Predicting the Developments in American Religion in 2019

Several scholars, faith leaders, and others offer their predictions for what to expect among various religious groups in the U.S.A. in 2019.  See this post at the Religion News Service.

Top Ten Religious Liberty Developments in 2018

Religion Clause provides the list here.  The list is USA-centric.  It includes Supreme Court decisions, mass shootings, and a travel ban.

Catholic Exorcism in America

The Atlantic has a thoughtful article on Catholic exorcism. There are several interesting facts reported in the article.  One is that rates if belief in demonic possession are still high in the United States;  about half of Americans believe demonic possession is real.  Another is that there is demand for exorcist services;  the official exorcists for Indianapolis has received 1700 requests in the year 2018, more than he has received in any earlier year.  Another is that that are many more known Catholic exorcists in the United States now than several years ago, and new exorcists are being trained.  But what the article does best is provide an in-depth perspective of a particular person who received an exorcism.  The focus is on Catholic exorcism, but exorcisms occur in other denominations in the United States.  The Episcopal Church, for example, still maintains the practice.

There are several other interesting elements.  A key issue in exorcism is identifying whether a person's condition is demonic possession or some other ailment, such as schizophrenia.  Exorcists have procedures they follow to determine if the case involves demonic possession, and then an exorcism is only performed if the evidence warrants it.  Another key issue is efficacy.  Sometimes the exorcism takes place over several sessions with an exorcist, and knowing whether the exorcism has been successful can be difficult to discern during the process.

Many members of the Catholic church, including many priests, do not believe in possession or in the efficacy of exorcism.  Perhaps this is a reason why there are actually very few exorcists relative to the size of the American Catholic population.  I wish the author would have spent more time exploring this idea.

Read to find out the author's best explanation for the rising demand for Catholic exorcisms.  The explanations relate to our understanding of the processes of secularization and forces that might work against secularization.

If you are interested, you can read more about Catholic exorcism at the web site for the International Catholic Association of Exorcists.  There are also several books that you can find on amazon.

Wild Wild Country

I highly recommend the documentary Wild Wild Country.  (available on Netflix).  Here's how the six-part series is described on imbd:

When a controversial guru builds a utopian city in the Oregon desert, it causes a massive conflict with local ranchers. This docuseries chronicles the conflict, which leads to the first bioterror attack in the United States and a massive case of illegal wiretapping. It is a pivotal, but largely forgotten, time in American cultural history that tested the country's tolerance for the separation of church and state.

Just watching the first two episodes alone provide a terrific insight into many of the ideas and topics from class.  You will get fresh insight into why people are drawn to new religious movements and how those movements encounter tension with their surrounding environments.  The creators of the documentary do an excellent job of letting both members of the group and members of the surrounding community provide their sides of the story.

Watching the series is not required for the class, but it is a great opportunity for you to see how many of the ideas we have discussed come to life in the real world.

Should the Government Collect Donations on the Church's Behalf?

Monetary donations to churches in the USA are made voluntarily and directly to the churches.  As a consequence, if a member of a church wants to skimp on her donations, she can easily do so, and it is difficult for a religious leader to know if the person donated a fair or proper amount.  Our economic senses should be tingling here.  There's a clear free-rider problem, and we should expect there to be quite a bit of free riding (or easy riding) as people hold back on contributing proper amounts.

Hence, the "church tax."  Under a church tax, the government works in tandem with religious groups in the collection of donations.  The proper donation amount (e.g., a particular percentage of income) is taken directly out of the person's paycheck, given to the government, and then passed from the government to the church.  The government already acts as a tax collection agency for itself because it removes regular government taxes from paychecks, but with a church tax, the government also becomes, in effect, a tax collection agency for the church.

By having the government collect the donations straight from paychecks, the church is able, in theory, to receive much larger donations from those persons that are skimping in their donations.  For one, the government can just take the donation directly, bypassing altogether the individuals' temptation to free ride.  But if a Catholic individual claims to not be Catholic to become exempt from the tax, then the government can report that claim to the church, and then the church can without religious services from that individual.  Read an earlier post about the church tax in Germany here.

Why bring this up?  Two reasons.

First, this is a form of government intervention in religion, and we will soon be discuss government interventions in religion in lecture.  So this is a opportunity for you to learn about actual church-state religions around the world.

Second, just last month, Catholic Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga of Kampala, Uganda, asked the Ugandan government to institute a church tax for Ugandan Catholics.  Read the story here.  The Archbishop had the German church tax in mind when making this request.  Identify the reasoning for the Archbishop's request for the church tax, but also identify the reasoning used by those who dislike the request.

