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Institutional Religions Losing Traction

In this day and age religion seems to be something that is on the back of a lot of people's minds on a daily basis. A lot of people still say they are religious but don’t go to church every week or read the bible everyday. A lot of people still think that they are religious because of the traditions that they may partake in, including Christmas and Easter. Personally, my parents consider themselves C and E Christians because they only go to church on Christmas and Easter now. This is a trend that is starting to show in America, many institutional religions are starting to diminish. The article starts by stating that Catholics and non-Christian religions have stayed fairly normal in the amount of people that are a part of their religious organization, but the amount of Protestants has dropped and the amount of people unaffiliated with any religion has risen. Looking at the religious groups by generation it shows that Millenials are the least religious with about 50% saying they are Christian and over 40% saying they are unaffiliated with any religion. That’s almost half of all Millenials in the United States that are saying they don’t have a religious preference. My estimate is that the percentage of unaffiliated will rise as the Millenials continue to be the ones raising the next generation. I think that this has a lot to do with our class because we learned about institutional religion and the nones or unaffiliated, which in class was not as high as the percentage that we are seeing today, but that makes sense because the book we use for class was copywrited in 2014, a lot has changed since then. Since then the oldest of the Millenials have grown out of being 20 year olds that no one listened to, to being married and some having children, and the youngest Millenials are finally adults, out of college with voices of their own. 

I think that the main reason that Millenials are not as religious as other generations and that each generation is getting less and less religious is because there are so many other things to worry about in this world. One of the biggest things that has taken away from religion is the presence of social media. In my opinion since social media has become a thing everyone is trying to show themselves off having the best life they can possibly have, this has gotten in the way of religious institutions because on social media there are a lot of people promoting finding spiritual guidance, not so much religious guidance. Another big thing that has made each generation a lot less involved in religion is the fashion, as someone that loves fashion, I can point out that we have had a very large fashion revolution in the last few years, and the style has changed from modest to more crop tops and shorts, and that doesn’t always align with the rules and styles of religion. There are a lot of things in this world that have changed the way people look at religion and make sense that every generation is getting less and less Christian.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/americans-religious-affiliation-has-declined-over-the-last-decade/

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Muslim Women Finding Acceptance During Coronavirus

In this article it discussed both what and why muslim women wear the niqad, and also how muslim women are feeling more accepted during the pandemic since everyone is having to wear masks. This article relates to what we have learned in class because when we talked about the Muslims, we talked about how they don’t feel accepted or feel ostracized in America because of the generalization of Muslims after 9/11. I also personally enjoyed reading this article because I am someone that loves fashion and clothes and I enjoy learning about different ways that cultures wear clothes and the reasons behind why they wear these items.

In the article it states that a niqad is, “usually worn with a loose, coatlike garment called an abaya and a hijab, or head scarf.” The niqad is not required in Islam but many women choose to wear it because it makes them feel closer to God. But, the problem is that before the pandemic many women that wore a niqad would face Islamophobic abuse in the non-muslim majority countries. The article states that since the pandemic has started Muslim women that wear a niqad are feeling more accepted because everyone is having to wear masks when they are going for walks or runs. In the article it has statements from women that typically wear the niqad and how they are feeling currently. A woman from the United Kingdom stated that, “Nobody is giving me dirty looks because of my gloves and the covered face. Everyone suddenly understands.” Another women in France also talked about her joy of being able to wear the niqad, in France wearing a niqad in most public places is legally banned, so Muslim women in France are finally getting some religious freedom. 

Reading this article I can relate what I read to what we learned in class about the oppression of Muslims in modern day society after 9/11. I think that during this pandemic the world as a whole can learn acceptance for people that choose to wear the niqad and gloves, because now it is helping protect them from the pandemic. I believe that it is going to set a new normal for society when thinking about people wearing face coverings. After 9/11 the world got very Islamophobic and started assuming the worst from anyone that was Muslim. The world started to generalize that all Muslims are terrorists and violent, but that is not true. The Muslim way of life is suppose to be nonviolent and to only fight when their religion is being threatened. The few Muslims that did cause destruction were extremists and don’t speak for the whole religion and culture. Hopefully this pandemic can start to bring the world together and help Muslims feel more accepted in wearing their cultural attire. 

I think that I personally liked reading this article because I am someone that really enjoys learning about the different ways that cultures express themselves through clothes and fashion. Learning about the reasoning behind why Muslim women wear the niqad is something that I found very interesting and I enjoyed learning about. I am also happy to learn that women that wear the niqad are feeling more accepted during this pandemic, because that is not something that women should feel ashamed to wear. If they want to wear the niqad and feel closer to God that is something they should feel free to do and not be judged about. That would be like judging a Christian for wearing a cross necklace. Both things make their respective religions feel closer to God, so why should we judge how they choose to express their religion and feel closer to God.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/04/13/muslim-women-who-cover/

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Where do Muslims Vote After Bernie Drops Out of Presidential Race

I thought that sticking to the theme of the upcoming election, would be a good way to continue on these posts. In this article we take a look at what Muslim voters might do in the aftermath of Bernie Sanders dropping out of the race to focus on the pandemic. The article starts by explaining that before Sanders had dropped out of the race he had already started to have his campaign more focused on the growing pandemic that we were about to face. It continues to say that Sanders diverted his fundraised money for the campaign to 5 different charities that are supporting people during this pandemic. Now that Sanders has dropped out of the race to help his constitutes during this pandemic, many are wondering where the Muslim vote is going to go. 

