irritually

A blog about (ir)religion, ritual and so on …

Archive for the category “Irreligion”

29 Nov 2012
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Secularism and Secularity at the American Academy of Religion: A Proposal

Prior to this year’s AAR annual meeting in Chicago I wrote about an effort to carve out a space within the AAR that attends more fully to secularisms, secularities and non-religion. We held a exploratory session on “Irreligion, Secularism and Social Change” in furtherance of that cause, and it was a smashing success. Over 90 people were in attendance to see three interesting and provocative papers by Daniel Silliman, Petra Klug and Jordan Miller that covered a variety of approaches to the secular and social change. Jonathan van Antwerpen of the Social Sciences Research Council also did a marvelous job tying them together despite their divergence. Now we are onto next steps, which means a proposal for the actual group.  The full proposal text can be found at the Immanent Frame, and if you skip on over there you’ll see that we are also requesting letters of support. If you are a member of the AAR and you like what you see, please do send us a letter to secularisms.secularities@gmail.com. All letters have to be received by the end of the day tomorrow.

Secularism and Secularity
Proposal for a new program unit of the American Academy of Religion

Co-chairs:
Per Smith (Boston University)
Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Social Science Research Council)

Steering Committee Members:
Joseph Blankholm (Columbia University)
Mayanthi Fernando (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Jonathon Kahn (Vassar College)
Kathryn Lofton (Yale University)
Robert Yelle (University of Memphis)

The shifting boundaries of religion in late modernity have increasingly pointed up the problematic relationship between “the religious” and “the secular.”  In the wake of a contested and frequently maligned “secularization thesis,” a new set of questions have appeared that draw our scholarly attention to secularism, secularity, and the secular—questions around the changing role of religion in law, politics, and public life, around the metamorphosis of personal identities, practices, and affiliations (figured as religious, spiritual, secular, or otherwise), and around a broader set of historical transformations that have conditioned and been imbricated in these and other changes.

In the course of pursuing answers to such questions contemporary scholars are confronted with, and challenged by, the ways in which diverse modes of secularism and multiple forms of secular practice are entangled with—and variously seek to disentangle themselves from—religion and the religious. These entanglements can take shape as contestations or conversions, appropriations or accommodations, while also pointing toward the different ways in which the religious and the secular depend upon and indeed constitute one another. Exploring the interplay of “religious” and “secular” identities, communities, and institutions, for example, is an important part of more fully understanding a widely noted rise in religious disaffiliation within the United States…

Do read the entire proposal and if you support it remember to send your letter to secularisms.secularities@gmail.com.

Posted in Irreligion, Secularism and tagged , , , ,
09 Oct 2012
3 Comments

Nonreligion and the Secular at the AAR 2012

Today the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a new report about “‘Nones’ on the Rise,” by which they mean the still steady trend of religious disaffiliation in the United States. In conjunction with this PBS has also announced the three part miniseries, “None of the Above: The Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated,” to start airing on October 12th. These are exciting announcements for those of us who conduct research in the burgeoning field of “nonreligion,” a field that has been growing immensely in the last few years. So this is a perfect opportunity to promote one aspect of that growth, the inroads nonreligion and the secular have been making into the academic study of religion, here in the United States.

In advance of this year’s American Academy of Religion annual meeting I compiled a conference guide of all the sessions and individual papers that deal with some aspect of “the secular” (nonreligion, irreligion, secularism, unbelief, etc.). A PDF of the guide can be accessed through the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network where future guides like it, also covering other large conferences, will be published from here on out. On this guide you’ll find a plethora of presentations on secularism, atheism, the “post-secular,” skepticism and so on, but there is one session in this mix that I would like to shamelessly promote above all the rest:

Exploratory Sessions (A18-232)

Per Smith, Boston University, Presiding
Theme: Irreligion, Secularism and Social Change
Sunday – 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM

Scholars of religion from a variety of disciplines are increasingly focusing their attention on the relationship between the religious and the secular. So what would a sustained discussion of “the secular” look like within the American Academy of Religion; and moreover, how would such a discussion be relevant to religious studies? This exploratory session seeks to provide modest answers to those questions by example. On the heels of the year of the protestor, the session explores how “the secular” is implicated in and affected by social transformations. How did social change make the secular possible? How have the demands of 20th century social movements shaped emergent forms of secularism? How do contemporary social movements provide fertile soil for secular theologies of resistance? And how are contemporary irreligious identities evolving within a social context that considers them deviant?