Do you think that instituting a church tax in Uganda is a good idea?  Why or why not?  Will instituting help the Catholic Church in Uganda?  Or will it hurt?  What might be the effects of a church tax in the short run?  What might be the effects in the long run?

Faith Groups and Election Turnout

There's a nice article yesterday at the Religion News Service about the efforts that religious groups are making to increase voter turnout.  See article here.  These efforts come from religious groups on both sides of the political spectrum.

Religious groups and political activism have gone together for centuries in the USA.  This should not be too surprising when you remember that religious groups in the USA are collective action machines.  In theory, once they have solved their own collective action problems associated with religious production, they can branch out into other forms of collective action, including political activism.

An Argument for Blue Laws

"Blue laws" is the nickname for laws that prevent certain forms of commerce for religious reasons.  In the U.S.A., a common type of blue law is a law that forbids certain commercial or recreational activities on Sundays, but there are a variety of these laws.  Many of these laws were abolished during the mid-to-late twentieth century.  However, they were not abolished because they were deemed unconstitutional but rather because they were unwanted.  So that raises the question of whether the laws should be unwanted or should be brought back.

This article published at vox.com argues that they should be brought back because they improve overall well-being.  Here's a key part of the argument:

[W[hile the very secularly minded may celebrate the end of blue laws, seeing them as a violation of church-state separation, the result of blue law repeals may be distinctly non-progressive. To begin with, the Supreme Court has repeatedly, and fairly recently, ruled that blue laws are constitutional: The state can prohibit commercial activities on certain days, even if the days are selected for apparently religious reasons. The reasoning is that the state may have an interest in people spending social time away from work or commerce in a coordinated way, and it is reasonable for the state to accommodate existing social forms, such as religion.

While this may seem like a back door to the establishment of religion, it’s actually a distinctively progressive view of how the law functions. Implicitly, by approving blue laws, the Supreme Court is admitting the view that the state may implement very specific, apparently arbitrary rules to achieve non-economic, general well-being-related goals like “leisure time for workers."

In other words, blue laws are also a way that the state enshrines a special time for citizens to exercise rights to assembly, religious and secular. Assembly requires that people have time off together, so it doesn’t work to simply mandate that businesses close for any random 24-hour period, because that doesn’t ensure that people have time off together. The state cannot force you to go to church or a community meeting or spend time with loved ones, but it can force your employer to close up shop, raising the odds that you’ll invest in social and civic capital instead of paid labor. 

This compelling interest in togetherness is vital, as it suggests the state may have a valid legal interest in supporting the formation of strong communities and social bonds outside of taxpaying employment.

In short, blue laws can help communities for purely secular reasons in addition to religious reasons, and they do this by enhancing communities' abilities to thrive.

Read the entire article and try to answer a few questions.  What are other examples of blue laws?  What are examples of blue laws that are not religiously based?  Do you think that communities are better off with blue laws?  How convincing is the author of this article?

Managing Religion in the Workplace: A Business-School Perspective

Yesterday, Forbes Magazine published an article about trickiness in handling religious matters in the workplace.

How to handle religion in the workplace is a contentious and litigious issue that many business leaders struggle with. The subject is so third-rail hot that even Harvard Business School has devoted relatively few courses and case studies to it. 

“Religion and business is considered one of the last taboos,” says Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.” 

To fill that need, van Bever wrote the case study Managing Religion in the Workplace, using two high-profile cases of religious discrimination that were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years: one about a young Muslim woman who battled Abercrombie & Fitch for rejecting her job application because she wore a hijab for religious reasons; and the second about a baker whose religious beliefs compelled him to refuse to design a cake for a gay couple’s wedding reception.

These two legal cases received substantial attention in the news media, not surprisingly given both reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  Both the Muslim woman and the Christian baker won in the U.S. Supreme Court, though saying they "won" misses the many subtleties.

In the first case, the Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie mistreated the Muslim woman, but it did not rule that businesses have to agree to all religion-related requests from employees.  The issue is whether the business makes "reasonable accommodation" for the request.  It was deemed that Abercrombie did not in this instance.

In the second case, the Supreme Court ruled that there was inappropriate hostility toward the baker by the state of Colorado's employment commission, but it did not clarify whether or not bakers can refuse service to gay couples.  Confusion remains.

Read the entire article.  What do you think of the court rulings?  What lessons do you learn from these two cases?

