Public Religion Trends in 2010 -- Sightings

As we enter the final week of 2010, Martin Marty comments on the top 20 public religion trends as laid out by the Religion Newswriters Association.  Islam makes itself felt, as does homosexuality.  Anyway, I'll just let you read and comment.

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Sightings 12/27/2010

Public Religion Trends in 2010

--Martin Marty

The end-of-year summaries of “public religion” draw frequently on the most extensive press survey each December, from the Religion Newswriters Association, made up of reporters and columnists in the secular media. (A ringer in the Association, I was one of some 300 respondents to a poll by Debra Mason, RNA Executive Director.) It is hard to find trends this time. Muslims and Islam do show up in four of the twenty trends on which Mason reports. First, to no one’s surprise, was the ruckus stirred up by the announcement of plans for an Islamic community center not far from Ground Zero. Feisal Abdul Rauf, who seemed to fit the bill of the often-sought “Muslim Moderate,” ironically, was attacked immoderately for his effort. The event suggested how motivated by fear, defensiveness, and exploitation of sentiment many in the United States are.

Way down the list were the other Muslim/Islam sightings: #14, the Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment, again ironic, in that it ruled out the possibility of making judicial decisions based on the Qur’an in a state with very few Muslims. William Franklin Graham made news by being disinvited from a Pentagon National Day of Prayer observance, given his anti-Muslim rhetoric and record. The President visited Indonesia, and so made the list with some references to Islam. The only other non-Christian faith, way down the list, was Hinduism, at #20, because of flaps over yoga practices and the novel Eat, Pray, Love.

The Pope was often in the headlines, but only twice did events involving him make the top twenty. One dealt with his dealings in the priestly sexual-abuse scandals, while his notable visit to the United Kingdom with his critiques of European secularism was down at #16. The Catholic bishops were part of #5, the signing of the health-care reform bill, which the American bishops had criticized because they feared it would involve tax-funds in funding abortions.

Mainline Protestantism was mentioned (#6) for its non-presence in the current US Supreme Court and for Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopal denominational infighting, chiefly over homosexuality issues, which made a presence also in #8, on religion and the bullying of homosexuals.

Religion in action showed up properly in #2, on churchly response to the catastrophes in Haiti, the murders of faith-based aid workers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while Christians continue to flee Iraq (#11). “Faith-based environment groups” also made their mark after the BP oil spill (#12). The political Right was evidently less prominent or less religious, since it showed up mainly with Glenn Beck’s presence in Tea Party stories (#4). Southern Baptist leader Richard Land pushed faith-based groups to put more energy into immigration issues.

Cross-denominational stories also included #7, on the severe effects of the economic crisis on publishing, pension plans, and the Crystal Cathedral’s economic bankruptcy. Supreme Court decisions were not as prominent and revelatory of trends as in many years. More dramatic decisions are ahead. Non-denominational news told (#9) of the Pew Forum on U.S. Religious Knowledge which showed that agnostics, Jews, and Mormons knew most about the faiths. The RNA folks, often the only religious educators of the public, have their work cut out for them, again, ironically, at a time when print media, their natural abode, are also threatened in the digital age.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

 

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Classroom Controversy -- Sightings

Having been asked to resign from a teaching position -- for doctrinal reasons -- I have some sense of the difficulties that face teachers of religon.  All of my teaching experience has been in private, Christian settings, both seminary and college levels.  As Stanley Hauerwas noted in his wonderful memoir, he had a tendency to say things in class, but especially in meetings, that ticked people off -- usually administrators.  I know the feeling!!

