Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Religion in Washington

These last weeks we have focused primarily on the inauguration and the secular and sacred symbolism therein. From Rev. Rick Warren’s invocation to Lincoln’s bible, the Christian symbols and components of the inauguration were clear and present. We know that the United States is a nation founded on Christian ideals, but how can we situate these images in an ever diversifying population? There is no doubt that religion plays a significant role in America today and is therefore a driving political influence, but what role does religion have in Government? No doubt many Christian Americans were thrilled to hear Rev. Rick Warren proclaim Jesus Christ his personal Lord and Savior during his invocation. At the same time no doubt many non-Christians were squirming in their seats. Herein lays the inherent problem with religion in government. There are too many beliefs, too many faiths, and too many ideals to make everyone happy all the time. The First Amendment to the Constitution gives us the idea of separation of church and state by mandating that no law can be passed to respect an established religion nor to prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Constitution never specifies the role religion could or could not play in Washington beyond that.


I personally feel that the significance of the Christian presence at the inauguration comes directly from President Obama’s personal Christian beliefs. Every President of the United States so far has been Christian so there is a tradition of swearing on a Bible. Because of the overwhelming political influence held by Christian voters across the nation, it is unlikely that a non-Christian will be elected any time soon. When it does happen however, it only seems appropriate that religious symbols relevant and sacred to that President will used.


Many moderate Americans may not even have noticed the Christian presence at the inauguration, or at least glazed right over it. As Colleen McDannell describes in Material Christianity, there is a scrambling of the sacred and the profane. Traditionally sacred objects are becoming utilitarian. The Bible, a sacred Christian text, has become the book people swear on. From witnesses in a court room to the president of the United States, when you swear something you do it on a bible. Why? Well, because that is what they always do in the movies. As with any tradition, sacred or secular, the longer its history, the more likely people are to forget why it is done at all.


The voting populace is also a source of religious strife. With radical non-believers screaming “God is a lie!” and radical Christians screaming “Convert the heathens!” we find ourselves in a deadlock with little room for progress. Each side is convinced that it is right and that its way of knowing is the only way. Before his election, Barack Obama spoke about the role of religion in America as well as expressing a need for faiths to coexist and even work together. Below is this clip –I apologize for the poor quality.


In this short piece, I feel like President Obama very accurately describes the role that religion must play in politics. There is no doubt that religion shapes political views, but when creating policy we must, as Obama says, persuade based on a common reality. We must accept that different people hold different beliefs and different ideals, but we are fundamentally all human first. In this way we can come together to establish an effective government.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Week of January 27, symbolism

    The week prior to the week of January 27 we all saw the inauguration as a class on Tuesday, and discussed the many forms of symbolism that we found throughout the ceremony. we found there were multiple views on the symbolism behind Lincolns bible. Some feel that it is strictly religious and it was due to that the bible is Obama's holy book. Others say that the symbolism is behind the ownership of the bible itself. Being that it is Lincoln's bible makes it special or sacred, even if not in a religious way,because Lincoln was president at the time of the United States Civil war. He is also the president that passed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all the slaves in the US and started the movement to even greater equality in our Nation. The fact that really makes our forty fourth president of the USA special is that he is the first African American president. This is where the connection between the bible belonging to Lincoln and Obama as president such a strong symbol.Personally I believe that the fact that it was Lincolns bible that was used did have a significant impact and sacred meaning to it, however I can also believe the other side to a certain degree.

    Below is a Video clip found on NTVKenya's YouTube.com page that shows some of the reactions of people feeling optimistic and hopeful now that we have an African American president in office now. It touches on the link between Obama as the first African American president and how it the bible of the man who began the movement to free the slaves many years ago. This would have never seemed possible and now as specified in the clip, "its a dream come true". If I was Obama at that moment he was being sworn into office I would have been attributing my accomplishment to many different people but thinking of Martin Luther King additionally.

    


    Other forms of symbolism that is not depicted as much in the video include how diverse things were on that day and are almost foreshadowed for the future. The cameras going over the crowd showed a wide range of nationalities as well as the special musical performance was performed by the best of each musical instrument class coincidentally all of a different nationality. Diversity I can see becoming more accepted and promoted in America now that we can see it is in effect already.

