1
10
354
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/c96f7e52043d106b5b39657ed883b442.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=CTGrHNKq1-s3Iumz0gU-7-PqaZhWEED6PGe0ZLsPxZIJxFx3dmhwSiqTjA8oIat2fabLgkFop3ZYzXH3qRlwQWYtNegxFFG0ZEf-L0OgkdKtVoRRhtg8m0JAHvs64JML5bun0KTqBGAENy3sHnO3G0YiM5RfyOVafSAivYfC0rdF4cQ6jIR6IEzAg4acwaMR2VV3uAVqgLTsuUXgbNCSgoE5DMNWXbGiG78msM7M7HqDf8uEQyDgKErPk4vkXGzBlC5wVtV6o%7ElbsaXRXqDjwlkAcJiyPxJWqnp60pAJvIK-H3Y1pgyTRz9Vm6UHWs5bKDbrEja1ks8PwlQFuAM5Ew__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
3e325a13fad327e871de1a12ba956421
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christian Science
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, also known as Christian Science, a form of Protestant Christianity
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
PDF scan of newspaper pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
First Church of Christ, Scientist: ‘where people have been healed for 100 years’
Learn more at today’s open house
By Sharon Kant-Rauch
DEMOCRAT FAITH EDITOR
Perhaps you’ve heard the term Christian Science, walked by the First Church of Chris t, Scientist downtown or glanced in a Christian Science Reading Room.
But do you know what it’s all about?
If not, today you’ll have a chance to find out as the church hosts an open house, a speaker and an organ concert as part of its 100-year anniversary.
“Letting people know that there exists a church in Tallahassee where people have been healed for 100 years, that’s our main objective,” said Vicki Sheffield, a Christian Science practitioner.
Since Mary Baker Eddy founded the denomination in 1879, healing — including physical and emotional — has been the focus of the church. Eddy believed that man is spiritual.
Since our spiritual nature reflects the perfectness of God, if we are aligned with that perfectness, we can be…
Being healed from grief is what first brought Sheffield to the church. She was attending Florida State University in the 1960s when her father was murdered in South Florida. Shaken and depressed, she wandered from church to church, trying to find relief from her suffering.
One day a woman offered her a ride home * • from band practice. She was a Christian Scientist, and she gave Sheffield a copy of.Eddy’s book “Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures.” From the first words, “To those leaning on the sustaining hooked.
“light flooded my consciousness ” she said. “It was just what I needed.”
.Sheffield later became a Christian Science practitioner — someone who has gone through a two- week training, performed three healings (verified by the patient) and agrees to work full time as a practitioner.
Judy Clark, a member of the church for 30 years, said her first healing helped her stop smoking. At the time, she was 21” years old and smoking up to two packs a day. She had tried to quit before, but had been unsuccessful. She decided to give Christian Science a try.
A Christian Science practitioner came over to her house and talked with her. Clark can’t remember the details of what they discussed that day, but she remembers his advice: Say the Lord’s Prayer, not by rote, but with real intention.
Clark said the prayer driving to work, on a break, any chance she had. By the end of the week, when she was cleaning house and found a pack a cigarettes, she realized she hadn’t smoked in a week. Quitting had been effortless.
“That gave me encouragement,” Clark said. “This really works. I can do this.”*
Today Clark doesn’t get routine physical exams or tests unless required by insurance. She said she used Christian Science for the occasional illnesses of her three children.
“I could count on one hand anything that was really serious,” she said. Things were handled quickly.”
Pat Pieratte, who has been a Christian Scientist all her life, said when she gets sick or has an accident such as burning herself on the stove, she begins declaring that she is a creation 6f God, and that as God’s creation she is spiritual, not material. She reflects on a quality of God such as spirit, soul, life, truth or love that best fits her situation. She said a healing occurs right then or in a few days. She recently had a crown put on her tooth without the use of novocaine.
The wonderful thing about Christian Science is that when you get healed it’s not only a physical thing, you advance spiritually,” she said. “If you go to a doctor, only your body may get healed”
(Harold Koenig, codirector of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, wrote in an e-mail that he wasn’t aware of any “scientific study or objective documentation of Christian Science healings.”)
As a result of Christian Scientists’ reliance on payer, many people assume Christian Scientists are not allowed to go to doctors. Not true, Sheffield said. Church members are free to go to a doctor anytime without risk of condemnation or expulsion. It’s an individual decision. Clark, for instance, complied with the vaccinations and physical exams the law required for her children to attend school.
The public also often confuses Christian Science with Scientology. The First Church of Christ, Scientist is a Christian church that uses the Bible and Eddy’s writings as its foundational literature.
Scientology was founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard. It incorporates ideas from many religions and postulates that humans are immortal, that their experiences extend beyond a single lifetime, and that their capabilities are unlimited, according to Scientology’s official Web site. One of Scientology’s most famous followers is actor Tom Cruise.
A similarity between the two religions is that they offer spiritual solutions to physical problems.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist doesn’t have a creed, a doctrine or a clergy. To be a church, as opposed to a society, one of tiie members must be a practitioner.
Two other positions at the church include the First and Second Readers, who speak at Sunday services. The sermon consists of one Reader reading from the Bible, and the Second Reader reading from Eddy’s writings.
On Wednesday night, there’s another reading, and a chance for people to give testimonies about their healings, which deal with problems in any area of life — physical, emotional or financial. It’s often a time when members pray for healing the sins of the larger society.
Six days a week the Christian Science reading room, which recently moved from the North- wood Mall to a small building next to the church on Adams Street, is open to the public. The room contains the writings of Eddy that date back to the 1800s and church periodicals and newspapers up to the present.
Sheffield said overall the services, and the healings, are really very simple.
“God is right there, talking to us,” she said. “He is trying to make us aware that he is here.”
IF YOU GO
■ What: First Church of Christ, Scientist centennial celebration and open house.
■ When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today.
■ Where: 122 N. Adams St.
SCHEDULE
■ 1 p.m. Organ recital by church organist James Amene, a graduate of FSU’s College of Music.
■ 2 p.m. Speaker Betty J. O’Neal from Lynn, Mass., will give a lecture titled “Perplexed? Learn how Christian Science heals.”
■ The Reading Room will be open during the entire open house.
Christian Science began with 19th-century woman
By Sharon Kant-Rauch
DEMOCRAT FAITH EDITOR
Mary Baker Eddy, bom in 1821, was a sickly child and as an adult suffered from illnesses that caused her to spend weeks in bed.
After her first husband died in 1844, she was sick so often that her only child had to be raised * by family members and neighbors.
In 1866, she fell on the ice in Lynn, Mass., causing injuries so severe she thought she was going to die. One night, she reached for the Bible and began reading about the healings of Jesus. She was healed and got out of bed.
She spent the next three years studying the Bible and coming up with what she called Christian Science — a set of principles she believed explained the laws of God and creation. When applied, she believed they could bring about healings of all kinds.
In 1875, she published her book “Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures” and in 1879, founded the First Church of Christ, Scientist.
She was vilified by many, including the author Mark Twain, but her church and her teachings spread throughout the world. Today, the Mother Church is in Boston, Mass., and has 1,800 branches worldwide.
In 1908, when Eddy was 87 years old, she started the newspaper The Christian Science Monitor. Today it is an international daily newspaper that publishes Monday through Friday. It has won seven Pulitzer Prizes.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Church of Christ, Scientist Centennial
Description
An account of the resource
Tallahassee Democrat article on the Tallahassee Christian Science Church celebrating its centennial.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Kant-Rauch, Sharon
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tallahassee First Church of Christ, Scientist
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Scan of article courtesy of Tallahassee First Church of Christ, Scientist
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Tallahassee Democrat
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
18 Oct 2008
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyrighted
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF scan of newspaper pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Newspaper
2008
centennial
Christian
Christian Church
Christian Science
christian sects
newspaper clipping
October
Tallahassee
Tallahassee Churches
Tallahassee Democrat
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/083c9dd5b4cde31e3e8cae5f1463e7d7.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=szCCZFRu7HbELCQFEMGzUkD0CaavLOBjtw7Y1VvYDCW2ttJgsG2UqcbNMgvhRyOt18kJkD%7EJJVibg2d4jQagOxZAgEkBJ44NUSg4Yo5rZUkBLPih8tE6jbS2skhdRMdYRD8WPGnoFFcLRYW6P7vRNW56-8bHDpz6ySZOdnN562MQnBKVDJIk7OF32MS8xkOnFkfx8OXANvmHTphHiSgJdTpVHJjR8Zq3XMl4YgHXiAofytywwBpsP%7EtyqOdHgNQhJ7cWBcM78em23WKxmuWxCPMw7RTwn-C6sTehEF5mVAjTe8fiRYZqfFUkHAYTZivSK-tQlZaSiMWNVopKQ%7EeSIw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d4559b428ae58809754c2c703e802326
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to the religion of Christianity
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Having been raised Jewish and somewhat observant of the religion my whole life, Christianity is something that cannot be avoided growing up in America, especially in the South, where I am from. However I never really knew much about the religion other than what I saw from my friends in school. To go to a church, research its history, and learn about their community is something that was completely foreign to me, but a very exciting to experience.