In today's edition of Sightings, Martin Marty picks up on the case of an adjunct professor fired from a public university for the way in which he approached the Catholic teaching on homosexuality -- he laid out the Catholic teaching and noted his support of the position.  As Marty notes, this is an intriguing case because it lays out the narrow line that teachers of religion in public universities must walk.  It raises questions of objectivity -- if such a thing can be truly attained -- and more.  It's a most interesting piece, which "demands" your response!!_________________________________________________

Sightings 7/26/10

Classroom Controversy

 Martin E. Marty

Anyone who spends over a half century at the center and the margins of higher academe, as I have, knows better than to get involved with tenure disputes or hirings and firings of faculty. The further away from the scene of conflict one is, the dimmer the vision; the closer one is, the more the dust of battle obscures vision. So while using a particular issue and university to examine some points, I won’t suggest proper outcomes. The case does help us understand why and how certain kinds of disputes are complex and sticky.

So, to a scene and event: The University of Illinois at Champaign fired adjunct professor Kenneth Howell after the friend of an “offended student” e-mailed Robert McKim, the religion department head, charging that Howell had engaged in “hate speech,” if not in class, then in an e-mail in which he contributed further to a classroom controversy. The issue was his teaching of the Roman Catholic teaching that homosexual activity is sinful, a position with which he agreed and which he propounded with his endorsement.

Step back now, during the reviewing, and let’s see. First, not to include religion studies in higher education curricula is a problem for education and for the citizenry. Religion, in the narrowest and broadest senses, informs most complex human activities, including war-making and peace-making. So include it. Second, teaching religion in tax-supported institutions often occurs at the edge of controversy and conflict, since different individuals and groups in any public will criticize almost any presentation, including the least controversial. (Teaching it in private higher education settings also can be controversial, but we can pass that by for now.)

Next, phenomena related to human sexuality inevitably come up in discussions of religion, since faith communities and their leaders care so much about it, and the general public has interests and fights about it. But it is almost impossible to discuss religion “neutrally,” meaning “fair-mindedly” in the eyes of all, including interest groups. Giving an accounting of what a particular religious community or tradition teaches about something central to a faith is necessary, even urgent, if one is to understand its many features. Had Professor Howell tried to teach about Catholicism, which was his assignment, without getting into Catholic teaching and practice dealing with sexuality, it would represent a failure to educate well.

Having a professor identify herself or himself with such a teaching becomes a matter of “how” it is done. The vast majority of religion professors know how to protect the integrity of their students, their subjects, their school. Awareness of this in a conflicted, pluralistic society should lead professors to be careful about propagandizing (which is not educating) for or against a tradition. The Illinois case is complicated by the fact the position held by Howell is, shall we say, irregular, since the Catholic diocese of Peoria funds the chair and has interests that may not match that of regularly appointed and funded members of the religion department. Step back from that fact, and you still have a good illustration of how precarious is the perch of those who teach religion in state schools.

When all is done and said, however, there is no way to assure that at all schools, in all classes, all professors will do all this well. If a student over-reacted and Howell over-acted in the case of a controversial teaching, it is important to back off and, yes, review and re-review fateful decisions about legality, propriety, fairness, and effectiveness of teaching. Don’t envy the Illinois administrators who have to review their own actions and arbitrate among conflicting interests. But also we can pause and note once again how religion, long considered marginal and irrelevant, stirs people on all sides of societal issues in the arena that is the public university. This will not be the last re-reviewing that we are likely to observe, as religious communities and their foes heat up.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

 

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In this month's Religion and Culture Web Forum ("The Primacy of Rhetoric"), Marty Center Senior Fellow (2009-10) W. David Hall addresses the centrality of rhetoric in the Western humanist tradition by engaging the work of Ernesto Grassi, whose commentary on the Renaissance, especially, diverged from standard Platonic models of interpretation to include arts such as rhetoric, literature, and poetry. Of especial interest for Hall is Grassi's "retrieval of the humanist tradition" during this era and the possibilities that thorough understanding of such a retrieval opens more broadly in the fields of philosophy and religious studies. With invited responses from Andrew Hass (University of Stirling), Jeff Jay (University of Chicago), Santiago Pinon (University of Chicago), Donald Phillip Verene (Emory University), and Glenn Whitehouse (Florida Gulf Coast University). http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/index.shtml

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.