"The End of Christian America"...or is it?

As I was logging out of my email two weeks ago, I noticed an intriguing Newsweek article in the MSN homepage: “The End of Christian America”. The article is all about the decline of religion in the United States. As I have become much less religious myself in recent years, I was very interested to see an article suggesting that I am not alone. In the article’s first paragraph it states, “the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent”. This shift has been greeted with some very different opinions. While many “rationalists” embrace the shift away from a Christian nation, others are afraid of America become too secular. For example, the article quotes Albert Mohler Jr, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who describes the decline of Christianity in America as a “culture crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture”. I was definitely struck by this word choice of a “culture crisis”. In my opinion, a secular America would be better for the progress of American politics. In Bill Maher’s movie “Religulus”, he interviews a God-fearing politician and questions him on his belief in God. I agree with Maher, a proud agnostic, who states that he is troubled by the prospect of having his country run by people “who believe in the talking snake”. This article addresses the separation of church and state, taking a very middle ground stance. According to the reporter, religion and politics will inevitably mix, but church and state should be kept separate. At first this seemed completely contradictory to me, but really this just means that people’s religious beliefs will inevitably influence their political beliefs, however religious doctrine should not be carried out through government.
In this way I think the article makes a good point. The United States was founded on the ideal of religious freedom, which includes the option to be religious or non-religious. Furthermore, the idea of America being a “Christian Nation” is false, because no country can be truly Christian—only people can. I think the point where this view becomes too simplistic happens in cases like George Bush beginning his cabinet meetings with prayer or Sarah Palin saying that it was God’s will for her to be Governor. It is unsettling for those of us who are non-religious to have those who are religious bring their beliefs into settings that affect the nation as a whole. Yes, we are lucky to live in a state committed to religious freedom. At the same time, different religions means different opinions and as the article points out that religion inevitably seeps into politics, that freedom can turn into a gift and a curse. I’m not saying that I’d rather the United States not have such a strong commitment to religious freedom. It’s just makes American politics messier…and more interesting.
What is comforting about all this is that while I may feel uncomfortable in a Christian influenced America, religious influences are constantly changing. It is now turning out to be Christians who feel uncomfortable in an increasingly less spiritual America. One of my favorite quotes from the Newsweek article was from JFK, saying, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist…Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped”. It seems to me that the decline of Christian mentality that this Newsweek article is reporting on is just a natural shift between conservative and liberal religious thought. And the beauty is, the pendulum will continue just as it always has.

On Christian Teaching: Signs, Symbols, and Psalms

In reading Book II of On Christian Teaching, I was struck by chapter 7 "Steps to Wisdom". This chapter stood out to me because it brought back a controversial issue we discussed while reading the psalms. According to Augustine, "fear of God is the beginning of wisdom". Later in Book II, Augustine writes that "those who fear God...seek the will of God". Even though the psalms we read were Jewish texts and Augustine wrote about Christian Scriptures, there is still the idea that one must fear God in order to follow his will. However I don't understand how the "Steps to Wisdom" ultimately lead to fearing God. For the majority of the chapter, Augustine states "God is to be loved with all the heart" and talks about man loving his neighbor as he loves himself. The whole chapter seemingly has an upbeat and loving perception of God, stating that by following these steps man ascends into peace and tranquility. This sentence is immediately followed by the statement that fearing god is the beginning of wisdom. I definitely got an impression from the psalms that it is wise to fear God, however I fundamentally disagree with this idea on a personal level. Seeing this continuation of God-fearing mentality in religion from Jewish psalms to Christian teachings shows how religious principles get passed on through the centuries. You can see the influence that the psalms had on Augustine's writings.
On another note, I did find the ideas in the reading to be helpful for interpreting psalms and scriptures in terms of the concept of using simple scriptures to figure out more obscure passages. This is definitely true when thinking about the historical references of the psalms. Some of the psalms we read have a historical context that changes how one can interpret it. In this sense, some of the psalms are a sign for events in Jewish history. I also thought it was interesting how Book II fit into our definition of religion as a system of symbols establishing moods and motivations. In this reading, Augustine referred to the words in scriptures as signs that indicate “all manners of faith and way of life”. While scriptures definitely have a symbolic meaning in religion, it was interesting to think about breaking down that meaning to units of words. As single units, words seem rather insignificant as far as being religious signs or symbols. On the other hand, it shows how powerful words can be that when they are used together they create the moods and motivations of religion.

