One of the top concerns is moral decline of today’s youth, survey

Valerie Pritchett

27ABC News

Originally published 9 NOV 23

Yes, I do TV interviews as well.  The video plays after the commercial.

Abuse Survivors ‘Disgusted’ by Southern Baptist Court Brief

Bob Smietana

Christianity Today

Originally published 26 OCT 23

Here is an excerpt:

Members of the Executive Committee, including Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, expressed dismay at the brief, saying he and other members of the committee were blindsided by it. Keahbone, a member of a task force implementing abuse reforms in the SBC, said the brief undermined survivors such as Thigpen, Woodson, and Lively, who have supported the reforms.

“We’ve had survivors that have been faithful to give us a chance,” he told Religion News Service in a phone interview. “And we hurt them badly.”

The controversy over the amicus brief is the latest crisis for leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has dealt with a revolving door of leaders and rising legal costs in the aftermath of a sexual abuse crisis in recent years.

The denomination passed abuse reforms in 2022 but has been slow to implement them, relying mostly on a volunteer task force charged with convincing the SBC’s 47,000 congregations and a host of state and national entities to put those reforms into practice. Those delays have led survivors to be skeptical that things would actually change.

Earlier this week, ­the Louisville Courier Journal reported that lawyers for the Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the denomination’s flagship seminary in Louisville—and Lifeway had filed the amicus brief earlier this year in a case brought by abuse survivor Samantha Killary.

The information is here.

Here is my summary: 

In October 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) filed an amicus curiae brief in the Kentucky Supreme Court arguing that a new law extending the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims should not apply retroactively. This filing sparked outrage among abuse survivors and some SBC leaders, who accused the denomination of prioritizing its own legal interests over the needs of victims.

The SBC's brief was filed in response to a lawsuit filed by a woman who was sexually abused as a child by a Louisville police officer. The woman is seeking to sue the city of Louisville and the police department, arguing that they should be held liable for her abuse because they failed to protect her.

The SBC's brief argues that the new statute of limitations should not apply retroactively because it would create a "windfall" for abuse survivors who would not have been able to sue under the previous law. The brief also argues that applying the new law retroactively would be unfair to institutions like the SBC, which could be faced with a flood of lawsuits.

Abuse survivors and some SBC leaders have criticized the brief as being insensitive to the needs of victims. They argue that the SBC is more interested in protecting itself from lawsuits than in ensuring that victims of abuse are able to seek justice.

In a joint statement, three abuse survivors said they were "sickened and saddened to be burned yet again by the actions of the SBC against survivors." They accused the SBC of "proactively choosing to side against a survivor and with an abuser and the institution that enabled his abuse."

Racism in the Hands of an Angry God: How Image of God Impacts Cultural Racism in Relation to Police Treatment of African Americans

Lauve‐Moon, T. A., & Park, J. Z. (2023).

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12863 

Abstract

Previous research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Baylor Religion Survey to examine the correlation between an angry God image and the belief that police shoot Blacks more often because Blacks are more violent than Whites (a context-specific form of cultural racism). Engaging critical insights from intersectionality theory, we also interact angry God image with both racialized identity and racialized religious tradition. Results suggest that the angry God schema is associated with this form of cultural racism for White people generally as well as White Evangelicals, yet for Black Protestants, belief in an angry God is associated with resistance against this type of cultural racism.

Discussion

Despite empirical evidence demonstrating the persistence of implicit bias in policing and institutional racism within law enforcement, the public continues to be divided on how to interpret police treatment of Black persons. This study uncovers an association between religious narrative schema, such as image of God, and one's attitude toward this social issue as well as how complex religion at the intersection of race and religious affiliation may impact the direction of this association between an angry God image and police treatment of Black persons. Our findings confirm that an angry God image is modestly associated with the narrative that police shoot Blacks more than Whites because Blacks are more violent than Whites. Even when controlling for other religious, political, and demographic factors, the association holds. While angry God is not the only factor or the most influential, our results suggests that it does work as a distinct factor in this understanding of police treatment of Black persons. Previous research supports this finding since the narrative that police shoot Blacks more because Blacks are more violent than Whites is based on punitive ideology. But whose version of the story is this telling?

Due to large White samples in most survey research, we contend that previous research has undertheorized the role that race plays in the association between angry God and punitive attitudes, and as a result, this research has likely inadvertently privileged a White narrative of angry God. Using the insights of critical quantitative methodology and intersectionality, the inclusion of interactions of angry God image with racialized identity as well as racialized religious traditions creates space for the telling of counternarratives regarding angry God image and the view that police shoot Blacks more than Whites because Blacks are more violent than Whites. The first interaction introduced assesses if racialized identity moderates the angry God effect. Although the interaction term for racialized identity and angry God is not significant, the predicted probabilities and average marginal effects elucidate a trend worth noting. While angry God image has no effect for Black respondents, it has a notable positive trend for White respondents, and this difference is pronounced on the higher half of the angry God scale. This supports our claim that past research has treated angry God image as a colorblind concept, yet this positive association between angry God and punitive criminal justice is raced, specifically raced White.

