Category Archives: Religion

Lombard mosque approved by DuPage County Board

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I’ve been tracking this story in recent months (earlier stories here, here, and here) and it looks like we have a resolution: the DuPage County Board approved plans for a mosque in unincorporated Lombard.

By a 12-4 vote, board members supported revised plans from the Muslim Community Association of Western Suburbs for the Pin Oak Community Center. It will be built just east of Interstate Highway 355, at the southwest corner of Roosevelt Road and Lawler Avenue…

The plan had been controversial because of residents’ objections about traffic down Lawler Avenue into their neighborhood.

But the plan was modified to include an exit onto Roosevelt Road and restrictions on two access drives on Lawler. Also, the association will widen Lawler to three lanes and extend the eastbound lane on Roosevelt Road…

In July, board members deferred their vote on the Pin Oak proposal, but they did deny the group’s plan for a roughly 50-foot-tall dome on the property. The building will not be permitted to exceed 36 feet in height.

It would be interesting to hear the rationale of the 4 board members who voted against this.

The article suggests the controversy about this mosque was due to traffic concerns and the height of the building, typical NIMBY concerns that might be brought up with proposals for any religious structure or any non-religious, non-residential structure. I hope there is a sociologist (or other social scientist) working on testing whether proposals for mosques draw special “NIMBY” attention.

Quick Review: Stellet Licht/Silent Light

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(This is a guest post written by Robert Brenneman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. His book Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America (Oxford University Press) will be released in October.)

A well-regarded sociologist who studies Latin America and publishes regularly in the area of theory and qualitative methods recently recommended that I watch the film “Stellet Licht” / “Silent Light” (2007). The film takes an existential approach to explore the tension between morality and desire in a conservative community of Mennonites in rural Mexico. I had not heard of the film until David Smilde recommended it to me, and so I was delighted to see that Netflix has made it available by streaming. I had high hopes. Smilde shows the film to his students in social theory at the University of Georgia and I am always on the lookout for films that both inspire and instruct students. Alas, watching the film was a disappointment to me as a Mennonite and as a sociologist.

First, the good. Mexican film-maker Carlos Reygadas is both talented and gutsy. Both the decision to write a film about Mexican Mennonites and his insistence that the film not rush its characters or its story paid big dividends in the realm of cinematic beauty, if not at the box office. A New York Times reviewer rightly raves about the opening scene, which gives a powerful sense of both the visual and aural beauty that surrounds–no, engulfs–the Canadian Mennonites who moved to this region in the 1940s in search of religious freedom and the right to educate their children in non-state, German-speaking schools. Reygadas shows us some of the power and the glory of rural Mexico in this story of piety and pleasure. But unlike the rural Mexican “whiskey priest” in Graham Greene’s classic novel, Reygadas’s protagonist is neither compelling nor instructive. That is not a criticism of Cornelio Wall Fehr’s portrayal of Johan, the Mennonite father torn between his love for his family and his desire to be with his mistress Marianne. In fact, most of the actors carry out their roles with impressive ability and subtle grace. Opting to fill the major roles with Canadian Mennonites, not professional actors, was another bold move, and one that allowed Reygadas to film almost entirely in the same low German dialect spoken by the Mexican Mennonite communities themselves. Indeed, when the attention is on the actors, it’s easy to forget that the film was shot on-site in Chihuauhua, Mexico.