Muslims have been supporters of Sanders throughout his time running for office, and it makes sense when looking at how Sanders has stood up for Muslims during his time in the political world. Sanders had voted against the Iraq War, he also didn’t agree with Trump’s “Muslim ban” and Sanders “acknowledged Palestinians as human beings worthy of dignity, a rarity among American politicians” says the article. Sanders also accepted an invitation along with only one other candidate to speak at the Islamic Society of North America’s first presidential forum. All of these things combined with the fact that Sanders also recruited a lot of important Muslim figures to help out during his campaign, helped Sanders gain the majority of the Muslim vote. Now the Muslims know what it is like to have a candidate actually show care and admiration for the Muslim community, the article states that it will be hard for the other candidates to continue to do what they have always done and still get the Muslim vote. The article says that many other presidential candidates in the past including Clinton, Biden, and Warren have all used Muslims for to gain “hijab clout” trying to show that they are inclusive and have reached many different cultures. The article also states that Muslims will have too much to lose with another Trump term that they won’t be voting for him. According to the article it will take a lot for the Muslim vote to go to any of the remaining candidates. 

I think that this article has a lot to do with our class because we have analyzed the typical voting of each type of religion in the United States. We discussed how Muslims see voting and politics and religion in America. I think that with Sanders dropping out Muslims feel like they no longer have a voice in the political world, and that under Sanders they would have been able to have a voice and experience a new type of America that they have not yet gotten to experience. In the book it states that Muslims tend to be more Democratic in their voting, with supporting active government economic programs, but they tend to be more conservative with social and moral issues, which can make who they vote for very interesting. I also think that the reason that I wanted to read and analyze this article and how it relates to our class is because everything that we discussed in class about the different ways that religions vote was very interesting, but the book is older than this current election period, so it is interesting to learn how the different religions are determining how to vote for this current election. 

https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/04/14/beyond-bernie-where-do-american-muslim-voters-go-from-here/

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Views on Trump from a Religious Perspective

Other than the pandemic that is currently going on, one of the biggest things that is happening in 2020 is the presidential election this November. We discussed many different times in class about how people are likely to vote based on their religion, so I believed that this article would be a good one to analyze since it has so much to do with our class. In class we discussed how important the white Evangelical Protestant vote seems to presidential candidates. This article from the Pew Research Foundation discusses what white Evangelical Protestants are thinking about when it comes to the presidential election. In the article it states that most of them do not view Trump as a very religious, honest, or moral person. A lot of white Evangelicals do claim that they think Trump is more of a “somewhat religious, fairly honest or fairly morally upstanding.” Later on the article goes on to discuss that about, “six-in-ten Americans say that it is ‘very important’ to them to have a president who personally lives a moral and ethical life.” They also claim that only one-in-five Americans think that it is important for their president to have religious beliefs, and less people think that the president needs to share the same religious beliefs as them. The research comes up with that most Americans want a president that will stand up for their personal beliefs. On that statistic, white Evangelical Protestants see Trump as standing up for their beliefs. 

In class we discussed the many statistics about religions voting in the United States. We discussed that white Evangelical Protestants have tended to vote more Republican than Democratic, with about 69% voting for Romney and 30% voting for Obama in the 2012 presidential race. According to the article many of white Evangelical Protestants say that they’re side of politics has been winning a lot more lately. Although it seems like a lot Christians are voting for the Republican side because they believe that they are more likely to stand up for their religious beliefs, many other religious groups including nonwhite Christians, Jews, and especially people that don’t belong to a religious group claim to not favor Trump. The article says that many of these groups haven’t seen their side winning in the important matters to them. But a lot of the American population believes that Christianity is starting to decline. The article then goes on to show a lot of statistics on why the country believes that Christianity is having less influence. I believe that the reasoning behind Christianity not having as much influence is because people in the current generation of 20-something year olds, are seemingly less religious, in my perspective. I believe that a lot of 20 year olds have been very much raised on this idea that church and state need to separated, I’m not saying that any other generation wasn’t raised on this, I just believe that this statement was drilled in the heads of children so much in the past 10-20 years. They’re is also an amount of promiscuity that this younger generation has grown up in. Many of the current 20 year olds grew up in an era that people weren’t always going to church on Sundays and the homes weren’t very religious, they grew up in a time of technology where they would see people posting pictures on social media that weren’t always the most innocent of photos. I believe that all of these things combined has changed the way that the youngest people think about religion, so I believe that soon it is no longer going to matter if the president stands up for a person's religious beliefs it is going to matter more on where the president stands on social matters, not just religious.

