Category Archives: Religion

Reinterpreting the actions of emerging adults: searching for discipleship?

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At her.meneutics, Kristen Scharold argues that some Christian emerging adults aren’t just wasting time. Instead, they may be figuring out what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus:

Admittedly, some of us are resistant to settling into the “traditional cycle” of adulthood, but is this because we are sloughing off responsibilities, or because we are waking up to a new set of responsibilities? For 20-somethings who are committed to Jesus, it could be the latter.

We are becoming increasingly ill-fitted categorical adults, but only within the narrow definition that adulthood means settling down — that is, tethering ourselves to romantic partners or to permanent homes. But if adulthood means accepting responsibility — regardless of whether we stay in one place, with the same career, or with the same people — then some of my peers aren’t emerging but have already arrived. They are taking Jesus’ call to discipleship seriously. They are embracing an expansive vision of adulthood, one that doesn’t necessarily involve getting a spouse and a mortgage, but more importantly means following Jesus, a call that sometimes requires reckless abandon (“and immediately they left their nets and followed him”), singleness (“there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”), and financial insecurities (“sell all you have . . . and come follow me”).

Some Christian 20-somethings might look like their fellow emerging adults, but by remaining single, serving overseas, working for justice, creating cultural goods, and pursuing other unprecedented opportunities for gospel advancement and renewal, they may be responding most responsibly to the call of discipleship.

Scharold may be right: they likely are some Christians who are pursuing this. It would be frustrating to be someone who is trying to live a Godly life and instead is simply lumped in with supposedly lazy, shiftless emerging adults.

However, we don’t know how right she is – she cites no data. If this is based on anecdotal evidence (this is also the basis of many arguments against the behaviors of emerging adults), we have no idea how many Christian emerging adults are actually engaging in this behavior.

Of course, there is data to appeal to when exploring these questions. In the area of emerging adults and faith, check out Soul Searching and Souls in Transition. These books suggest while there are some emerging adults who can be classified as devoted to their faith, there are many others who are somewhere between no faith and devoted faith as they try to figure out how to make their lives their own.

Having children = family

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New research from a University of Indiana sociologist suggests that Americans define a collection of people as a family if children are involved:

“Children provide this, quote, ‘guarantee’ that move you to family status,” Powell said. “Having children signals something. It signals that there really is a commitment and a sense of responsibility in a family.”

For instance, 39.6 percent in 2010 said that an unmarried man and woman living together were a family — but give that couple some kids and 83 percent say that’s a family.

Of course, the definition of family has changed over time. The “nuclear family” developed several hundred years ago as people moved away from a broader definition of family that included extended family members or other members of a community.

One can see this recent definition in action in many churches. Having children changes the status of couples from a social grouping not worthy of extra attention to a very important social grouping.

Law professor admires C.S. Lewis’ look at the word “my”

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From the New York Times Freakonomics blog: law professor Ian Ayres comments on C.S. Lewis’ explanation in The Screwtape Letters of “the most property-laden adjective, the possessive “my.”“

Gallup examines the link between religion and income

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New figures from Gallup examine the link between religion and income. Based on results from asking the question “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”, it appears that religion is more important to the daily lives of those in poorer countries:

This reflects the strong relationship between a country’s socioeconomic status and the religiosity of its residents. In the world’s poorest countries — those with average per-capita incomes of $2,000 or lower — the median proportion who say religion is important in their daily lives is 95%. In contrast, the median for the richest countries — those with average per-capita incomes higher than $25,000 — is 47%.

Why exactly this is the case is briefly explored:

Social scientists have put forth numerous possible explanations for the relationship between the religiosity of a population and its average income level. One theory is that religion plays a more functional role in the world’s poorest countries, helping many residents cope with a daily struggle to provide for themselves and their families. A previous Gallup analysis supports this idea, revealing that the relationship between religiosity and emotional wellbeing is stronger among poor countries than among those in the developed world.

However, there are several countries that don’t fit the relationship:

The United States is one of the rich countries that bucks the trend. About two-thirds of Americans — 65% — say religion is important in their daily lives. Among high-income countries, only Italians, Greeks, Singaporeans, and residents of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states are more likely to say religion is important.

Figures like these provide more data to be interpreted within the secularization debate in sociol0gy. Briefly put, the theory of secularization suggests that the importance of religion in institutional life and personal life diminishes as a society or people become more modern. On one hand, this trend Gallup finds seems to support the theory: as countries become wealthier and generally join the industrialized/developed world, the need for religion diminishes. On the other hand, there are countries that don’t fit the trend. The United States is usually discussed as the primary exception but there are other nations with other religious traditions that also don’t fit.

For a graphical representation of the data, check out this New York Times piece.

