Few Are Chosen - A Message By: G. Craige Lewis of EX Ministries

The Largest and Fastest Religious Shift in America Is Well Underway

June 21, 2023

Credit...Eleanor Davis

By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

This is the fourth newsletter in a series about Americans moving away from religion. Read part one, part two and part three.

In previous newsletters about Americans falling away from religion, I’ve talked about why so many Americans’ religious identities now fall in the category known as “nones” when, just a half-century ago, nearly all Americans had some kind of affiliation. (It’s complicated and multifaceted, but to summarize, it’s largely a combination of Christianity’s association with far-right politics and the fact that being unreligious has become more socially acceptable over time.)

But it’s not just how Americans identify that has greatly shifted. In their new book “The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?” Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan Burge argue that the most dramatic change may be in regular attendance at houses of worship. “We are currently in the middle of the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country,” they postulate, because “about 15 percent of American adults living today (around 40 million people) have effectively stopped going to church, and most of this dechurching has happened in the past 25 years.”

While the authors find that there is some variation in the rates at which different demographic groups are dechurching (Hispanic Americans are dechurching at the lowest rate, for example), every group is trending away from traditional worship. As Davis, Graham and Burge put it: “No theological tradition, age group, ethnicity, political affiliation, education level, geographic location or income bracket escaped the dechurching in America.”

The Decline of Mainline Churches in America (2023)

Macron has exposed the bigotry of French anti-Catholics

by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith

posted Friday, 13 Apr 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a meeting of the Bishops' Conference of France (Getty Images)


French secularists got all they could have wanted years ago. So why are they still angry?

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, spoke to the French bishops the other day and said a few things that would not create the slightest ripple in, let us say, the United Kingdom, about Church and State co-operation and dialogue. But in France the outrage was immediate, as you can read here. It is of interest to note that none of the angry secularists managed to express any reason for their disapproval or make any substantive charges against what the President said. It seems that it is simply enough to Macron to speak to anyone in a cassock to be called “ a little priest” (which, in French, is quite insulting.) One can read (in French) what Jean-Luc Mélenchon said here. It seems Macron has, in his opinion, crossed a red line: but how exactly?

What does this tell us?

The first thing it tells us is that relations between Church and State are still very much a live issue in France today, despite a tortured history of legislation that goes back to the Revolution of 1789. French anti-clericalists have surely been given everything they wanted, which included the confiscation of Church property, the dissolution and banning of religious orders and the judicial murder of large swathes of the clergy. But it never is enough, for the anti-clerical appetite is never satisfied. Not even by the legislation introduced by Émile Combes back in 1905, which signified a complete defeat for the Church and its expulsion from public life, and which, incidentally Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accuses Macron of trying to roll back, with no evidence whatever.

So, one is left asking, what more could the French anti-clericals want that they have not already been given? Could it perhaps be the death of religion? Is their rage really fuelled by the sneaking suspicion that Voltaire, after all, was wrong? After all, religion has persisted, despite hopes and many practical steps to the contrary.

The other thing that we need to grasp, a secret which the anti-clericalists have let out of the bag in their collective hissy-fit, is that the French Republic’s self-declared secularism, or laïcité, involves much more that what one would normally assume by secularism. Laïcité means banishing religion from the public sphere, and making it hard for a Church or another religious grouping to function, by denying it any status in law. This goes far beyond the State being neutral in religious matters: it means, in effect, that the State in hostile to religion.

No one should object to the State having a neutral approach to faith groups; in fact, that would be a great improvement, from the point of view of us Catholics, to the hostility we suffer in so many countries (including, let us remember, this one.) The reactions of the various standard bearers of laïcité to President Macron’s speech show that they are not neutral but hostile towards Catholicism.

Moreover, the idea that the State treats all religious groups alike is also a myth. Because the French Left, and elements of the French Right, are still fighting the battles of the 19th Century, they cannot reason properly when they think of Catholicism. Things like the Dreyfus case figure greatly in their imaginations and actively inform their present attitude. But the Muslims, who have never been politically powerful in France, do not have this disadvantage of being seen through the lens of a difficult history.

Of course, history is important, but just as not all Muslims should be blamed for 9/11, similarly not all French Catholic should be blamed for the Dreyfus case. Indeed, given that the Dreyfus case took place over a hundred years ago, I am not sure any Catholics should be blamed for it today.

