Recently in Religion Category

A landmark Pew study on religion was released today and is being discussed far and wide. A couple things leap out of it to me that may have been downplayed elsewhere.

1. Religion is a very competitive marketplace. One in three Americans have changed faiths. And if you count switching denominations within Christianity, nearly HALF OF AMERICANS have changed religions. Forty-four percent, and the number grows if you get into the guts of the survey. This confirms something I've been soapboxing about for a while now: Denomination is dying in America. Religion is no longer something that's passed down from our parents, like genes. Religions must compete, the same as political parties, television networks, hospitals, and laundry detergent. Americans are making their own faith, as they make up their minds about everything else. This is good news for citizens and bad news for ossified religious institutions, but make no mistake: It will change the nature of religion, making it more user-friendly, and perhaps more watered-down, but ultimately more flexibile and practical. It's die or adapt.

Consider just a few facts from the survey: Half of Protestants have changed denominations or left their faith entirely. Half. Twelve percent of adults describe themselves as religious but having no affiliation whatsoever.

2. Protestants make up only half of the United State population now. That's down from nearly 100% of Americans in 1776 and around 80% of Americans just a century ago. And they're dying out at faster rates. In the next decade, the United States will become a minority Protestant country.

Meanwhile, Catholics have a different challenge. One-third of Catholics have left the Church in recent years. The Catholic population has dipped from 25% to 24%. Why such a small dip? The browning of the Catholic church. Hispanic immigrants have filled the pews. Thirty million Americans are now Catholics. The largest bloc of religious people in California, for example, is Catholic. Seems odd on the surface, but makes sense when you think about it -- fewer Italian and Irish as the East Coast and Midwest. If you're a Catholic priest today, hope you like the sun.

3. Finally, and this is the least-reported stat in the survey, from my early scanning. Twenty-seven percent of Americans are married to someone of a different faith. If you count different denominations of Christianity, the number rises to 37%. Nearly forty percent of American adults are in an interfaith marriage. That means in more than a third of U.S. households, the dinner table converation involves balancing interfaith tensions and opportunities. Considering the number of people in their 20's who are unafffiliated -- more than a third -- and that that process begins in the teenage years, the number of interfaith conversations at dinner easily exceeds half the tables. This is a major development, and to me a very positive one. These American dinner table conversations, while tense, are preparing Americans to deal with an interfaith world and allowing us to be pioneers in the next great religious evolution: the acceptance of different faiths into the religious landscape.

We are now officially in the age of Interfaith America.

PS: I'll be in CNN American Morning on Tuesday, April 26th to discuss the survey. I hope to post a YouTube.

The chatter about Obama and the Jews is likely to increase as the nomination fights heads into the final weeks. Josh Marshall reviews a number of the charges here (with more in his piece.) Here's one:

If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.

The Forward explores why Jews split their vote on Super Tuesday.

But more interesting to me has been the backlash in the Jewish community to the anti-Israel fearmongering that often surrounds the Jewish vote. My email box recently filled with two examples. This from a 43-year-old rabbi in Atlanta.

This week, I became aware of a something very disturbing. Senator Barack Obama has been characterized as a closet Muslim parading as a member of a Christian Church opposed to the State of Israel. It is part of a pattern of vicious lies circulated on the Internet. This slanderous attack has been reported in a number of Jewish news publications. In the name of honesty and justice, I am sharing this Open Letter to the Jewish Community so that you will not be fooled or deceived by thses horrific tactics. We Jews, as much as any group, understand how injurious a vicious lie can be.

Another from the head of United Jewish Committee.

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.

These notes may be dismissed as coming from Obama supporters, though neither letter writer identifies himself as such. I've certainly heard grumblings about Obama from inside the Jewish community in the last year. But I'm hopeful that this backlash against the Muslim rumors and chatter about Obama's pastor's pro-Palestinian stance is another sign that the Jewish community can have a civilized conversation about a candidate's positions in the Middle East without succumbing to outmoded kneejack reactions.

A debate suddenly renewed on its 500th anniversary.

The world's great museums are awash in Michelangelo drawings: the consensus among Anglo-American and Italian scholars is that there are around 800 in existence, including those of the Risen Christ and the Labours of Hercules in the Royal Collection, and the artist's preliminary sketch for the Sistine Chapel's fresco of the Creation of Man, in the British Museum.

But if three eminent German scholars are to be believed, the methods by which Michelangelo prepared for the epic struggle of painting the 300 figures on the chapel ceiling remains a mystery, and the drawings that are said to explain it merely mystify it. In a beautiful and weighty new book, Michelangelo: Complete Works, they insist that only a small minority of the drawings currently attributed to the master are definitely by him.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.

Is Muslim modest clothing the new killer app in track and field?

A high school track star has been disqualified from a meet because officials said the custom-made outfit she wears to conform to her Muslim faith violated competition rules.

Juashaunna Kelly, a senior at the District of Columbia's Theodore Roosevelt High School, has the fastest mile and 2-mile times of any girl runner in the city this winter. She was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet.

Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams. The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.