The problem here is not in the direction, which is unusually bold and beautiful, incorporating long, still shots and unconventional camerawork to patiently unfold the narrative, but rather with the story itself. Reygadas does not understand the community he has entered and wishes to narrate. I do not make this accusation lightly nor out of a suspicion that the director/writer had some sort of voyeuristic desire to expose or profit from a tightly-knit, little-understood community. In fact, I think Reygadas does the best he can to develop his characters as individuals. But ultimately, the story fails because the lives led by these individuals make little sense absent the backdrop of a tightly-knit community that holds to a particular religious narrative–one that derives ultimate meaning from submission to God and to the community of faith. Mennonites (whether in Mexico, Canada, or the United States) believe that their Christian faith cannot be lived out in solitude but relies upon active participation in a community that seeks to model Jesus’ non-violent love by living simply, non-violently, and without the status-judging of hierarchies of title or prestige. Of course, ideals do not easily translate to reality and so conservative Mennonites and their religious cousins, the Amish, have relied on explicit rules and strict measures of social control in order to enforce simplicity and “right living.” Sociologists like Peter Berger have pointed out the irony of a pacifist religious group that practices excommunication through shunning–one of the harshest penalties imaginable given the social world of those who grow up in such a community. But rule following and and punishment for violators must be understood through the lens of belief in a God that entrusts discipline to the community itself. Sociologically speaking, discipline ensures the future of a community with such high ideals. In some cases, it also protects the weak. Take Esther, Johan’s unlucky, even pitiable wife, whose suffering is only enhanced by her husband’s unbelievable commitment to honesty about his on-going affair. Such commitment is beyond belief not because no Mennonite could do such a thing, torn by a belief in truth-telling and a desire to experience love, but rather because no Mennonite community would allow it. Extra-marital affairs do happen, even in very conservative Mennonite communities, but when they do, the leadership of the community moves with exceeding swiftness to expose and discipline them. I once witnessed such discipline when I visited my grandmother’s church in Middlebury, Indiana. The disciplinary service actually replaced the sermon–this was serious business as far as the church was concerned. It was seen as an assault not just on a family but on the whole community. The service was videotaped and a copy was sent to the violator, who was not in attendance despite the multiple pleadings of the church leaders. I was told that the individual repented and later returned to his family.

The point is not that conservative Mennonite or Amish communities are idyllic or that “the ban” is not so onerous, but rather that strict piety and even its enforcement can have the effect of protecting not just communities but families and individuals. Specifically, the proscription of extra-marital affairs protects women from suffering in ignominy and silence of the way portrayed by Johan’s wife. Ethical misconduct of this magnitude would never stay put in a densely-networked Mennonite community. It has a way of getting round to the light of day. And when they do, their protagonists are not given Johan’s luxury of ponderous indecision at the expense of a tortured-but-submissive wife. Reygadas’s film, because it focuses only on individuals and never moves beyond the scope of the family, cannot hope to capture the sense of what it is like to grow up–or grow old–in a dense, strict religious community. The longish final scene of a funeral is a perfect example of the director’s myopic misunderstanding.* In the scene, Johan and his family is surrounded by a handful of resigned family members, shell-shocked but stoic in the midst of their tragedy. I have never heard of a tiny, sparsely-attended Mennonite or Amish funeral. They are actually very large social affairs, with tons of food and hundreds of guests. I once spent a weekend in the home of some elderly conservative Mennonites in Belize (an off-shoot of the Mexican group) who told me that they were spending much of their time going to the funerals of friends and family in Belize and Canada. Nor are conservative Mennonites heroes of emotional stoicism like Esther’s children, who gaze perplexedly at her coffin, almost in wonderment.

In short, I found Reygadas’s film disappointing and the story unconvincing because I saw little evidence in it of the network density that characterizes typical conservative Mennonite communities. That density can be oppressive for sure, but it does not leave individuals alone, in existential wasteland, in their suffering. Johan and Esther (not to mention Mistress Marianne) are adrift in this film. If I had to put it in sociological terms, I would say that the film lacks “understanding” of the Mennonite social world or what Weber called “Verstehen” and therefore fails to meet the criteria for good classroom film–film that helps students understand a social world that is distant from their own. I’m disappointed to report that I won’t be showing it to my students any time soon.

*I recognize that this scene is intended to recall a similar ending in the film Ordet by Carl Theodor Dreyer, so I won’t critique the bizarre nature of the conclusion in the scene. In any event, any film should stand on its own strengths.

Quick Review (recent reads): The Social Animal, Love Wins, Connected, In the Garden of Beasts, Heat Wave, Travels with Charley

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As the summer ended and school started, I was able to get through a backlog of intriguing books. Here are quick thoughts on this varied collection:

1. The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks. I thought I might not like the “story” that Brooks uses to convey research findings but I found it a helpful way to think about the growing body of research about how our brains and emotions affect our lives. Overall, I like Brook’s argument that we should pay more attention to the British Enlightenment than the French Enlightenment emphasis because of how much humans are truly influenced by their emotions and subconscious and not just reason and rationality. I’m not quite sure what Brooks wants us to do with this information in the end (and why use the term “the big shaggy” to describe our subconcious?) but I do enjoy Brooks skewering certain groups in hilarious paragraphs that mirror some of his commentary in earlier books like Bobos in Paradise. And perhaps I’m required to say this as a sociologist but I think Brooks gives short shrift to the role of culture plays in shaping the subconscious. (See a preview post about the book here.)

2. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell. This book created quite a stir in evangelical circles earlier this year as some, like John Piper, essentially kicked Bell out of their circles. On the whole, I would say the book is uneven: some chapters are quite orthodox in their understanding of God, love, and evangelism while other chapters stray and Bell is not as careful with his words as he pushes boundaries. Also, the book seems aimed less at the general population and more at disaffected evangelicals, an interesting group to address, who can’t come to grips about their beliefs about hell rather. Taking a broader view, the book and the debate around it illustrates several interesting sociological issues: subcultures and drawing symbolic boundaries about who is in and out as well as the how theology and culture influence each other. As a follow-up, I ran into these two videos: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir asks Bell some tough questions (considering the issue of media types asking people about religion, Bashir’s Wikipedia profile includes a quote saying he is a “committed Christian”) in contrast to a fluffier interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.

3. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas Christakis and James H. Fowler. This text could serve as a general audience introduction to the study of social networks. Many of the examples in the book are physiological as these researchers are known for their work on how things like obesity, emotions, and diseases are spread throughout social networks. The takeaway of the book: three degrees of separation is what connects us (those are your friends of friends of friends) and the actions and emotions of those people trickle down to us. I like the emphasis on how people seemingly beyond our immediate control have an influence on us.

4. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson. This book provides a look at Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s through the eyes of American ambassador William Dodd and his daughter Martha. The story of Germany is of course fascinating: Hitler consolidates power while hardly anyone inside or outside the country challenges him. However, Dodd and his daughter figure it out but they are marginalized, Dodd because he won’t live the opulent lifestyle most US ambassadors were accustomed to and Martha because of her romantic forays and developing ties to the USSR. Even though you know the outcome of the larger story, the story is still interesting as an American academic tries to sound the alarm about the rising tide of Nazism.

5. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg. I’ve been meaning to read this for some time as it concerns the 500+ deaths that occurred as the result of a heat wave in Chicago in 1995. Klinenberg performs a “social autopsy,” looking at the various factors and institution involved in the situation. The elderly who were alone were susceptible, particularly in neighborhoods without much street life, the morgues were unprepared, the media was behind in covering the story, and the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley tried to pass the blame. A lot went wrong in this situation, leading to one of the most deadly natural disasters in American history. (Perhaps this book was ahead of its time in looking at the sociology of disasters.)

6. Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck. I like Steinbeck and regard The Winter of Our Discontent and East of Eden as two of the best books I have read. However, this travelogue seems the opposite of his best novels: Steinbeck rambles around the country and offers some disconnected commentary. It seemed like he was trying to not do what he does in his novel: offer sweeping stories with big points about American life and culture. The only part that really grabbed my attention: Steinbeck passed through New Orleans during protests against the integration of New Orleans’ schools in 1960 (immortalized in a Norman Rockwell painting President Obama recent selected to hang in the Oval Office) and talked with some of the residents.

What journalists should know about religion

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In the last week, several journalists have addressed the issue of how journalists should talk with politicians about religion. Ross Douthat followed up on his August 29th column with a blog post providing examples of what he is trying to address. And last Friday, Amy Sullivan provided a number of steps journalists could take in order to write intelligently about the religious beliefs of politicians.

This brings several thoughts to mind:
1. What happened to religion writers among major newspapers or magazines? I think most of them have disappeared, even respected ones like Catherine Falsani who used to write for the Chicago Sun-Times. At a time when religion is alive and influential around the world, media sources don’t have dedicated people who can comment on these particular issues. Asking political writers to write about topics they don’t regularly cover seems like a problem. I know media outlets have had to make major cutbacks in certain areas but there are repercussions for this.
2. The burden seems to be on politicians who have “non-mainstream” religious beliefs to explain how they are not dangers to society. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Americans have more unfavorable feelings toward minority religions like Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists/non-religious (not quite a minority “religion”). Of course, much of this debate could really be about whether evangelicals are mainstream or not. Their size would suggest they are mainstream as would their political influence since the late 1970s.

More educated people attend church more

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One common idea is that people (or societies) that are more educated will move away from religious beliefs. However, several recent sociology studies suggest that more educated people are more likely to attend church:

While overall church attendance has declined slightly in the United States in recent decades, a new study says attendance at religious services among white Americans who did not go to college has fallen more than twice as quickly as it has among more highly educated whites.