Here is a summary:

The article explores the relationship between image of God (IoG) and cultural racism in relation to police treatment of African Americans. The authors argue that IoG can be a source of cultural racism, which is a form of racism that is embedded in the culture of a society. They suggest that people who hold an angry IoG are more likely to believe that African Americans are dangerous and violent, and that this belief can lead to discriminatory treatment by police.

Here are some of the key points from the article:

• Image of God (IoG) can be a source of cultural racism.
• People who hold an angry IoG are more likely to believe that African Americans are dangerous and violent.
• This belief can lead to discriminatory treatment by police.
• Interventions that address IoG could be an effective way to reduce racism and discrimination.

Belief in Five Spiritual Entities Edges Down to New Lows

Megan Brenan

news.gallup.com

Originally posted 20 July 23

The percentages of Americans who believe in each of five religious entities -- God, angels, heaven, hell and the devil -- have edged downward by three to five percentage points since 2016. Still, majorities believe in each, ranging from a high of 74% believing in God to lows of 59% for hell and 58% for the devil. About two-thirds each believe in angels (69%) and heaven (67%).

Gallup has used this framework to measure belief in these spiritual entities five times since 2001, and the May 1-24, 2023, poll finds that each is at its lowest point. Compared with 2001, belief in God and heaven is down the most (16 points each), while belief in hell has fallen 12 points, and the devil and angels are down 10 points each.

This question asks respondents whether they believe in each concept or if they are unsure, and from 13% to 15% currently say they are not sure. At the same time, nearly three in 10 U.S. adults do not believe in the devil or hell, while almost two in 10 do not believe in angels and heaven, and 12% say they do not believe in God.

As the percentage of believers has dropped over the past two decades, the corresponding increases have occurred mostly in nonbelief, with much smaller increases in uncertainty. This is true for all but belief in God, which has seen nearly equal increases in uncertainty and nonbelief.

In the current poll, about half of Americans, 51%, believe in all five spiritual entities, while 11% do not believe in any of them. Another 7% are not sure about all of them, while the rest (31%) believe in some and not others.

Gallup periodically measures Americans’ belief in God with different question wordings, producing slightly different results. While the majority of U.S. adults say they believe in God regardless of the question wording, when not offered the option to say they are unsure, significantly more (81% in a survey conducted last year) said they believe in God.

The poll results are here.

My take: Despite the decline in belief, majorities of Americans still believe in each of the five spiritual entities. This suggests that religion remains an important part of American culture, even as the country becomes more secularized.

Approaches to Muslim Biomedical Ethics: A Classification and Critique

Dabbagh, H., Mirdamadi, S.Y. & Ajani, R.R.

Bioethical Inquiry (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-023-10239-6

Abstract

This paper provides a perspective on where contemporary Muslim responses to biomedical-ethical issues stand to date. There are several ways in which Muslim responses to biomedical ethics can and have been studied in academia. The responses are commonly divided along denominational lines or under the schools of jurisprudence. All such efforts classify the responses along the lines of communities of interpretation rather than the methods of interpretation. This research is interested in the latter. Thus, our criterion for classification is the underlying methodology behind the responses. The proposed classification divides Muslim biomedical-ethical reasoning into three methodological categories: 1) textual, 2) contextual, and 3) para-textual.

Conclusion

There is widespread recognition among Muslim scholars dealing with biomedical ethical issues that context plays an essential role in forming ethical principles and judgements. The context-sensitive approaches in Muslim biomedical ethics respond to the requirements of modern biomedical issues by recognizing the contexts in which scriptural text has been formed and developed through the course of Muslim intellectual history. This paves the way for bringing in different context-sensitive interpretations of the sacred texts through different reasoning tools and methods, whether they are rooted in the uṣūl al-fiqh tradition for the contextualists, or in moral philosophy for the para-textualists. For the textualists, reasoning outside of the textual boundaries is not acceptable. While contextualists tend to believe that contextual considerations make sense only in light of Sharīʿa law and should not be understood independently of Sharīʿa law, para-textualists believe that moral perceptions and contextual considerations are valid irrespective of Sharīʿa law, insofar as they do not neglect the moral vision of the scriptures. The common ground between the majority of the textualists and the contextualists lies in giving primacy to the Sharīʿa law. Moral requirements for both the textualists and the contextualists are only determined by Sharīʿa commandments, and Sharīʿa commandments are the only basis on which to decide what is morally permissible or impermissible in biomedical ethical issues. This is an Ashʿarī-inspired approach to biomedical ethics with respect to human moral reasoning (Sachedina 2005; Aramesh 2020; Reinhart 2004; Moosa 2004; Moosapour et al. 2018).