The Church that I attended for this project was Meridian Woods Church of Christ. The vision statement of the church is “We are One People, Following One King, Serving One Purpose.” And their mission statement is “To create an atmosphere where people from all walks of life can serve G-d in genuine unity (Calling); to follow wholeheartedly the will of G-d as He transforms us through the Holy Spirit, His Word, and prayer (Commitment); to connect people, (Action) Each as a means to glorify G-d.” This was clearly evident as I walked into the church for the first time. When I walked in, I was met graciously by every single person there even though they had no idea who I was. I sat down with Campus Minister Adam Farnsworth to gather the history of Meridian Woods
Like all other Churches of Christ, Meridian Woods is autonomous, meaning that they create their own rules and laws to follow. Meridian Woods was established in 1961, and they had a group of eleven elder members of the church propose a set of laws and to this day they still follow them. The church was originally established in 1961 on Call Street so they would be close to campus. Being close to campus allowed Meridian Woods attract many college students looking for a close community that they can provide. Although Meridian Woods Church of Christ is now located 2870 North Meridian Rd. Tallahassee, Fl, they still attract many college aged students to their Church. The Meridian Woods Church of Christ sets out to be much more of a community feel rather than just a religious institution. The Church strives to embrace diversity in the community and does not discriminate towards anyone.
Meridian Woods was initially founded to be more of a community for college aged students, however the community of the church today welcomes everyone and their congregation reflects it. The Sixties were a turbulent time for college campuses, especially Florida State with all of the protesting going on in Tallahassee; FSU was nicknamed “Berkley of the South.” During this time discrimination, prejudice, and racism were sadly common occurrences, but when the church was originally founded, it stood firm in its mission Statement that all walks of life are welcome. One unique rule of the church that has been institutionalized that exemplifies this is that there is no discrimination during communion.
Another example of Meridian Woods’ values of diversity and acceptance in the community is a story about a member of the church who today has a plaque in his honor. In the early 1970’s before there was a huge HIV/AIDS crisis in the nation, the church accepted a man named James McLeod who was diagnosed with AIDS, despite whatever sentiments or stigmas there may have been about the disease at that time. This probably did not sit well with many of the congregants at that time, but Meridian Woods accepted him with open arms because they were not exclusive and hold their original values very highly. This was before the time of rampant fear of the disease in America, however McLeod still chose to sit in the same seat in the same pew in the top right corner of the church to be somewhat further away from the rest of the congregation every time as to
not make anyone else uncomfortable. Today he is commemorated with a plaque (to the right) on the pew where he sat during services so he will be remembered, also more importantly to emphasize the church’s unwavering commitment to their values and mission statement.
After gathering a good background history of the church from the Minister, I asked him a few questions about his thoughts on the church, and the community of the church itself. Minister Adam Farnsworth has been a Minister at Meridian Woods Church of Christ for seven years. In those years he said that the biggest change he has witnessed in the congregation is the growing numbers and diversity the of members. Because the Church of Christ is a denomination of Christianity that leaves autonomy to the individual churches, Meridian Woods has been able to stand by their core beliefs of creating at atmosphere where all walks of life can serve G-d.
Today, Meridian Woods Church of Christ provides meals open to the public every Wednesday, midweek worship services, as well as the normal Sunday worship services and bible class. There are over 43,000 different congregations of the Church of Christ in the USA, and over 2 million members of the church. There are over ten Church of Christ churches in Tallahassee, and Minister Farnsworth claims that it is the “most diverse” in the city. Minister Farnsworth attributes this diversity to their original core values and mission statement, but as well as their community outreach programs that focus on reaching out to college students on campus.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Meridian Woods Church of Christ
Description
An account of the resource
Meridian Woods Church of Christ is an autonomous church in Tallahassee, Fl. This church was founded in 1961 originally on Call Street but now reside in their new location off Meridian Road.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smith, P. Max
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Max P. Smith
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Information courtesy of Meridian Woods Church of Christ
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Meridian Woods Church of Christ
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1990-2016
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
Subject
The topic of the resource
Meridian Woods Church of Christ
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/afbce2e14eda8562895aa4bfcdcacb43.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=t0kMkU1VRL4dEjpDKAy5lpKZ3VWAg5QELpwZ2i6j6RLvt-ccmQYY-TGJxM-2VGjBZJuC7cAi-Qvns1pWU43G1q47%7EwVqep1RWnD0Zqx-NvCg6Fb9jmTcttsEZRjiuYEnqitWgAGJIzMIXiUDdIeAA5l5lfklgDPjV-VzdsKJVnqG4gZtHHi9IoeqwSgg6dT2zPb4-0Vd5la%7E1x6T7LY77ETpDLpLpwhJb5Debm0ApneMmAf7DiJbEaVqfnxRNsd1pw9tXSSVBmp380iwnSlYFQApQcnzb5SkksTEFsc3ER5LoV6qUPCH8l4Q99jz5FDP%7EWIrkTGc%7E41luGX90KCd2w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
513ea41317046c95deaa7c7663fbd24a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to the religion of Christianity
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Mitchell Gable REL 1300 Professor John L. Crow 22 April 2016
The Questionable Future of Christianity in the United States
In a nation where most Americans “identify themselves as Christians,” the religion of
Christianity has long been a prominent and influential part of America (Orwin 27). The United
States has become an extremely diversified nation, bringing in people of all races and religion.
Yet, Christianity still remains the most dominant religion in America. Although Christianity is
slowly conceding some of its influence to other religions as the nation becomes more religiously
diversified, Christianity’s influence remains incomparable to that of any other religion present in
the U.S. However, due to the increasing divide between Christianity and American citizens on
the issue of same-sex marriage, as well as the decreased willingness of Christians to express and
impose their beliefs, Christianity will begin to concede a larger portion of its influence within the
U.S., and at a potentially faster, and more detrimental rate.
America’s rapidly shifting views on same-sex marriage pose a threat to the future of
Christianity’s favorability and influence. Christianity has long denounced homosexuality, and
the increasing acceptance of homosexuality among the American public could produce even
more negative perceptions of Christian values. The consequences for Christianity as a result of
their stance on same-sex marriage will become apparent in the coming decades. Even more
problematic for the future of Christianity is the rate that the acceptance of homosexuality is
increasing at within the age group of the U.S. with the longest life expectancy, the youth of
America, as well as within the most Christian region in the U.S., the South.
2
According to Rod Dreher, the South is the only region in the U.S. “where fewer than 50
percent of all those polled endorse same-sex marriage” (45). However, that percent will increase
significantly in the next few decades, as a “Gallup poll revealed that 80 percent of young
Americans believe in same-sex marriage” (45). The shifting views on homosexuality in the
South is evidenced by “one of the most socially conservative and religiously observant states,”
Louisiana, where a “shrinking majority opposes gay marriage” (45).
Religious leaders realize the potentially severe backlash that Christianity could receive
from young Americans as a result of the religion’s opposition to same-sex marriage. Some
religious leaders are even being advised to avoid the topic completely when young Americans
are present in order to mitigate any potential damage to Christianity. According to Dreher, in
2014, just before a clergyman gave a speech on religion at a private school in the socially
conservative state of Louisiana, he was given a warning from a teacher: “Don’t talk about gay
marriage” (45). Young Americans are not only becoming more accepting of homosexuality, but
there is also an unparalleled “intensity of feeling on the subject [homosexuality] among the
young” (45). The intensity of pro-gay marriage views among the youth could potentially
expedite and multiply negative perceptions of the Christian brand in the near future. The
Louisiana clergyman also provides an example of this intensity. After questioning the teachers’
initial warning, the clergyman was given an explanation: “If these kids find out that you are
against gay marriage, they won’t listen to a thing you have to say about anything” (45).
The consequences that Christianity could experience due to their opposition to gay
marriage can only be classified as speculation at this point. However, the statistics fueling
speculation should give Christians reason to worry. Based off of the Gallup poll revealing that
“80 percent of young Americans believe in same-sex marriage” (45), it appears to be more
3
probable than not that the overwhelming majority of the American public will hold views in
support of same-sex marriage within several decades.
Despite the increasingly diverse demographics of the United States, Wesley A. Kort
claims that diversity has had minimal impact on the influence of Christianity in the U.S.
According to Kort, the United States’ diversity has not “produced partitions, open discord, or
religious suppression” and this is “one of the remarkable things about American culture” (467).