The study, released Sunday by the American Sociological Association, draws on decades of data from the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth to conclude that “moderately educated whites,” defined as people with high school degrees, attended religious services in the 1970s at about the same rate as whites with degrees from four-year colleges. In the last decade, however, they attended much less frequently…

The research shares some conclusions with a recent study by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor whose findings contradicted the common myth that less-educated people are more religious. That study, released in early August, concluded that a college degree does not make a person less religious, but that more education does make people more accepting of the validity of religions other than their own. Both studies used data from the General Social Survey, which is an ongoing survey of American’ attitudes and behaviors that began in 1972.

This is a reminder that social class, made up of influential factors like education, impacts religious life, an area that some believe should be more of a private matter.

This fits with some thoughts I heard at the ASA meetings in Las Vegas that there seems to be two trajectories in American life: a middle/upper class life built upon education and a working/lower class life built upon traditional values.

I wonder how this would look from the religious congregation side: have more congregations been deliberately seeking more educated members who have more resources and are more open-minded? This makes pragmatic sense but not religious sense.

A final thought: how much of this is driven by increasing education levels of conservative religious group that in the past were less educated (evangelicals, fundamentalists, etc.)?

Evangelicals and their propensity to think that everyone is against them

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Sociologist Bradley Wright draws attention to an issue among evangelicals: a common belief that fellow Americans do not like them:

Similarly, somewhere along the line we evangelical Christians have gotten it into our heads that our neighbors, peers, and most Americans don’t like us, and that they like us less every year. I’ve heard this idea stated in sermons and everyday conversation; I’ve read it in books and articles.

There’s a problem, though. It doesn’t appear to be true. Social scientists have repeatedly surveyed views of various religions and movements, and Americans consistently hold evangelical Christians in reasonably high regard. Furthermore, social science research indicates that it’s almost certain that our erroneous belief that others dislike us is actually harming our faith.

The statistics Wright presents suggests evangelicals are somewhere in the middle of favorability among different religious groups. For example, a 2008 Gallup survey suggests Methodists, Jews, Baptists, and Catholics are viewed more favorably than evangelicals while Fundamentalists, Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, and Scientologists are viewed less favorably.

Wright goes on to argue (as he also does in this book) that the perceptions evangelicals have might be harmful:

If American evangelicals do have an image problem, it’s not our neighbors’ image of us; it’s our image of them. The 2007 Pew Forum study found that American Christians hold more negative views of “atheists” than non-Christians do of evangelical Christians. (The most recent Pew survey found similar attitudes; see the chart above.) Now, I am not a theologian, but this seems to be a problem. We Christians are called to love people, and as I understand it, this includes loving people who believe differently than we do. I’m not sure how we can love atheists if we don’t like them.

Ultimately, evangelical Christians might do well not to spend too much time worrying about what others think of us. Christians in general, and evangelical Christians in particular (depending on how you ask the question), are well-regarded in this country. If nothing else, there’s little we can do to change other people’s opinions anyway. Telling ourselves over and over that others don’t like us is not only inaccurate, it also potentially hinders the very faith that we seek to advance.

This is an ongoing issue with several aspects:

1. There is a disconnect between the numbers and the perceptions. Wright looks like he is trying to make a prolonged effort to bring these statistics to the masses. Will this data make a difference in the long run? How many evangelicals will ever hear about these statistics?

2. There may be positive or functional aspects to continually holding the idea that others don’t like you. Subgroups can use this idea to enhance solidarity and prompt action among adherents. Of course, these alarmist tendencies might not be helpful in the long run. (See a better explanation of this perspective from Christian Smith here.)

In the end, this is useful data but there is more that could be done to explain how these perceptions are helpful or not and what could or should be done to move in a different direction. Providing people with the right data and good interpretations is a good start but then people will want to know what to do next.

“World first” PhD in snowboarding really a sociology of religion PhD

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I saw this story yesterday: the first man in the world to receive a PhD in snowboarding. But the story is actually a little more complicated: this was actually a PhD in the sociology of religion having to do with having spiritual experiences while snowboarding.

A vicar has become the first person to be awarded a “PhD in snowboarding” after studying at Kingston University.

The Rev Neil Elliot’s doctorate in the sociology of religion involved analysing the relationship between spirituality and snowboarding in his thesis.

A snowboarder for 15 years, he was inspired to research the area after hearing fellow fans of the sport describe moments of “Zen” while on the slopes – and concluded that despite church attendance falling, spirituality is still important in youth culture…

He interviewed 35 snowboarders who described spiritual moments they had experienced. “Riders found it sometimes all went silent and it was just them and the snow,” he said. “Even the sensation of constant turning disappeared.”

