dating partners. IPV exists along a continuum from a single episode of violence to ongoing battering.

IVP is not just physical abuse. It also includes sexual abuse, threats, and emotional abuse. These 4 types of behavior are not exclusive and several types of IVP may occur simultaneously. IVP often starts with emotional abuse and then progresses to sexual or physical abuse.

The health effects of IVP are far reaching and, in general, the longer the abuse continues the more serious the consequences. Physical injuries are common, including minor injuries such as cuts and bruises to more serious injuries such as broken bones, internal bleeding, head trauma, and death. Emotional trauma can result in low-self esteem, difficulty in trusting others and forming healthy relationships, eating disorders, depression, suicidal thoughts, and more.

Violence against women does not discriminate. Women suffer throughout the world, regardless of country of origin, economic status, educational level, religion, etc.

Concerned brothers have joined together to address this issue in the Muslim community. One such group is the Muslim Men Against Domestic Abuse (MMADA), established in February 2009 and "dedicated to domestic tranquility."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article about this promising development.

Labels: IPV, J. Samia Mair, Muslim Men Against Domestic Abuse, Muslims, violence

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Poll: Only 3 Percent of Teens See Clergy as Role Models

By Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Feb. 18 2009

Out of 100 American teens, only three are likely to say they see members of the clergy as role models, according to a survey on teens and ethical decision making.

Scarcely any teens (those under age 18) view their pastors, priests, rabbis or imams as role models. Instead, many reported seeing their parents as role models (54 percent), the survey conducted by Junior Achievement and Deloitte showed.

Friends (13 percent), teachers or coaches (6 percent), and siblings (5 percent) also beat out clergies as role model figures.

Just slightly more than one in ten (11 percent) say they don’t have any role models.

But the poll’s major finding is that although the overwhelming majority of teens (80 percent) believe they are ethically prepared to make moral business decisions, nearly 40 percent believe they need to “break the rules” in order to succeed.

More than one in four teenagers (27 percent) think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable, according to the poll. One in five teens (20 percent) reported to have personally behaved violently toward another person in the past year.

Furthermore, among those who say they are ethically prepared for business, nearly half (49 percent) say lying to parents and guardians is acceptable. More than three out of five teens (61 percent) say they have lied to their parents or guardian this past year.

As part of the solution to the problem, Junior Achievement and Deloitte developed “JA Business Ethics,” which provides hands-on classroom activities and real-life applications to foster ethical decision making before students enter the workforce. The students compare how their beliefs measure up to major ethics theories and learn the benefits of having a code of ethics.

The youth-oriented organization commented that the results also raise the question of why adults are not viewed as role models by more American teens and what can be done to change this.

Junior Achievement, the world’s largest organization working to prepare youths to succeed in the global market, conducted the survey on 750 teens across the United States on Oct. 9-12, 2008, with the help of Deloitte, an international network of consulting firm

Labels: business, clergy, Deloitte, Junior Achievement, role models, teenagers, violence

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

National Poll: More Than One-in-Four Teens Think Violent Behavior is Acceptable; Many Say It's OK to Settle a Score

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:07:31 GMT
Author : Deloitte

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Dec. 15 CO-Violent-Teen-Study

Findings Underscore Continued Need for Training in Ethical Decision-Making

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- While today's teens are learning the Three "Rs" of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in school, new research shows that many are justifying violence to practice a fourth -- Revenge. In a youth culture where violence is often believed to be acceptable, these and other findings not only present disturbing implications for school safety, but for the workplace as well, say experts.

A new poll of 750 teens from Junior Achievement and Deloitte and conducted by Opinion Research shows that more than one-in-four teens (27 percent) think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable. More students thought violence was acceptable than was cheating (19 percent), plagiarizing (10 percent) or stealing (3 percent). And fully 20 percent of respondents said they had personally behaved violently towards another person in the past year, and 41 percent reported a friend had done so.

When the teens who agreed that violence was acceptable were asked more specifically about rationale for such behavior, most noted self-defense (87 percent) and to help a friend (73 percent). However, more than a third said violence was acceptable to settle an argument (35 percent) and for revenge (34 percent). Other justifications were dislike of the person who is the target of the violence (22 percent), to gain respect (21 percent), peer pressure (14 percent), and simply for "the thrill" of it (10 percent). Of considerable concern is that more than three-fourths (77 percent) of those who think violence is acceptable also consider themselves ethically prepared to enter the workforce.