Although America’s history has been plagued by the hatred and discriminatory treatment of
Native Americans and African Americans by the dominant white society, Kort claims that these
hostile attitudes represent outliers of American attitudes as a whole. Instead, America has
proven that it embraces diversity, and treats it “not primarily as a problem,” but rather as an asset
that facilitate the reduction of religious tensions in the U.S. (Kort 467).
In contrast to Kort’s claims, other sources of research have found that diversity has, in
fact, hurt Christianity’s influence within the U.S., but not enough to create any significant
concerns for the religion just yet. A Gallup poll in 2014 surveyed 200 “upper middle class and
middle class” American citizens across the nation, and concluded that “Americans are a religious
people” (Orwin 26). Regarding those polled who identified as Christian, Gallup concluded that
“moderation and toleration are the bedrock principles of the American middle class” (26). Alan
Wolfe, the author of One Nation, After All, a book that analyzed the results of this poll, reached
additional conclusions about the data. Wolfe’s findings point to no noticeable decrease in
religious affiliation among Americans. However, Wolfe finds that Christians are less willing to
impose or express their beliefs to non-Christians. Wolfe claims that “a large number of those to
whom we spoke, fear that morality if understood as a set of moral injunctions, can lead to
intolerance, an outcome unacceptable to a people as nonjudgmental as middle-class Americans”
4
(26). Wolfe further asserts that “Americans take their religion seriously,” but out of fear for
appearing intolerant, they refuse to establish “rules about how other people should live” (26).
Even in a nation that is becoming increasingly more diversified and accepting of other
religious beliefs, Orwin claims that “most Americans still identify themselves as Christians”
(27). However, Orwin also alludes to a decrease in the religion’s influence, saying “their
[Christians] Christianity lacks coattails” (27). To demonstrate his point, Orwin describes
Christianity as being, in the past, “the one culture practiced by the one nation,” but goes on to
say that Christianity “has now slipped into the status of a subculture” (28).
Tolerance, moderation, and acceptance of other cultures and religions are among the
most important principles of the middle class, America’s largest social hierarchy. The
population of the U.S. is continuing to increase, and with a larger population comes more races,
more religions, and more diversity. Tolerance, moderation, and acceptance will become more of
the normality as people interact and associate with the increasingly diversified population of the
U.S. As the these three principles become more prominent, Americans will be less willing to
impose or express their religious beliefs, be it beliefs of Christianity, Judaism, or any other
religion present in the U.S. The influence of all American religions will decrease as the displays
of religious beliefs become suppressed, but this will not necessarily diminish the overall
influence or status of any particular religion in proportion to another religion. It will however,
magnify any further losses of influence or status incurred by religions in other ways, such as
through a decrease in the number of followers of a religion, or through negative public
perception of a religion’s teachings. As the most popular and influential religion in the U.S.,
Christianity has the most to lose, making it the most vulnerable religion in an increasingly
diversified nation.
5
As the youth of today’s America age and the elderly of today begin to die off, the
percentage of American citizens with pro-gay marriage views will increase, as a much higher
percentage of America’s youth have favorable views of gay marriage in comparison to the views
of older American citizens. Assuming that the “intensity of feeling on the subject
[homosexuality] among the young” (Dreher 45) stays true, Christianity and its opposition to
same-sex marriage will have to deal with an American public that overwhelmingly and intensely
supports same-sex marriage, and extremely dislikes anyone who opposes same-sex marriage.
This will put Christianity into a very tough and uncomfortable position. Christianity may be
forced to either completely redefine their values and lose the trust, respect, and support of their
followers, or risk severe backlash from the American public while losing a significant portion of
their influence and status in America.
Christianity is currently the most popular and influential religion in the United States.
Christianity may appear to be in a comfortable position right now, but that could change in
several decades. Christianity faces a questionable future when considering the changing views of
the American public and the continuous increase of diversity within the country. As a result of
the increasing divide between Christianity and American citizens on the issue of same-sex
marriage, as well as the decreased willingness of Christians to express and impose their beliefs,
Christianity will concede a larger portion of its influence within the U.S. at a potentially faster,
and more detrimental rate. The religion of Christianity will be forced to make some very
difficult decisions in the near future. Those decisions will determine the future of the religion,
for better or for worse.
Works Cited
Orwin, Clifford. “The unraveling of Christianity in America.” Issue 155. Public Interest. Spring
2004. Web. 22 April 2016.
Drefer, Rod. “Christian and Countercultural.” Issue 250. First Things: A Monthly Journal of
Religion & Public Life. Feb 2015. Web. 22 April 2016.
Kort, Wesley A. “Christianity, Literature, and Cultural Conflict in America.” Vol. 56 Issue 3.
Duke University. Spring 2007. Web. 22 April 2016.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
8.5x11 PDF
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Questionable Future of Christianity in the United States
Description
An account of the resource
Essay analyzing the changing perceptions and influence of Christianity in the United States.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gable, Mitchell J.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mitchell J. Gable
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Written by Mitchell J. Gable
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-22
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5x11 PDF
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
PDF
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity United States
American Culture
American Religion
Christianity
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/e721db2f5b15b162daf04071da0e6201.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=f0RAPhzjkkH9cbD4Ut1LegHbruVv70N61E3j1cu56Y-kEXAvgMfT8ytUPEBPCDTz3KJnRx49PrhT%7EZ1Ecx56nlRV8ynR43zk20iFwiozB%7EpJLUfDzMRvnPT4Hg2cCwClebvnSbL8QUTkYpaQbfiDYMoQA1ffK2I2L1hmlQMyqnSPNjeedyUu0EdypI7ZpN4SajGFpOOLO6wIYCv5KLWEzcGnC4C5jRn5eOIUsjQ1P7o%7EJIZDALQCwbZEqMquAnemxt7tuOoYnVMKPvaU-cXb3pp6R62Ij8ENJb4lrC%7EZFk4J9iywYaODhPAYyyMlSfJkdk9pKPRRTdGSRPplIT%7ErYA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8cad7349218aee7cc7166a7d127a5f14
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to the religion of Christianity
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Dunn 1
Kelly Dunn
Dr. John L. Crow
REL 1300
April 22, 2016
Westboro Baptist Church: The Church of Hate
In a vast majority of Christian beliefs, it is believed that God is the God of love,
that He hates the sin but loves the sinner, and that He commands us to love our neighbors
as He loves us. However, there is one religious group that does not practice this common
belief. The Westboro Baptist Church is notoriously known for its homophobic, and
antimilitary
protests and picketing outside funeral with messages of hate and disgust.
Groups targeted by these protests, such as the military, homosexuals, victims of natural
disaster, etc. have labeled Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) as a hate group because of
the picketing and their blatantly and purposefully hateful message.
According to Ryan and Leeson, "Hate groups are organizations of individuals
whose 'beliefs or practices attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their
immutable characteristics' such as race or sexual orientation, but sometimes for their
mutable ones, such as religious beliefs" (256). Though Westboro Baptist Church has
never used physical violence on another individual while picketing, they do verbally
berate and antagonize their intended target "'THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS.
SOLDIERS DIE, GOD LAUGHS. FAG TROOPS. DON'T WORSHIP THE DEAD.
Dunn 2
YOUR SONS ARE IN HELL." (Baker, Bader, and Hirsch 42) are just a few of the
spiteful and offensive words plastered on posters and shouted at protests by the members
of the church. Many groups have been affected by this type of harassment and
discrimination from the church for years, with evidence of the church's message of hate
dating back to the church's birth in 1955.
The Westboro Baptist Church was founded in Topeka, Kansas in 1955 by
minister and Civil Rights lawyer Fred W. Phelps, Sr. "He preached a strict version of
double and absolute predestination Calvinist Theology that viewed God as omnipotent, in
every sense; hence the group's claim that God "causes" disasters and tragedies." (Baker,
Bader and Hirsch 43). Most of the church members are consisted of his family members
and remain in small numbers of about seventy to eighty members. Most of the members
when asked to describe characteristics of God, all described Him to be "wrathful" and
"angry" (44). Most Christians would not immediately describe God with such
characteristics because we hear in preachings about His love first and foremost before
His wrath and anger. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" ( The MacArthur Study
Bible, John 3.16) is arguably one of the most well known verses in the Bible when it
comes to God and his declaration of His love for us. What the verse is trying to say is that
God sent His only son to forgive us of our sins and that if we believe that Jesus is the Son
of God then we will be accepted into Heaven. When it comes to loving your enemies,
Matthew 6:4345
says "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor
and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who
Dunn 3
persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" ( The MacArthur
Study Bible ). Jesus is declaring here that when it was said to hate your enemy, you must
now love him to show that you are sons of the Father. By not showing love to your
enemy, you are not showing yourself to be a son of the Father, a Christian. God says as
well "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses" (Matt. 6. 1415).
In order for God to forgive us, we must also forgive
others as well; by not doing so we are not forgiven for our sins. These are just a couple of
the numerous examples saying how God is a God of love but the WBC focuses on God's
anger and wrath for main characteristics to satisfy their beliefs to protest against others.