You say tomAtoe I say tomAHto. You say E-meter, I laugh hysterically

For a couple weeks now I've written about religious tolerance and the dangers of fundamentalist who refuse to compromise their beliefs. Separately, I had also been planning to include a YouTube clip from South Park in one of my blogs, but as I thought about it more, it seemed more and more appropriate to bring the two together in one blog post. I am a fan of South Park, and two of my favorite episodes are the one on Mormonism and the one on Scientology. As I was just watching them, I wondered to myself, is South Park a form of religious intolerance? I realized it would be very hypocritical of me to preach religious tolerance for weeks and then put up a video about how ridiculous I find religions like Mormonism and Scientology. This may be a biased opinion, but my first instinct is to say that they are not religiously intolerant (but then I guess I have to define what I mean by religious intolerance). I would define religious intolerance as imposing one's own religious beliefs on others and denies the beliefs of others. In the most egregious cases of religious intolerance, these differences in beliefs are cause for persecution of a group and often violence. I would argue that South Park, at least in the two episodes discussed above, does not impose any beliefs on the audience; it merely presents facts (though, probably not the same way the religions would have presented these facts) and allows the audience to draw their own conclusions. There is a bias to these episodes, but there is a fairly large margin between bias and difference of opinion and religious intolerance. Plus, in the commentary to the episode “All About Mormons”, the creators say that they have no problem with Mormons as people, but just want to make a point of how ridiculous their beliefs seem to outsiders.
It can get complicated though, because religious intolerance is pretty much an exacerbation of difference of opinions. I wouldn't necessarily say that South Park is being intolerant. South Park definitely mocks religion, but is that intolerance? I can understand why people of a faith would find South Park episodes that ask viewers to take in one-sided information about their religion and then laugh at how stupid it is that people could believe in such things would be offensive. However, just because I think that history and beliefs of other religions are ridiculous, doesn't mean those who are believers can't or shouldn't keep their beliefs. I think intolerance is a word that gets thrown around a lot and its definition has become muddied by different levels of "intolerance".
This reminds me of our discussion in class about having a Darwin fish on your car or Sarah Vosper's post about wearing religious symbols for aesthetic rather than symbolic value. In an age of political correctness, I think that many people are overly sensitive to offending other people's beliefs. It may be sacrilegious to wear a cross if you are not Christian and to put a Darwin fish on your car, but is sacrilege intolerance? This may be a bigger topic than I can tackle in one posting, but I think it's interesting to think about the line between offending people, sacrilege, and intolerance. If the situation was reversed and Mormons or Scientologists mocked my lack of belief, I don’t think that I would be offended; I would just think that they’re wrong. However I understand that faith is very meaningful to some people, so this type of mockery is an affront to their way of life. While religion is not one of them, I’m sure there are other parts of my life that I would be just as offended about if they were mocked. I personally think it all boils down to being open minded to other opinions, but even that may be up for debate.

I've included two videos, one is some clips from the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet" about Scientology and the other is commentary from South Park's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, about the episode "All About Mormons".

Psalm 18: A criticism

Psalm 18: How many ways can I name to show how I disagree with the image of God portrayed as a vengeful being who favors a certain group of people? Psalm 18 exalts God for victory in a war against the speaker's enemies. However, some of the images give me pause when considering how God could be merciful and benevolent in one description and be a force of death and destruction later. My discomfort begins in verse 9, which the footnotes explain is an anthropomorphic representation of God's power. God will cause destruction by making the Earth heave and shudder as a preliminary assault on the speaker's enemies. The verse only gets more troubling as it goes on. It says, "...smoke rose from His nostrils and fire from His mouth consumed, coals blazed up around Him." Is it just me or does this sound more like a description of Satan than God? God, symbol of creation, Father of mankind, should not be consumed in flames and burning anyone--even people labeled as "enemies". It seems to me that one of the advantages to the existence of Satan is that God gets to remain benevolent and not punish people himself. If I believed in God and I read this psalm, the image of God engulfed in flames and breathing fire would make me pee my pants in fear.
The last line I want to point out (though there are many others) starts at verse 38 which states, "I pursued my enemies, caught them, turned not back till I wiped them out..you girt me with might for combat. You laid low my foes beneath me...I demolished them." This imagery of man fighting in the name of God and defeating his adversaries with God's help strikes me as a description of holy war. Throughout history the most damage that religion has done to society has been in similar forms of holy war. This reminds me of the topic I posted last Friday; it's terrifying to think that Jews living in Israel could read this psalm and interpret it as God's will to demolish Palestinians. If God is supposed to be the giver of life, I don't understand how these psalms could advocate God or his followers taking lives, even of "enemies". Psalm 51 that we discussed in class praised God for his benevolent forgiveness. Apparently, however, the same forgiveness does not apply to "enemies". This dichotomy of God being sympathetic and good to some people, but vengeful to others frustrates me and makes me question the bias and motives of the writers of these psalms. They obviously had a very different image of God than the depiction I would have chosen.