Jewish Summer Camp

How do you best transmit your religious values to your children?  According to this Religion News Service article, sending your children to a Jewish summer camp might be one of the best ways to transmit Reform Jewish values.  Specifically, a survey conducted by the Reform Jewish movement:

...found that those who participated in overnight summer camps or immersive weekend-long getaways through the Reform youth movement were far more likely to be engaged in Jewish life in college and beyond and more committed to “doing good.”

Read the article and think about how attending a summer camp or weekend getaway would help in the transmission of religious values.  Do you believe the conclusion that attending a summer camp contributes to the transmission of values?

Note that the survey finds a statistical correlation.  It might be that the face-value interpretation -- namely, that attending a Jewish summer camp contributes to the transmission of Jewish values -- is correct. Yet, there is a second interpretation.  It might instead be that individuals who attend Jewish camps are not your average Reform Jews but are already committed to Jewish values.  So the correlation found in the study might merely reflect the alternative possibility that committed Jews are more likely to attend a Jewish summer camp, and that attending the camp does not actually enhance commitment.

Which interpretation do you think is correct?  Could both be true to a degree?

Pew's New Religious Typology

The Pew Forum has released a new report, The Religious Typology: A New Way to Categorize Americans by Religion (pdf here), that classifies Americans into three categories:  highly religious, somewhat religious, and non-religious.  Those categories are further broken down as shown in this table into the seven key groups that comprise the typology.

Broad categories	The seven groups	Description
Highly religious	Sunday Stalwarts	Traditional, actively involved in congregation.
	God-and-country Believers	Less active at church, socially and politically conservative, anti-immigrant
	Diversely Devout	Traditional plus belief in psychics, reincarnation, and spiritual energy
Somewhat religious	Relaxed Religious	Religion important personally but not necessary to be moral, not engaged in traditional practices
	Spiritually Awake	Believe in heaven, hell, and New Age belief, but do not engage in traditional practices
Non-religious	Religion Resisters	Believe organized religious more bad than good, politically liberal and Democratic
	Solidly Secular	Virtually no religious beliefs, reject New Age beliefs

Because the seven groups are constructed based on religious behaviors and beliefs, they will cut across the denominational identities often used to classify individuals.  For example, 13% of the Sunday Stalwarts are Catholic, but 25% of the Relaxed Religious are Catholic, as are 9% of the Religious Resisters.  Also, the Sunday Stalwart group includes individuals from non-Christian faiths (even though the do not technically worship on Sunday).

A primary merit of this seven-group classification is that it highlights some of the diversity in the American religious marketplace.  The challenge, of course, is to find the right number of groups.  To many and the classifications become meaningless, but too few and the classifications are also meaningless.  For this report, Pew used a statistical procedure called cluster analysis to let the data reveal what appear to be statistically coherent subgroupings in the data.  Doing this does involve making assumptions, such as what are the crucial data to include in the analysis.  Here, Pew included data from 16 particular survey questions about religious practices and broad beliefs.

Of course, this procedure ignores other forms of diversity, such as more particular theological beliefs, that are not captured in those 16 questions.  But this is the nature of social scientific inquiry:  some data are privileged over others, wisdom and care should be used in deciding on what is privileged;  and honesty about the pros and cons  and strengths and weaknesses of the analysis and results should be maintained.

Global Uptick in Government Restrictions on Religion in 2016

That is the title of a new publication by the Pew Research Center just released today.  See here.  The complete report in pdf is here.  Here are the first few paragraphs of the overview:

Restrictions on religion around the world continued to climb in 2016, according to Pew Research Center’s ninth annual study of global restrictions on religion. This marks the second year in a row of increases in the overall level of restrictions imposed either by governments or by private actors (groups and individuals) in the 198 countries examined in the study. 

The share of countries with “high” or “very high” levels of government restrictions – that is, laws, policies and actions by officials that restrict religious beliefs and practices – rose from 25% in 2015 to 28% in 2016. This is the largest percentage of countries to have high or very high levels of government restrictions since 2013, and falls just below the 10-year peak of 29% in 2012. 

Meanwhile, the share of countries with “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities involving religion – that is, acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society – remained stable in 2016 at 27%. Like government restrictions, social hostilities also peaked in 2012, particularly in the Middle East-North Africa region, which was still feeling the effects of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. The number of countries with high or very high levels of social hostilities declined in 2013 and has remained at about the same level since, but it is higher than it was during the baseline year of this study (2007). 

In total in 2016, 83 countries (42%) had high or very high levels of overall restrictions on religion – whether resulting from government actions or from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations and social groups – up from 80 (40%) in 2015 and 58 (29%) in 2007.