    We did a reading that links to the irony that we use Lincoln's bible and Obama is being sworn in as the first African American president. This reading was found in "Material Christianity" by Colleen McDannell. In Chapter one there is a section on material culture. The simple definition of material culture is something that tells about someone in someway or adds a certain feeling to an environment. This links to Lincoln's bible being used to inaugurate president Obama into office. I believe many people think more strongly about the idea behind the situation than about the inauguration itself. Change is good and to finally have an African American president as president will be a change from our prior forty three presidents of the United States of America.


    One thing that we can use to transition to the reading we have done for this class is to think about this quote in regards to the importance of Lincolns bible as a symbol and recurring theme last week. "Material Christianity" we see "In spite of the difficulty of defining "religion," scholars and theologians frequently accept a simple division between the sacred and the profane. They also see an evolutionary, modernizing trend that has caused Western societies to become increasingly secular."(4). It then goes on to talk about how material Christianity how Americans don't see the scrambling change but it is occurring.
    Are we as Americans really taking the sacred from material Christianity or are we leaving it as sacred? If we are maybe the fact that it was Lincoln's bible is more significant than it seems.

Kingdom Coming

I recently came across a book that, upon review, seemed to fit into the subject matter of the Secular and the Sacred. It is called Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. A good summary of the book I found is:
"A cautionary account of growing religious radicalism in America warns of the potential dangers of a doctrine through which Christians believe they have a right to rule non-Christians, identifying political practices that aggressively promote conservative agendas."
On Amazon.com there are 86 reviews of this book, clearly a popular and controversial book. A great review I found from Publishers WeeklyStarred Review said:

"In an impressive piece of lucid journalism, Salon.com reporter Goldberg dives into the religious right and sorts out the history and networks of what to most liberals is an inscrutable parallel universe. She deconstructs "dominion theology," the prevalent evangelical assertion that Christians have a "responsibility to take over every aspect of society." Goldberg makes no attempt to hide her own partisanship, calling herself a "secular Jew and ardent urbanite" who wrote the book because she "was terrified by America's increasing hostility to... cosmopolitan values." This carefully researched and riveting treatise will hardly allay its audience's fears, however; secular liberals and mainstream believers alike will find Goldberg's descriptions of today's culture wars deeply disturbing. She traces the deep financial and ideological ties between fundamentalist Christians and the Republican Party, and discloses the dangers she believes are inherent to the Bush administration's faith-based social services initiative. Other chapters follow inflammatory political tactics on wedge issues like gay rights, evolution and sex education. Significantly, her conclusions do not come off as hysterical or shrill. Even while pointing to stark parallels between fascism and the language of the religious right, Goldberg's vision of America's future is measured and realistic. Her book is a potent wake up call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists." (May 15) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I'm going to read this book and write my own review of it and how it relates to our class for my formal blog post.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is gay the new black?

After watching Geoff's Keith Olbermann's post and reflecting on yesterday's inauguration (including invocation by Rick Warren), I thought perhaps it was worth revisiting this question. It seemed to circulate particularly vigorously after last November's election (especially in regards to the vote on California's Proposition 8 which essentially overturned legal gay marriage by amending the State Constitution to prohibit it). I recommend This story, by Michael Joseph Gross, which ran in The Advocate on November 16th. It explains some interesting similarities and differences between the civil rights fight of African Americans and gay people.

But once we start talking about marriage (straight, gay or otherwise), we venture in the territory of the secular and the sacred in numerous ways. How do we define and explain the institution of marriage in contemporary American culture? Is it a social contract, a spiritual contract, a personally defined contract, or something else? Why can the same Scripture be applied to these questions, yet result in such divergent answers? As we explore questions such as these during the semester, I suggest we all read this piece entitled "Our Mutual Joy" by Lisa Miller, which appeared in the December 15, 2008 issue of Newsweek. Meanwhile, I encourage you to think about and comment on your views regarding marriage today--and how you see the face of marriage in the future . . .

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Throughout the Semester

    Throughout the semester this course, The Secular and the Sacred, will be examining how religion in western civilization has shaped things such as politics, culture and social institutions. This course seems like it will go into what religion influences and what is influenced by secular or non religious aspects. This relationship should be an interesting exploration.

    Looking through the assignments it seems as though we will be relating different things we learn about religions and traditions and relate them to our own ideas and come up with our own with the conceptual knowledge we gain.