https://www.pewforum.org/2020/03/12/white-evangelicals-see-trump-as-fighting-for-their-beliefs-though-many-have-mixed-feelings-about-his-personal-conduct/

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Online Sermons

Reading this article during the current climate is very interesting, especially with the fact that this article was written in December of 2019. In the article the Pew Research Foundation does an in-depth look into the world of online ministries and what happens during them. In the survey they analyzed 49,719 sermons delivered from 6,431 churches in the time period from April 7 and June 1, 2019. In an analytical analysis of the online sermons shared, the average length of the sermon was about 37 minutes, but when you break it down farther into the four main Christian groups; Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, and historically black Protestant, the time frame changed drastically. Catholic sermons typically lasted about 14 minutes, Evangelical Protestant sermons typically lasted an average of 39 minutes, Mainline Protestant congregations lasted around 25 minutes, and historically black Protestant congregations were the longest with an average of 54 minutes. 

Other than the analysis of the different lengths of the sermons, Pew Research Foundation also analyzed the type of language used in the sermons, in which all of the four main Christian traditions used almost all of the same language in their sermons. Although in the analysis most of the terms were shortened so that they were able to get a broader category of words, for example, the article states that they shortened the words, “Bible” and “biblical” to “bibl” to clump the two into one group. The research also anaylzed the certain books from the Bible that the sermons covered. The article states that, “most sermons mentioned books from both the Old and New Testaments.” It claims that evangelical protestants were more likely to reference books from both the Old and New Testaments in the same sermon, with about 62% of their sermons having both books mentioned. The article also states that smaller churches are more likely to cite books from the Old Testament by name. 

I think that this article has to do with not only our class but the time period that we are living through currently. In this class we discussed a lot about the four main types of Christians and how they differ amongst themselves underneath an umbrella term. I think that reading about the different ways that each church holds their sermons and what they discuss in their sermons is a good way to learn more about the differences between each type of Christianity. From what I have learned from this article is that they are using a lot of the same wording and the same books in their sermons but that depending on the type of church the sermons can go more in depth about the meanings and the translations from the Bible. I think that this article relates a lot with the world that we are living in today because even though this article came out in December before we knew that we would have to go into quarantine and convert all of our sermons to online. Since the pandemic has started every church has switched to online, including the ones that were never previously online. I also believe that it is quite ironic that the time frame that they took these sermons from is the current time frame that we are in right now, facing more online sermons. I think it would be quite interesting if we learned how the online sermons are operating now that the amount of them has increased.

https://www.pewforum.org/2019/12/16/the-digital-pulpit-a-nationwide-analysis-of-online-sermons/

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Religion in the Age of COVID-19

In New York City the coronavirus has hit worse than in most places and because of how hard hit there are some lawmakers that have gone to extreme measures to try to protect the citizens. Mayor De Blasio in New York City closed down all churches and religious affiliated buildings to stop large gatherings during the pandemic. But, De Blasio didn’t stop there; he threatened religious organizations with the fact that if any large gatherings are spotted then the city would take action to either fine or permanently close down that religious organization. This is not unique to just New York City, other county’s have had similar ordinance put in place during this pandemic. One Florida minister got arrested for holding a Sunday Service in person, creating a large gathering. The article states that, Virginia has made it illegal to hold a church service with more than 10 people, and Michigan has banned large gatherings including at churches and religious institutions. During this time people are feeling that the constitution is being ripped up and thrown out the window considering church and state are mixing. 

That’s what brings me to the reason this article is related to this class. In class we talked about the constitution and especially the First Amendment, which is freedom of religion and the separation of the church and state. With the pandemic and the rules being put in place many people are claiming that the closing of churches and arresting ministers is a violation of the First Amendment and the government has no right to close down the churches and even threaten to permanently shut down the religious institutions, like De Blasio has threatened. I think that for the most part this class has taught me that in no way did the Founding Fathers mean to make this country Christian nation or based on one religion and had put this amendment in there so that people could freely practice the religion that they wanted, and people wouldn’t be subject to religious persecution similar to what was happening in Europe at the time. I don’t think the politicians are meaning to be crossing the line between the separation of church and state, I think that they are just worried about how the pandemic is spreading and want to make sure that their citizens are safe. I think that arresting the minister in Florida was a little harass and caused a lot more problems then solved. 

Personally, I think that I have been affected a little bit by this change in the way we approach religion. I am Christian and have been heavily involved with my religion most of my life and involved with Christian on-campus organizations, mainly Greek IV, for greek life students. Even though I have always been involved in my religion I haven’t always gone to church because my church back home was small and for a while didn’t have a pastor and when I moved to college I got too busy and didn’t have a car so I never went to Sunday Services. But, since the quarantine has started I have been able to attend online churches through my parents childhood church in Point Loma, so I have been more involved with my religion since the quarantine has started. I think that, for right now, closing churches is the right thing to do to stop the spread of the virus, and having online services can help reach more people than before. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/01/religious_freedom_in_the_time_of_coronavirus_142832.html