At the same time, most countries in the world continued to have low to moderate levels of religious restrictions. Looking separately at the global median scores on the Government Restrictions Index (a 10-point scale based on 20 indicators of government restrictions on religion) and the Social Hostilities Index (a 10-point scale based on 13 measures of social hostilities involving religion) offers a mixed picture of how religious restrictions are changing. In 2016, the global median score on the Government Restrictions Index ticked upward, from 2.7 to 2.8, while the median score on the Social Hostilities Index fell slightly, from 2.0 to 1.8.

The report provides a rich amount of information about religious restrictions.  It is a good start for a person or student that wants to understand the state of religious regulation around the world today.

Age Gaps in Religiosity Around the World

The Pew Research Center just released a study on the age gap in religiosity around the world.  By most measures, young adults tend to be less religious than older adults.  This is true in the U.S.A. as well as in many other countries, but there is variation across countries.  The full report in pdf can be found here.

The younger are less religious in forty-one countries, including the U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, much of South America, many countries in Western Europe, Russia, and Australia.  In only two countries -- Chad and Ghana -- are the older less religious.  In the other countries there is no difference or no data available.

What does this mean about the future of religion around the world?  The report states this:

The widespread pattern in which younger adults tend to be less religious than older adults may have multiple potential causes. Some scholars argue that people naturally become more religious as they age; to others, the age gap is a sign that parts of the world are secularizing (i.e., becoming less religious over time). (For a detailed discussion of theories about age gaps and secularization, see Chapter 1.) 

But even if parts of the world are secularizing, it is not necessarily the case that the world’s population, overall, is becoming less religious. On the contrary, the most religious areas of the world are experiencing the fastest population growth because they have high fertility rates and relatively young populations. 

Previously published projections show that if current trends continue, countries with high levels of religious affiliation will grow fastest. The same is true for levels of religious commitment: The fastest population growth appears to be occurring in countries where many people say religion is very important in their lives.

What to do with Unused Churches?

With the large decline in church attendance in Western Europe, you might be wondering what is going on at all the churches that used to have churchgoers but do not anymore.  Some are converted for other practical or mundane uses.  The converting of this church in Spain into the Kaos Temple Skate Park is particularly colorful.  Yet, the author of this article would rather have them be torn down and replaced than converted for more practical uses.

What do you think?  Should old churches be torn down or converted?

Christians in Western Europe

Our next lecture will discuss the process of secularization, a process that seems to be furthest along in Western Europe.  But just what exactly does religion look like in Western Europe?  Earlier today the Pew Research Center released a report titled "Being Christian in Western Europe" (complete report in pdf here) that answers exactly that question.  It's one sentence summary is:

The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.

Put differently, although church attendance rates are low, being Christian is still a meaningful notion in Europe as it does correlate with religious, political, and cultural views.

The report is long, but do read the overview page to find answers to these questions.

1. What country in Western Europe has the highest rate of church attendance?
2. Which is larger: the number of non-practicing Christians or the number of unaffiliated?
3. Who are more likely to express nationalist views:  non-practicing Christians or church-attending Christians?
4. What percent of church-attending Christians favor legal gay marriage?
5. Those that report "none" for their religious affiliation might still believe in God or a higher power.  For which Western European countries, is the rate of agnostic or atheists among the "nones" the highest?

The Economics of Church Solar Panels

This article about churches installing solar panels combines religious teachings, church financing, and government regulation all into one story.  Many religious individuals feel compelled to install solar panels on their church buildings both to be better stewards of the environment but also to cut costs.  Churches with enough members are able to raise donations to install solar panels, but smaller congregations are less successful in raising the large funds necessary to pay for the installation.

Well, one church in North Carolina made a deal with a solar company such that the company would install the panels for free if the church would buy its electricity from the company instead of the local power company.  But last week the state's Supreme Court ruled that this arrangement violated state regulations because the local power company was the only authorized seller of electricity.  Read the article to find out what will happen with those solar panels.

Many churches are now fighting for the law to change to make clean energy more accessible for other churches.  Do the churches have a strong case?  Should the state changes its regulations about the sale of electricity?

Episcopalians and the Royal Wedding

The Episcopal Church is the US-based denominational arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion.  It has gone through some tough times in recent decades as it has dealt with both diminishing membership and internal disputes over issues such as same-sex marriage.  So it might not be surprising that the upcoming royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is welcome event that will generate some positive press and excitement.

As reported in this article, Episcopalians in the USA are indeed trying to use the wedding as positive marketing moment -- especially because an American bishop will be delivering the wedding sermon.  This is an opportunity for the Episcopal Church to get some attention and publicity.  Even congregations are setting up viewing parties to take advantage of the excitement.