Para-textualists, on the other hand, do not deny the relevance of Sharīʿa, but treat the reasoning embedded in Sharīʿa as being on a par with moral reasoning in general. Thus, if there are contending strands of moral reasoning on a particular biomedical ethical issue, Sharīʿa-based reasoning will need to compete with other moral reasoning on the issue. If the aḥkām (religious judgements) are deemed to be reasonably sound, then for para-textualists there are no grounds for not accepting them. Although using and referring to Sharīʿa might work in many cases, it is not the case that Sharīʿa is enough in every case to judge on moral issues. For instance, morally speaking, it is not enough to refer to Sharīʿa when someone is choosing or refusing euthansia or abortion. For para-textualists what matters most is how Sharīʿa morally reasons about the permissibility or impermissibility of an action. If it is morally justified to euthanize or abort, we are rationally (and morally) bound to accept it, and if it is not morally justified, we will then either have to leave our judgement about choosing or refusing euthanasia or abortion or find another context-sensitive interpretation to rationalize the relevant commandment derived from Sharīʿa. Thus, the departure point for the para-textualist approach is moral reasoning, whether it is found in moral philosophy, Muslim jurisprudence, or elsewhere (Soroush 2009; Shahrur 1990, 2009; Hallaq 1997; An-Na’im 2008). Para-textualist methodology tries to remain open to the possibility of morally criticizing religious judgements (aḥkām), while remaining true to the moral vision of the scriptures. This is a Muʿtazilī-inspired approach to biomedical ethics (Hourani 1976; Vasalou 2008; Sheikh 2019; Farahat 2019; Reinhart 1995; Al-Bar and Chamsi-Pasha 2015; Hallaq 2014).

Many people in U.S., other advanced economies say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral

Janell Fetteroff & Sarah Austin

Pew Research Center

Originally published 20 APR 23

Most Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values, according to a spring 2022 Pew Research Center survey. About two-thirds of Americans say this, while about a third say belief in God is an essential component of morality (65% vs. 34%).

However, responses to this question differ dramatically depending on whether Americans see religion as important in their lives. Roughly nine-in-ten who say religion is not too or not at all important to them believe it is possible to be moral without believing in God, compared with only about half of Americans to whom religion is very or somewhat important (92% vs. 51%). Catholics are also more likely than Protestants to hold this view (63% vs. 49%), though views vary across Protestant groups.

There are also divisions along political lines: Democrats and those who lean Democratic are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say it is not necessary to believe in God to be moral (71% vs. 59%). Liberal Democrats are particularly likely to say this (84%), whereas only about half of conservative Republicans (53%) say the same.

In addition, Americans under 50 are somewhat more likely than older adults to say that believing in God is not necessary to have good values (71% vs. 59%). Those with a college degree or higher are also more likely to believe this than those with a high school education or less (76% vs. 58%).

A chart showing that Majorities in most countries say belief in God is not necessary to be moral.

Views of the link between religion and morality differ along similar lines in 16 other countries surveyed. Across those countries, a median of about two-in-three adults say that people can be moral without believing in God, just slightly higher than the share in the United States.

The info is here.

Contraceptive Coverage Expanded: No More ‘Moral’ Exemptions for Employers

Ari Blaff

Yahoo News

Originally posted 30 JAN 23

Here is an excerpt:

The proposed new rule released today by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury would remove the ability of employers to opt out for “moral” reasons, but it would retain the existing protections on “religious” grounds.

For employees covered by insurers with religious exemptions, the new policy will create an “independent pathway” that permits them to access contraceptives through a third-party provider free of charge.

“We had to really think through how to do this in the right way to satisfy both sides, but we think we found that way,” a senior HHS official told CNN.

Planned Parenthood applauded the announcement. “Employers and universities should not be able to dictate personal health-care decisions and impose their views on their employees or students,” the organization’s chief, Alexis McGill Johnson, told CNN. “The ACA mandates that health insurance plans cover all forms of birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Now, more than ever, we must protect this fundamental freedom.”

In 2018, the Trump administration sought to carve out an exception, based on “sincerely held religious beliefs,” to the ACA’s contraceptive mandate. The move triggered a Pennsylvania district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction in 2019, blocking the implementation of the change. However, in 2020, in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court, in a 7–2 ruling, defended the legality of the original Trump policy.

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, in its Dobbs ruling, played a role in HHS’s decision to release the new proposal. Guaranteeing access to contraceptions at no cost to the individual “is a national public health imperative,” HHS said in the proposal. And the Dobbs ruling “has placed a heightened importance on access to contraceptive services nationwide.”

The info is here.

Beliefs about humanity, not higher power, predict extraordinary altruism

Amormino, P., O'Connell, et al.

Journal of Research in Personality

Volume 101, December 2022, 104313

Abstract

Using a rare sample of altruistic kidney donors (n = 56, each of whom had donated a kidney to a stranger) and demographically similar controls (n = 75), we investigated how beliefs about human nature correspond to extraordinary altruism. Extraordinary altruists were less likely than controls to believe that humans can be truly evil. Results persisted after controlling for trait empathy and religiosity. Belief in pure good was not associated with extraordinary altruism. We found no differences in the religiosity and spirituality of extraordinary altruists compared to controls. Findings suggest that highly altruistic individuals believe that others deserve help regardless of their potential moral shortcomings. Results provide preliminary evidence that lower levels of cynicism motivate costly, non-normative altruism toward strangers.

Discussion

We found for the first time a significant negative relationship between real-world acts of altruism toward strangers and the belief that humans can be purely evil. Specifically, our results showed that adults who have engaged in costly altruism toward strangers are distinguished from typical adults by their reduced tendency to believe that humans can be purely evil. By contrast, altruists were no more likely than controls to believe that humans can be purely good. These patterns could not be accounted for by demographic differences, differences in self reported empathy, or differences in religious or spiritual beliefs.

This finding could be viewed as paradoxical, in that extraordinary altruists are themselves often viewed as the epitome of pure good—even described as “saints” in the scholarly literature (Henderson et al., 2003).