The homosexuals have been targeted by Westboro Baptist Church and blamed for
disasters dating back to 1989. Their first protest was in a local park at Topeka, Kansas
protesting in response to a "tearoom" (44). Since then they have continued to relentlessly
picket against homosexuals and those who are activists for LGBT. These protests spread
to funerals in 1991, usually of those who were victims of AIDS and they began to gain
media attention in the mid 1990s
for staging counterprotests
at LGBT pride events and
protesting at the funerals for their famous advocates (44). It is clear when you read their
literature on their pamphlets or on their websites (such as http://www.godhatesfags.com )
and picket signs that they blame the homosexuals for disasters that strike our nation such
as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina (51). The WBC believe that God brings these disasters to
us because of our tolerance and growing acceptance of homosexuality and those
continuing to commit the sin and these disasters are to bring the sin to attention; this
Dunn 4
belief brings the church to create signs such as "Thank God for 9/11" and "Thank God for
Hurricane Katrina" (50).
When it comes to the military starting in 2005, the Westboro Baptist Church
received wide ranging
media attention, along with legal responses, when it came to
protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. As
mentioned earlier, they would create signs stating how we should thank God for dead
soldiers and how God laughs when they die. The WBC came to nationwide attention
when in 2010 Snyder v. Phelps was brought all the way up to the Supreme Court. In
March of 2006, six of Fred Phelps family members and himself went to protest the
funeral of U.S. Marine, Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder in Baltimore. They displayed
signs saying "GOD HATES THE USA" and "SEMPER FI FAGS" while keeping to
adherences by local ordinances for time and distance restrictions. Snyder's father heard of
the protest and messages on the sign by word of mouth, the television news coverage, and
viewing "an 'epic' posted on WBC's website that accused the deceased Snyder's parents of
raising their son 'for the devil' and of supporting the Catholic Church, which they called a
'pedophile machine'" (5758).
Mr. Snyder then proceeded to file five civil torts against
Phelps and two of his daughters, which the church claimed protection against under their
First Amendment's free speech protections. Snyder was awarded originally over $10
million but when it was appealed up to the Supreme Court, they favored Phelps and
saying it was protected free speech because Snyder was seen as a public figure and they
adhered to the local ordinances when it came to the funeral protest (58). Though this is
the most prolific case that has come to light when it comes to WBC and military protest,
Dunn 5
there are still many more protests that have committed and they continue to commit to
this day, spreading their deviant words and beliefs at the funeral of those who sacrifice
their lives for our country to protect their right for freedom of speech, which they seem to
not recognize or care for.
The Westboro Baptist Church began turning their protests against the Jewish
religions and synagogues in Topeka, Kansas around 2009 with the hatefilled
message
"God Hates Jews". They claim that they began protesting Jews because their religious
leaders "are 'one of the loudest voices' in favor of homosexuality and abortion"
(Sanchez). Their protests are filled with antisemitic
messages claiming that the Jews will
go to Hell, they killed Jesus, and that they stole the land (Israel).
The Westboro Baptist Church's language and actions are widely considered to be
deviant, which is why people see them more as a hate group and in turn people hate their
actions. "WBC members relish the hatred they receive as evidence of divine election"
(53). They believe that because they are receiving attention, albeit negative, God is
actually rewarding them because it means their protests are being heard and they see that
because they have not been eliminated yet that God must want them to continue their
protests they way they are doing them. They see their "position as social pariah as proof
of righteousness" (53). The hate filled messages that they print on their posters for
protests and put on their literature and website they attribute to their success of spreading
their message; because of this believed success, they continue to use hate and
discrimination to get their messages across.
Dunn 6
As stated at the beginning, a hate group is someone whose beliefs and practices
attack another group. Though their protests meet lawful regulations and they are
protected for freedom of speech by the First Amendment, their offensive and deviant
protests and picketing have affected many of individuals and their hate has been
witnessed nationally due to media attention and have been detested because of their
actions. It's hard to believe that a group who claims to be Christian, specifically Primitive
Baptist but are not accepted by other Primitive Baptist churches, can preach such hate
when the rest of the Christian religious community preach about God being a God of love
and how we should be like God and love our neighbors and our enemies equally. It is
hard to call Westboro Baptist Church anything else besides a hate group.
Dunn 7
Work Cited
Baker, Joseph O., Christopher D. Bader, and Kittye Hirsch. "Desecration, Moral
Boundaries, and the Movement of Law: The Case of Westboro Baptist Church."
Deviant Behavior 36.1 (2014): 4267.
Web.
MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Study Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Bibles, 2010. Print.
Ryan, ME, and PT Leeson. "Hate Groups and Hate Crime." INTERNATIONAL
REVIEW OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 31.4 (2011): 25662.
Web.
Sanchez, Casey. "Rabidly AntiGay
Westboro Baptist Church Now Targeting Jews."
Southern Poverty Law Center. June 19, 2009, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
PDF of 8.5x11 page
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Westboro Baptist Church: The Church of Hate
Description
An account of the resource
The Westboro Baptist Church, though they claim to be a part of the Primitive Baptist denomination, are not accepted by Primitive Baptists or any other Christian denomination because of their hate filled message, beliefs, and actions. They are notoriously known for their protesting and picketing funerals of soldiers, homosexuals and those who advocate for them, Jews, other Christians, those affected by natural disasters, and anyone who does not live by their beliefs. They hold posters out in public declaring "GOD HATES THE USA", "GOD HATES FAGS", and "THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS", just to name a few and spread their message and picketing schedules on their website http://www.godhatesfags.com/. They view God first and for most as wrathful, hateful, and and angry, and preach accordingly, where as a vast majority of Christians believe God to be a God of love, who hates the sin but loves the sinner, and a God of forgiveness. With their vile and hate filled message and their protests that cross the line into harassment, it's no surprise that many people would call the Westboro Baptist Church a hate group.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dunn, Kelly M.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kelly M. Dunn
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Written by Kelly M. Dunn
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5x11 PDF
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Essay
Subject
The topic of the resource
Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kan.)
Hate groups
Christianity
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/915969c4a9d2585785d3d7ae8d9567cb.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=C9HMZIgXxSifjBZ5%7E6awhhafUrHeCNOPMIoRNIFfcdPiJ8D5uMHtCKB7kxpotPfKyfOxxYOqjAZuH5et1nK-qPs5J58u7Uf90SOxbeEeGvEx-e5UHFsC5Zvlvv3ArAZoTmP%7EfeYIhS72vloGs3OSWQMYlG6H%7E2Vce8dLaEEyTPA3hXpbefTkbY1cQTZtPx9nLNs0Rz0Dyhg%7ERfB6ZGef%7E6wZduPRXp4mcN5kF10WR1pTgBDaRO9WqCEBj7KhKTAC0ICflObQuAflx4tbRLop4TWaHtLo9zvexqQ%7E357OpqL-mheWnSFk9G6cbDLQtrlozJMSH5WFdnWAPweQGUZmxA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
cc6d6962ee55052ad57f0b97e03c1160
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Category of Religion
Description
An account of the resource
Unlike the other collections which relate to one or more religious traditions, the items and collections within this collection relate to the study of the category of religion and its role in culture, politics, education, society, and many other domains of human activity. As such it may mention any number of religious traditions, but methodologically it is about religion in general.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Contents
1 2016
1.1
5
April .................................................. 5 Does taking college courses affect a student’s religion? (2016-04-08 16:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Does being away at college affect one’s religious prac
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
PDF of a Blog
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Effect of College on Religion
Description
An account of the resource
A blog about the effect that college can have on a student's religion.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
DiCampli, Elissa K.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Elissa K. DiCampli
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Content courtesy of Elissa K. DiCampli
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
WordPress
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-08
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
PDF of a Blog
Subject
The topic of the resource
College and university reports
College freshmen.