Daniel Silliman, University of Heidelberg
  The Possibility of Secularity and the Material History of Fiction
Petra Klug, University of Leipzig
  The Dynamics of Standardisation and Deviance using the Way U.S. Society deals with Atheists as an Example
Jordan Miller, Salve Regina University
   Occupying Absence: Political Resistance and Secular Theology

Responding:
Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Social Science Research Council

This particular session was put together by a few of us in the hope that we might carve out a more permanent space for discussions at the AAR of how “the secular” relates to the religious. While of course I think everyone ought to be there :-) , those who are interested in furthering such a discussion specifically should make sure to join us at this session. Please also help us by spreading the word to colleagues you think might be interested and don’t forget to share the conference guide with them, which I will link again below. Thanks!

NONRELIGION AND THE SECULAR AT THE AAR 2012

Posted in Atheism, Irreligion, Religious Studies, Secularism
06 Jun 2012
3 Comments

Three PhD Candidates in Nonreligion Sought by German University

As many of you already know the field of secular studies is still growing by leaps and bounds. In the last few years we’ve seen the creation of research networks, institutes, academic programs and peer reviewed journals. If you have a masters degree and are interested in entering this field on the PhD level an amazing opportunity has opened up in Germany at Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main:

Three Doctoral Research Fellows (E13 TV-G-U, 75% part-time) are sought by the Emmy Noether1 “Diversity of Non-Religiosity” Research Group at Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, based at the Institut für Ethnologie (Social Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy und History). The start date is 01.11.2012 and the positions are limited to a period of three years.

The Doctoral Fellows will develop their research projects under the supervision of the Principal Investigator. Their main task will be to complete individual research projects in collaboration with the other participants. They will have an independent budget for research and travel expenses. The Research Group further offers interdisciplinary and international collaborations and comprehensive supervision by the Principle Investigator who is also teaching and conducting research on this topic.

The Research Group is organized around the assumption that a comprehensive understanding of the role of religion(s) within contemporary societies has to take the “diversity of non-religiosity” into consideration. The aim of the Doctoral Fellowships is to conduct empirical research on non-religious individuals, groups or phenomena – preferably in different countries. For example topics may include but are not limited to indifference towards religion(s), worldviews alternative to religion(s), or criticism of religion(s) made in relation to atheist, humanist or skepticist thought or identity. The specific object of inquiry, methodology and theoretical approach will depend on the Doctoral Fellows’ training, interest, and research focus. Curiosity about the research topic, intellectual creativity, and an enjoyment of academic collaboration are crucial for the success of the project.

All applicants must hold a master’s degree (M.A.) or an equivalent qualification in anthropology, religious studies, sociology, or a related discipline.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT

The deadline for applicants is less than two months away (July 31st) so don’t sit on this opportunity too long if you are interested.

Posted in Announcements, Irreligion
27 May 2012
2 Comments

Attending without Adhering: What Some Nonbelievers Get up to on Sundays

Today is Sunday, which means a whole lot of Americans are at church. While it is well known that  some of those who report going to church are actually mowing the lawn, sleeping in or fishing, we can be fairly certain that many are in fact attending a service today or at the very least on some other given Sunday. According to the 2000-2010 cumulative GSS data,  73% of Americans say they go at least once a year, 60% report going several times a year or more and 26% claim to go weekly.

I know what you are thinking. In a nation as purportedly devout as the United States these numbers don’t seem particularly interesting. True, but a subset of these figures might still surprise you. Of those who claim to have no religious affiliation (the “nones”) 26% claim to attend church at least once a year, 12% report going at least several times a year and 2% say they go weekly. Who are these people who go weekly, or even several times a year, without identifying as religious? Are they “unchurched believers” who are looking for a way to consume that old timey religion without committing fully to an institution? Not likely. In fact I think it much more likely that it has nothing to do with their religious beliefs at all.