The poll also shows that teens feel more accountable to themselves (86 percent), than they do to their parents or guardians (52 percent), their friends (41 percent) or society (33 percent). Teens' feelings about accountability, coupled with self-reported unethical behavior, raises a potential concern among employers because ties within a community, school, work environment or social network often guide behavior. If teens lack accountability to others, the data suggests that their choices may be driven purely by self-interest, and not by interest in the greater good.

The survey results also show that many teenagers are lacking role models. Only about half (54 percent) cite their parents as role models. Most of those who don't cite their parents as role models are turning to their friends, or they said they didn't have a role model -- which begs the question why more parents, teachers, clergy, politicians or business leaders are not viewed as role models -- and what society can do to improve this statistic.

"Teens need training in ethical decision-making, practical tools and behavioral role models that help them understand not only how to make the right choices, but how those choices will impact their personal success and the success of the organizations they join," said Ainar D. Aijala, global managing partner, Consulting, Deloitte and chairman of the board, JA Worldwide. "That is why Deloitte continues to support ethics education in collaboration with Junior Achievement."

Junior Achievement and Deloitte offer "JA Business Ethics(TM)" as part of their $2 million initiative to help young people make ethical decisions. "JA Business Ethics" was developed in response to the needs of high school students; it provides hands-on classroom activities and real-life applications designed to foster ethical decision-making as students prepare to enter the workforce and addresses issues such as lying, cheating and violence. Students examine how their beliefs align with major ethics theories and learn the benefits and advantages of having a code of ethics. Additionally, Junior Achievement recently updated the original "Excellence through Ethics(TM)" program, which is available online at www.ja.org/ethics free of charge and provides age-appropriate lessons for students in grades 4-12. At the high school level, the "Excellence through Ethics" lessons include appropriate methods of conflict resolution in the workplace. For example, through role-playing exercises, students learn how to overcome disagreements with co-workers by finding common ground.

Methodology

This report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, among a national sample of 750 teens comprising 375 males and 375 females 12 to 17 years of age, living in private households in the continental United States. Interviewing for this TEEN CARAVAN(R) Survey was completed during the period October 9-12, 2008. The survey's margin of error is +/- 3.6 percent.

Labels: Deloitte, Junior Achievement, revenge, violence, Violent-Teen-Study, youth

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Friday, November 07, 2008

Landmark Study on Violent Games 'Strongly' Suggests Reducing Exposure

By Aaron J. Leichman
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Nov. 04 2008

Page one of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Researchers behind the first study on the longer-term effects of violent video games on aggression say their findings “strongly” suggest reducing the exposure of youth to the “unnecessary” risk factor.

The results of the study on Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States “confirm earlier experimental and cross-sectional studies that had suggested that playing violent video games is a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior,” researchers reported in this month’s issue of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Furthermore, “this violent video game effect on youth generalizes across very different cultures,” they added.

For the study, researchers put together three groups of kids from both high- (United States) and low- (Japan) violence cultures.

In the United States, 364 children aged 9 to 12 were asked to list their three favorite games and how often they played them. Meanwhile, in the second group of 181 Japanese students aged 12 to 15, the researchers recorded how often the children played five different violent video game genres (fighting action, shooting, adventure, among others). In the third group of 1,050 Japanese students aged 13 to 18, researchers gauged the violence in the kids' favorite game genres and the time they spent playing them each week.

For the Japanese children, each was asked to rate their own behavior in terms of physical aggression, such as hitting, kicking or getting into fights with other kids. In the United States, the children also rated themselves, but the researchers took into account reports from their peers and teachers as well.

What the researchers found was that in every group, children who were exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study – a strong predictor of future bad behavior.

The findings are "pretty good evidence" that violent video games do indeed cause aggressive behavior, commented Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor, according to CNN.

“These findings also further suggest that common social learning processes underlie media violence effects across cultures, and contradict another popular alternative hypothesis: that only highly aggressive children (either by nature, culture, or other socialization factors) will become more aggressive if repeatedly exposed to violent video games,” the researchers added in their report.

The results are particularly foreboding as children in America today play around three to four times longer than children two decades ago.

While American children played video games around 4 hours per week in the late 1980s, they now average 13 hours overall, with boys averaging 16 to 18 hours per week. Furthermore, 90 percent of American children between the ages of 8 and 16 play video games at home.