The Fundamentalists Strike Again

I was raised Jewish. My family was part of a Reform synagogue, so we were very liberal about our religion. We celebrated major holidays, I went to religious school twice a week, and I had a Bat Mitzvah. Otherwise we never followed the conservative Jewish laws like keeping Kosher or having Shabbat services every Saturday and we never said prayers unless we were at a synagogue service. I always liked the Jewish culture and from my rather biased and ignorant perspective growing up, Judaism seemed like one of the less judgmental, more open and loving religions. Reading the psalms in class has made me reflect on my upbringing and the way I used to look at Judaism. I was surprised while reading the psalms and considering that they were part of the Old Testament. Phrases like "His wrath in a moment flares up" give me pause. All of the allusions to fearing God and his punishment were ideas that I stereotyped with Christianity. Even Psalm 37:28 "[The Lord's faithful] are guarded forever, but the seed of the wicked is cut off". This was not the benevolent, forgiving God of my childhood. Growing up, I never had any sense of fearing God. I grew up equating God to love.
Only recently have I seen the difference between the liberal, Reform belief system I learned and the fundamentalist beliefs that make Judaism in its purest form seem almost unrecognizable to me. As I’ve grown up and learned more about religion and moved away from my Jewish upbringing, I have become increasingly skeptical about Judaism’s moral compass. That’s not the say that Judaism is at all less moral than other religions, but I have come to see that they are certainly no better than the others, as my bias once lead me to believe. This past January, Israeli troops invaded Gaza and killed hundreds of civilians. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has some political significance, it boils down to a fight between the Jews and the Muslims. I heard a report on the radio that said that rabbis where advising the Israeli troops to kill anything that moved. The Israelis have admitted to holding a lower value for Palestinian lives over those of Israelis.
I think it’s very shameful for a group that was persecuted and given a lower value of life in recent history to now be passing that same judgment on a different religious group. In two generations, the Jews have gone from being killed for their religion to killing others for theirs. True, in the Israeli-Palestinian case there is valuable land that is being fought over, but the price is still innocent human blood. Apparently the phrase “never again” doesn’t translate from Hebrew to Arabic.

Good vs. Evil:Psalm II

Psalm II probably had a lot of significance to early American settlers because there are many parts that they could relate to. In the first line the psalm talks furiously raging Heathens, which the settlers would have related to Native American savages. It seems like this psalm could have been used as a justification for taking over new land and banishing the Native Americans. The settlers are God's anointed, the Native Americans are the heathen kings and princes who conspire against God, and Zion represents the New World.
This scripture perfectly fits the definition of religion that we've discussed in class in the aspect of "establishing moods and motivations". Psalm two is a justification of the attitudes of the settlers to their natural rights to the land. As far as they were concerned, God had given them the American land just as Zion was the land of the Israelites. In this context, the fact that the settlers stole the land from the native people and caused death and destruction is justified because the settlers have God on their side. According to psalm two, the settlers "possess the utmost" of the earth. As for the Native American heathens, God shall "crush them with an iron rod". They were motivated by scriptures like psalm II. Furthermore, these scriptures increased discrimination towards the Native Americans by reinforcing an us vs. them mentality. It is easy for the settlers to see themselves as God's chosen people, and the Native Americans as heathens. The good vs. evil mood of psalm II definitely influenced the attitudes of settlers towards Native Americans. This is just one of many examples of how literal interpretations of religion can be dangerous to mankind.