Earlier today Hemant Mehta published a post on his blog, The Friendly Atheist, suggesting that if you are one of these people you might be “Going to Church for Your Spouse.” Mehta’s post consists of a picture of a woman with her face completely disguised by a large hat, sitting alone in a church pew. Written with permanent marker on the photo are the words: “Are there other NON-BELIEVERS who only go to church because of someone you love?” Mehta then asks, “How many of you have done that?”

Considering that “nones” only comprise about 16% of the U.S. population, and no more than 12% of that fraction attend church with any regularity, it is probably safe to answer Mehta with, “not many.” In fact, baring in mind that most nones aren’t actually “nonbelievers,” the answer may even be, “less than not many.” Of course we can problematize that last bit in the other direction as well. Most “nones” do indeed believe in something, but that something (aka “higher power”) is not usually the “personal God” that is most likely being worshiped in a church (or synagogue or mosque for that matter). Furthermore, a very small portion of people who claim religious affiliations are also  nonbelievers, especially if we define non-belief in terms of that afore mentioned personal God. Such “cultural religionists” (for the lack of a better term) could easily be attending services for the sake of their loved ones.

How many Americans actually do this? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s likely not many, and the answer to Mehta overall is most probably still, “not many”…but that doesn’t mean the phenomenon is insignificant. In fact I’d say it is quite significant for a variety of reasons. Consider what one commentator has said at The Friendly Atheist:

I used to be a Mormon. That church is FILLED with people who participate only to keep peace in the family, to avoid divorce, to keep from being shunned, to keep jobs and clients. I imagine the same is true in other very hardline churches.

Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints actually “filled” with people who only go to please others? I’m not sure, but there is a correlation between both partners in a marriage regularly attending the same house of worship and family stability. One way to explore that correlation further would be to look more closely at situations in which nonbelievers are still attending church because of their religious spouses. What are the effects of this behavior on their marriages? Whether positive, negative or neutral an in depth qualitative study would go a long way towards understanding why. For instance, if the effects are positive we might get a better sense of what it is about joint religious activity, as opposed to religious belief, that has pro-family benefits.

But there may be even more to explore here than the family angle. Another commentator offered this description of his own irreligious church attendance:

Originally this was for my wife, and for the shared idea that our children should have the shared community experience.  Now after fifteen years with this church, i’m the only one in the family who chose not to become a member (in doing so i would have to state a belief i do not share) and i’ve since outed myself whenever it has come up.  Now my main reason for going is less about a family experience, but rather because this church has a great community of people i care strongly for.

Of course family cohesion and the experience of community may be intricately intertwined, but the point is that nonbelieving church attendance may be driven by social concerns outside of the family and may have outcomes transcending the family as well. And perhaps such social concerns are particularly poignant when it comes to collective celebrations and other ritual performances. Here is yet another comment:

Weddings, funerals, and baptisms… much else I cannot stand. I respect my family members’ decisions when it comes to where they want to hold their major events.

Of course this individual isn’t part of the regularly attending nonbeliever crowd, but perhaps they still see the social benefits of religious communities when it comes to celebrating the life-cycle, much like Phil Zuckerman has shown that nonbelievers in Scandinavia do.

What this all points towards is the meaningful distinction between religious belief and practice when trying to determine the social and psychological benefits of religiousness. Consider that Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s sophisticated meta-study of U.S. religion, American Grace, suggests that the social benefits of religion lie much more so in practice than in belief. But as for why that is their analysis of large quantitative data sets can only scratch the surface. What better social location to explore that issue in more depth than among those who are actively practicing without believing, or more specifically “attending without adhering?” I look forward to seeing the results of such a study. Any takers?

Posted in Atheism, Irreligion, Sociology of Religion and tagged ,
14 May 2012

Can the Catholic Church Count on its E.J. Dionnes?