“Children's favorite games often are violent,” researchers acknowledged in their report, noting the general public’s definition of "violent media" as typically only those television shows, films, and video games that include graphic images of blood and gore.

Labels: Aaron J. Leichman, aggression, Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression, pediatrics, video games, violence

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Book Review: The roots of violence in religion

Reviewed by Allan F. Wright

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
By Bruce Chilton. Doubleday (New York, 2008). 260 pp. $24.95.

Do Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a common ancestor whose obedience to God taps into the root of today's violence in the name of religion? Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, rector of an Episcopal church in Barrytown, N.Y., and former member of the Jesus Seminar, poses this very thought in his book, "Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam."

The thesis of Chilton's work rests upon the idea that the violence we see in the three major monotheistic religions of today (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is spearheaded by the "Aqedah," or God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Chilton bookends his work with references to the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and examines the common thread that links violence to religion. He pursues his argument that most violence in the name of religion can be traced back to this "Aqedah" with excerpts pulled from the Scripture and the Quran.

In the Genesis account according to the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham obeys God's command to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, but at the last moment an angel stops him, saying Abraham has proved his faith by his willingness to obey. God himself points to a more suitable sacrifice: a ram caught in a thicket, which signals to many the end of human sacrifice in the name of God.

Chilton maintains that the original meaning of the story is that human sacrifice is not God's will. He successfully shows how all three religions, in times of persecution, have twisted this meaning to glorify martyrdom.

The title of the book is somewhat misleading as the reader may expect a survey of the many acts of violence and war in the holy books of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, the author overextends the idea that almost all acts of violence in the name of religion stem from the "Aqedah" account in Genesis. Chilton omits the concept that the sinfulness of man is often a root cause or explanation for violence.

Chilton expends much effort in the early chapters aiming to prove his point about the "Aqedah." However, he overreaches in his exegesis, forcing many occasions of violence found in the Scriptures to this one event. Obedience to God is the focus of the call of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, not violence. Throughout the first 90 pages of the book Chilton references extrabiblical texts and legends, muddled in clarity, to the text we find in Genesis. Unfortunately, this can be confusing for the reader.

Throughout the book there are references made that are not in line with Catholic theology. One glaring example is when Chilton says that "Jesus did not originally refer to his own personal body and blood" in the meals he shared with his disciples but the meaning came later, "in the Hellenistic environment of St. John's Gospel." If Jesus did not communicate the teaching that his "flesh is real food," then one can naturally question which Scripture passages are authentic and which are made up by the community. Chilton's association with the Jesus Seminar assemblage is evident in such interpretations.

In St. Paul's writings to the Galatians, the "Aqedah" is the occasion where the Abrahamic covenant takes on its greatest theological significance. This event serves as the pinnacle when Abraham's faith and God's promise reach their fullest expression. God's promises to Abraham and, in turn, Abraham's faith, are the two strands from which St. Paul eloquently explains his theology and the promise that follows. The faith of Abraham brings to completion the divine promise to all generations --- not an act of violence. Chilton does not mention St. Paul's interpretation which should be included because of St. Paul's influence on Christianity.

From the Islamic viewpoint, Chilton points to multiple texts in the Quran and incidents throughout Islamic history that use the Abrahamic sacrifice or the "Feast of Sacrifice" as a touchstone that likens the "Aqedah" in Judaism and Christianity to the Muslim faith. Again, this premise is designed to link the "Aqedah" to violence in all three religions.

Overall, Chilton offers an interesting perspective on the origin of violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He does provide food for thought on the violence that exists today, all alleged to be done in the name of God.

Labels: Abraham, Aqedah, Bruce Chilton, Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, religion, violence

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

What's the most dangerous idea in religion?

By JOHN BLAKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/30/07

Religion is one of the most potent forces in human affairs. It has inspired some of history's most sublime moments, but also some of its most barbaric.

The Inquisition, the bombings of abortion clinics, suicide bombings in Iraq – all have their roots in some form of religious ideology.

With that in mind, five leading religious thinkers from varying faiths were asked the same question: What is the most dangerous idea in religion today? Their comments were edited for brevity and clarity.