The Glenn Beck rally and civil religion

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In a Washington Post blog, Amarnath Amarasingam offers some thoughts about how Glenn Beck’s rally is connected to the concept of civil religion, developed first by Robert Bellah and debated by sociologists of religion since. While invoking religious terminology and genres in common in political rhetoric, Amarasingam suggests it can be used for good or ill:

Robert Bellah noted long ago that American civil religion was capable of holding the United States to a higher moral standard. He also warned that it has often been used “as a cloak for petty interests and ugly passions.” In other words, civil religion could be a powerful tool to rally the masses and forge a new path, or it could drive the country into a narcissistic and idolatrous worship of itself. The choice must be made by America’s newly self-appointed high priest.

Of course, Beck’s words were much more specific than many cases of civil religion where leaders make bland and non-specific references.

Glenn Beck illustrates how Evangelicals are successful in American politics

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Sociologist Michael Lindsay examines Glenn Beck’s speech from this past weekend and argues Beck illustrates what Evangelicals do so well:

With those seven words, Glenn Beck accomplished two complementary but seemingly opposite objectives, much like [Rick] Warren does at the outset of his [The Purpose Driven Life] book. He diminished the crowd’s sense that they can do anything ultimately important while simultaneously endowing their attempts with a sense of sacred purpose. It’s as if Beck said to the throngs, “Put away your placards, and give up on your political machinations. We’re not in control.” But using the exact same words, he was exhorting, “We have a bigger obligation to play whatever role we are given in this larger divine drama.”

This relativizing/sacralizing of actions is precisely why evangelicals are so successful in American politics.

What Beck’s call to action will lead to remains to be seen. But, as Lindsay suggests, his uniting of faith and political action may very well influence the Republican Party in the near future.

Passionate vs. “fake” faith among teenagers

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Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theology Seminary and United Methodist minister,  has a new book, based on data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, regarding the faith of teenagers. While many American teenagers claim to be Christian, their faith can be termed “moral therapeutic deism” (defined roughly in the article as “It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.”).

Dean says teenagers with passionate faith are marked by several characteristics:

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

This would certainly be of interest to parents and those who work with teenagers. At the same time, we could ask where these teenagers are getting their ideas about moral therapeutic deism.

For more on this topic (and also based on the same data set): read Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton and Souls In Transition by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell.

Identifying four types of Evangelical leaders

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A new sociological study examines how Evangelical business leaders mix faith and business:

A new study based on interviews with hundreds of American leaders who are evangelical Christians (including CEOs, presidents, and chairs of large businesses and their equivalents in government and politics, nonprofits, arts, entertainment, the media, and sports) finds enormous variety in how leaders engage their personal faith in workplace decision-making.

“While everyone in the workplace has to make decisions—whether they’re the janitor or the manager—the most consequential decisions are made at the top, and we wanted to look at how they affect their businesses,” says D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University.

Lindsay found that most evangelical leaders fit into one of four decision-making categories: pragmatic, heroic, circumspect, and brazen.

Read about the four types in the rest of the article. The study suggests that Evangelicals live out their faith in a variety of ways. What predicts which type people fall into? And then how does acting as this type as a business leader affect their organization?

Of course, one could always ask if there is a more correct type…

Baseball as primitive religious ritual

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One common means that sociologists use to gain perspective on social phenomena is to consider what an alien might observe and conclude if they happened to see human social life. Hampton Stevens takes a similar tack at theAtlantic.com to report on baseball as a primitive religious ritual:

Essentially, the religion of baseball is based on the hurling of a small, white orb that represents the sins of believers, and the attempt to expiate those sins by the ritualized touching of three small white squares. Two bands of warrior-priests wage an intricate, highly symbolic battle to see who can cleanse the most of their followers’ sins.

Each sect has a high priest. He stands elevated atop a circular mound at the very heart of the temple, the sanctum sanctorum of, beneath which are buried his ancestors and martyrs to the faith. Hurling the white sphere, he thus symbolically accuses the entire community of some great wrongdoing, challenging them to defend themselves and their sacred honor.

A cleric from the opposing clan does just that. He holds a weapon, offering a defense by trying to strike the orb in the hopes of being allowed to progress through the series of small white squares and therefore disprove the accusation.

While this may seem like a silly essay, it has value:

1. It is always useful to be reminded how others view practices that we think of as “normal.” Whether the others are aliens or people from different cultures, it is a reminder that what is obvious to us may not be obvious to others. Indeed, social life is made of up of norms and rules that one must learn starting at a young age.

2. Sporting events can be thought of on religious terms. While I have joked that being a Cubs fan is almost like having another religion because of the amount of faith it requires, sports in American society can be analyzed as “functional religion.” Particularly with an event like the Super Bowl, the amount of attention, time, and money spent on sports is astounding. We gather in stadiums/”hallowed grounds” to lustily cheer on our “good” team versus the “evil” team from another place. We might even go so far as to suggest that it may be possible that more Americans pay more attention to sports than they do to religion.