But our findings suggest that the willingness to provide costly aid for anonymous strangers may not require believing that others are purely \good (i.e., that morally infallible people exist), but rather believing that there is at least a little bit of good in everyone. Thus, extraordinary altruists are not overly optimistic about the moral goodness of other people but are willing to act altruistically towards morally imperfect people anyway. Although the concept of “pure evil” is conceptually linked to spiritual phenomena, we did not find any evidence directly linking altruists’ beliefs in evil to spirituality or religion.

 (cut)

Conclusions

Because altruistic kidney donations to anonymous strangers satisfy the most stringent definitions of costly altruism (Clavien & Chapuisat, 2013), the study of these altruists can provide valuable insight into the nature of altruism, much as studying other rare, ecologically valid populations has yielded insights into psychological phenomena such asmemory (LePort et al., 2012) and face processing (Russell, Duchaine, &

Nakayama, 2009). Results show that altruists report lower belief in pure evil, which extends previous literature showing that higher levels of generalized trust and lower levels of cynicism and are associated with everyday prosocial behavior (Turner & Valentine, 2001). Our findings provide preliminary evidence that beliefs about the morality of people in general, and the goodness (or rather, lack of badness) of other humans may help motivate real-world costly altruistic acts toward strangers.

The research is paywalled here.

Institutional betrayal, institutional courage and the church

Susan Shaw

Baptist News Global

Originally published 26 JUL 22

Betrayal by trusted people, like pastors, teachers, supervisors and coaches can inflict devastating consequences on victims. According to psychologists who study trauma, betrayal trauma affects the brain differently than any other trauma, particularly when the victim depends upon the perpetrator. Betrayal trauma threatens the very sense of self of the victim, who often cannot easily escape because of physical, psychological or spiritual dependence.

Institutional betrayal

When institutions don’t address perpetrators but rather meet survivors with denial, harassment and attack, they engage in institutional betrayal. Institutional betrayal occurs “when an institution causes harm to people who depend on it.”

Betrayal blindness describes ignoring, overlooking, “not-knowing” and forgetting betrayal. People, including victims themselves as well as perpetrators and witnesses, exhibit betrayal blindness to “preserve relationships, institutions and social systems upon which they depend.”

We don’t have to think very long to name a depressing list of instances of institutional betrayal by the church: segregation, clergy sex abuse, conversion therapy, exclusion of women from church leadership and ordained ministry, purity culture, the Magdalene laundries, witch hunts, Indian schools, on and on.

In recent days, we’ve seen institutional betrayal at work in megachurches like Hillsong and Highpoint, where popular pastors engaged in abusive conduct and their churches enabled them. The clergy abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention are textbook examples of institutional betrayal — institutions that chose to protect themselves rather than address the harm done to members.

Rather than challenging itself to create welcome, repair harm and do justice, the church often has chosen to preserve itself, to overlook harmful behavior by leaders and to demonize and ostracize those who speak out against abuse

Findley Edge, who taught religious education at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote about the process of institutionalization. Edge explained people developed great and exciting ideas, and these ideas lead to innovations and movements. As time goes along, these innovations and movements develop structure to continue to facilitate their growth. Eventually, the first generation that formed the great and exciting idea dies out, and soon people only know the institution and not the idea that sparked it. Their goal then becomes preservation of the institution, not the idea.

Uncritical dedication to the preservation of an institution can easily lead to institutional betrayal, especially when people depend upon organizations like the church, work or family.

Jennifer Freyd, the psychologist who coined “institutional betrayal,” says people protect institutions by participating in what she calls DARVO — Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender.

The info is here.

Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it happen

Michael Rezendes

The Associated Press

Originally posted 4 AUG 22

Here is an excerpt:

When it comes to child sexual abuse, the Mormon church says “the first responsibility of the church in abuse cases is to help those who have been abused and protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse,” according to its 2010 handbook for church leaders. The handbook also says, “Abuse cannot be tolerated in any form.”

But church officials, from the bishops in the Bisbee ward to officials in Salt Lake City, tolerated abuse in the Adams family for years.

“They just let it keep happening,” said MJ, in her AP interview. “They just said, ‘Hey, let’s excommunicate her father.’ It didn’t stop. ‘Let’s have them do therapy.’ It didn’t stop. ‘Hey, let’s forgive and forget and all this will go away.’ It didn’t go away.”

A similar dynamic played out in West Virginia, where church leaders were accused of covering up the crimes committed by a young abuser from a prominent Mormon family even after he’d been convicted on child sex abuse charges in Utah. The abuser, Michael Jensen, today is serving a 35- to 75-year prison sentence for abusing two children in West Virginia. Their family, along with others, sued the church and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

“Child abuse festers and grows in secrecy,” said Lynne Cadigan, a lawyer for the Adams children who filed suit. “That is why the mandatory reporting came into effect. It’s the most important thing in the world to immediately report to the police.”

The lawsuit filed by the three Adams children accuses The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and several members, including Bishops Herrod and Mauzy, of negligence and conspiring to cover up child sex abuse to avoid “costly lawsuits” and protect the reputation of the church, which relies on proselytizing and tithing to attract new members and raise money. In 2020, the church claimed approximately 16 million members worldwide, most of them living outside the United States.