Who needs God?

I find it interesting how people my age, especially in the northeastern United States, view religion. A large majority of the people I know from both high school and college, call themselves liberals. They proudly denounce the existence of God or apathetically call themselves agnostic. Is this really a “progressive” movement? Many would argue that it is. Many argue that organized religions are backward and manipulative institutions. Although I strongly disagree with this argument, there are a number of faiths that even I would not defend against these criticisms. Religion has a distinct role and provides a distinct service to society; not everyone who can write a book or speak articulately can provide that service.

In a growing world sorely lacking spiritual guidance, I cannot help but wonder where we will end up. Where are children learning morals, in public schools? My mother, a preschool teacher, comes home horrified that these children know more four letter words than she does and have no concept of respect. Clearly something is not working.

The Secular and the Sacred

I am interested in what direction this class will go this semester. It seems like the two core classes this semester are designed to teach us why we should become atheist socialists. At first glance I expect that the Secular and the Sacred is not going to give us a well rounded view of religion throughout the world. Instead we'll get the Richard Dawkins' delusion. I think it is important to be familiar with all the aspects of religion and I hope we aren't going to be spoon fed the brilliance of atheism while criticizing every other belief system.

In God's Name

In my opinion, I think that something important about religion is that it makes people more secure in life and death. It also gives them something to look up to, something to believe in. The article "In God's Name" states that religion has a very powerful influence in economics and politics. Religion has and can be used to manipulate and control others; it's an effective politcal and commercial tool as evidenced by the historic records of religious wars. But when religious leaders of the world are engaged in preaching hate and intolerance against other religious belief systems, isn't it obvious that people would question the purpose of God? I mean, I thought religion was just a concept that makes people believe in other positive secular things.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Thinking About Peoples Rights

In the article "In Gods name" it asked if it was liberal to stop a British Airways worker from wearing a crucifix, and the more I thought about this question the more I realized that the answer is "no" but in some countries the answer would be "yes". The issue of religion will always be controversial because so many people have different opinions. I hope that one day everyone will be able to accept other peoples thoughts and ideas. As an accounting major, religion does not play a huge role but if a co-worker has a different religion it is important to respect them.

Informal Blog

This class will be very interesting and a new learning experience for me. I am not very religious, and my family never pushed the idea's of religion. We only go to Sunday church once every year. Also, for me I am not part of a denomination, my mother wanted me to chose the religion I wanted to practice. Hopefully, this class will give me a better understanding of religion and how it has affected the Western society. I would like to look deeper into the meaning of Secular, since I feel that it may be interesting.

Jesus "The Raptor" Christ

Every religion, or any system of beliefs for that matter, has it's symbols and icons. The star of David for Judaism, the Lotus for Buddhists, the Omkar for Hinduism. Whatever you identify with, there's some kind of symbol used to represent qualities and values that go along with said beliefs. For myself, I'm a reformed Christian. I say reformed because I still believe in a lot of the basic values taught-- be lawful and kind, respect your peers and elders, etcetera --but I don't agree with a lot of other teaches and the general way things were run. I guess I predisposed myself to this at a young age, when it became apparent that I asked too many questions. 

"Why did they kill Jesus? Why do we burn palm branches? What does 'adultery' mean?"

Too many questions, and not enough answers. Most of my questions revolved around why. I wanted to know why everything happened, why things were the way they are. One of my biggest questions was why use the cross as the Christian symbol? Of course, this was met with the typical Catholic School Teacher response: "Because he died for our sins. Now write your ten commandments." 

I settled for that as an answer, but knew that there had to be more. It didn't make sense to just pick the cross as the overall symbol out of all the other things in the bible, like the fish and wine or the ark. Why wasn't our calling card a picture of Jesus himself? 

I didn't find out the reason until very recently; not even two hours ago in fact. The Cross was first seen as a symbol of power by Constantine I, who is sometimes called the 13th Apostle. It's told that he saw the image of the cross in the sky with the words "In Hoc Signo Vinces," which translates to "In this sign conquer." He posted the symbol on all the shields of his men and sure enough, he won the battle of Milvian Bridge right outside of Rome. This, naturally, led to other victories and his eventual Emperorship. 