Florida State University
College Campuses
College Students
Florida State University
Religion
Religion and College
Religion Trends
religious organization
The Effect of College on Religion
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/57b82fdbd6203d1e88c23f3b13fa457e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=hg5EVH42x49DxjGK%7En5IKfNRmHxadQSxRaGIsI-slMHdg4ZwI%7EYRpQdY33s5eEJfq5B8A3BcsRkh5hQ4GaDAOhe2EICfPhNcch43JM4hTS4V4SdhIg83pVJ05nB%7EnTCIjNNwVdxXBSjApjwZ82ApadMDruNUcCalOPGC8pi0T8vm%7ESwgIPdDtSq2tbLL8arNElXbVhmJXnpv4N-gWvR59IqEvmdgPC-rsuxdhO9tJe7LZ8EyWnr8Bc1JyBZ1FIu7YykTwYUOQ84pMv-YaDNUrU1oaP0YwTacSoRcM7GyPft9yKg6PMxyOiV0%7EhzQbi8NK1tbK9i0veAs3CzWJCLDcQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ad20b2adc610f8ff96344d6f8e1e8da5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Islam
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to Islam.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Religious violence and wars that have been fought over persecution for one’s beliefs seem to be a prevalent constant when looked at from the larger scope of world history and peoples evolving beliefs in deities and the spiritual world. No matter what people believe in, there has been a consistent conflict throughout history between the church and the state. Broadly speaking when people’s beliefs do not align with the laws of the state, whether corrupt or not, people will be persecuted for their beliefs. Ancient Rome dealt with such conflicts and the rise of Christianity can sometimes even be attributed to part of the reason that Rome fell. Whether it was Diocletian trying to instill beliefs in Pagan Roman deities and Christians being persecuted, or Constantine establishing Christianity as the religion of the state and Pagans being persecuted, there has always been violence towards people whose beliefs conflict with those in power. Islam is no exception to this, as its longstanding prevalence in the middle east and growing presence in the west have led to several terror attacks and extremist groups basing what they do on Quranic law. While shown to promote peace and a means for seeking fulfillment for a majority of Islamic followers, the religion has shown to create a significant impact in the international political landscape and influence of the general population through establishing itself as the fastest growing religion and one that has gained much negative attention recently through an unfortunate association with the terrorist group ISIS. A large majority of academic journalism and analysis of history though reveals that it is not the Quranic passages themselves that lead to violence, but rather a large amount of confounding variables that have been turned into a false correlation between being Muslim and advocating for religious and political violence.
Critics of Islam who associate belief in the religion with being more likely to submit to religious extremism point to several factors and reasons for why they believe so. Common passages in the Quran discussing the treatment of those who are enemies with God, along with texts like the jihad and large terrors attacks are what these critics primarily base their reason in (Esposito). Nine eleven and the rise of ISIS, a group that bases their violence in an attempt to cultivate fear and submission into following their religion are the two leading causes though that have had the largest impact of the negative Muslim backlash striking the western world currently (Esposito). No matter the accusations though anybody can accuse and try and link violence to belief in a religion, so the evidence on whether a relation to an Islamic society is prone to lead to more or less violent attitudes must be looked at. On a surface level it is hard to make such a study though as so many other cultural factors could affect the levels of violence in a society. When a closer look is taken though at the types of people attracted to these violent Islamic movements along with the skewing of the western world’s understanding of Islam, it is revealed that there has been a false association created between Islam and violence, which is caused instead by confounding variables and whether the nation is based in Islam (Esposito).
A closer analysis of the type of people that Islamic extremist recruit, the western world’s information bias against Islam, and the socio-economic factors associated with religious violence make clear the false association the has been built up between Islamic belief and tendencies towards violence. Something that many people do not know to start with is that a large part of ISIS’s recruiting hotbed is prisons (Hamm). Why try convincing peaceful people to be violent because they share your beliefs, when you could get people who already tends towards violence and are much more vulnerable to turn to religion given their circumstances. Further investigation by the British Journal of Criminology lead to a discovery that roughly 240,000 prison inmates have converted to Islam in the United States since September 11th, and Saudi-backed Wahhabi clerics make these their primary targets for recruitment (Hamm). Western bias in the coverage of terror not only in the news, but also in academia though have been a deceptive means connect the religion to terrorism (Wiseman). Ever since September 11th textbooks in Arabic and predominantly Muslim nations have been carefully critiqued and corrected for anything that might offend people in that it promotes violence and hate (Wiseman). Countries who population is made up primarily of people of Muslim faith have been found in studies to heavily include studies of Islamic culture. The western world’s textbooks also changed, but have went in a completely opposite direction. Instead research has pointed to a strong correlation between Islamic discussions in western textbooks and terror (Wiseman). When most of the discussion in these textbooks about the religion is being related to violence and this is what is being taught as fact, it is no wonder so many people are brought up to have such a skewed and false view of the religion. The common counterargument to this though is to look to the Middle East. There is obviously a much larger amount of political unrest there, but the misconception is when all of this turmoil is related to the Middle East being comprised primarily of Islamic nations. The intrastate violence therefore must be investigated throughout these nations. A comparative political studies journal looked into this connection between the Islamic presence in the Middle East and the amount of unrest and violence there. The key to doing this though was to not focus on all the terror and interstate war outside of the states, but instead isolate the nations to look for factors within the nations other than Islam that could be causing the civil unrest (Fish, Jensenius and Michel). By doing a cross-national analysis, they found the there was no correlation between the proportion of the population that believes in Islam and mass scale political violence. Another journal based in empirical and theoretical investigations into issues looked into the problem of violence in the Middle East, but not just within the nations included but comparing the nations of the Middle East to others. They did find that there was a larger prevalence of violence in these nations, but a nation being Islamic did not mean that it would be a violent one. Instead they applied political and economic thought on GDP, resources such as oil, and autocratic governments to show that the strong correlation between these variables and political violence should be attributed to the unrest in the Middle East, and not the religion of Islam and Quranic law in general (Karakayaa).
Not only do most studies point to outside factors as being the main contributors to political violence, but one study on the support of suicide bombing from American Muslims showed a reverse correlation between belief and violence, in that the majority of reasonable people who have a rational understanding of the Quran actually tend to be less supportive of violent political measures than do the average population (Acevedo and Chaudhary). The Pew survey used logistic regression models to show that religious factors and political views have a virtually nonexistent effect of the feelings of American Muslims towards suicide bombing (Acevedo and Chaudhary). Quranic authoritativeness was tested on the other hand, or how much people believe the Quran is from God and not from men, against views on suicide bombing and this is where they found the reverse correlation on people who believe in Quranic law and their support of political violence (Acevedo and Chaudhary).
A historical understanding of religious violence is key to realizing that the problem of Islamic terror is not caused by the religious texts, but rather the religious fanaticism and military extremism associated with the Islamic caliphate. A comparison of the modern day Islamic movement headed by Ra’id’s movement to the Order of the Templars reveals striking similarities between to acts of violence they committed, even though they were based in different religious texts (Revkin). The Christian beliefs of the Order of the Templars does not mean that they are less prone to commit violence, but it is more of the ability of leaders to exploit people’s beliefs in a way that leads to complete devotion to the point where you are willing to murder for your cause. Exploiting fanaticism and backing it up with the force of the military is something that can be done with any religion though in any nation, the political landscape and rhetoric simply must be successful in uniting people under a belief in eliminating those who don’t agree with you.
While the Islamic religion has been in the national spotlight lately and has received much negative attention for the violence that is being justified by Quranic and Jihadists texts, a true analysis of the source of this violence reveals that it is not seeded in Islamic beliefs but rather opportunism and capitalizing on people who are prone succumb to religious zealotry. The sheer amount of coverage of the terror in the western world has led people to develop a false association between that and terror, and their justifications of this by referencing the Middle East are easily disproven by showing the stronger correlation between the GDP and resources of nations over there. Although Islamic persecution is more prevalent than it has been, a search for a true understanding on the causes of such violence are necessary for not falsely accusing those who innocently believe. Whether or not a majority of society is able to grasp this in the coming decades will determine whether Islamic prosperity continues or starts to fade away into the depths of history.
Works Cited
Acevedo, Gabriel A. and Ali R. Chaudhary. "Religion, Cultural Clash, and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2015).
Esposito, John L. "Islam and Political Violence." RELIGIONS (2015).
Fish, M. Steven, Francesca R. Jensenius and Katherine E. Michel. "Islam and Large-Scale Political Violence: Is There a Connection?" Comparative Political Studies (2010).
Hamm, Mark S. "Prison Islam in the Age of Sacred Terror." The British Journal of Criminology (2009).
Karakayaa, Süveyda. "Religion and Conflict: Explaining the Puzzling Case of “Islamic Violence”." International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations (2015).
Revkin, Mara. "MODERN HISTORY AND POLITICS-Islamic Radicalism and Political Violence: The Templars of Islam and Sheikh Ra'id Salah." The Middle East Journal (2008).
Wiseman, Alexander W. "Representations of Islam and Arab Societies in Western Secondary Textbooks." Digest of Middle East Studies (2014).
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
PDF of essay
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Prevalence of Islamic Violence in the Middle East
Description
An account of the resource
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, and the recent violence associated with the Islamic State has been pinned by much of the western world as deriving from the Quran. Such an association must be looked at more closely to see where the more likely sources of violence in the Middle East are coming from. Several factors must be looked at, including the types of people that are recruited into Islamic extremist’s groups, the economic and political stability of the regions where religious violence is prevalent, and how the western world’s view has been shaped by the information they are fed.