Yesterday E.J. Dionne explained to Washington Post readers why he, as a liberal Catholic, would not “quit” his Church despite its moral conservatism. Dionne was prompted to defend his institutional loyalty after seeing the “Open Letter to a ‘Liberal’ and ‘Nominal’ Catholics” put out by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The FFRF wants to impress upon liberals like Dionne that their continued support of the Church enables the Bishop’s  ”war against women’s rights to contraception.” Dionne was not impressed:

My, my. Putting aside the group’s love for unnecessary quotation marks, it was shocking to learn that I’m an “enabler” doing “bad” to women’s rights. But Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.

I’m sorry to inform the FFRF that I am declining its invitation to quit. It may not see the Gospel as a liberating document, but I do, and I can’t ignore the good done in the name of Christ by the sisters, priests, brothers and lay people who have devoted their lives to the poor and the marginalized.

And on women’s rights, I take as my guide that early feminist Pope John XXIII. InPacem in Terris, his encyclical issued in 1963, the same year Betty Friedan published “The Feminine Mystique,” Pope John spoke of women’s “natural dignity.”

“Far from being content with a purely passive role or allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument,” he wrote, “they are demanding both in domestic and in public life the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons.”

Dionne is clearly not alone in maintaining a personal connection to a version of Catholicism that stresses liberal values (pro-social justice, anti-death penalty, etc.) as opposed to conservative ones (pro-life, anti-homosexuality, etc.). In other words he belongs to a sizable group of Catholics in the United States who are maintaining their religious identities in spite of the Bishops. But how do these Catholics stack up against those who might actually agree with the FFRF enough to take them up on their offer?

According to an informal study conducted last fall on the behalf of the diocese of Trenton NJ, facets of social conservatism are high on the list of reasons why Catholics in the Trenton area have been disaffiliating from the Church. Four of the top seven reasons in fact:

2. The church’s stance on homosexuality

5. Perception that church hierarchy is too closely tied to conservative politics

6. Church’s stance toward divorced and remarried Catholics

7. The status of women

The study creators suggest that the Church can adapt its practices in ways that will mitigate the loss of adherents. Of course perhaps they do not care to do so, and in fact Dionne suggests that the conservative elements of the Church might be happier if the liberals jump ship. While I do not profess to know whether or not that is true, I do believe that the Church has a thing or two to learn from the sociology of religion if they seek to retain their liberal members.

When the 1990s saw unprecedented numbers of Americans losing their religious affiliations, sociologists were busy trying to interpret the trend. One early theory for the near doubling of religious “nones” in that decade (from 7-14%) came from Michael Hout and Claude Fischer. They considered the trend a reaction to the religious politics of the 1980s. Liberals were so turned off by the politicized moral conservatism of the Religious Right that identifying as “Christian” or even “religious” no longer suited them.  While there have been a handful of scholars who are critical of parts of Hout and Fischer’s paper (and in my view rightfully so), virtually no one challenges the basic premise that religious moralizing in the political sphere had a negative impact on adherence.

Lest the Church believe that Hout and Fischer’s  analysis is not a cause for them to be concerned, perhaps they should be reminded of the Republican primary. Catholic Republicans by and large chose a Mormon, Mitt Romney over a much more socially conservative and devoutly Catholic, Rick Santorum. On the other hand Santorum, by faithfully sticking to much of the current party line of the Bishops, managed to impress Republican Evangelicals. In other words he appealed to exactly the bloc of voters who were energized by 1980s moral conservatism; the same 1980s moral conservatism that pushed a great number of liberals away from religion altogether.

So the Church ought to be asking itself: for every E.J. Dionne out there how many non-Dionnes are there? How many Catholics are going leave their community if they continue to politicize social conservatism? My sense is that there are many more than the Church can bring itself to believe. Only time will tell.

Posted in Irreligion, Sociology of Religion | Leave a Comment
11 May 2012
5 Comments

Fight for your Right to Ritual

With Obama’s public declaration of support for gay marriage still reverberating throughout the nation this story is bound to get little attention. The ACLU of Indiana recently filed a lawsuit against the state of Indiana over wedding rights. Yes you read that correctly, wedding rights. Their complaint is not about the right to enter the institution of marriage, but the right to do so in a certain way. From the ACLU press release:

Indianapolis – Indiana allows religious groups to perform marriages in accordance with their beliefs. But marriages performed by a non-religious group that trains and certifies secular celebrants are not recognized by state law — a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“From a First Amendment perspective, it is proper and necessary for the state to allow religions to marry people according to their beliefs,” said American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk. “However, the state law becomes unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause when you say that religions are the only groups with rights to have their beliefs recognized in marriage ceremonies.”