Violence in the name of God

— Richard Land
"I would agree with Pope John Paul II who said that there is a sacred sanctuary of the soul for each man and woman. No other human being has the right to coercively interfere with that sacred sanctuary of the soul. The most dangerous idea in religion is the idea that violent, coercive force is permissible in the name of God — any God.

"You see this with radical Islam. Notice that I said radical Islam, not Islam.

"More people will die if this idea spreads. It will help poison the well of debate and discussion about issues that people disagree on. It's corrosive to public discourse to say if you disagree with me, I'm going to kill you. It erodes freedom of speech, assembly and worship."

Richard Land is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He was selected by Time Magazine in 2005 as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.

Follow our rules or else

— Wayne Dyer
"Carl Jung [the author and psychiatrist] had a line. The paraphrase is this: The No. 1 problem with organized religion is that the purpose of organized religion is to prevent people from having a direct experience of God. Religion is organized around the principle that religion will provide the direct experience of God for you as long as you become a member, follow our rules and contribute to us financially.

"The most important thing a human being can recognize is that they are already connected to God and to maintain that connection is not something you can turn over to another person or organization. One of the truths of the physical world is that you must be like what you came from. If you have an apple pie and you ask what the apple pie is like, it's like [the apple] where it came from."

Wayne Dyer is one of the most popular self-help speakers in the nation. He's the best-selling author of 29 books and has been featured frequently on Public Broadcasting Service specials.
My religion is right

— Rabbi Harold Kushner
"There's a sense that in order for me to be right, everyone who disagrees with me is wrong. It makes religious interfaith cooperation more difficult. If I believe that, I have to believe that other people's religions are worthless, invalid.

"You have to understand that religion is not about getting information about God. Religion is about community. The primary purpose is not to get us to heaven but to put us in touch with other people. I can have fierce loyalty to my family without denigrating other people's family. I can have fierce loyalty to my own religion without denigrating other people's religion. In the same way, my neighbor can say, 'My wife is the most wonderful woman in the world.' I can take that as a statement of love, not fact."

Rabbi Harold Kushner is one of the most famous Jewish thinkers in the nation. He is best-known for his best-selling book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" (Anchor, $21).
Converting others to your religion

— Dr. Abdullahi cq Ahmed An-Na'im
"I wouldn't believe in a religion if I didn't believe it to be better than other religions. The notion of superiority and exclusivity is inherent to religious beliefs. It can be dangerous and not be dangerous.

"The whole idea of missionary work is a very loaded and dangerous idea because it's often presented as simply presenting beliefs for someone to accept or reject. It's always embedded in power. Those who have the ability to proselytize to others are more powerful than others. They have the resources to establish schools, hospitals. Missionary work is not neutral. It is embedded in power. You don't find Muslims coming to proselytize in the United States. But you find Americans going to all sorts of Muslim countries."

Dr. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is an internationally recognized scholar of Islam and human rights. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University.

A tribal view of God

— Deepak Chopra
"The most dangerous idea is my God is the only true God and my religion is the only true religion. It leads to quarrels, divisiveness, terrorism, prejudice, racism and bloodshed. We see it in the world right now

"All religious ideas are programmed into our consciousness at a very early age. We hold them to be true. It's very difficult to step out of that condition even in the face of good intellectual reasoning because of emotional bondage to our condition. We bristle with emotions when our beliefs are threatened.

"We are at a very critical stage in our evolution. We're beginning to become aware. We know a lot about nature. We have a pretty good idea about the beginning of the universe. We understand to a great extent the law of physics, chemistry and biology. And yet for the vast majority of us, – though we have cell phones and can make nuclear bombs, – our psychological and spiritual evolution is frozen to a level that is very tribal."

Deepak Chopra is chairman and co-founder of the Chopra Center for Well Being in Carlsbad, Calif. He is a best-selling author and popular lecturer best-known for integrating Western medicine with the natural healing traditions of the East.

Labels: Abdullahi cq Ahmed An-Naim, community, Deepak Chopra, God, ideology, missionary, Rabbi Harold Kushner, religion, Richard Land, tribal, violence, Wayne Dyer

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

The real roots of crime

The Daily News

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.

cwmoore@gmx.net

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.

Labels: Canada, morality, parents, relativism, self-control, violence

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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

A pious nation?

Though the United States is considered a deeply religious country, a glance at America today reveals a society divided by wealth and poverty, tainted by violence and often oblivious to the common good. A country of believers? Perhaps. But saying is one thing, doing quite another.