M. Macron’s laudable desire to establish good relations with the Church has exposed those who do not want to have good relations, indeed would rather have no relations at all. The State may well be secular, but the people in it may be religious. It is time to wake up to that fact, not just in France, but everywhere.

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United Kingdom’s embrace of secularism has consequences

Wednesday, January 3, 2018


United Kingdom’s embrace of secularism has consequences

Published: 1/3/18 @ 12:00


ANGLESEY, Wales

The UK Daily Mail has again published a story about a subject that has become a recurring theme this time of year. No, not Christmas, but rather drunkenness, though the holiday is used as its primary excuse. Pictures accompanying the story show young people collapsing in gutters and vomiting on the sidewalks. It is not a pretty sight.

More than 100 years after the 1904 Welsh revival and more than 60 years after American evangelist Billy Graham preached at a London Crusade, which lasted 12 weeks, and at its height brought 120,000 people to Wembley Stadium in the rain, registering thousands of converts, the United Kingdom is a spiritual shadow of its former self.

Religious coverage

The BBC recently announced its intension to expand religion coverage on the theory that more information about faith might stem growing anti-Semitism and create understanding of various beliefs. Currently only one religion program, “Songs of Praise” is regularly shown on BBC.

The announcement brought a stinging rebuke from London Times columnist David Aaronovitch: “Given that for the first time since the Black Death a majority of Britons are not actually religious, this new emphasis seems perverse.”

A considerable amount of mocking follows: “Maybe there’ll be a sitcom called ‘The End is Nigh,’ in which a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses moves next door to a family of Seventh Day Adventists and evangelical mayhem ensues. Or the corporation will buy the rights to ‘Saudi Arabian Big Brother,’ where the all-male housemates compete to see which of them is the most pious. That one really exists, by the way.”

Pope Francis suggests the way to beat secularism is by ‘out-loving’ it

Pope Francis suggests the way to beat secularism is by ‘out-loving’ it

John L. Allen Jr.

August 4, 2016EDITOR



Pope Francis and Krakow Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, right, arrive to celebrate a Holy Mass on the meadows in Brzegi, Poland, Sunday, July 31, 2016. The Mass was the final part of the World Youth Day, a global celebration of young Catholics, on the fifth day of the Pope's visit to Poland. (Credit: AP Photo/Alik Keplicz.)

On Tuesday the Vatican released the transcript of a July 27 question-and-answer session Pope Francis held with the bishops of Poland, in which he seemed to suggest that the right way to resist secularism isn’t to prevail in intellectual arguments, but to “out-love” the opponents of the faith.




On Tuesday the Vatican released the transcript of a July 27 question-and-answer session Pope Francis held with the bishops of Poland during his recent trip to Krakow to preside over World Youth Day, and it’s rich in detail, running to almost 5,000 words, right, arrive to celebrate a Holy Mass on the meadows in Brzegi, Poland, Sunday, July 31, 2016. The Mass was the final part of the World Youth Day, a global celebration of young Catholics, on the fifth day of the Pope's visit to Poland. (Credit: AP Photo/Alik Keplicz.)
On Tuesday the Vatican released the transcript of a July 27 question-and-answer session Pope Francis held with the bishops of Poland, in which he seemed to suggest that the right way to resist secularism isn’t to prevail in intellectual arguments, but to “out-love” the opponents of the faith.

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The Vexing Presence of Religion in Public Life

DECEMBER 18, 2015


by MICHAEL WELTON




The debates about the role of religion in public life have become overheated, intensified by the events of 9/11. Over the last decade or so, we have witnessed a spate of acerbic anti-religion books, like Richard Dawkins’ best-selling The God Delusion (2005) and Sam Harris’ acerbic The End of Faith (2004).

Books are one thing, but contemporary global politics are inextricably entangled with religious animus. President George W. Bush of the United States claimed God’s guidance for his decision to invade Iraq. The current president, Barack Obama, believes America is on the right side of history. The American president’s enemies likewise find transcendental justification for their own monstrous acts of cruelty, violence and mayhem.

In the liberal democracies (now tottering on their last legs), issues of the right to dress in conformity to religious precept and teach biblical perspectives in biology classes precipitate considerable debate, contention and violent hostility.

Now with millions of Muslim refugees overflowing into Europe in a mood of panic, xenophobia screeches in the streets. Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, even lashes out that America should close its borders to Muslims. It is utterly urgent that Muslims and Christians face their mutual vulnerabilities and maladies towards crafting a new form of religious plurality in this deranged world.