The outfit allows her to compete while adhering to her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.

"It's not special," Kelly said. "It doesn't make me perform better."

But meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly's uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event. Uniforms are required to be "a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches," he said.

Rogers said that he knew Kelly was wearing the uniform for religious reasons and that he offered her several options to conform to the rules while still respecting her faith, including placing a plain T-shirt over her unitard and then wearing her team uniform over it.

As a parent of preschool-age children, I face this all the time. But in the sacrament?

The Rev. Bill Miller-Zurell was recently presiding over Communion, moving from congregant to congregant, offering the body, offering the blood, until he got to a little boy who, seeing the piece of bread, stopped the pastor short.

"He asked me if there were any nuts in it," Miller-Zurell said. "His mom, who was standing behind him, made him. And he only took it after I assured him that there were no nuts."

With more people realizing that things such as nuts and wheat and even certain pungent scents can make them sick, religious organizations are reconsidering time-honored traditions.

Wheat communion wafers are now available in rice and soy. Religious supply stores are offering hypoallergenic incense. Churches are banning cologne and cutting back on Easter lilies. Fresh pine boughs for the holidays are often out. A group of nuns invented a host with only a trace of wheat so the gluten-sensitive could digest it.

Food critics. Movie critics. Why not sermon critics?Singing hymns and clasping hands in prayer, they look like regular church-going Christians. But the worshippers at some Sunday services in Britain definitely are not. Instead they are mostly nonbelievers paid $60 a...

Chris Lehmann delivers a well-informed take-down of Joel Osteen whose erudition hardly softens its wickedness. Even the sub-head is blunt: "Joel Osteen's God really wants you to dress well, stand up straight, and get a convenient parking space." The piece...

Episcopal Life online has this story up today. Best-selling author and commentator Bruce Feiler will bring his unique world view on today's global conflicts to Kanuga Conferences February 18-20 for its annual Bowen Conference. Drawing on extensive research and adventures...

All the bloviating about the so-called "War on Christmas" just might provoke a war after all. New York mag decides to join the fray, on the anti-Christian side.Amid a welter of publicity for its supposedly anti-Christian message, The Golden Compass...

Is Chabad the future of Judaism? Some Reform and Conservatives must think so, they're criticizing it pretty heavily these days. First some background.WHAT'S Chabad's secret? They offer ease of entry. People taking baby steps into Jewish life are intimidated by...

The speech was well written and might pass muster in an undergraduate class on religion and the founding fathers, though even there he made some glaring missteps.“We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders – in ceremony and word....

We celebrated Hanukkah for the first time last night with our two-year-olds. Sure, the last two years we lit the candles and gave them some presents. And a few weeks ago my family assembled for Thanksgiving and followed our (brilliant!)...

I have enjoyed and recommended the books of the chief rabbi of England, Jonathan Sacks. I see today that he's both on the offensive and defensive. On the offensive, attacking multiculturalism.Multiculturalism promotes segregation, stifles free speech and threatens liberal democracy,...

'Twas the month before Christmas And all through the land The wacko cable air hogs Were showing their hand Some press releases are best shown in their entirety. If you're sensitive to the sight of naken ambition, best not to...

As someone who has traveled in biblical archaeology in recent years, last week's mega-discovery of the cave where the she-wolf supposedly nursed Romulus and Remus in Rome pressed all my skepical buttons. The pattern in the Middle East over the...

I know lots of people are saying the Vladimir Putin considers himself God, but it seems he's willing to teach Russians about alternatives. In a fascinating development that's sure to rile the debate over teaching religion in American schools (I'm...

I was asked recently to wade into the debate over The Israel Lobby, the controversial book about the influence of the Christian- and Jewish- fueled Washington lobby the supports the State of Israel (and is also said to have fueled...

That's the title of a first-ever Economist debate being held this week in New York, tied in to their cover story on the subject this week. Good timing, if nothing else. If you'll be in New York on November 10th...

As the discussion on Beliefnet the last week suggests, the Religious Right clearly seems to be a definitional moment in the United States. Part of it is the parade of sex scandals in recent months. Part of it is the...

While we're on the topic of the Holocaust, a group of Jews is reenacting the Exodus from France 60 years ago in one of the more embarrassing bungled attempts by the British to maintain harmony in Palestine. The episode was...

And they made the trains run on time. And they planted lots of flowers?A quarter of Germans believe there were some positive aspects to Nazi rule, according to a poll published Wednesday—a finding that comes after a popular talk show...

With this blog, I thee wed. I'm using this occasion to join my colleagues at Beliefnet in a new joint-blogging venture called Casting Stones. As anyone who's checked out the effort knows, it can be very fast-moving, occasionally heated, but...

FeilerFaster takes you where few other blogs, or at least few other blogs on Beliefnet, dare to go. Earlier this year, it was backstage at the Super Bowl. Now, the World Series! On Sunday night, following an all-night blow-out for...

I just returned from a family wedding in Boston, where my sister-in-law was married in a beautiful ceremony, feted in a gorgeous room filled with oranges, greens, and tropical flowers arranged in fall bouquets, and gave one of the more...