Prisoners in modern society are found to be a primary recruitment hotbed for the Islamic state. Along with the fact that followers can be bred and easily manipulated within prison to follow such a violent view of Islam is concerning but also enlightening to how these extremist groups find followers. Along with this the western world’s textbooks are shown to show a heavy skew towards associating Islam with terror, as a large part of the coverage of the religion has to do with the discussion of terror. In addition, it must be remembered that religious extremism has always existed, and it must be seen that the true cause of violent fanaticism is not the religion itself but people who are already predisposed to commit such acts.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nathan D. Farrell
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
PDF of Essay
Subject
The topic of the resource
Islam
Middle East
Violence
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nathan D. Farrell
Islam
Middle East
religious extremism
Violence
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/586d99c991e810c3ccc22ea2a8c54234.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=oyPUllModIe5VylGSp2OSxdmc52L8CbLHndnnTTQX5S2csjHAotYCcZFB4INUtqCoKxlzHuXNz5c5QoHZvMiOSpblMFc37GoKjklUsN-srsyJh%7EB3wTOSz5CEP%7EgpxZozjfEeU7FcLnbv7cnY5VfC5cflsHrwrSWEcYajIgKdhvS3Tcd1b-1qJSt5xOwnwMdxDqt8h42LtDcD3fKMEH7nErrSQQVbE-L-GDVWf7elRfCPlnN6usijaXNk1d5gu24a8zDB1JMDrVsYK9VhFZf2n3U0ysNN25foLqQKfPKR2vTz0OY6VHIh5wIJELn%7Eh4gKdcsNgNMnIT3KOr3L811TA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
5551bde37f4e36ea37f6142351120757
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to the religion of Christianity
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Lacey Csaszar
Professor John Crow
REL 1300
22 April 2016
The Influence of Modern Culture on American Christianity
Religions are regularly shaped by the society that adopts them and Christianity is no different. Since it’s beginnings Christianity has both shaped the societies that have embraced it and been shaped by the societies as well. In modern America, Christianity has been taken to a new level by the influence of culture in the forms of advanced technology, modern accommodations and comforts, and unique outreach approaches.
Christianity began over 2000 years ago and came to the United States over 300 years ago, creating a large amount of time for it to change, become modernized, and refreshed. It was known that, “From the inception of the British colonies, settlers flocked to North America’s shores in search of freedom to practice their religious faith… The American colonies served as a beacon for religious freedom, according to the narrative, a respite from religious persecution that was common throughout Europe.” (Green) This freedom became essential to the growth of Christianity in America, especially in it’s Protestant forms. Escaping Europe and it’s many dictations and rules of how to worship, when to worship, and what that was supposed to look like, led to less restrictions for Christian churches and even more changes over time.
Technology has changed greatly over time, each time creating more opportunities to modernize the way Christianity is practiced. Original Christian texts were first passed by word of mouth before being written down, later printed, and even later typed and shared electronically. As Christianity is a religion called to evangelize to all the nations, these types of advances help to share their beliefs with others all over the world. There are many ways that technology has changed the church. Some agree with these changes while others challenge it, “The dual-edged nature of technologies is rarely considered in church settings or within Christian circles.” (Smith) As many people do not challenge technology’s regular presence in their everyday lives, from vehicles to entertainment, I would agree that many rarely look at technology critically, except for when a cell phone rings in service at the wrong time. Smith goes on to point out, “PowerPoint presentations, pretaped music accompaniment, synthesizers, video clips, global distribution of sermon materials and Bible study materials “McDonaldize” the faithful … as they gather weekly to participate in a technologically saturated worship experience that might leave a dispassionate observer to wonder who or what is the real focus of the encounter.” (Smith) While singing in church is common as well as instrumental accompaniment, I can see that maybe there is an over-saturated worship experience occurring.
Large “Mega-Churches”, as they are called, are known to serve 10,000 or more people a weekend. When these people show up they may not even notice how much technology has been integrated into their experience. Music plays in the background as they walk in, a hidden electronic counter makes sure to count each new person as they walk into the sanctuary, and a person sitting at a large control panel monitors each of the cameras as they catch the pastor speaking and jumps to the best shot. To even further the technological experience some churches now offer their services live online to home audiences who cannot make it to the physical location of the services. While in many ways this technology is helpful to the churches in providing an experience for their congregations is the technology starting to take over? Would the same congregation listen to a message that wasn’t offered up with a catchy feel-good worship song? In many ways I doubt the average attender even sits through an entire message without being distracted by their own personal technology during a service. Christianity in American has definitely been permeated by technology as a part of our modern culture and expectations.
While modern American culture has influenced technology within the church, other aspects of the establishment have changed as well, including many accommodations and comforts. Numerous people in America have good reasons not to go to church, which may include such phrases as, “It’s a hassle to get everyone out the door on time and in nice clothes that early in the morning” and “Church is boring”. Some churches have attempted to combat such issues by adding many amenities not traditionally found in services. For example, those who say that they can’t make it on Sundays now have the option to attend Saturday night services instead if their church offers it. Some places, such as Grace Family Church in Tampa, FL, have come to offer such things as Starbucks locations within the church walls, with two Starbucks different locations on just one of their campuses.
Serving coffee isn’t the extent of the available comforts either; on Saturday nights after each service there is live music and freshly prepared food available in a large courtyard of the church. Free childcare is also available and encouraged for any age kid up through middle school so they don’t have to sit through and potentially disrupt the adult service. Mother’s rooms are also available as a place for a mother to privately breastfeed or soothe her child with the additional option of viewing the service live through a TV playing in the room. These changes to how a church operates and the services it now offers are the result of expectations created by modern American culture. The original services of the Christian church were not even in English, but now we give our congregation bulletins with service notes laid out and even offer such accommodations as sign language interpreters.
While all of these changes come from cultural influences, they have also been capitalized on by the church as a way to reach their congregation in new and unique methods.
In the last words of the Gospel of Matthew are a few verses known as The Great Commision, “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”” (Holy Bible: New International Version Matthew 28:17-20) As a Christian one of the driving forces behind what we do is this direct statement from Jesus. He calls upon his people to go and share the gospel with others.
Reaching people with the Christian gospel in modern America can be challenging. Many are simply to busy for Christianity or are influenced and filled by so many other things that there just isn’t enough room. To better communicate with their audience Christianity has turned to many modern resources. Almost every large church now fully engages in social media. It is not uncommon for them to have a Facebook page, twitter account, and Instagram. The highly involved churches might even have FourSquare, Snap Chat, Pinterest and Vine. Any respectable church will also have a modern website with a calendar of current events and potentially a blog that pastors and other leaders within the church contribute to.
All of these things allow new platforms to engage with their target audiences. These tools are initially free and allow a platform that can be updated at any time to connect with people. For example, if a church event is going on, a tweet can be sent with an image and a hash tag letting others know about the opportunity. This can be retweeted by other members of the church and eventually it may provide someone with information about the church they were previously unaware of.
Simple organic moments like these create a network that is vital to the success of a church nowadays. One of the largest audiences that does not currently attend church are those in their twenties and thirties, especially without kids and unmarried. So what do churches start doing? Creating events for that specific age group in that specific season of life. Never in anything have a read did the first church host a night where the pastors answered questions about sex and what it looks like to stay pure and then there was a gathering that included food trucks, a DJ, and outdoor games for everyone to enjoy.
Churches have taken how they reach out to people to a whole new level. They will create opportunities that people have never had, they will come to where the people are, and if they are good at it, they will convince the people to join their church. Outreach approaches for centuries have worked as ways to evangelize by meeting a particular need, but as modern American culture shifts and changes, so will the ways that churches reach out to their communities.
While no one can say for sure whether these methods will be for the long term good or bad of the church, today’s churches are being influenced by modern American culture through technology, accommodations and comforts, and unique outreach approaches.
Word Count: 1519
Bibliography:
Green, Steven K. Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding. N.p.:
n.p., n.d. Oxford Scholarship Online. May 2015. Web. Apr. 2016.
Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. Print.
Smith, James K. A., and Amos Yong. "Is There Room for the Spirit in a World Dominated by
Technology." Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. 197-98
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
PDF of 8.5x11
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Influence of Modern Culture on American Christianity
Description
An account of the resource
Religions are regularly shaped by the society that adopts them and Christianity is no different. Since it’s beginnings Christianity has both shaped the societies that have embraced it and been shaped by the societies as well. In modern America, Christianity has been taken to a new level by the influence of culture in the forms of advanced technology, modern accommodations and comforts, and unique outreach approaches.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Csaszar, Lacey
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lacey Csaszar
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Written by Lacey Csaszar
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Lacey Csaszar
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-22
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
8.5x11 PDF
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
PDF of Essay focusing on the Influence of Modern Culture on American Christianity
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christian humanism.
Christianity in mass media.
Christianity in literature.