This could be less about snowboarding and more about how younger generations find spiritual experiences in non-traditional activities. It would be interesting to hear how these experiences are discussed, spread, and promoted within the snowboarding community.

And who wouldn’t want a vicar termed “Dr. Soulride”?

God gets good job approval ratings in recent survey

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I’m not sure why Public Policy Polling decided to recently include these questions in a mid-July survey (just to make comparisons with current politicians and Rupert Murdoch?) but here is how Americans rate God’s job performance:

While many polls have asked what Americans’ beliefs are about God, there has been little measurement of voters’ evaluation of its performance. It turns out, if God exists, voters would give God a strong 52-9 approval rating. This is hardly a surprise considering the vast majority of the country believes in an infallible deity, but some of the crosstabs are quite interesting.

There is a considerable age divide on God’s approval with those 18-29 approving 67-18 compared to a 40-6 approval rating among those over 65. What jumps out from this divide is not just that young voters are more likely to be critical of the job performance of the omnipotent figure, but that they are considerably more likely to voice their opinion. Only 15% of those 18-29 said they were unsure whether they approved of God, while 54% of those over 65 said they were unsure. This could indicate that the youth is much more comfortable answering silly questions about religion while the elderly feel a question on God’s approval is taking religion too lightly. There is also an ideological divide over God’s performance. Those who identify as very liberal approve of God 54-18, while those who identify as very conservative are almost uniform in their approval, 61-4.

God also performs well on some of the issues it could be responsible for if it exists. God scores its best rating on its handling of creating the universe. The big bang may be messy, but most voters must feel it gets the job done as they give God a 71-5 rating on the issue. As for the animal kingdom, if God exists it may have been off its game when it evolved up the giraffe’s laryngeal nerve, but perhaps the elegant Monarch butterfly makes up for it as voters give God a 56-11 rating on its handling of animals. As one would expect, God’s worst ratings are on its handling of natural disasters; however, Americans may feel the occasional earthquake or hurricane builds character as voters give God strong marks, rating it 50-13.

These figures seem pretty high but they are rather vague questions. If you are going to ask these questions, why not add a few more: do you feel God has treated you fairly lately? Do you think God has blessed the United States? Which political party do you think God would side with more? Do you feel that God approves of your job performance in life?

Maybe these figures do indicate some generational and political gaps. There are also some differences by race as African-Americans are more likely to approve of God’s performance. Or perhaps these figures don’t tell us much of anything. PPP could start asking this question more regularly and track the data over time.

It would be interesting to follow these questions by asking respondents why they gave the rating they did. Were respondents afraid to give God negative ratings?

Also, how come there is no indication of how many people didn’t answer this question since it starts with “If God exists”? Cross-tabs give us percentages but we don’t have Ns for the categories or cells.

Quick Review: American Grace

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I recently wrote about a small section of American Grace but I have had a chance to complete the full book. Here are my thoughts about this broad-ranging book about religion in America:

1. On one hand, I like the broad overview. There is a lot of data and analysis here about American religion. If someone had to pick up one book about the topic, this wouldn’t be a bad one to choose. I also liked some of the historical insights, including the idea that what we see now in American religion is a fallout of action in the 1960s and two counteractions that followed.

2. On the other hand, I’m not sure this book provides much new information. There is a lot of research contained in this book but much of it is already out there. The authors try to produce new insights from their own survey but I this is an issue in itself: after reading the full book, it was somewhat unclear why the authors undertook two waves of the Faith Matters Survey. The questions led to some new insights (like feelings toward the construction of a large religious building nearby) but much of it seemed duplicated and the short period between the waves didn’t help.

3. There is a lot of talk about data analysis and interpretation in this book. While it is aimed for a more general audience, the authors are careful in their explanations. For example, they are careful to explain what exactly a correlation means, it indicates a relationship between variables but causation is unclear, over and over again. Elsewhere, the authors explain exactly why they asked the questions they did and discuss the quality of this data. Some of these little descriptions would be useful in basic statistics or research classes. On the whole, they do a nice job in explaining how they interpret the data though I wonder how this might play with a general public that might just want the takeaway points. Perhaps this is why one reviewer thought this text was so readable!