Vanity Fair's October issue contains its annual list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of "billions." A Jewish editor in Chicago has decided to count...

First step: Get enough paint. I've been on Remsen street three times in the last 24 hours at the site of yesterday's random swastika painting. I've spoken to a number of people quite knowledgeable about the situation. Here's what I...

We're in full preschool phase-in mode around here. Anyone with young children will recognize the game. Our two-year-olds had their first day of a two-day-a-week preschool a week ago today. For the first day the parents go and stay in...

Just when I thought the talk about circumcision might die down around here, along comes a lawsuit in Seattle: A convert to Judaism wants to circumcize his 12-year-old son, but the man's estranged wife (the boy's mother) is objecting. A...

Happy New Year to Jews out there, who are probably not exactly celebrating the occasion by checking out a blog. But in case you're not reading the NYT either, I couldn't resist pointing out a sentence deep in my friend...

So far, God seems to be the big loser in the '08 election. Defying every prognostication, the candidates leading in the polls -- Rudy and Hillary -- are viewed as the least religious. And the "most religious" candidate on the...

The obituary of God is being written on the bestseller lists these days, as we all know. But now the latest chapter in the Death of God sweepstakes seems to be written ... in synagogue! The Reform movement has written...

I was looking around the Internet yesterday for some information about how God asked the Israelites to the sign the covenant at Sinai -- at one point he has them sprinkle blood -- when I stumbled onto this exchange with...

My appearance on CNN scheduled for last week, has now been scheduled for [Update: 8:30 AM] Wednesday morning. To refresh, this grew out of the TIME cover on Mother Teresa and her doubts about faith and the question I was...

I'm bumping this entry back to the fore today because it's experiencing increased traffic. I'm the father of two-year-old girls, so I've not faced the issue of whether to circumcise my children or not. My guess is that my wife...

Howard Dean tells Muslims to run for office to get their message heard. Smart. The GOP ignores the largest Muslim gathering in the country. Stupid. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told American Muslims gathered in Rosemont to think beyond...

Valedictorians strike me as people who know how to follow instructions. Hardly the rebellious type. I should know. I was the Valedicotrian of the Savannah Country Day School class of 1983. And my honor came with a speech, as such...

My brother passed along this summary from the WSJ about a TNR article on the booming number of converts to the Russian Orthodox church among disenchanted evangelicals:The Orthodox Church is attracting an increasing number of disenchanted evangelical Christians in the...

CNN decided at the last minute to postpone our interview until sometime next week, closer to the anniversary of her death, which of course came just a few weeks after the death of her friend Princess Diana. I've taken the...

I've been invited to appear on CNN on Monday, sometime between 7 and 9 AM, to discuss the revelations about Mother Teresa contained in a new book, and outlined on the cover of TIME this week. The essence of...

End of discussion?I'm over age 60, and was circumcised at birth and don't remember a thing about it. However, i have been a practicing nudist most of my life - and i can tell you that there have been times...

Gives new meaning to the idea of resurrection.The Rev. Jerry Falwell had life insurance policies worth $34 million and the money has been used to erase the debt of Liberty University, the school he founded. The televangelist's son, Liberty Chancellor...

I'm bumping up my post of a few weeks back, The End of Circumcision, because it's generated a huge outpouring of thoughts, from men and women (lots of women commenting on circumcision and what it does to the appearance of...

Circumcision rates nearly cut in half in the USA. I guess Prince William set off a trend. Should Jews follow? More and more are saying yes.While the United States is one of the few industrialized countries in which a majority...

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is smiling: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is still the coin of the realm. Overall, Americans are definitely satisfied with the life they lead. Almost all (94%) say they are satisfied, with over half of...

If this story weren't serious, it would be funny. Johnson & Johnson has sued the Red Cross claiming it owns the red cross. Yup, the cross. Even the Church doesn't own the cross. Like all religious symbols, it has a...

The issue of footbaths at Michigan schools created a bloodbath last year, which right wing bloggers insisting installing them in some colleges meant inviting Al Qaeda to the homecoming dance. The NYT examins the fallout: When pools of water began...

For one writer at the LAT, the answer was yes. He was thrilled to receive the religion beat, but after years of covering questions of faith for the paper, he found himself in a crisis. WHEN Times editors assigned me...

I'm catching up on some old stories that caught my eye in recent weeks. For anyone who's spent a minute contemplating the Holocaust, this one sends shivers down the Central Nervous System. It seems being Jewish has become chic in...

A common complaint I hear from people who keep kosher is that it's increasingly difficult to find kosher food outside the big cities. But kosher food may be only half the problem. Try organic kosher food. When being part of...

I just returned from a weekend at the beach on Tybee Island with my two-year-old twins girls. My wife, having just come through a skin cancer scare, has imported long-sleeve, UV-protected bodysuits for them from Australia. Looks like she...

In the spring of 2005, when my wife was around eight months pregnant with identical twin girls, we took the mandatory tour of the hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where she was going to deliver (naturally!) our...