By Tom Krattenmaker

There can be no doubting the piety of American society in this, the first decade of the 21st century. It's old news by now: The powerful influence of conservative Christians on culture and politics. An outwardly Christian president in the White House. Survey data showing the vast majority of Americans pray, believe in God and consider religion important in their lives.

"Pious," however, means something different than "religious." While both convey devotion to God and ultimate truth, "pious" also suggests showiness, sanctimony, even hypocrisy — a gap between words and action. Such a gap, unfortunately, seems glaringly on display when we survey the social landscape around us. If one is to judge by our care for the common good, American society today is more pious than consistently and truly religious.

Let's start with violence, a phenomenon hard to square with New Testament teachings about living in peace and Old Testament commandments not to kill one another.

The massacre at Virginia Tech this spring might seem an extreme case. Defenders of gun rights warn against overreaction, claiming that mass shootings, however horrific, are quite rare. In truth, Virginia Tech-style massacres happen every day, albeit in less dramatic form. Statistics show that gun violence kills close to 30,000 people a year in America, or about 80 a day — more than double the number slain in Blacksburg, Va. Is this what one should expect of a country guided by Jesus, the "Prince of Peace"?

Then there is the violence projected by our government. Here, too, it is impossible to claim that America is a peaceful nation in the image of Christ. Under the Bush administration, the United States has pursued an aggressive foreign policy and a war in Iraq that theologians struggle to justify with Christian doctrines about morally defensible war. Certainly, the case can be made that dangerous forces left our government with no choice but to fight. But the question must be raised again: Is our behavior as a nation consistent with our ostensibly Christian character?

'Do unto others'

Although debates have raged for centuries over the essential meaning of Christianity and other religions, few would argue against the central importance of the Golden Rule. This is not merely the bias of a liberal writer. Asked by CNN recently to define Christianity, Richard Land, leader of the theologically conservative Southern Baptist movement, said, "It means to do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

How as a society are we living up to this religious imperative? We could do better. There is something deeply irreligious about the growing gap between our wealthiest and poorest citizens.

Surely, conservative-minded believers will respond that charity and philanthropy flourish today, that Christian compassion is best expressed through means other than government. They're partly right. Americans, religious and secular alike, have reached out impressively to Gulf Coast flood victims. We have donated billions of dollars to charities, churches and educational institutions. Americans shovel snow from neighbors' driveways, volunteer at soup kitchens and shell out for more expensive energy-saving light bulbs to curb our impact on global warming. On the national policy level, President Bush has on occasion lived up to his creed of "compassionate conservatism," especially with his efforts to combat AIDS and poverty in Africa.

But stories of individual big-heartedness cannot forgive a general direction in our politics that leaves shocking numbers of children without health insurance and decent educations.

The Bible has been playing a prominent role in the intensifying debate over immigration. Until very recently, the most outwardly religious people took what can be argued is the irreligious stance. According to 2006 polling data, white evangelicals — a group characterized by its taking the Bible very seriously — favored a more conservative (read: inhospitable) policy toward immigrants than other U.S. citizens. This, in spite of numerous passages in the Bible that emphasize hospitality to strangers and compassion for all God's people.

Compassion and faith

As is happening on this and other issues, the myth of the evangelical monolith is being exposed. More evangelicals are publicly embracing care for the earth and service to the poor, broadening an agenda that seemed stuck on hot-button social issues. And groups from across the Christian spectrum have been speaking up for immigrants. May these compassionate stands of religious America become ever more the norm.

For now, we have what we have: A society of decent individuals who usually do the right thing — but a culture nonetheless marred by violence, greed and politics that often display a hard-heartedness unbecoming a country like ours. We may disagree about the manifestations of our social morality deficit — conservatives will emphasize abortion and sexual immorality; liberals, economic injustice — but we can surely agree that we're capable of something finer.

Given that many social ills have grown worse during a time of Christian revival in the public arena, it's tempting to blame religion. Tempting, and also wrong. It's increasingly obvious that those who led us to our current state have heeded political ambition and expediency — citing faith when it's helpful, jettisoning it when it's inconvenient.

And on goes the pointless argument about whether America is a "Christian nation." Whether this country is Christian depends entirely on how we define the terms, of course. Our Constitution: secular. Our history and culture: religious.