I was astonished to find out that the big icon of our religion wasn't carefully thought out, but really just a cloud in the sky that someone interpreted as a cross. This brought up a whole other series of questions, of course. What would have happened if he fell asleep and never seen the cloud? What would happen if he had seen a dinosaur instead? Would we be worshiping Jesus "The Raptor" Christ today? Would our rosary beads be topped off at the bottom with a tiny T-rex? Of course, those questions would never be answered back in grammar school. They would be gasped at, seen as sacrilege. I would be cast out like the lepers. Ultimately though, that's the reason. Some guy saw it in the sky, used it as a good luck charm, and by chance (or holy luck) won a battle. When you hear little side stories like this, away from the big picture of the death and creation, it makes you wonder how much of religion is sent from the higher being and how much is just clouds in the sky. 

Informal Blog Post

I was really intrigued by our conversations that was brought on by today's Capitalism and Democracy class. Although it was based on diversity, this theme brought us into race and ethnicity along many other factors. One point that tied into the Secular and the Sacred class was how religion affected many peoples daily lives and how it tied into our professions. For example, in my field of mass communications, if I worked for an ad agency, my ad may not be published because someone in the agency may disagree due to their religion. The ad also may be interpreted by people of certain religions in the wrong light.

Further Understanding of Religion

Upon reading "Stop in the name", I found myself wanting to know more. I have grown up in a religious family who usually attends church every Sunday. In saying this, I don't know a lot about my religion and should probably know more. This article left me wondering what do certain religions stand for with the issues in our society. My religion is Catholic and I know that we are for pro-life. In church, our priest wanted to pray that the new president and congressmen would vote for pro-life. When he said this is brought me back to the article and made me want to know more. I just found it ironic that what we read was brought to my attention while I was at church.

Formal Blog Post Instructions

For your formal blog posts, you will be responsible for writing about the two specific weeks that you signed up for, plus a third week of your choosing. To do this, reflect on the week’s discussions and readings and think about what interests you or matters to you most. Then, create a post that will lead the class into a related conversation. In some respects, this assignment is pretty open. You have a lot of freedom to write about what you like. Feel free to bring in ideas from Core 240, last year’s Core courses, your professional studies, etc. What I do expect is that you show me well-explained complex connections that reveal how you see content presented in this class connecting to other people, events, and ideas.

Because this is both a blog post and an academic exercise, the following elements are REQUIRED and will be ASSESSED:

1. You must specifically spell out your own thinking about the course content and its connections to your post in clear language that can be understood by a public audience
2. You must refer to and cite course readings in your post, using at minimum the author’s last name.
3. You must include a link to the Course Readings post in our class blog so that outside readers can access the full citations in MLA format.
4. You must find and include link(s) to external web-based content (articles, web pages, blogs, videos, music, etc.) that illustrates and/or illuminates your ideas and fuels further conversation. In my experience, some of the best conversation starters come in the form of an embedded YouTube video.
5. You must provide a citation/description of your linked outside content and clearly explain how it connects to your ideas from class.
6. The writing in your post should be free from spelling and grammatical errors.

Informal Blog

After reading the two articles, I realized that this class will be a real eye opener for me. I found that I am not really religious besides that I go to midnight mass on Christmas. I think that there will be many things that I didn't know about other religions just from reading the articles. I was never forced to go to church besides on  the specific days that meant the most to my Grandmother, so I never got the experience of going every sunday. I want to get a lot of out this class because I feel that it will bring a new view of things to light for me and that I will understand the concepts of new religions. 

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Would you want to be Catholic?

When I read the articles "In Gods Name" and "Stop In The Name" I thought of religion in a different way. I was not raised in a religious family and never attended church. I went with friends when I stayed the night at their houses but never of my own free will. When I got old enough, I wanted to look into religion a little more and research some to see if I connected with any of them. I ended up finding a good fit for me, but my research into Catholicism put me off to that idea.
They do not make it that easy to convert and plus they have a lot of rules! For a high school kid just looking for something bigger to believe in, it really wasn't the most welcoming religion. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way or not but just from all the rules I knew that it wasn't for me.
If anyone else has felt this way about religion in general, please share!