But taking advantage of the excitement does not necessarily entail a permanent and lasting enthusiasm or interest.  Do you think that this moment will have a lasting effect on the Episcopal Church as a whole?  What about for a few individuals?  Can you use an economic approach to answer these questions?

USCIRF 2018 Annual Report

The USCIRF released in Annual Report.  See the announcement here and the full report here (pdf here).

The report is quite long and too much to make it all required.  You will be reading parts of it to complete one of your HW assignments later this quarter.  But for now you should at least read the Overview.

The information the report contains is extremely useful and valuable for understanding religious persecution around the world.  But it is the designating of CPCs that is the most consequential aspect of the report.

Grave Sucking

According to this article, it has also been called "grave soaking" or "mantle grabbing."  The idea is to lay prostrate on the surface above the grave of a holy person and soak up the spiritual power of that person as it leaks from that person's buried body.

The title of the article refers to this practice as "crazy," and its conclusion seems to reveal that the author is highly skeptical of the merits of the practice.  Yet, it is not obvious to me that practice is crazier than other religious practices such as praying, giving offerings, wearing religious tokens, or participating in other religious rites.  Grave sucking is less common that those other practices to be sure, but because a practice is less common or outside traditional practice does not imply that it is necessarily less valid.

However, perhaps the issue of credibility may be more subtle?  Do you think that a practice may be perceived as less credible because it is less common?  That is, is there some possible logical connection between the frequency with which a religious practice is undertaken and its credibility and efficacy?

Religious Freedom in Burma

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (you will learn more about them this quarter) just released a brief report update on religious freedom in Burma.  It is only four pages, so definitely read the entire report (pdf here).

Some questions for you to consider as you read the report:

• What religious group(s) is facing persecution?
• What types of persecution?
• Why has this group(s) been targeted?
• Has there been an increase in human rights violations?  A decrease?  Neither?

The Church of England Goes Cashless

Technology affects the operations of religious groups in many ways.  As explained in this article at Religion News Service, one of those ways is the way that members pay for various church services or make donations.  In short:

The Church of England has now decided to make their financial transactions easier. Instead of expecting people to rummage for a few coins or bills, it plans to introduce cashless, contactless payments in its 16,000 churches and cathedrals.

The payment machines will first be used for funeral fees, wedding notices or even to buy a coffee after the service. Later, people will also be able to make their weekly offering with the machines.

Question to consider:  Will this change lead to an increase in donations in the Church of England?

Mormon Missionary Work Online

Mormon (LDS) missionaries going door-to-door is a classic image of the type of evangelizing that religious groups used in days past, but times are changing.  And this is true for Mormons as well as they are expanding their online proselytizing efforts.  The church now staffs an increasing number of missionaries at computers to connect and interact with religious investigators online, rather than sending those missionaries out to knock on doors.

The motivation is well stated by one of the church leaders:

We recognize that the methods and the approaches that we’re using to do missionary work need to change with what’s going on in our society with technology.

Adaptation in the face of changing circumstances is one of the secrets to long-run proselytizing success.  In this case we see adaptation in the face of changes in how people interact with technology drives.

Scientology TV Network

The Church of Scientology is about to launch its own TV network today.  It can be viewed on Scientology.tv but also on DirecTV, Apple TV, Roku, plus more.  This is not the first religious organization to create a TV network, of course, but it is interesting in that it allows a group that has received so much negative publicity in other media outlets to spread its message directly to interested parties.

Will this be a successful endeavor?  How would the church measure success?

California Megachurches Changed American Christian Culture

That's the topic of this article at RNS by Richard Flory.  He explains how the California megachurches that arose in the last half of the twentieth century led the way in merging various aspects of culture with religious life and practice.  His two key examples -- the Crystal Cathedral and the Calvary Chapel -- are both only minutes away from UC Irvine.  Megachurches are still thriving in California;  there are over 200 in California, which is more than in any other state.

Flory writes:

Current iterations of California megachurches, such as Mosaic and Oasis in Los Angeles, C3 (now VIVE Church) in the Bay Area, among others, follow a similar script and arguably build on elements of California culture: the promise of a comfortable experience in church, the opportunity to feel good about oneself, and participation in a community of like-minded people that doesn’t require any deeper commitments unless one so desires.

Across the country, the broader impact of the California churches can be seen in the different ways that megachurches, such as City Church in Seattle, which caters to young Christian hipsters, or the more family-oriented programming at Willow Creek in Chicago, have adapted their purpose and programming to specific cultural currents in order to create their own unique identity – an approach pioneered in California.