Thursday, January 31, 2019

Ethiopian Church Forests

See this nice article and images at nature.com.  These church forests are little pockets of forest and lush habitat built around churches.  They contain some of the last remaining pockets of forest that once covered Ethiopia.  Conservationists and churches are teaming up to preserve this part of their heritage.

Pew Forum Report on Religion, Civic Engagement and Well-being

Earlier today the Pew Forum released a new report titled "Religion's Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World."  Full report in pdf here.

The report does not really report much that is new, but it does provide a nice summary of some well-known statistical patterns across a range of over twenty countries, the U.S.A. included.  For example, people that attend church tend to report higher levels of happiness and tend to be more involved in civic activities than others.

The report classifies people into three categories:  actively religious, inactively religious, and religiously unaffiliated.  It is those in the first category that report higher levels of happiness and civic engagement.  Measures of health show fewer differences.  The actively religious report being in very good health at higher rates and are less likely to smoke or drink, but they do not exercise more.

Monday, January 14, 2019

Buddhism in America

This short JSTOR piece describes what Buddhism was like when it first came to the United States.  For the early Buddhists from Japan, it quickly morphed in some ways into something like American Christianity.  Buddhist temples were built using European-American styles, worshippers sat on pews, music used pipe organs, and more.  In the 1950s, Zen Buddhist critics argued that the practices were too Christian.

There is also a JSTOR piece on today's American-style Buddhism.  According to religion scholar Peter N. Gregory, "American-style Buddhism is defined by six traits: strong lay involvement, a focus on meditative practices, democratic ideals, parity for women, social action, and openness to Western psychology."

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

USCIRF's Standards for Religious Group Registration

This month the USCIRF issued a factsheet about laws pertaining to the registration of religious groups.  The intent is to list some standards to apply when creating such laws in order to preserve religious freedom and uphold the standards of:
USCIRF encourages all countries to develop registration requirements for religious
organizations that meet international human rights standards, protect the right to
freedom of religion or belief, and allow religious communities to acquire and maintain
legal personality.
Find the full factsheet here.  The standards are:
  • Registration of religious groups cannot be mandatory.  (Registration can only be required to confer legal personality and must not be compulsory in order to practice religion.)
  • Legislation cannot contain undue restrictions or other bureaucratic burdens that hinder access to legal personality.
  • Requirements for registration must be precise and defined.
  • Registration laws must be non-discriminatory.
  • Religious organizations must be carefully defined.  (To the extent that religion is defined, the belief in God must not be required.)
  • Registration requirements cannot be onerous or invasive. (Certain thresholds, such as a high minimum membership numbers or lengthy requirements for existence in a state, can exclude particular religious groups.)
  • There must be avenues for appealing denials.

Monday, January 7, 2019

The Ukranian Orthodox Church

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is part of the Eastern Orthodox communion.  For centuries it has been organized under the Russian Orthodox Church, but with tensions between Russia and Ukraine continuing to increase, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has sought to sever its Russian connection.  The Ecumenical Patriarch leader for the Eastern Orthodox communion, Bartholomew I, supported the split and yesterday made an official decree granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.  See this NY Times article.

Splits can happen for many reasons.  In the U.S.A., which has a strong separation of church and state, schism happens primarily for doctrinal reasons.  But in this case, the split is about the climate of national politics, not religious teachings.  Ukrainians are very critical of their treatment by Russia and see this as a step towards greater independence from Russia.  For that reason, they refer to this split not as a schism but as an alignment that assures independence.

The desire to gain this independence goes back thirty years to when Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union.  But it finally happened yesterday.

There may still remain some conflict as this historical event plays out.  For example, there may be some conflicts over ownership of church properties.  The religious leaders have made their move, supported by the political leaders.  We will see if judges will be required to make moves as well.