But this is only one side of the complex story. Religious beliefs and practices continue to flourish in the post-secular state. They cannot just be dismissed, oftentimes viperously, by people like eminent biologist Dawkins. People continue to draw on religious resources to counter arid consumerism and vapid secularism. Although science does inform our common sense, questions of meaning and how we ought to “tame our minds” and train ourselves to “act compassionately in the world” persist (often drawing on spiritual sources).

We turn to Ronald Dworkin’s chapter, “Religion and dignity,” from his book, Is Democracy Possible Here? (2006), Jurgen Habermas’ essay, “Faith and knowledge” (2005), and Seyla Benhabib’s commentary on the French “L’affair du foulard” in The Rights of Others: aliens, residents and citizens (2004) for ways of thinking about how leadership in state and civil society ought to handle the role of religion in public life. There is some urgency here.

Religion and dignity

Ronald Dworkin is one of America’s foremost left liberal thinkers, along with John Rawls. Dworkin’s speciality is legal theory, and he writes with admirable clarity and precision on the core principles of liberal democracies. Dworkin reminds us that America’s religiosity is not new. We are, no doubt, aware that America was founded as a kind of Christian utopia, God’s city upon a hill, beaming light to all of humankind.

Throughout the Bush regime the religious right gained confidence to assert its vision of the good life and initiated controversial campaigns to have “intelligent design” taught in science classes, stem cell research stopped, abortion denied and gay marriage rejected. These latter issues were magnets, drawing millions into the public realm and making millions of others fearful of fundamentalism’s aggressive project to enact their theocratic version of a Christian nation.

Clearly, there is a serious need for some serious thinking. Dworkin sets out two models on the role religion should play in public life: the tolerant religious nation and the tolerant secular nation. While a tolerant religious nation would permit minority and diverse religious expression, it might, given that the majority were “Christians”, condemn practices like homosexuality as against God’s will. In contrast, a tolerant secular society would never accept “such a narrow account of the ground of freedom of religion” (p. 61). Ethical decision-making cannot, Dworkin maintains, be restricted to religious-motivated action.

Dworkin anchors his argument in the liberal axiom that the “principle of personal responsibility requires a tolerant secular state and rules out a tolerant religious state” (p. 66). He eschews the idea that a religious majority, believing that its faith is good for the community, could then direct the state to endorse that faith. This would mean, then, that individuals would not be able to make up their own minds and act morally according to their dictates.

Dworkin’s “second principle of dignity assigns to each of us a responsibility to assess and choose ethical values for himself rather than to yield to the coercive choices of others” (p. 76). This principle is part of the strong reasons why many of us living in what’s left of the liberal democracies are alarmed at the power of, say, the Taliban or ISIS, to impose their malevolent vision upon everyone within their communal sphere.

In fact, the European Union’s wariness to include Turkey in the Union lies with their suspicion that Turkey contains forces that would use the state as an instrument to impose a particular faith on all of its citizens. Recently, these suspicions are justified.

With these principles to guide him, Dworkin plunges in and tackles some controversial issues. The science and religion debates in American society are handled deftly by this fine thinker. He believes that anti-Darwinians have the right to “fix the role of faith in their lives, but not to impose that faith on others, including children who are coerced into public education” (p. 80).

The intelligent design movement, thoroughly discredited by scientists, cannot be accepted as a “possible candidate for scientific explanation” (ibid.). While a belief of many, divine intervention can never be proven empirically. Dworkin argues that to accept miracles as compatible with science damages reason. The ID movement does not have the right to impose this faith-position on all young people. They would be utterly disabled for existence in the 21st century.

Living and learning in a post-secular world

Habermas begins his more philosophically elaborate discussion of “Faith and knowledge” by acknowledging that 9/11 has exploded the tension between “secular society and religion” (p. 327). The bombers, we realize only too well, were motivated by religious beliefs. In fact, Habermas believes that the events surrounding the aftermath of 9/11 had apocalyptic biblical overtones.

In his provocative book, The Malady of Islam (2003) the late Abdelwahab Meddeb wonders where the Qur’an and tradition might be “predisposed to a fundamentalist reading” and how persons doing terrible deeds in the name of Allah could have “forgotten the reasons for existence and … transformed a tradition based on the principle of life and the cult of pleasure into a lugubrious race toward death.”