Informal Post

Since I am not a very religious person I think this class will mostly be a learning experience.  Even after reading the two packets from The Economist it was interesting to see how different countries and religions respond to different ideas.  The secular part of the class should be interesting as well.  I was unsure what the meaning of the word secular was before attending the first class but now I know it tends to deal more with tradition and less with religion.  I think that will be a good discussion on what is secular without being sacred and the other way around.  I hope to learn all about sacred traditions in this country and in others along with secular traditions and how they interact.  Overall I think this class will be interesting and I will learn a lot.  

Friday, January 16, 2009

President in Church

I was reading this article "Presidential church choice sends political, spiritual messages" and talked about how all or most of the presidents attended churches during their presidency, and i was wondering, should Barack Obama attend church every day Sunday? According to the article, most American want churchgoer in the oval office. To read this article click here.

Madonna Pepsi Commercial

In 1989, Pepsi unveiled this advertisement, but only showed it once in the United States because Madonna's MTV video version was too controversial. Watching this led to some interesting discussion about the sacred and the secular in marketing decisions.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Labels

For the purposes of this class, it is critical and required that you use the "labels" feature to identify each post as your own. This will help the instructor quickly find your posts for assessment purposes. To do this, after typing in the post itself, add YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME to the labels box that appears just below the text box.

You should also use labels to add key words which will help other readers find your post if it relates to a topic they are interested in. Separate each label with a comma. When finished, go ahead and publish your post, but be sure to view your published work to be sure your full name appears in the right location on the blog. Notice that when viewing the blog, you can see a list of labels in alphabetical order on the right side of the screen. You can click on any label item (which might be an individual author's name) to pull up all the posts that have been so tagged.

Here is an example of what to type in the label box: Cyndi Brandenburg, instructions, labels, key words

Check out this post's labels to see how it looks.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Course Texts

Armstrong, Karen. A History of God. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

Brooks, Michael. "Born believers: How Your Brain creates God." New Scientist. February 4, 2009.

Davies, Norman. Europe: A History. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

Deresiewicz, William. "The End of Solitude." The Chronicle Review. January 30, 2009.

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Herbert, Wray. "Is Fraud Contagious?" Newseek Web Exclusive. March 12, 2009.

"In God's Name." The Economist. London: November 3, 2007.

Lewis, Anthony. "A New National Scripture." The New York Times. January 18, 2009.

Lilla, Mark. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. New York: Vintage Books, 2008.

Linden, David J. The Accidental Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007.

Mahler, Jonathan. "The Soul of the New Exurb." The New York Times. March 17, 2005.

McDannell, Colleen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Media Education Foundation. Reel Bad Arabs. Featuring Dr. Jack Shaheen. 2007. DVD

Miller, Lisa. "Our Mutual Joy." Newsweek. December 15, 2008.

"Stop in the Name . . ." The Economist. London: Novermber 3, 2007.

The Western World Philosophy. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2008.

Wolfe, Alan. "Pew in the Pews." The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington: March 21, 2008.

Wolfe, Alan. The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Quick Help Links

If you need help posting, blogger can offer plenty of assistance. The general help page is found here. Information on how to post is located here. You can also find details on adding links or videos, and even directions on how to post a video from YouTube.

Welcome to the 2009 class blog for COR 230-01

Throughout this semester, our class studying the Secular and the Sacred will create blog posts that elaborate upon course content and connect to other materials through links to outside sources such as articles and videos. We will use these posts weekly as a launching point for in class discussions, so it is important that you create posts that you think are interesting and relevant.

Your blogging contribution will consist of a minimum of 3 formal posts (each worth 5%of your total class grade). You will sign up in class to post for two specific weeks during the semester. Your third post will occur whenever you decide, as long as it is completed prior to course week 13. Detailed instructions and requirements for the formal blog posts can be found here. Of course, you are welcome and encouraged to blog more frequently if you wish!

You will also be graded on your blog participation--this means the frequency and thoughtfulness with which you respond to other students' posts (using the comments feature) as well as completion of occasional informal assigned posts (such as your introduction post, which was due on Tuesday, January 20th). Your active participation in the blog is worth an additional 5% of your total class grade.


Although it is a required course component, I hope you will approach this blog as an opportunity to show your unique perspective on the material we read and discuss, to be creative, and to personalize what we are doing in class in a way that interests and excites you. Have fun, and remember, you are literally writing for the whole world to read!