And what do we mean by "religious"? If we're talking about rhetoric, volume and public display, it has been a very religious time indeed. If we mean behavior that creates peace, extends compassion to the less fortunate and reaches out to strangers outside our borders, we have a way to go. If we are a Christian nation, shouldn't we more consistently behave like one?

Tom Krattenmaker, who lives in Portland, Ore., specializes in religion in public life and is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

Labels: Bible, charity, Christian, compassion, faith, God, Golden Rule, government, Jesus, piety, politics, religion, Unites States, violence

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Another Confrontation With Ourselves

Issue Date: April 27, 2007

Virginia Tech.

A new name on the roster of senseless slaughter. We have seen so much of this.

We are violent.

In the past half-century we have witnessed the assassinations of a president, his presidential candidate brother and a civil rights leader, and attempted assassinations of other presidential candidates and presidents. We have witnessed the murders of civil rights workers and antiwar protesters, including the killing of four on the Kent State University campus.

There was Columbine, where 13 students were gunned down in 1999 before the shooters killed themselves. In 2006, in the quiet of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, 11 youngsters were shot and 5 killed, execution style, in an elementary school.

Twelve years ago this month, a truck bomb destroyed half a federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring more than 800.

We’ve puzzled over snipers from university towers and killers who haunted Maryland and Virginia, and a highway sniper in the upper Midwest, picking off the unsuspecting, one at a time, from a distance.

* * *

The concession one makes in these moments is that so much is beyond our control. We cannot, as Jesuit Fr. William Byron said, inure ourselves against or forever avoid malice, but we can rely on "faith and religion to ready the human spirit to withstand any assault."

Relying on faith as the ultimate protection against life’s disruptions, however, should not leave us helpless. There are things we can do.

Two days after the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, President Clinton declared: "We must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons."

That same day he ordered intense bombing of Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia.

Anyone who’s raised a child knows that they don’t learn well when behavior contradicts teaching. One thing we can do is more deeply examine who we are and how accepting we are of state-sponsored violence. Does it square with who and what we say we are?

* * *
The day of the shooting massacre on the Virginia Tech campus, President Bush said in a TV interview that he expected a debate on gun control policy, but argued that now is not the time.

We can’t think of a better time.

According to a 2007 Small Arms Survey, the United States ranks first in the world in gun ownership with 90 weapons per 100 people. By contrast, the rate in France, for instance is 32 per 100 people, and 31 per 100 in Canada, Sweden and Austria.

The numbers themselves would be insignificant, save for the fact that guns account for so much carnage among our children.

These statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are posted on the Web site of the National Education Association:

The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. The number of U.S. kids killed by gunfire in 2002 was 3,012. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

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Lax enforcement of existing gun control laws and consistent erosion of those laws have allowed the deadly gun culture to flourish. Even the 1994 ban on assault weapons, essentially battlefield grade weapons that have no use other than killing humans quickly, efficiently and in great numbers, was allowed to expire three years ago.

The gun lobby -- rich, unconscionable and unscrupulous in manipulating public fear -- has most politicians in a stranglehold. The stranglehold is maintained even as survey after survey, including gun owners and members of households where guns are available, show that a majority of Americans approve of reasonable controls.

We may not be able to hold off malice in the world, or predict the actions of the deranged among us. But we all can do something to foster a culture less accommodating of violence and less friendly toward those who make the violence possible.

Who are we, really, and what kind of culture do we want? How much state-sponsored violence are we willing to tolerate and pay for? How much will we allow the purveyors of arms to dictate our politics? What actions are we willing to place behind the instructions on nonviolence that we attempt to pass on to our children?

Labels: Columbine, culture, gun culture, gun lobby, guns, Oklahoma City, snipers, violence

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Global Poll Finds that Religion and Culture are Not to Blame for Tensions between Islam and the West

Source: GlobeScan

The global public believes that tensions between Islam and the West arise from conflicts over political power and interests and not from differences of religion and culture, according to a BBC World Service poll across 27 countries.

While three in ten (29%) believe religious or cultural differences are the cause of tensions, a slight majority (52%) say tensions are due to conflicting interests.

The poll also reveals that most people see the problems arising from intolerant minorities and not the cultures as a whole. While 26 percent believe fundamental differences in cultures are to blame, 58 percent say intolerant minorities are causing the conflict with most of these (39% of the full sample) saying that the intolerant minorities are on both sides.