To understand how we ought to proceed in such a febrile environment, Habermas addresses the question of “secularization in post-secular society.” What interests this master thinker is the continued existence of religious communities in the “context of ongoing secularization” (p. 329). How are those of secular sensibility to converse with those of religious disposition? How are adherents of different faith-communities to speak with one another?

These questions seem almost ridiculous in the face of horrific images of bombed out mosques and icons of Christ machine-gunned to smithereens or partially burned and left tottering on a damaged altar in churches in Iraq and Syria.

I hang my head in despair: I advocate complementary learning processes between Islam and Christianity and secularists in a respectful public sphere. All I see are bullets through stained glass windows.

For their part, religious communities must come to terms with other religions, adapt to the authority of the sciences, and agree to the premise of the constitutional state. This reflective learning process has been forced on those of religious consciousness by modernity. In fact, the possibility of this necessary learning process may already have gone off the rails and disappeared down the canyon.

Without this “thrust of reflection,” Habermas avers, “monotheisms in relentlessly modernized societies unleash a destructive potential” (p. 329).

By now, we are familiar with the role that the scientific revolution and the western enlightenment penetrated through some of common sense’s “illusions about the world” (p. 330). Habermas argues that “everyday knowledge, which is linked to the self-understanding of speakers and actors. Learning something new about the world, and about ourselves as beings in the world, changes the content of our self-understanding” (ibid.).

Although our world has been disenchanted and the Darwinian revolution has undermined our positioning in the world of beings, Habermas insists that: “No science will relieve common sense, even if scientifically informed, of the task of forming a judgment, for instance, on how we should deal with pre-personal human life” (p. 331).

Like Dworkin, Habermas argues that the “democratic common sense insists on reasons which are acceptable not just for the members of one religious community” (p. 332). But he quickly admits that members of religious communities are often unfairly burdened; they must split their identities in ways that secular people do not.

Religious persons must translate their religious axioms into secular language. “But only if the secular side, too, remains sensitive to the force of articulation inherent in religious language will the search for reasons that aim at universal acceptability not lead to an unfair exclusion of religion from the public sphere” (p. 332).

Habermas embarks on a difficult excursion into philosophy’s dispute with religion. It is hard to understand his thinking without some background in philosophical languages. But the gist of his analysis is that religion contains rich symbolic resources that can be drawn on to confront the spiritual deficits of science harnessed to profit and meaning attached only to commodities.

These resources remain available for translation into the language of the public sphere. Both sides must listen and be open to learn something new. However, if the Habermasian complementary learning process is to get off the ground, religious “communities of interpretation” must learn to read sacred texts away from justifying war and monstrous deeds of cruelty, and practice the art of translation of dogma into practicable ways of living well with others in a freshly imagined world beyond endless destruction.

L’affair du foulard

Seyla Benhabib, a leading critical theorist in the United States, offers a sophisticated analysis of the scarf affair in the republic of France. She sets the stage for her argument by referring to “reverse globalization.” That is, peoples from the poorer regions of the world—Middle East, Africa, S.E. Asia—have flocked to the global cities of London, Paris, and Rome. However, they have not arrived with only their battered suitcases.

They have also come with religious and cultural beliefs, which they now attempt to adapt (or not) to a secular environment. Those immigrants who landed in France happened to arrive in a nation that was adamantly neutral to “all kinds of religious practice” (p. 186). The affair actually began on October 19, 1989, when several Muslim girls decided to “transpose an aspect of their private identity into the public sphere”.

They no longer treated the school as a “neutral space for French acculturation.” They “left home to become public actors in a civil public sphere in which they defied the state” (p. 186). Benhabib shows us the various meanings attached to the scarf-wearing.

Eventually, Benhabib informs us, l’affair du foulard “came to stand for all dilemmas of French national identity in the age of globalization and multiculturalism” (p. 190). We have touched on this dilemma in our discussion of Dworkin and Habermas. But Benhabib believes that we need “new models of legal, pedagogical, social, and cultural institutions to deal with the dual imperatives of liberal democracies to preserve freedom of religious expression and the principles of secularism” (ibid.).

During this whole affair, which stirred up a publishing storm, the girls’ own views were hardly ever sought. The pedagogical dimension of the affair entails asking the girls to “account for their actions and doings at least to their school communities, and to encourage discourses among the youth about what means to be a Muslim citizen in a laic French Republic” (p. 191). However, the learning process cannot flow in only one direction.