Moderates vs. Extremists

I was listening to NPR recently when I heard an essay by Rany Jazeverli. Jazerverli was writing in response to an article written about his friend Mazen Asbahi, whom the Obama campaign had appointed on July 26 to be their national coordinator for Muslim American affairs but was forced to resign after alleged connections were found between Asbahi and Muslim extremists. I think this is a very important issue facing the world today. For as long as there have been conflicting belief systems, there has been religious intolerance, but such widespread and blatant ignorance and prejudice is disheartening. In a country like the United States that so readily criticizes other nations for human rights violations, religious tolerance should be a far more sensitive issue (especially considering that the creation of the United States was in large part based upon pursuit of religious tolerance). Ever since the terrorist attacks in 2001, the word "Muslim" is to many Americans synonymous with the word "terrorist". And anyone who is Muslim is assumed to be sympathetic to the cause of fundamentalists Muslim terror organizations, which could hardly be farther from the truth. As Jazerverli puts it, the problem is that non-Muslims can not separate in their minds the stereotype of fundamentalist Muslims from the moderate Muslim-Americans living in the United States: "The same people who claim there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim will do everything in their power to slander people like Mazen Asbahi – the very epitome of a moderate, modern, integrated, tolerant, patriotic American Muslim – as an extremist. They will set their sights on any Muslim who seeks to be a part of the political process, and will pick them off, one by one, until there are no more targets left. The world is at war right now, but it’s not a war of Christian vs. Muslim. It’s a war of moderates vs. extremists, and the two groups are battling it out in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But they’re also battling here in America. This week, the extremists won." I think that because Islam has very little history in the United States, many Americans don't know how to interpret and contextualize Muslims living here. And because, as humans, we so often choose to fear and discriminate against those who are different from us, many non-Muslims reach for stereotypes of Muslim extremists. Just as it is not fair to judge Christians and Jews for the acts of violence in their past, not all Muslims can be pigeon-holed into the extremists belief system. I can only hope that in the near future a wave of enlightenment hits the United States, leaving behind the realization that moderate Muslims do exists more or less putting an end to all the fear and bigotry. In the mean time, the war of extremists vs. moderates remains another one of the United States' great hypocrisies.
Full Essay "A Perspective on Mazen Asbahi"

Indian Mounds as "systems of symbols"

It is clear that mounds, and effigy mounds in particular, had religious significance to the Native Americans. Going off the Clifford Geertz definition of religion as "a system of symbols", the mounds' purpose was to "[formulate] conceptions of a general order of existence" which they did. Native American spirituality was based on nature, so they looked to the world around them to answer religious questions. Their spirituality depended a lot upon harmony in nature and the three basic elements of nature: water, air, and earth. It is from these basic elements that much of the symbolism of effigy mounds comes from. The three elements of nature are central to Native American ideology because they represent the natural resources that humans need for survival, which is how nature acts as a conception of a general order of existence. Different effigies symbolized different elements, for example bird symbolized the air and the sky, turtle and lizard shapes represent water, and bears represent earth. The use of mounds for burial sites, it is hypothesized, was meant to be a symbolism of returning to the earth. The end of one life was seen as the beginning of a new life and the Native Americans looked to nature as that which sustained their existence.

The Psychology of Religion

My mother and I were having a religious discussion a few days ago and she brought up a very interesting idea. She said that she thinks that humans develop a psychological need for religion because of their parents. Religion plays a similar role to grown humans that parents play to children. People need someone, either a person or a supernatural higher power, to look up to and to be in control of their lives. Also, parents/religion give people advice and rules on what to do and what not to do. In her theory, were it not for our societal structure of parents raising their children, people would not develop a need for religion to take their parents' place. I think it's interesting too to think about how in Christianity, God is even referred to as "the holy father" and people are "God's children". And I can definitely see how being part of a religious community can give the illusion of a non-biological family. Basically, under this theory religion is going to be part of the human experience indefinitely since I can't imagine society changing to have all humans raised away from their parents, like Brave New World or some other sci-fi vision of the future.
While I agree that there is some innate human need for understanding the world that religion very conveniently fills, this theory is not a perfect explanation. Christianity fits the mold very well, especially with the terminology of father and children. For that matter, monotheistic religions in general seem to fit the explanation of religion-playing-the-role-of-parent. However, I'm sure there are polytheistic religions that don't fit the mold as well. In this case, it is merely the overall function of religion that fills in for the overall function of a parent. The biggest place where polytheistic religions don't fit is in the ability for individuals to form a relationship with God in the way that a child forms a one-on-one relationship with his mother or father. Furthermore, this psychological view does not explain anti-theism. Atheists may not be organized like Christians or Muslims or Hindus, but Atheism is still a religious belief system. In this case, the only connection I can see is Atheists look to science to explain the world as a child looks to his parent. There are some holes in specific applications of this theory, but the general idea is an interesting rationalization of why people seem to have an innate need for religion.