“The failure to prevent or report abuse was part of the policy of the defendants, which was to block public disclosure to avoid scandals, to avoid the disclosure of their tolerance of child sexual molestation and assault, to preserve a false appearance of propriety, and to avoid investigation and action by public authority, including law enforcement,” the suit alleges. “Plaintiffs are informed and believe that such actions were motivated by a desire to protect the reputation of the defendants.”

Very few of the scores of lawsuits against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mention the help line, in part because details of its operations have been a closely guarded secret. The documents in the sealed court records show how it works.

“The help line is certainly there to help — to help the church keep its secrets and to cover up abuse,” said Craig Vernon, an Idaho attorney who has filed several sex abuse lawsuits against the church.

Vernon, a former member, routinely demands that the church require bishops to report sex abuse to police or state authorities rather than the help line.

The sealed records say calls to the help line are answered by social workers or professional counselors who determine whether the information they receive is serious enough to be referred to an attorney with Kirton McConkie, a Salt Lake City firm that represents the church.

The info is here.

What is 'purity'? Conceptual murkiness in moral psychology

Gray, K., DiMaggio, N., Schein, C., 

& Kachanoff, F. (2021, February 3). 

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/vfyut

Abstract

Purity is an important topic in psychology. It has a long history in moral discourse, has helped catalyze paradigm shifts in moral psychology, and is thought to underlie political differences. But what exactly is “purity?” To answer this question, we review the history of purity and then systematically examine 158 psychology papers that define and operationalization (im)purity. In contrast to the many concepts defined by what they are, purity is often understood by what it isn’t—obvious dyadic harm. Because of this “contra”-harm understanding, definitions and operationalizations of purity are quite varied. Acts used to operationalize impurity include taking drugs, eating your sister’s scab, vandalizing a church, wearing unmatched clothes, buying music with sexually explicit lyrics, and having a messy house. This heterogeneity makes purity a “chimera”—an entity composed of various distinct elements. Our review reveals that the “contra-chimera” of purity has 9 different scientific understandings, and that most papers define purity differently from how they operationalize it. Although people clearly moralize diverse concerns—including those related to religion, sex, and food—such heterogeneity in conceptual definitions is problematic for theory development. Shifting definitions of purity provide “theoretical degrees of freedom” that make falsification extremely difficult. Doubts about the coherence and consistency of purity raise questions about key purity-related claims of modern moral psychology, including the nature of political differences and the cognitive foundations of moral judgment.

Conclusion

Purity is an ancient concept that has moved from historical religious rhetoric to modern moral psychology.  Many things have changed in this leap—Dr. Kellogg would never have imagined a scientific discipline catalyzed by loving incest—but purity still seems to be a heterogeneous concept with diverse understandings. This diversity makes purity an exciting topic to study, but our review suggests that purity lacks a common core, beyond involving acts that are less-than-obviously harmful.  Without a consistent and non-tautological understanding of purity, it is difficult to argue that purity is a unique and distinct construct, and it is impossible to argue for a mental mechanism dedicated to purity. It is clear, however, that purity is featured in moral rhetoric and can help shed light on cultural differences. Moving forward, we suggest that the field should unpack the richness of purity and individually explore its many understanding. When conducting this research, we should consider not only what purity isn’t, but what it really is.

The research is here.

Dangerous as the Plague

Samuel Huneke

The Baffler

Originally posted 23 JUN 22

Here is an excerpt:

There is not enough space here to enumerate all of the similarities and differences between National Socialism and today’s right, but the place of Christianity in each movement is instructive. The churches were always on tenuous terms at best with Hitler’s state. Many Nazi leaders were openly hostile to Christianity and to the “traditional” family. Homosexuality posed a threat to Nazism not in moral terms, but rather in social and political terms, threatening to undermine its homosocial order. In stark contrast, the American right today remains in thrall to white Christian nationalism, which openly seeks to impose its own version of morality on the nation. The threat queerness poses to this version of patriarchal Christianity, coupled with broader anxieties about loss of social status, is what appears to motivate the new right’s transphobia and homophobia.

The endurance of these tropes also highlights the limits of the professionalized LGBTQ political movement in this country, which has prioritized visibility and assimilation—eschewing more revolutionary strategies that would encompass the needs of the most marginalized. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign have been successful up to a point, but their strategies were always predicated on the notion that if queer people were visible and showed that they weren’t actually that different, prejudice would seep away. Because its aim was assimilation, this tactic fundamentally upheld the division between normal and abnormal on which animus rests. Instead of contesting that very division, it sought to put certain queer people on the “right” side of it. In this way, it also misunderstood hatred as a product of ignorance rather than a political strategy or an expression of sublimated anxieties.

Now animus against queer people—especially trans people—is back with a vengeance. From the conspiracy-addled world of QAnon, in which a shadowy cabal of pedophiles, juiced on the blood of children, runs the world, to the mendacity of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or TERFs), a growing segment of the population seems willing to entertain the notion that lesbians, gay men, and trans people are “recruiting” children. The bestseller Irreversible Damage, published in 2020 and reaching audiences well beyond the fringe right, insisted that girls were being seduced by a “transgender craze” that it termed a “contagion.” Just before Pride month, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has embraced the rhetoric of “grooming,” predicted that in “four or five generations, no one will be straight anymore.”