“Learning processes would have to take place on the part of the Muslim girls as well: while the larger French society would have to learn not to stigmatize and stereotype as ‘backward and oppressed creatures’ all those who accept the wearing of what appears at first glance to be a religiously mandated piece of clothing, the girls themselves and their supporters, in the Muslim community and elsewhere, have to learn to give a justification of their actions with ‘good reasons in the public sphere’” (p. 192).

In the end, Benhabib observes that: “Culture matters; cultural evaluations are deeply bound up with interpretations of our needs, our visions of the good life, and our dreams for the future” (p. 196). We have to “learn to live with the otherness of others…” (ibid.). It is important, then, that a vibrant multicultural liberal democracy not stifle “cultural-political conflict and learning…through legal manoeuvres” (p. 197).


Dr. Michael Welton is a professor at the University of Athabasca. He is the author of Designing the Just Learning Society: a Critical Inquiry.

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Brooks travels 'The Road to Character'

Gregory Korte, USA TODAY9:36 p.m. EDT May 10, 2015



(Photo: Random House)


One of David Brooks' great virtues as a columnist is his unpredictability. Hired as the token conservative on The New York Times' op-ed page, he's become the liberal's favorite conservative writer, alternately infuriating those on the far right and the far left. His columns often diverge into varied and non-political subjects like the psychology of pitching and the meaning of meaningfulness.

But in many parts of the commentariat, he's seen as also an off-putting egghead moralist — something Brooks acknowledges in the opening pages of The Road to Character (**1/2 out of four), his examination of how human nature has evolved from the classical era to the age of social media and the selfie stick.

"I'm paid to be a narcissistic blowhard, to volley my opinions, to appear more confident about them than I really am," he writes. "I have to work harder than most people to avoid a life of smug superficiality."

That confession is the closest Brooks comes to a first-person confrontation with his own character. The Road to Character is not a memoir, but a series of hagiographic essays extolling virtues of humility, self-sacrifice, discipline and generosity.

The soundbite thesis of the book is this: There are résumé virtues, the kinds of talents and job skills that lead to material success, and there are eulogy virtues, the kinds of things you'd like to be remembered for after you die: kindness, honesty, faithfulness.

Borrowing from Joseph Soloveitchik, an Orthodox Rabbi, Brooks calls these Adam I values and Adam II values. In the first chapter of Genesis, Adam I is created in the image of God, and is told to "fill the earth and subdue it." Adam I is ego-centered, majestic and masterful.

But there's a different creation story in the second chapter, where Adam II is created from dust. Adam II is humble, vulnerable and communal. "It is not good for man to be alone," God says.

Throughout the book, Brooks uses words like sin, vocation, soul and grace — words loaded with religious meaning but which Brooks tries to humanize and secularize. He argues for a new moral vocabulary to help balance out the more self-aggrandizing tendencies of modern society.

In the biographies that form the meat of the book, Brooks chooses as subjects religious figures such as St. Augustine of Hippo and Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement (herself on the road to sainthood); civil rights leaders like A. Philip Randolphand Bayard Rustin; military leaders like Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall; and writers like George Eliot and Samuel Johnson.

At his best, Brooks is a normative version of Malcolm Gladwell, culling from a wide array of scientists and thinkers to weave an idea bigger than the sum of its parts.

The book grew out of a course Brooks taught at Yale University, and it sometimes reads like a series of undergraduate essays, with great thinkers thrown in haphazardly in an effort to impress the teacher. Like his columns, Brooks' chapters can be original and eye-opening, or inconsistent and hard to follow.

The title of The Road to Character suggests a map to help the reader develop the eulogy virtues. But it's not quite a self-help book, which Brooks sees as a fool's errand anyway. "The existence of more and more self-help books is proof that they rarely work," he writes.

Instead, he says, "I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it."

It's not until the acknowledgements that the reader learns that this book wasn't supposed to be about character at all. What was conceived as a book about "cognition and decision-making" evolved into one about "morality and inner life."

Brooks can be unpredictable, even to himself.

The Road to Character

By David Brooks

Random House, 270 pp.

2½ out of four stars

Gregory Korte is a White House reporter for USA TODAY. Follow @gregorykorte on Twitter.