American Culture
American Religion
Christian
Christian Church
Christian Church society
christian traditions
modern
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/13f302f74ceffcd8cbad0b8017fdf57b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=MtDbfKvO8zULQ9v8Eavcq6-JsolmsAIjwEfWIPReH9ZAK0z9uM1sjJLr86Dkw3KMTEEtnhJ2fWMcMO0j5opVkfeiTDFTGXiyro5Z70VQ3tWLzsNJtKqc%7ERCePkNNhNKePATjeEQqSDI2XZYlrQl26hR5dRP93Y0rw8qTvKoN7dsvzIUzz0Zq5DgI1Yx6YViNmCqa2cVqUqRbDAVMqTIcOjjglT5IkKybWa6Age16sfLgvSzVn6k1Ss4hct0EuRaViraAbxWDSHKpCsYS6hlF2wAQeAX8cEbnKdhQ6WTpQVPgYEc7rkQwl6RSJcE16icdrIPC4jyrnlDk1UQMNswKJg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a3554539356492e4ee343701f662e652
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Multiple Religions
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to numerous religious traditions. As such, these items cannot be classified as any one religious tradition.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Essay
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Inadequacies of Modern Yoga Practice
Description
An account of the resource
An analysis of ancient yoga practice. Key historical points are brought forth and discussed and later compared. This is an in depth analysis of the changes of ancient yoga practice with a focus on tantric yoga. The evolution of yoga is brifly discussed and its most prominent contributors and their most notable contributions are touched upon. Modern yoga practice is discussed and is compared to the ancient practices and techniques.
Problems and issues with modern western yoga are noted and brief comparisons and contrasts are drafted between these practices and the ancient ones. This analysis is completed with credible sources from renowned scholars of ancient yoga. The sources and overall essay all agree with a key point: modern yoga is very different than the ancient yoga it attempts to imitate.
Modern yoga has evolved so drastically due to geographic, political, and social reasons and has turned into a practice that holds a minor resemblance to the ancient practice. Many core values have replaced.
With great hope, with the dedication of ancient yoga scholars, proper practice information can be collected (as it already has) and be distributed and shared with the yogis of the next generation with the hopes of the practice returning and having more similarities to its now near forgotten origins.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pribula, Peter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Pribula
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-22
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Essay
Subject
The topic of the resource
Yoga
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/b64c12f6e7fb65bbe710039b4740b0ca.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=oHhX3FrlX1UFxWH2sRLJ5ZCzu0ZFOfL3o2-vJBF2Qacfv45eWkgbVzGmV%7Ehf1Dj4NP%7EUDudUSGC5hGLMzrhfJgncToZx47ZIO-fFqBQxatIL2OkB82SpF3-taNWSIwoUBgQhD3RdCCijbxFILvYGsfIFhLjmRqX4My8XeT9rNVG9dHaDYbz2%7EhtCARBp4RrIrWRe2RpxPsVnDqx1occ75%7EvBVqDb%7E%7EdgLZFIvIQTrJ4ldajV8xTKbMN3oChloYsma-R0o%7EWW%7EDYZsTLXEBNP%7E5R5DFqzdgerYe%7Eh6x5fy65k8w7Y9m2%7EDgzbM4fc-iOPgPw1ix6VwcBcT0aBxjeJ0g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
f7bb2ee6d3740bf91791cf5cc89db765
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Multiple Religions
Description
An account of the resource
The items and collections within this collection relate to numerous religious traditions. As such, these items cannot be classified as any one religious tradition.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Affects of Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam in Public Schools
Description
An account of the resource
Religious associations not being allowed to be discussed throughout the world is a major problem. These controversies affect romantic relationships, family relationships, and economics most frequently. The three religions I will be discussing most in depth include; Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. All three religions have a very hard time passing for being properly taught in public school systems. Which I think is an article very up for debate and also based on the maturity of the teacher. I am so ecstatic to dive into this subject.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ashley N. Schneller
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ashley N. Schneller
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/educators-ignore-the-part-religion-can-play-in-education/
http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-impact-of-christianity
https://carm.org/christians-and-education
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Public-education/The-law-and-its-influence-on-public-school-districts-An-overview/Religion-and-Public-Schools.html
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Matt Silck
John Horvat
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962-present
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, school prayer, 1962, public schools, economics, family relationships
Buddhism
Christian Church
economics
family relationships
Islam
population
Public Schools
punishments
school prayer
significant others
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/26986/archive/files/2aef400862ddb12df80eaf02261576de.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Qtyrhnd3bn20pGksDxs3GTudYVEyAz%7EaqU7fuFYW99pBJLsNxlHCuo2WfOEV8pg%7EShHDtsYR%7EWi4QgYguxQmyXVGO--RXtqq0oioARnin1H7zQ2uWLhzgFbVn3R-o99Q5buXSGxBBg-41lUL81oBGyj2Kc8pvaLY3wrgKdsaqCKrhI7dyTJV%7EuDZRdCB%7E4gF0eI3e0Vbz1wBY2igA-Vayc9GLkGAoiDaDydJCgyZL2BDn05cUf0az-9hcj1iDahKjVSpd3klDi5%7EIT2JgjbjegnIhcdZ-RWpYhqDdUT%7EVXE5LVXe0PvgUYEN9Qd%7EpMevTsALS5VjQAr13mb0nFmf1w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
9bdbd7ed03874dd355b37b4fb18e676c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Category of Religion
Description
An account of the resource
Unlike the other collections which relate to one or more religious traditions, the items and collections within this collection relate to the study of the category of religion and its role in culture, politics, education, society, and many other domains of human activity. As such it may mention any number of religious traditions, but methodologically it is about religion in general.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document
Introduction Blog
FEBRUARY 28, 2016 ~ LEAVE A COMMENT ~ EDIT
I figured I would start with an introduction and an overview of what I plan to post about and when. My name is Hollie Shapiro and I am a senior at Florida State University in the Civil Engineering program. Aside from the professional, I am a mother of two and married to man who is Jewish. I would call myself as religious indifferent. In that I don’t see a need to be religious myself, but don’t judge or condemn those who do. I grew up going to a variety of Christian Churches, including the longest stint at the Church of Latter Day Saints. However as I got older, I didn’t understand the need to attend church. I felt, and still do, that I could be a good person and live a moral life, without the need of the judgement from the church. In knowing this in myself I found it interesting how people chose their religion. Specifically, if they grew up in one religion, how and why did they choose to practice in another? In my blog, I will discuss this, the how’s why’s people change their religions. I plan to post every Sunday and next Sunday I plan to post on how to convert to Judaism, and how the media portrays these conversions, and also on how the Jewish community sees the converted individuals. In my blog I hope to gain a greater understanding on how others view not only their own religion but how they viewed their religion that they converted from
Converting to Judaism
APRIL 4, 2016 ~ LEAVE A COMMENT ~ EDIT
When I married my Jewish husband the question of converting to Judaism came up a few times. I wouldn’t really be converting from anything, I was raised with Christian holidays but was never really religious. So I considered myself sort of religion neutral. At first I thought, well no biggie sure I’ll convert to Judaism. However, when I started looking into it I really saw how daunting it could be. My father in law once asked me if I was going to convert and I simply replied “I plan to”. He then told me when I asked his and my husbands rabbi if I could convert he would tell me no three times. This put me off immediately. I thought if they didn’t want me then I didn’t want them. I know, pretty childish. However through this class the topic was raised once again. This post will be about what I found when looking up more information on converting to Judaism.
The first thing I realized when researching conversion is that it is not easy. It’s not as simple as just saying “OK now I’m Jewish because I feel Jewish”. It involves a lot of time, reading, studying, worshiping, and interacting with the Jewish community. Some synagogues require you learn Hebrew, while others don’t. Some require you to attend classes others require regular meetings with a rabbi. Whatever is required, the process takes quite a long time.
I found a lot of information on http://www.reformjudaism.org. Their I found a video called “Conversion Conversations” detailing six people who converted to Judaism. All said that it took a long time, meetings with the rabbi were key, and involvement in the synagogue and Jewish community were extremely important. The most important thing that I took from these videos was a feeling from everyone that converting to Judaism was like coming home, in other words like they were meant to be Jewish all along. Another thing I learned that the rabbi tells you no three times not because they don’t want you to convert but to make you reflect on the reasons why you want to join. This shows that they really take converting seriously and if you want to convert, you are not only joining a religion but joining a community and a family.
Leaving Judaism
APRIL 14, 2016 ~ LEAVE A COMMENT ~ EDIT
My last blog post I wrote about converting to Judaism, and I fully expected myself to write this time about converting to another religion. However, I came across a podcast called Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People hosted by Chris Gethard. In his podcast, Chris talks to anonymous people for one hour literally about anything. In one particular episode called “Passport, Exodus” a man who didn’t want to give his name started his story on obtaining a passport. However, the conversation quickly turned to his exit from his faith. His faith turned out to be Orthodox Judaism. I found it so fascinating how he grew up in such a strict faith where he never really interacted with anyone outside his faith, and as an adult decided to not only leave Judaism, but to not believe in God all together.