The info is here.

Confidence in U.S. Supreme Court Sinks to Historic Low

Jeffrey Jones

Gallup.com

Originally posted 23 JUN 22

Story Highlights

• 25% of Americans have confidence in Supreme Court, down from 36% in 2021
• Current reading is five percentage points lower than prior record low
• Confidence is down among Democrats and independents this year

With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision before the end of its 2021-2022 term, Americans' confidence in the court has dropped sharply over the past year and reached a new low in Gallup's nearly 50-year trend. Twenty-five percent of U.S. adults say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court, down from 36% a year ago and five percentage points lower than the previous low recorded in 2014.

These results are based on a June 1-20 Gallup poll that included Gallup's annual update on confidence in U.S. institutions. The survey was completed before the end of the court's term and before it issued its major rulings for that term. Many institutions have suffered a decline in confidence this year, but the 11-point drop in confidence in the Supreme Court is roughly double what it is for most institutions that experienced a decline. Gallup will release the remainder of the confidence in institutions results in early July.

The Supreme Court is likely to issue a ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case before its summer recess. The decision will determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A leaked draft majority opinion in the case suggests that the high court will not only allow the Mississippi law to stand, but also overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling that prohibits restrictions on abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. Americans oppose overturning Roe by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

In September, Gallup found the Supreme Court's job approval rating at a new low and public trust in the judicial branch of the federal government down sharply. These changes occurred after the Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, among other controversial decisions at that time. Given these prior results, it is unclear if the drop in confidence in the Supreme Court measured in the current poll is related to the anticipated Dobbs decision or had occurred several months before the leak.

The info is here.

The Christian Right is violating the First Amendment by banning abortion

Noah Berlatsky

NBC News Cultural Critic

Originally published 18 JUN 22

The anti-abortion rights movement is largely faith based. Catholics and evangelical Christians argue that life begins at conception, and that fetuses have souls. On those grounds, they want to prevent anyone from obtaining abortion services.

They’ve had a good deal of success with that recently. A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion suggests the high court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively gutting the constitutional right to abortion. In anticipation, many conservative states have passed sweeping anti-abortion legislation.

But not everyone is Christian. And imposing Christian morality and Christian dogma on non-Christians is a good working definition of religious tyranny — which the First Amendment of the Constitution explicitly rejects. 

That principle of religious freedom is the basis of a lawsuit brought by Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida, against a sweeping state abortion ban set to take effect on July 1. Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor is challenging a single law on behalf of a single religion. But the case is also a broader challenge to the anti-abortion rights movement, which conflates a right-wing Christian demand for forced birth with universal morality, and insists on subjugating the country to a sectarian code.

The new Florida law bans most abortions after 15 weeks. There are no exceptions for cases of incest, rape or human trafficking. It does allow an abortion to save a pregnant person’s life or to prevent serious physical injury. But these exceptions aren’t enough to keep the law from violating the free exercise of the Jewish faith. The congregation’s lawsuit states that the Florida law violates Jewish religious beliefs holding that abortion “is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman,” among other reasons.

The info is here.

Bombshell 400-page report finds Southern Baptist leaders routinely silenced sexual abuse survivors

Robert Downen and John Tedesco

Houston Chronicle

Originally posted 22 MAY 22

For 20 years, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention — including a former president now accused of sexual assault — routinely silenced and disparaged sexual abuse survivors, ignored calls for policies to stop predators, and dismissed reforms that they privately said could protect children but might cost the SBC money if abuse victims later sued.

Those are just a few findings of a bombshell, third-party investigation into decades of alleged misconduct by Southern Baptist leaders that was released Sunday, nearly a year after 15,000 SBC church delegates demanded their executive committee turn over confidential documents and communications as part of an independent review of abuse reports that were purportedly mishandled or concealed since 2000.

The historic, nearly 400-page report details how a small, insular and influential group of leaders “singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations” to prevent abuse. The report was published by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm that conducted 330 interviews and reviewed two decades of internal SBC files in the seven-month investigation.

“Survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its (structure) — even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” Guidepost’s report concluded.

Guidepost investigated the SBC’s 86-member executive committee, the convention’s highest governing entity. The firm’s investigators had unprecedented access to the SBC’s leadership and reviewed thousands of internal documents — including previously confidential communications between SBC lawyers.

The investigation sheds new and unprecedented light on the backroom politicking and deceit that has stymied attempts at reforms and allowed for widespread mistreatment of child sexual abuse victims. And it exhaustively corroborates what many survivors have said for decades: that Southern Baptist leaders downplayed their own abuse crisis and instead prioritized shielding the SBC – and its hundreds of millions of dollars in annual donations — from lawsuits by abuse victims.

Among the findings:

A small group of SBC leaders routinely misled other members of the SBC’s executive committee on abuse issues, and rarely mentioned the frequent and persistent warnings and pleas for help from survivors.

