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We as a society are ill-equipped to really respect, dialogue and learn from each other when we disagree or have different political or religious views. I think many people want a pluralism that’s healthy and honoring of each other’s differences but we -– both the religious and the non-religious –- don’t know how to do this well.

Reverend Timothy Keller, from New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Analysis:

In previous posts, I talked about how we need pluralism and tolerance for other religions. It always seems so simple to just understand that there are many people in this world that practice different religions, yet we do not live in that kind of world yet. Keller’s words clearly express what we desire for our society.

People want to live in a world that experiences no violence, no discrimination, and no intolerance. The end goal seems so simple, but the reality of religious pluralism is a difficult reality to obtain when there are different people who want different things. We want to understand and honor each other’s differences, but we don’t know how to do this.

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Articles:

ABC News Pentecostal Pastors Argue 'Snake Handling' Is Their Religious Right by Juju Chang and Spencer Wilking

CNN News Snakes and Church vs. State by Danny Cevallos, CNN Legal Analyst

The recent death of the "snake-handling" pastor of a small Pentecostal church in Kentucky has raised an age-old conflict between church and state.

Jamie Coots, the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky, died after being bitten on his right hand by a rattlesnake during a weekend church service where he was handling rattlesnakes willingly, it seems.

It has been reported that the late pastor's son Cody Coots has continued the snake-handling tradition even after his father's death.

People handle snakes at church for the same reason that people do lots of things: the Bible tells them so.

“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Mark 16:17-18

This biblical passage is the genesis of serpent-handling for churches of the Holiness movement and the Pentecostal Church of God. For the faithful, those two verses are the authority for dancing with or passing around poisonous snakes during church services. Moreover, if bitten, they are likely to refuse medical treatment and rely upon God to heal them. There's just one problem with this Biblical authority. Another authority, known as the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

In Kentucky, the practice is illegal. 

Under the applicable section KRS §437.060, any person who displays, handles or uses a snake in connection with any religious gathering shall be fined $50 to 100. 

Analysis:

These articles relate to our class discussion of the Snake Handling religion. In class we watched a documentary about the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name and learned that their religion stands on one passage in the Gospel of Mark that states: They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”  Mark 16:17-18

The documentary and these articles discuss how Snake Handling is illegal in Appalachian states like Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. These states passed laws against the use of venomous snakes that endangers the lives of others in a religious gathering. When I was watching the documentary in class, I was confused about why these states would illegalize snake handling for religious practice. These state laws infringe on people’s First Amendment which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from doing the same.

From this article, I learned two things about outlawing the use of snakes in religious practices. The reason why Kentucky is allowed to pass this law is that people’s religious actions can be regulated by the state. The First Amendment protects people’s freedom to believe what they want to believe, but it does not protect them from doing whatever they want to do in the name of religion. This law is protecting people from the danger that snakes impose on them. According to ABC News, Tennessee District Attorney General Lori Phillips-Jones said the law applies to everyone and doesn't discriminate based on a person's faith. Phillips-Jones says, “It's about the nature of the poisonous animal.” In both Kentucky and Tennessee, authorities are concerned for the well-being of the people who practice snake-handling and outlawed the use to protect them from venomous snakes. 

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Article:

CNN News Buddha would have helped persecuted Rohingya refugees, Dalai Lama says by Ben Westcott and Steve George, CNN

The Dalai Lama has called on Myanmar to follow the example of the Buddha and come to the aid of the country's persecuted Rohingya minority, more than 300,000 of whom have fled their home province in two weeks.

Speaking to journalists in North India, the Tibetan spiritual leader expressed his grief over the ongoing violence inside Buddhist-majority Myanmar on Friday, saying the Buddha would have "definitely helped" the Rohingya."They should remember, Buddha, in such circumstances, Buddha (would have) definitely helped those poor Muslims. So, still I feel that (it's) so very sad ... so sad," he told reporters.

Almost 90% of Myanmar's population are Buddhists, according to government figures, while the Rohingya have long been marginalized for their Muslim faith.

Analysis:

This article relates to video by Vox titled, “The ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Myanmar’s Rohingya, Explained.” The Rohingya are a minority in a Buddhist majority Myanmar. This relates to what we learned in class about center and periphery. This article explains that the Buddhist majority is a strong enough power to deny citizenship to the Rohingya, despite having lived there for generations. The Rohingya are targeted for mass clearance by Myanmar's military. The Myanmar government rejected a temporary ceasefire and stated that they do not “negotiate with terrorists.” The persecution of the Rohingya demonstrates the lack of power the minority group has over the Buddhist majority.

