Sociology Lens

Interdisciplinary research has much to offer scholars of different fields – widening perspectives and opening up avenues to new research. The burgeoning field of the geography and sociology of religion is one such field. As the global economy and increased migration result in more complex and rich societies, so the resultant intersections of cultures and faiths from across the world become more interesting and multifaceted.

In this Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Issue encompassing “Religion and Place”, we have sought to bring together articles from across a wide scope of journals and fields of research, which tackle how religion and place intersect and influence one another. A variety of religions, old and new, from all across the world are engaged with in this Virtual Issue, and the articles range from philosophical discussions to statistical analyses and intricate discussions of social policies and political strategies. Whether you are a geographer or a religious studies scholar, someone interested in international migration or sociology and anthropology, we hope that this Virtual Issue will inspire you and open up new ideas and encourage new debates across all disciplines.

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If one’s religion teaches that abortion is murder, is the believer then obligated to stop abortions from happening, by any means necessary? Today, a Kansas judge decided that this is not a viable defense strategy under the law. On May 31, Kansas resident Scott Roeder is accused of shooting and killing Dr. George Tiller.

Roeder had wished to use something that has been termed the “necessity defense,” which would justify using lethal force. Although the judge’s reasoning for not allowing the defense is not spelled out, a guess would be that it would open the door for other potential killers to use such a defense. Also this week, an Oklahoma judge temporarily blocked the implementation of a new law that would require women to answer a number of demographic and relationship questions, the answers to which would be posted on a publicly-accessible website. Critics argue that, while the information is ostensibly anonymous, those living in small towns could be identified.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for anti-abortion advocates to use laws to advance their agendas. With the separation of church and state in the U.S., they must use other tactics. In the murder case, the judge likely did not wish to set a pro-murder precedent. In the Oklahoma case, the information was supposedly going to be used to identify those populations at risk for unwanted pregnancies. Yet anyone familiar with ethical social science methodologies would never gather information that would cause potential harm to human subjects (in this case, identification and negative outcomes that could result).

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Unraveling Religious Worldviews: The Relationship between Images of God and Political Ideology in a Cross-Cultural Analysis by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader

by NickieWild

What are the limits of free expression in the United States today? Are we still living under what many would consider a theocratic state? Although the “Protestant Ethic” as defined by Weber is often thought of in terms of the realm of work, it includes other moral dimensions. The U.S. has often been mired in controversies about what role religion should play in the formation of law. Abortion, school prayer, displaying religious symbols like the 10 Commandments on government property, and the inclusion of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance are all contentious issues that have been present in the national dialogue for decades now. In fact, there are few openly atheist lawmakers in the U.S., the highest ranking being Rep. Pete Stark of California.

Yet despite all this, it still comes as a bit of a surprise when one hears about women having their children taken away from them for being non-Christian in 21st century America. There have been cases where, in the course of a child custody battle, Wiccan women have had their children removed by superstitious judges. But perhaps no case stands out more than that of Rachel Bevilacqua, who was called a “pervert” in open court and had her child removed for little other than appearing in a skit mocking the pro-Catholic movie “The Passion of the Christ.” Over the course of nearly three years, and after tens of thousands in legal fees, Mrs. Bevilacqua regained custody of her son over an ex-boyfriend who had no job or income, and whose legal representation was paid for by the taxpayers. The main reason custody was awarded to the birth father was because Mrs. Bevilacqua had the unfortunate luck to get a Catholic family court judge who didn’t take too kindly to her satirical artistic pursuits.

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Obscenity and Censorship by David Bradshaw

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Dena T. Smith

This week’s Science Times profiled Dr. Francis S. Collins, the recently appointed director of The National Institutes of Health. The article (below) points to clashes between Collins’  belief in God and his identity as a scientist. Collins, who is best known for his involvement in the Human Genome Project, which set out, in the early 1990′s to do just what it sounds like it might – map the human DNA – is also a religious man. Further, Collins believes that his scientific training aides him in an explanation of faith. His colleagues at NIH seem, at the very least, troubled by Collins’ faith, given the nature of his career (and theirs). How can a man who dedicates his days to mapping genes and who now directs the institutes dedicated to health-related research believe that God exists and is responsible for much of what scientists believe to be natural or man-made phenomena? While this is certainly a fascinating example of the clash between science and religion, this saga points to an assumption often made by social psychologists and laypersons alike: belief in God and Science are mutually exclusive. Belief in Science and God seem to be competing ideologies – a belief in one seems to necessarily preclude a belief in the other, especially when we’re talking about issues like the origin of the species. In fact, Darwin’s demise is a perfect example of the fervent debate and even the anger that erupts in  both the scientific community, when presented with deep belief in religion and that likewise exists in religious communities when scientists disregard the possibility that God plays a role in our world. But perhaps the clash need not be experienced as something so great.