• Fearing lawsuits, leaders similarly failed to inform the SBC’s 15 million members that predators and pedophiles were targeting churches.
• Longtime SBC leaders kept a private list of abusive pastors and ministers despite claiming for years that such an idea was impractical for stopping predators and impossible to adopt because of the SBC’s decentralized structure. Compiled since 2007, the roster contained the names of 703 offenders, most with an SBC connection. A few still work at churches in the SBC or other denominations.
• Former SBC President Johnny Hunt is accused of sexually assaulting a woman weeks after his presidential tenure ended in 2010. The woman said Hunt manipulated her into silence by saying a disclosure of the incident would harm the SBC’s churches. Four other people corroborated much of the woman’s allegations to Guidepost. Hunt denied the allegations, but resigned from the SBC’s North American Mission Board days before the report was published.

The article is here.

The report is here.

Mormon Leader Reaffirms Faith's Stance on Same-Sex Marriage

Sam Metz

Associated Press

Originally published 3 APR 22

A top leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reaffirmed the faith’s opposition to same-sex marriage and “changes that confuse or alter gender” as debates over gender and sexuality reemerge throughout the United States.

Dallin H. Oaks, the second-highest-ranking leader of the faith known widely as the Mormon Church, told thousands of listeners gathered at a conference center at the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters that what he called “social and legal pressures” wouldn’t compel the church to alter its stances on same-sex marriage or matters of gender identity that he did not specify.

The highest level of salvation, Oaks said, “can only be attained through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman. That divine doctrine is why we teach that gender is an essential characteristic of individual pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”

Oaks also said church doctrine “opposed changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women” and warned that “confusing gender, distorting marriage, and discouraging childbearing” was the devil’s work.

He also implored members of the faith to live peacefully and respect those with beliefs different than their own.

Oaks’ remarks reaffirm the faith’s long-held position on same-sex marriage that it has held to steadfastly even as its softened its policies on other LGTBQ matters, including allowing the children of same-sex couples to be baptized.

The Latter-day Saints’ reaffirmation of their stances comes as debates rage throughout the nation over transgender youth and what kids should learn about gender and sexuality. Officials in Texas have fought to classify gender confirmation surgeries as child abuse and Florida has outlawed instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

The info is here.

Historical Fundamentalism? Christian Nationalism and Ignorance About Religion in American Political History

S. L. Perry, R. Braunstein, et al.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 

(2022) 61(1):21–40

Abstract

Religious right leaders often promulgate views of Christianity's historical preeminence, privilege, and persecution in the United States that are factually incorrect, suggesting credulity, ignorance, or perhaps, a form of ideologically motivated ignorance on the part of their audience. This study examines whether Christian nationalism predicts explicit misconceptions regarding religion in American political history and explores theories about the connection. Analyzing nationally representative panel data containing true/false statements about religion's place in America's founding documents, policies, and court decisions, Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor that Americans fail to affirm factually correct answers. This association is stronger among whites compared to black Americans and religiosity actually predicts selecting factually correct answers once we account for Christian nationalism. Analyses of “do not know” response patterns find more confident correct answers from Americans who reject Christian nationalism and more confident incorrect answers from Americans who embrace Christian nationalism. We theorize that, much like conservative Christians have been shown to incorrectly answer science questions that are “religiously contested,” Christian nationalism inclines Americans to affirm factually incorrect views about religion in American political history, likely through their exposure to certain disseminators of such misinformation, but also through their allegiance to a particular political-cultural narrative they wish to privilege.

From the Discussion and Conclusions

Our findings extend our understanding of contemporary culture war conflicts in the United States in several key ways. Our finding that Christian nationalist ideology is not only associated with different political or social values (Hunter 1992; Smith 2000), but belief in explicitly wrong historical claims goes beyond issues of subjective interpretation or mere differences of opinion to underscore the reality that Americans are divided by different information. Large groups of Americans hold incompatible beliefs about issues of fact, with those who ardently reject Christian nationalism more likely to confidently and correctly affirm factual claims and Christian nationalists more likely to confidently and incorrectly affirm misinformation. To be sure, we are unable to disentangle directionality here, which in all likelihood operates both ways. Christian nationalist ideology is made plausible by false or exaggerated claims about the evangelical character of the nation’s founders and founding documents. Yet Christian nationalism, as an ideology, may also foster a form of motivated ignorance or credulity toward a variety of factually incorrect statements, among them being the preeminence and growing persecution of Christianity in the UnitedStates.

Closely related to this last point, our findings extend recent research by further underscoring the powerful influence of Christian nationalism as the ideological source of credulity supporting and spreading far-right misinformation.

A pdf is here.

Is a new kind of religion forming on the internet?

Rebecca Jennings

Vox.com

Originally posted 14 DEC 21

Here is an excerpt:

2020 was the first year on record that the majority of Americans said they did not belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque; from the 1930s to the turn of the 21st century, around 70 percent of Americans did belong to one. Americans, particularly younger ones, increasingly report that they have no religious preference, or as some have put it, it’s “the rise of the nones.” But perhaps “none” doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

The religion of the internet posits questions like, “what’s the harm in believing?” and “why shouldn’t I be prepared for the worst?” The deeper you go, the harder those questions are to answer.

Perhaps it’s all because of the Puritans. They were the ones, after all, who consecrated the American legacy of individualism, piety, and hard work at the expense of all else. Or maybe it came out of the recurrent phenomena of Protestant-led Great Awakenings that have peppered US history since before it was a country, social movements that preached the importance of one’s personal relationship with God outside of organized rituals and ceremonies.