This article also relates to the class discussion on dual streams of authority. The Dalai Lama, the figurehead of Buddhist values and traditions, states that the Buddha would have helped the Rohingya.  This demonstrates dual streams of authority because the Dalai Lama is the epitome of Buddhist ideals. If the Dalai Lama is saying that Buddha would have helped the Rohingya rather than continue their persecution, then this ethnic cleansing of Rohingya should not continue. The persecution of the Rohingya is not part of Buddhist ideals.

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10 posts!

#10 posts #tumblr milestone

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Article:

Huffington Post Irreligious Illiteracy by J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.

Courses on world religions or Western religion should include a book or a short reading and a couple lectures on irreligion as ‘part of the story’ of religion in the West.

University courses wholly devoted to the history of irreligion should be on offer in every university with a religious studies or theology department. The subject of irreligion does not have to be taught with any degree of advocacy. The teacher need only adopt the attitude of Emerson on religious skeptics, which was that the skepticisms, as Emerson said, ‘are not gratuitous or lawless.’ Skeptics are honest doubters who are among the best minds the West has produced. Their views should be under consideration as ‘part of the story.’

Analysis:

This relates to our discussion on atheism. According to our discussion on atheism, we can no longer study American religion without studying atheism. The author, J.H. Mckenna, Ph.D., states, that the omission of irreligious study kept her “from a fuller understanding of the phenomenon of religion.” This relates to what we learned in class. Nonreligion is such a significant aspect of Western culture that there would be a gap in the study of religion if students were not taught about it.

In “Demography of Unbelief”, agnostics, absolute atheists, and other nonreligious people account for one-sixth of the world’s population. This shows that there are at least one billion people who do not identify with a religion. This shift in nonreligion is just “part of the story” when we discuss religion. It only makes sense to talk about irreligion when we talk about religion because ignorance of irreligion ideology would only lead to an incomplete study of religion.

#higher education #the chronicle of higher education #religious studies #theology #atheism

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After the storm, 17 people joined in prayer before clearing out the flooded house of an aging widow. God, they insisted, was also there. 

Article:

New York Times The Prayer Circle: Texans Rebuild After Harvey as a Practice of Faith.

Many were evangelical Christians, and so it made sense that the circle included Mr. Kuhns, the pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in El Campo.

Rabbi Michael Vowell, was also helping to rebuild  Kemple’s house. He states “if I can see God moving through people, neighbors helping neighbors, I can shelve the bigger question of why is this happening.” He continues with, “there are still people caring for each other is evidence enough that God is in this world.”

Some did not know one another or for that matter the Klimples. It mattered little. Each felt called by faith to lend their hands — and legs and backs, which would soon ache with soreness — to an elderly woman in distress.

Analysis:

This relates to the course material because religions are communities of faith and practice. People come together through shared commitment and shared experiences. When Angie Kemple’s home was flooded by Hurricane Harvey, people from the evangelical church came together to support Angie and help her rebuild her home. This demonstrates community and the strengthening of relationships between the community.

This also relates to the course material because religion is one way that people give meaning to or find meaning in their lives. Rabbi Vowell explains that even if disasters happen, people still care for each other and that proof that God exists in the world.

This is important to me because whenever something “unfair” or “unjust” happens, I always question why God allows these things to happen. Rabbi Vowell’s interpretation of God existing is a reminder that good things happen because God exists.

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An Evangelical Pastor On Reaching The Religiously Unaffiliated

Carol Kuruvilla: Religion is certainly growing globally, but statistics show that more and more Americans are religiously unaffiliated. The vast majority of these “nones” say they were raised in a religiously affiliated household. Why do you think Americans are becoming less comfortable identifying with a specific religion?

Rev. Timothy Keller: Great question. The best sociological explanation is that in our society people are becoming increasingly unwilling to trust or identify with any institution at all. We shouldn’t, therefore, think of this as only a turning away from religion. It is actually just one aspect or result of what sociologist Robert Bellah and others called expressive individualism and the weakening of all “strong ties” in a community. Expressive individualism insists that we define ourselves apart from family, tradition, religion, or any other external moral source.

Rev. Timothy Keller: Our apprehension with identifying with a specific religion is very much tied similar sentiments about other institutions. The question, though, is what is lost by that wholesale rejection of an external moral source.

Analysis: This is a conversation between Carol Kuruvilla and Ren. Timothy Keller about the increasing amount of people that identify as religiously unaffiliated. Keller explains that more people are identifying as religiously unaffiliated because people have a distrust of all institutions. This analysis by Keller relates to the information discussed in class because the rising levels of education and income correspond to higher rates of religious skepticism.