The idea that violent conflict is inevitable between Islam and the West is mainly rejected by Muslims, non-Muslims and Westerners alike. While more than a quarter of all respondents (28%) think that violent conflict is inevitable, twice as many (56%) believe that "common ground can be found."

The survey of over 28,000 respondents across 27 countries was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. GlobeScan coordinated the fieldwork between November 2006 and January 2007.

Respondents were also asked whether tensions arise from fundamental differences between the cultures as a whole or from intolerant minorities. Only 26 percent say they are due to differences in culture, while 58 percent attribute these tensions to intolerant minorities - with 39 percent saying that these intolerant minorities are on both sides, 12 percent saying they are primarily on the Muslim side, and 7 percent saying they are mostly on the Western side. The view that the problem arises from intolerant minorities is found in 24 of the 27 countries surveyed, with two countries (Brazil and the UAE) equally divided between the two points of view and with one in two Nigerians (50%) saying fundamental differences are the cause."

Asked whether "violent conflict is inevitable" between Muslim and Western cultures or whether "it is possible to find common ground," an average of 56 percent say that common ground can be found between the two cultures, which is the most common response in 25 countries. On average almost three in ten (28%) think violent conflict is inevitable; Indonesia is the only country where this view predominates, while views are divided in the Phillipines

The belief that it is possible to find common ground between Islam and the West rises with education from 46 percent among those with no formal education to 64 percent among those with post secondary education.

The minority of people who believe that tensions between Islam and the West arise from differences of religion and culture are much more likely to believe that violent conflict is inevitable compared to those who think the problem derives from issues of political power or intolerant minorities.

A belief that violent conflict is inevitable is somewhat more common among Muslims (35 percent) than Christians (27 percent) or others (27 percent). But overall, 52 percent of the 5,000 Muslims surveyed say it is possible to find common ground, including majorities in Lebanon (68%) and Egypt (54%) as well as pluralities in Turkey (49%) and the United Arab Emirates (47%). Even in religiously divided Nigeria, a large majority of Muslims (63%) believe it is possible to find common ground, while Christians are divided on the question. Only in Indonesia do a slim majority (51%) of Muslims take the view that violent conflict is inevitable.

Countries with the largest majorities believing that Islam and the West can find common ground include Italy (78%), Great Britain (77%), Canada (73%), Mexico (69%) and France (69%). A strong majority of Americans (64%) also think it is possible to find common ground, though about a third (31%) believe violent conflict is inevitable. Pluralities in the Philippines (42%) and India (35%) agree that common ground can be found, despite the former's Muslim insurgency and the latter's history of sectarian strife.

In all but three countries, citizens are more likely to think that tensions between Islam and the West arise from conflicts about political power and interests than from differences of religion and culture. A majority (56%) in Nigeria - a country that has suffered clashes between its Muslim and Christian communities - say that tensions primarily arise from religion and culture, including 51 percent of Christians and 59 percent of Muslims. Kenyans and Poles are divided on the question.

Worldwide, Muslims (55%) are somewhat more certain than Christians (51%) that the problem mostly derives from political conflict. This is a widely held view in Lebanon (78%), Egypt (57%), Indonesia (56%) and Turkey (55%) as well as in the United Arab Emirates (48% vs. 27% cultural differences).

Respondents were asked not only their religious affiliation but also the extent to which their religion plays a strong role in how they approach political and social issues. Results were then analyzed to assess whether the views of people who are more religious (regardless of their affiliation) differ from people who are less so.

The analysis shows no consistent pattern. In a few countries, those who are more religious are somewhat more likely to say that conflict is inevitable (Turkey, Hungary), but in more countries such people are slightly more likely to say that it is possible to find common ground (Argentina, Chile, Nigeria, Poland). Those who are more religious are more likely to see the problem arising from culture in France, South Korea, and Turkey, but more likely to attribute it to conflicts of power in Hungary, UAE and the Philippines. So globally, there is no consistent effect.

In total 28,389 citizens in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States were interviewed between 3 November 2006 and 16 January 2007. Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan and its research partners in each country. In 10 of the 27 countries, the sample was limited to major urban areas. The margin of error per country ranges from +/-2.5 to 4 percent. For more details, please see the Methodology section or visit www.globescan.com or www.pipa.org

Labels: culture, GlobeScan, minorities, politics, religion, violence