Falk said the statute, Indiana Code § 31-11-6-1, also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it denies the non-religious group its rights to spread its “essential beliefs” by performing marriage ceremonies, while allowing religious groups those same privileges.

Detractors of the complaint could easily argue that there is no law preventing nonreligious groups in Indiana, or in any other state, from spreading their “essential beliefs” through ritual practice. The right to ritual is already enshrined in rights to free expression and assembly. Couples are free to have a leader from the Center for Inquiry (on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed) or any other irreligious institution, officiate a ceremony for them. What these leaders cannot do in Indiana is to solemnize the marriage in the eyes of the law.  Yet what does making it legal have to do with spreading “essential beliefs?”  Nothing particularly, and that leads to a vital question.

Why should any religious official have the right to spread the essential beliefs of a religious community while acting as a representative of the state? In order to argue for the equal rights of their clients the ACLU has had to claim that from  “a First Amendment perspective, it is proper and necessary for the state to allow religions to marry people according to their beliefs.” But in the ACLU’s statement two forms of “marriage” become conflated; one is religious and the other is civil. As we know religious and nonreligious groups are already on equal footing when it comes to performing rites of the (ir)religious sort, but only one group is currently vested with the power of the state to actualize those of the civil sort. Does the First Amendment really profess that it is “proper and necessary” for any group (religious or otherwise) to be vested with that civil power?

A little historical context could be useful here. Colonial era marriages were almost exclusively civil. The Puritans of New England, who were fervent Reformation anti-ritualists didn’t believe that marriage was a sacrament. Civil magistrates performed wedding ceremonies in those days and continued to do so even after the British crown opened the field up to clergy (no doubt because of their very close relationship to the Anglican Church … aka themselves). After the Revolution, the drafting of the Constitution, and yes the addition of the First Amendment, weddings remained a mostly civil affair. Clergy could, of course, perform them in a civil capacity according to state laws, but even so most people didn’t have a church wedding until it became fashionable to do so in the Victorian era.

While I would never invoke originalism, it is interesting to wonder how the Framers would have considered this question, given the very different context in which most marriage rites were performed at the time. It is also important to remember that most marriage law is not regulated  by the federal government.  Why is that important? Because the enshrined practice of allowing clergy to represent the state in the matter of marriage has been the product of state law making. It may very well relate to the freedom of religion conceptually, but it would be difficult to claim that it relates specifically to the intent of the First Amendment. Of course the more important questions still remain. Far from being protected by the First Amendment, might this long established practice not in fact run contra to it? And if it does why has it never been challenged?

We have long been willing to grant religion an exceptional place in our society. For instance consider the recent unanimous decision in the Hosanna-Tabor case. There is apparently no debate among the Supreme Court’s justices about whether or not religion is sui generis in the eyes of the law; it just is. How far religious rights extend may be debated, but that religion is somehow a category unto itself is to be taken for granted. What has happened historically when nonreligious groups want to be vested with the power to wed their constituents is that they have been recognized as if they were religious. That is how the “leaders” of Ethical Culture are granted the power to legally perform marriages for instance. That is also what the ACLU seems to be asking for now; that the state of Indiana recognize the Center for Inquiry as if it were a religious institution.

Why exactly does the ACLU, or more importantly the Center for Inquiry want to challenge marriage law on that premise? It seems backwards to me. Why not argue that current practices vis-à-vis allowing clergy to act as representatives of the state while performing their religious duties are themselves unconstitutional? In other words, why not challenge religious exceptionalism head on? Either way one could only hope this case and others like it raise important questions in the halls of power about the tangled mess of marriage laws we have. If the federal courts and federal lawmakers were actually to untangle that mess we might end up with a simpler collection of laws that reflect the spirit of our Constitution a bit better all around. And yes I’m thinking here again of Obama’s announcement this week …

Posted in Atheism, Irreligion, Ritual and tagged , , , ,

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