In Orthodox Judaism, Kosher laws are strictly adhered to. One of the most basic Kosher laws include not preparing dairy with meat. Through the podcast, the man explained on top of that that if any bug contaminated any food (maybe simply a fly landing on a lettuce leaf) the whole dish would have to be thrown away. There is also a special kind of wine specifically among the Orthodox Jews. It is called Mevushal wine and is boiled so that a gentile can serve it and it still remaining Kosher. Although popular among the Orthodox Jews, Mevushal wine has a reputation for not being very good and a lower quality than other Kosher wines.
When the man from the podcast left the Jewish faith, he also left all of these Kosher laws. He told of the first thing he ate that really showed what he was missing when he was obeying the Kosher laws was a cheeseburger from Five Guys Burger and Fries. After that he said he turned into a real food guy (whatever that means).
There were social aspects too when he left the faith. His parents were very upset when he left the faith. At the time of his departure, he was in college and his parents were not only paying for his education but every other aspect of his life. After he told them of his plans to leave and officially did leave, his parents stopped paying for everything except his schooling. Later he would go back and visit his older Orthodox Jewish relatives and other than the disappointment that came with him leaving the faith, they felt that any wine or food he touched would be tainted and therefore, unable to be consumed. They put the Mevushal wine out instead of the good wine so that he couldn’t taint the good wine.
I started to research the topic of leaving Orthodox Judaism to see what other perspectives their could be. I found one article from the New Yorker published July 31, 2015 written by Talia Lavin. In the article Lavin explained that leaving Orthodox Judiasm is not that common. She says that somewhere around 1% leave. She goes on to explain that ” leaving ultra-Orthodoxy as immigrating to a country in which you’re already a citizen”, And that unlike the man from the podcasts family situation where even though his parents did not approve of his decision they still considered him family, Lavin explains that most “are estranged from their families”.
It takes a lot of courage to not only leave your faith behind but to also leave your entire upbringing behind. Although there are many resources for people who leave, I can’t help feeling how isolated and alone they must feel when they first leave. The only thing I hope is that these people can find the peace within themselves that they felt they didn’t have in Orthodox Judaism.
Entering Scientology
APRIL 22, 2016 ~ LEAVE A COMMENT ~ EDIT
After exploring Judaism, it took me awhile to find inspiration on my next religion to explore. I found that I have a pretty good non-judgmental etiquette around religious people. Even though I don’t believe in one specific religion, I won’t criticize you for believing in yours. However, as I was going through my religion class, the last week dealt with New Religious Movements. One of which was Scientology. I found myself smirking to myself before reading about it and thinking “now these people are truly nuts, I don’t even want to read this”. The thought struck me, I hate being close minded. I really had no idea what Scientology is, only knew what the media fed to me (which is embarrassing by itself). In order to become more open minded, I decided to delve more into Scientology and see what it takes to join this fairly new religion.
What is Scientology? What I gathered from the media, before researching it, is a bunch of people who believe in aliens who worship a guy who writes science fiction novels. Obviously this is pretty narrow minded. To better understand Scientology, I started with reading it from my textbook for my Introduction to World Religions class. What I learned is that Scientology resembles Buddhism more than any other religion. Like reincarnation in Buddhism, Scientologists believe in the soul (or thetan) to be “billions of years old” and “passing from one body to another at death” (A Concise Introduction to World Religions: Third Edition pg 601). Also like Buddhism with its view of Karma, Scientologist believe in mental blocks called engrams that can carry with the thetan through different lifetimes. To be clear of these engrams, Scientologists have to grow through clearing through an auditing process. There are seven stages of this clearing, and those that complete all seven levels are said to be called Operating Thetans.
So why has the media cast Scientologist in a bad light. One reason might be the seven levels mentioned above. Each level costs money, therefore, from an outsiders perspective could resemble a pyramid scheme. Also several criminal accusations have been cast on the founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and his wife.
So how do you join the Church of Scientology. I suspected it to be quite an ordeal. Like Judaism I feel like they would not make it an easy transition, just to be sure that Scientology is the right path. What I didn’t anticipate is how hard it would be to find information online about it. However I did find a Wiki-How article on the subject of joining Scientology. The article spelled it out into twelve steps. The first few steps are fairly generic. They involve getting to know more about Scientology and what to expect from it. The next step is to start getting involved with the church by atrending both a yearly conference and weekly meeting at a Church of Scientology. The next step is to get an audit from a member of the church complete with an E-meter (a device to measure the presence on engrams).
The next step to commit yourself to the church. According to the WikiHow article “If you’re interested in Scientology, approaching it with an open mind and a full commitment to change your life for the better is necessary.” In other words, there is no such thing a casual Scientologist. Included in this commitment, is ranking you emotions based on a scale from +40 to -40. Also included in this commitment is assessing the dynamics of your actions. Dynamic in Scientology are the eight “intersecting planes[…] beginning with the self, the family, and so on at the bottom and moving up to the spiritual universe (the seventh dynamic) and the Supreme being or Infinity (the eighth)” (A Concise Introduction to World Religion: Third Edition pg 601). The last step is to continue to get audits to make sure the clearing of engrams is successful.
After researching this new religion, I don’t think my opinion on Scientology has changed. I have more insight on it. I had no idea how closely it mimicked Buddhism. However, when I started reading about the audits and the E-meter, I continued to have a negative view towards Scientology. I just don’t understand how a machine, for example, could measure the level of grief or happiness or any other emotion that you might have. And if it actually could, that is a huge invasion of privacy in my opinion.
I have yet to come across any Scientologists, and when or if I do, I will at least have a little more knowledge in this new religion.
Link to articles used:
http://www.wikihow.com/Join-Scientology
Leaving Scientology
APRIL 22, 2016 ~ LEAVE A COMMENT ~ EDIT
My last blog post was about entering Scientology, but I was mostly interested in leaving Scientology. The topic of leaving Scientology has come up quite a bit in the media recently with celebrities such as Leah Remini and Katie Holmes leaving the religion. Leaving the church, from numerous accounts,can be quite difficult. So what makes a person to leave a religion that they have either grown up in or have been a part of for a long time?
During Remini’s interview with Oprah Winfrey’s show “Where are they now” she says there was one pivotal moment that cemented her decision to leave the “organization as she called it. “I was on course one day. I was at one of these hotels in Florida, and I saw my daughter swimming for the first time, while I’m… reading this thing. A tear came down my face,” Remini says. “I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ The moment hit me that I was now doing the same thing to my daughter that my mother [had conveyed] to me, that what she was doing was more important.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/leah-remini-scientology_n_7293434.html). She goes on to describe how it was very difficult to leave her religion after being brought up in it. Much like the man I described in a previous post about leaving Orthodox Judaism. When your family and community all in a particular religion, and you leave that religion, in a sense you have to leave your family and community. Fortunately for the man who left Judaism, he was still able to spend time with his family, however for Remini that wasn’t the case. She says during the same interview how she saw her god daughter on the street and wanted to just run up and hug her. However her god daughters mother wouldn’t allow it. Since coming out of Scientology a few years ago, Remini has written a book about being brought up in Scientology and has found a new life outside of it.
Another woman who left Scientology tole her story to a journalist named Christa Martin for the Santa Cruz Good Times. The woman “Janet” was a high ranking member of the Santa Cruz chapter of Church of Scientology. She even worked directly with L. Ron Hubbard. However, it was in working with Hubbard that her feeling for the church began to shift. From what I could tell Hubbard sort of lost it. He started accusing people of being suppressive. “A suppressive person is, according to Scientology’s own Web site, “ … The suppressive person, also called an antisocial personality, works to upset, continuously undermine, spread bad news and denigrate other people and their activities …” (Martin). Janet along with many other members were put in sort of a Scientology jail, and it was from that jail that Janet escaped. Her journey didn’t end there. The church continued to harass Janet for back payment for debt they said she owed them. She says that “We were totally harassed,” she says. “They would park outside our house, watch us, follow us … call us to come back in and handle our freeloader debt.” (Martin). It was decades later when she finally got peace from the church after her sister, having been a member for 38 years, came to stay with her. (http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/santa-cruz-good-times.htm)
There is still so much of Scientology that is not understood, and the only ones who are allowed to know the so called secrets are the ones who are on the inside.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
blog found at hollieshapiroblog.wordpress.com
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
hollieshapiroblog
Description
An account of the resource
A blog about entering and leaving different religions.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shapiro, Hollie A.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Shapiro, Hollie A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
hollieshapiroblog.wordpress.com
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
wordpress.com
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
02/2016-04/22/2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
hollieshapiroblog.wordpress.com
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Blog
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Blog
Subject
The topic of the resource
Judaism, Orthodox
Church of Scientology (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Entering Scientology
joining judaism
Leaving Judaism
Leaving Scientology