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By Dena T. Smith

Since his inauguration, President Obama has used just about every forum possible to stress the need for health care reform. We’ve heard the pragmatic arguments: in the current system, we spend too much money on treatment rather than focusing on preventative care or that all the power is in the hands of private interests inflates costs. And we’ve also heard plenty of opposition to government intervention from the right. Two Tuesdays ago, I wrote about the need for the president and health care reformers to frame changes to the system in a way that people would feel motivated to create and/or support reform. I discussed what role altruism could have in this process (click here to go to the post). To re-cap, in the framework of classic theories of altruistic behavior, if people are to support an overhaul of the American health care system (as a helping behavior), they have to feel compelled to act and that the costs of the act would need to be minimal compared to the benefits of change. In other words, wanting to help combined with a bit of self-interest are the necessary cocktail.  In the last few weeks, especially given the failure of the pragmatic (generally economic) approaches in convincing both congress and the public to change the system, the President and his team of health care reformers have locked in on emotions more intensely than ever before. One way in which they hope to activate people’s emotional responses is by swaying religious leaders to publicly emphasize the values of their respective faiths that might potentially push congregants to support government intervention in and alterations to the health care system.

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by enteringthewhirlpool

1.) There is a conjecture that the decline of organized religion in Western societies has not led to more rational modes of thought, but rather to a disaggregation of magical thinking as people find other ways to express the innately human religious impulse. This may manifest itself, for example, through belief in horoscopes. In fact, according to a recent survey in the UK, belief in ghosts is now much higher than it was in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

2.) The recent incident in the U.S. involving the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University led to discussion of whether race was a motivating factor in the arrest. In the absence of any direct evidence of racism it was assumed by many that race must be a factor in any interaction between men of different races.

What links the paragraphs above? Well, some sociologists claim that racism, like the God of the Christian faith, is inside you whether you know it or not. In this spirit, Eileen O’Brien distinguishes two types of people who are opposed to racism: the selectively race cognizant, who oppose overt racism which they perceive outside of themselves; and the reflexively race cognizant, who “spend a great deal of energy analyzing their personal relationships and how they can reduce the racism they may unintentionally perpetuate in those relationships, both intraracial and interracial”.

Considering such a categorization, it may be of value to consider some forms of racial awareness as sharing some characteristics of religious movements: there are initiates who engage in self-contemplation and so find “the truth”, and there are outsiders who are unaware of the racism within themselves and “may resort to defensiveness” when asked to look for it.

Furthermore, according to O’Brien, some antiracist organizations hold discussion groups with “white participants emerging referring to themselves as ‘recovering racists’, borrowing from the Alcoholics Anonymous idea that one can transition into a process of unlearning racism, but that people cannot be suddenly ‘cured’ of the racism in one short period that they have socialized into for their entire lifetimes.” There are strong elements of spirituality in Alcoholics
Anonymous programmes, with several of the “12 steps” referring to the powerlessness of the agent concerned and his acknowledgement of his dependence on God, as he understands Him. The link between antiracism/racial awareness and religious thinking may well warrant further exploration.

Read More: Henry Louis Gates arrest.

Read More: BBC News – survey of beliefs in the supernatural.

From Antiracism to Antiracisms by Eileen O’Brien

by NickieWild

This week, the American Religious Identification Survey conducted by Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut was released. Regions are seeing religious shifts – the Northeast is losing its religious population, while the South is gaining. Clearly, this is due to migration within the country, as well as the more typically religious Hispanic population increasing in numbers in the South. But there has been an overall decline in those who identify with a particular religion. This systemic change can be explained by several factors. Scandals involving sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic church have driven away members. Zealous politicization of the religious right may have hurt their membership in some quarters, while the growth of megachurches has helped it in others.

Although only 1.6% of Americans self-identify as atheist or agnostic, the number who say they do not profess a belief in a higher power, or that “believe in a higher power but not a personal God” is at a combined rate of 24%. This was the only category that increased in every state, perhaps the study’s most significant finding. Why is this the case? In an interview with CNN, William Donohue, president of the Catholic League “said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it.” Does Donohue provide the greatest explanation for this radical change? Perhaps we are seeing the beginnings of a majority shift to a more neo-Durkheimian state of conscience collective, where secular ceremonies (such as the recent election of Barack Obama, who acknowledged unbelievers for the first time in an inaugural address) are replacing the need for specifically religious events. What’s more, everyone can participate, regardless of faith or lack thereof.

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The Rise of the Megachurches and Changes in Religious Culture by Stephen Ellingson

Bryan S. Turner

National University of Singapore

In general dons don’t leave Cambridge University. They die there or they get thrown out, but generally speaking the charm and prestige of the place are sufficiently strong to secure life-long loyalty. I was unusual; I left.  Having been appointed in 1998 as the new professor of sociology, I was soon teaching four ‘papers’ (lecture courses), supervising six PhD students, giving supervisions to college students, managing MA candidates, and sitting on several Faculty Boards. Unable to get on with any empirical research, the material I was presenting in my classes on the sociology of religion felt unreal, overly abstract and unimportant. My tutorial topics were not rooted in any real issues. Much of sociology and cultural studies lacks historical depth, concrete specificity and political relevance. Chris Rojek and I described this tendency as ‘decorative sociology’ in  Society & Culture (2001). Some relief from this hothouse environment came when I started giving lectures at the Ismaili Institute in London. Many of the students there were ‘refugees’ from failed states in the old Soviet Union bringing with them a strange baggage of Marxist Leninism, political Islam, traditional Ismaili loyalties and anti-colonial radicalism. They were typically pious and political. My Cambridge existence by contrast appeared increasingly ethereal alongside the traumatic experiences of my students from such places as Tajikistan, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan. My Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism (1994) said nothing about the brutal persecution of religious minorities as a feature of modernization.

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