Keller states that people are attempting to define themselves outside of family, tradition, and religion. Within today's society, it is clear that individuals desire to separate themselves from institutions, but Keller does not believe that anything is lost when a person identifies with a certain institution or not.

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Article: Huffington Post Anti-Atheist Prejudice Is Entrenched Around The Globe, Even Among Atheists by Antonia Blumberg

A new study published Monday in the academic journal Nature Human Behaviour found that people around the world are more likely to believe that atheists are capable of committing “extreme moral violations” than people who are religious.

The results “show that across the world, religious belief is intuitively viewed as a necessary safeguard against the temptations of grossly immoral conduct, and atheists are broadly perceived as potentially morally depraved and dangerous,” wrote a team of international researchers.

In other words, the researchers added, “people perceive belief in a god as a sufficient moral buffer to inhibit immoral behavior.”

The study surveyed more than 3,000 people in 13 countries, spanning five continents. The researchers included people from both “highly secular societies,” like China and the Netherlands, and “highly religious ones,” like the United Arab Emirates and India in the study. Altogether the countries represented populations that were predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or secular.

“I suspect that this stems from the prevalence of deeply entrenched pro-religious norms,” Will Gervais, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and one of the co-authors on the study, told AFP. “Even in places that are currently quite overtly secular, people still seem to intuitively hold on to the belief that religion is a moral safeguard.”

Though widespread, the belief that religiosity is a necessary component of morality isn’t generally supported by science. Studies show that moral qualities like empathy and prosocial behavior may predate the development of religion in human evolution and are representative of biological adaptation.

Analysis:

This link relates to Atheism. When we were learning about Atheist, one of the first things that we discussed was a poll that stated that the most hated group in America are atheists. The comment that followed the discussion was, “so if you’re a black atheist, you’re screwed.”

This study is important because it emphasizes how deeply entrenched the belief that people who do not have a religion have no morals or experienced a breakdown in morals. According to studies though, moral qualities predate the development of religion. This is nice to hear because that means that the people who believe that atheist have no morals are wrong to believe such a thing. According to the article, empathy and prosocial behavior are biological adaptations and are prevalent in a person even when they do not practice a religion.  

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5 posts!

#5 posts #tumblr milestone

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Analysis:

This link relates to Dual Streams of Authority. The first stream of authority is the “hierarchical, episcopal, and doctrinal stream that people are most familiar with. It is the visible stream that runs religious institutions, proposes and enforces the doctrine, and is considered by the majority of the population as the leadership of the religion. The second stream of authority is part of the individual’s experience with religion. Typically, the first stream of authority, which concerns the hierarchical, episcopal, and doctrinal stream, runs the risk of being too rigid or too far removed from the actual personal religious experience. 

In this link, the Pope is considered to be part of the first stream of authority. The Pope believes that the death penalty is “inadmissible” and that official church teachings should reflect that. This is significant because according to a 2016 Pew Research Poll, 43% of US Catholics support the death penalty. Since the Pope holds the highest position in the Catholic church, 43% of US Catholics might have to reconsider supporting the death penalty because the first stream of authority, the Pope, does not support it.

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Video: Vox News The “Ethnic Cleansing” of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, Explained There are thousands of Rohingya leaving Myanmar’s Rakhine state in search of a home in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia because of an ethnic cleansing, a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. An attack in August 2017 sparked the current mass exodus of 400,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh.

Analysis:

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in a majority Buddhist country. Since they are the minority, the became the perfect target for an ethnic cleansing. This relates to the class because this issue relates to the Center and Periphery concept. While this issue does not surround American Religion, it is an example of the potential power a majority group can have over a minority group. 

While it seems like this issue is so far away, since it is happening on the other side of the world, it is possible that such an event could happen here in the United States. The solution to an issue like this is not to ensure that each group has equally no chance at becoming “more powerful” than other groups. The solution is tolerance. If people tried to understand that there are different people in this world that practice different religions, religious exoduses would not happen. 

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Rivers, ponds, lakes, and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.

Muhammad Ali Analysis: This quote by Muhammad Ali relates to the class because the quote is an example of the pluralist view of religion. Religious Pluralism is an ideology that believes that all religions can co-exist in society. One example of pluralism is when a Christian will not claim that Christianity has more truth than a Hindu’s belief in Hinduism. In this example, while Christianity is the Christian’s truth and religion, the person will understand that the Hindu’s truth and religion is in Hinduism. 