4. Perhaps as a counterpoint to the discussions of data, the book includes a number of vignettes regarding religious congregations. These could be quite lengthy and I’m not sure that they added much to the book. They don’t pack the same punch as the representative characters of a book like Habits of the Heart and sometimes seem like filler.

5. The book ends with the conclusion that Americans can be both religiously diverse and devoted because of the many relationships between people of different faiths and denominations. On the whole, the authors suggest most people are in the middle regarding religion, not too confident in the idea that their religion is the only way but unwilling to say that having no religion is the way to go. I would like to have read more about how this plays out within religious congregations: how do religious leaders then talk doctrine or has everyone simply shifted to a more accomodating approach? Additionally, why doesn’t this lead down the path of secularization? From a societal perspective, religious pluralism may be desirable but is it also desirable for smaller groups?

On the whole, this book is a good place to start if one is looking for an overview of American religion. But, if one is looking for more detailed research and discussion regarding a particular topic, one would be better served going to those conducting research within these specific areas.

How Americans would respond to a new large religious building nearby

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I’ll post a Quick Review of American Grace soon (see an earlier post here) but I wanted look at an excerpt about another topic I have written about recently: how suburban governments respond to requests for the construction of religious buildings (this includes churches and mosques). Here is a description of findings from the 2007 Faith Matters Survey (pages 512-514)

How Americans respond to land use matters involving religious groups depends on the religion in questions. According to the 2007 Faith Matter survey, an overwhelming majority of Americans (92 percent) say that the construction of a large Christian church in their community would either not both them (55 percent) or is something they would welcome (37 percent). This level of acceptance is high even among the most secular tenth of the population (87 percent), although their reaction is far less supportive. Eighty-two percent of the highly secular say that they would merely “not be bothered” by a large Christian church, while just 5 percent would explicitly welcome it.

Because of the near-ubiquity of Christian churches in American communities, we were also interested in reactions to a religious facility that would unfamiliar to many Americans, and so we asked about the construction of a “large Buddhist temple.”…

The point of asking about both kinds of religious structures it to distinguish among different reasons for opposing their construction. Some people might oppose both a large Christian church and a large Buddhist temple because they object to the construction of any sizable structure in their neighborhood, whether it be a church, a temple, a restaurant, a store. Or it could be because they have an aversion to religion of any kind. However, opposition to a Buddhist temple but not a Christian church would suggest that the concern lies with Buddhism specifically or perhaps “exotic” (or non-Christian) religions more generally.

For Buddhists who might be planning to build a temple, our results contain good news and bad news. The good news is the high overall support, at least in the abstract for a Buddhist temple. Three quarters of Americans (76 percent) say they have no problem with the construction of a large Buddhist temple in their neighborhood. The bad news is that only a small number (15 percent) would explicitly welcome it in their midst. Even worse news for the Buddhists is that one in five Americans (20 percent) say that they have no problem with a large Christian church but would object to a Buddhist temple…Approval of a Buddhist temple drops precipitously as personal religiosity increases…

These are interesting findings that suggest Americans are pretty favorable toward large new churches in their community and a majority would be favorable toward a large Buddhist temple. A few thoughts about these findings:

1. The interchanging of the term “community” and “neighborhood” bothers me. The original survey questions (see here) ask about buildings built in a community. I would assume many survey respondents would perceive a neighborhood as a smaller, closer geographic area and might respond differently. It would be one thing for a Naperville resident to express support for a Buddhist temple on the other side of the community, perhaps 7-8 miles away, compared to expressing support for a temple within a 15 minute walk.

2. I would suspect that more Americans would be less supportive if the questions asked about large religious buildings very close to their home. Residential neighbors often get worked up about such structures, not people from the other side of the community (unless it is a smaller community). This would be NIMBY in action.

3. The word “large” in the survey questions is a bit unclear here: are we talking about a megachurch or a congregation of 300? The sorts of problems Americans complain about regarding large structures, such as traffic, are larger with bigger buildings.

4. It’s too bad there isn’t a third question asking about responses to a proposal for a large mosque. While both Buddhists and Muslims are rated low according to larger American religious groups (see pages 501-509), I wonder if many Americans wouldn’t see Islam as more foreign than Buddhism.

On the whole, I am a bit skeptical that these survey results reflect zoning and municipal discussions regarding large religious congregations. Perhaps a very vocal minority tends to oppose such buildings – this tends to characterize a lot of local development discussions. But when residents feel threatened by such large structures, their magnanimity may decrease.