“It was the idea that you could perfect yourself, your health, and your circumstances,” explains Mary Wrenn, an economics professor at the University of the West of England Bristol who studies neoliberalism and religion. This eventually culminated in the prosperity gospel, known best for its charismatic leaders preaching financial wealth and the widespread practice of manifesting, or the idea that in order to make positive things happen in your life, all you have to do is pretend as though they already are. “It’s during periods of economic crisis that we really see it start to flourish,” says Wrenn. Because many of the churches where it’s preached can be attended virtually, the message travels much further. “It’s a lot easier to have believers when you don’t have to physically be in a church. The portability of the message is what makes people believers in the prosperity gospel even when they’re not necessarily regular churchgoers.”

The same could be said for the internet, where spiritual trends proliferate much like cultural and political ones. In fact, the latest iteration of New Thought’s founding principles is inseparable from the internet: Russo, the anthropology professor, notes that as social media has become the dominant cultural force in our society, ideologies are spreading between people who may have vastly different beliefs and backgrounds, but who show up on each other’s feeds and relate in new ways.

“It’s a mishmash of different Christian and non-Western beliefs and aesthetics, but this stuff — good and evil, prosperity — are present in all religious systems worldwide, and always have been,” he says. “Even our most fervent atheists or agnostics are still interested in morality. It’s the same idea, different packaging.”

These binaries espoused by internet spirituality — good and evil, demonic and angelic, abundance and poverty — are reinforced everywhere in culture, and not only in the context of religion. “‘The demonic’ is one of those very superficial distinctions that really has a lot to do with, ‘who’s your customer? Who are you trying to frighten?’ It can stand in the kind of generalized force of evil in a very effective way, regardless of what the specifics are,” explains Russo. “It works on people not necessarily because they’ve read the Bible, but because they watch Harry Potter or read Tolkien or play Dungeons and Dragons.”

The info is here.

About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated

Gregory Smith

Pew Research

Originally posted 14 DEC 21

The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing. The latest Pew Research Center survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.

Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily basis has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is “very important” in their lives.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population. Christians now outnumber religious “nones” by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question about religious identity, Christians outnumbered “nones” by almost five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

The recent declines within Christianity are concentrated among Protestants. Today, 40% of U.S. adults are Protestants, a group that is broadly defined to include nondenominational Christians and people who describe themselves as “just Christian” along with Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and members of many other denominational families. The Protestant share of the population is down 4 percentage points over the last five years and has dropped 10 points in 10 years.

By comparison, the Catholic share of the population, which had ticked downward between 2007 and 2014, has held relatively steady in recent years. As of 2021, 21% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholic, identical to the Catholic share of the population in 2014.

Within Protestantism, evangelicals continue to outnumber those who are not evangelical. Currently, 60% of Protestants say “yes” when asked whether they think of themselves as a “born-again or evangelical Christian,” while 40% say “no” or decline to answer the question.

The info is here.

Voice-hearing across the continuum: a phenomenology of spiritual voices

Moseley, P., et al. (2021, November 16).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7z2at

Abstract

Voice-hearing in clinical and non-clinical groups has previously been compared using standardized assessments of psychotic experiences. Findings from several studies suggest that non-clinical voice-hearing (NCVH) is distinguished by reduced distress and increased control. However, symptom-rating scales developed for clinical populations may be limited in their ability to elucidate subtle and unique aspects of non-clinical voices. Moreover, such experiences often occur within specific contexts and systems of belief, such as spiritualism. This makes direct comparisons difficult to interpret. Here we present findings from a comparative interdisciplinary study which administered a semi-structured interview to NCVH individuals and psychosis patients. The non-clinical group were specifically recruited from spiritualist communities. The findings were consistent with previous results regarding distress and control, but also documented multiple modalities that were often integrated into a single entity, high levels of associated visual imagery, and subtle differences in the location of voices relating to perceptual boundaries. Most spiritual voice-hearers reported voices before encountering spiritualism, suggesting that their onset was not solely due to deliberate practice. Future research should aim to understand how spiritual voice-hearers cultivate and control voice-hearing after its onset, which may inform interventions for people with distressing voices.

From the Discussion

As has been reported in previous studies, the ability to exhibit control over or influence voices seems to be an important difference between experiences reported by clinical and non-clinical groups.  A key distinction here is between volitional control (ability to bring on or stop voices intentionally), and the ability to influence voices (through other strategies such as engagement or distraction from voices), referred to elsewhere as direct and in direct control.  In the present study, the spiritual group reported substantially higher levels of control and influence over voices, compared to patients. Importantly, nearly three-quarters of the group reported a change in their ability to influence the voices over time –compared to 12.5% of psychosis patients–suggesting that this ability is not always present from the onset of voice-hearing in non-clinical populations, and instead can be actively developed. Indeed, our analysis indicated that 88.5% of the spiritual group described their voices starting spontaneously, with 69.2% reporting that this was before they had contact with spiritualism itself. Thus, while most of the group (96.2%) reported ongoing cultivation of the voices, and often reported developing influence over time, it seems that spiritual practices mostly do not elicit the actual initial onset of the voices, instead playing a role in honing the experience. 

The research is here.