The divide between pluralist ideology and fundamentalist ideology occurs within denominations as well. I used to go to a fundamentalist church that claimed that all other churches were false churches or churches of Satan. It bothered me because I felt like a person should be able to practice whatever religion he or she chooses. It was also shocking to me that the people of this church were so close minded to other religious practices within Christianity like Catholicism, as well as other religions.

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Mississippi restaurant sued after Christian waitress is allegedly fired for wearing a skirt to work

Washington Post Article by Justin Wm. Moyer

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing a Mississippi restaurant after a Christian waitress allegedly was fired for refusing to wear pants because of her faith.

In 2015, Kaetoya Watkins applied to be a server at a Georgia Blue restaurant in Flowood, Miss., a suburb of Jackson, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. She was offered the position and scheduled to begin work before learning that Georgia Blue had a dress code requiring employees to wear blue jeans, the lawsuit said.

Watkins, who identifies as an Apostolic Pentecostal Christian, told a manager that her religion “prevented her from wearing pants,” and asked to wear a blue jean skirt instead, the suit said. After receiving no reply to her request, Watkins reported for work wearing a jean skirt and was sent home, according to the suit; the next day, she received a voice mail from her manager that said Georgia Blue’s owner had decided she “would not stray away from” its dress code policy.

Apostolic Pentecostal Christians are known for wearing long skirts and eschewing makeup. Vinson Synan, a scholar-in-residence at Oral Roberts University and an expert on Pentecostalism, called the faith “the most conservative” in the Pentecostal family.

Analysis:

I never really thought about how religion affected people’s professional lives. When someone practices a conservative religion, all aspects of their life is affected. For example, Amish and Mennonites follow strict guidelines for different aspects of their lives such as how they dress, how much education they receive from public schooling, and what music they can listen to. In Kaetoya Watkin’s example, her conservative clothing and a company’s failure to accommodate her religious practices resulted in Watkins getting fired and a lawsuit against the company.

In class, we analyzed the retention rates of different American religions and found that religions with the highest retention rates are typically the most strict. We found Pentecostal Christians to be fairly strict, but not as strict as Amish, Mennonites, or Evangelical Christians. Since Kaetoya is part of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church, it was obvious to her try to find a compromise between skirts and blue jeans. In Watkin’s case, she would much rather keep her religious practices, than try to change for a job. Personally, I would never let my religion interfere with my job, but clearly, it is part of American policy to be accommodating to religious practices because of how important religion is to those who follow one.

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Protesters in Sao Paulo demonstrate against a Brazilian judge's decision to overturn a ban on gay conversion therapy. (Nelson Almeida / AFP/Getty Images) 

Article: Los Angeles Times “Thousands Protest Ruling to Overturn Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’ for Gays and Lesbians in Brazil” by Jill Langlois

In 1999, Brazil’s Federal Council of Psychology banned conversion therapy, a practice that attempts to change a person’s sexual preference, gender identity, or gender expression (Human Rights Campaign). Rozangela Justino, a psychologist and evangelical Christian, challenged the 18-year ban. Justino, in 2016, had her license revoked for offering the therapy and referring to homosexuality as a disease.

Judge Waldemar de Carvalho ruled in Justino’s favor, stating that people who want help in relation to their sexuality should not be prevented from voluntarily pursuing the therapy.

As a response to the ruling, thousands of demonstrators gathered in downtown Sao Paulo on September 22, 2017 to protest the decision.

Langlois, Jill. "Thousands Protest Ruling To Overturn Ban On 'Conversion Therapy' For Gays And Lesbians In Brazil." latimes.com. N. p., 2017. Web. 4 Oct. 2017.

Analysis:

This image and following caption demonstrate the dangers of fundamentalist ideologies. When people like Rozangela Justino pursue political policies that ignore the mental health and well-being of the Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer+ community, it results “suffering, prejudice, intolerance, and exclusion” (Federal Council of Psychology).

One remedy for situations like these is to accept people for who they are, regardless of what a certain sacred text has to say. While this may seem like a simple solution, asking a fundamentalist to examine what they believe and to consider having a pluralist ideology would be exactly what Rozangela Justino is asking the LGBTQ+ community to do--examine an integral part of a person’s identity. However, it is more acceptable to ask religious groups to be more accepting of people than it is to discriminate against those who are “different”.

It frustrates me to know that there are people who ardently believe that their religious belief is the only belief that is right. Everyone who is not following that belief is wrong, doomed for damnation, or should seriously consider conversion to that religion. How do fundamentalists believe so strongly in their religion when there are numerous of religions in the world? This way of thinking is harmful to those who do not believe in the religion because when religious groups are in the majority, they have the potential power to exclude and bring suffering to minority groups.