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DeVon Franklin Talks New Company; 'Heaven is For Real' Producer Aims to Touch Lives at Box Office

BY CHRISTINE THOMASOS , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

August 7, 2014|3:11 pm

(

PHOTO: DEVON FRANKLIN)

DeVon Franklin, senior vice president of Columbia Tristar Pictures and author of "Produced by Faith."


DeVon Franklin, a Hollywood executive and Seventh-day Adventist minister, is launching his own production company called Franklin Entertainment and is speaking about how it will contribute to the world of film.

Franklin, the 36-year-old husband of popular Christian actress Meagan Good, is no stranger to the Hollywood scene where he formerly served as senior vice president of production for Columbia Pictures. Now, with his Franklin Entertainment production company, the preacher is working with Sony to change people's lives one film at a time.

"It's about finding great content with mass appeal that still has an uplifting quality about it," Franklin recently told Millennial Magazine. "I want people's hearts to be touched, their lives to be touched, and I want the evidence of that to show up at the box office."

Franklin is no stranger to box office success with films like "Heaven Is for Real," "The Karate Kid" and "The Pursuit of Happyness" under his belt. Doug Belgrad, the president of Columbia Pictures previously spoke about why he believes Franklin's production company will work in both film and television.

"This is a plan tailor-made for DeVon's specific skill set and interests," Belgrad previously told Variety. "It's clear that his ambition was to get closer to the product and maintain his speaking and writing career."

By being focused on the faith-based and urban community markets, he is able to remain unphased by any outside distractions.

"You can't worry about external forces, you have to focus on – this is what I'm here to do, this is what motivates me, this is how I'm called to live," Franklin told Millennial Magazine.

Franklin previously explained how he is able to merge his Christian faith and career.

"The more I started embracing the ministry side, the more it actually added to my career in Hollywood," Franklin told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. "Knowing what challenges people are facing and then working on movies that can address those real-life issues gave me a path in this business."


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De Blasio’s Prekindergarten Expansion Collides With Church-State Divide

By SHARON OTTERMAN

AUG. 4, 2014

Children at St. Lucy’s School in the Bronx attended a summer program in July. St. Lucy’s will offer six publicly funded pre-k classes in the fall. 

Credit

Ángel Franco/The New York Times


The biblical story of Noah’s Ark will be taught, without mention of who told Noah to build it. Challah, the Jewish bread eaten on the Sabbath, will be baked, but no blessings said over it. Some crucifixes will be removed, but others left hanging.

These are the kinds of church-state gymnastics that New York City and some religious schools are performing as Mayor Bill de Blasio expands government-funded prekindergarten. Because of inadequate public school capacity, the de Blasio administration has been urging religious schools and community organizations to consider hosting the added programs.

But the push is raising fresh questions for civil libertarians concerned about church-state issues, and for the schools themselves, which want to help the city and qualify for its roughly $10,000-per-student tuition payments while preserving some of the faith-based elements that attract their main clientele.
The concerns crystallized in a one-page document the city issued in May to religious schools weighing whether to host full-day prekindergarten classes. Rather than state simply, as other municipalities have, that all religious instruction is prohibited, the city’s guidelines say that religious texts may be taught if they are “presented objectively as part of a secular program of instruction.” Learning about one’s culture is permitted, city officials say, but religious instruction is not.

Mayor Bill de Blasio promotes pre-k in Brooklyn.

CreditVictor J. Blue for The New York Times

This provision has set off debates in the offices of many schools, particularly Orthodox yeshivas, about just what is permissible. Many students in these schools are from deeply religious homes where the line between the cultural and religious is not only blurred, but absent.

“Can you conduct a mock Passover Seder?” said Jeff Leb, of the Orthodox Union, a national Jewish organization. “Can you discuss the symbolism of the menorah for Hanukkah? Can you have a sukkah at the back of the school? Are these things cultural or religious?”

Asked these questions, city officials said that a mock Seder would not be allowed, because it is a religious ritual, though “social/historical educational elements” of the Seder, which celebrates Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt, could be O.K.; that the symbolism of the menorah would “depend on the context”; and that “it would be permissible to teach that there is a custom to sit in a sukkah during a certain time period, but not to perform the ritual itself.”

Religious symbols are not permitted in areas used by city-funded prekindergarten students. A mezuza on a doorway would generally be allowed, but if it had a Jewish star on the outside, it would have to be evaluated in context: If it was small, it would probably be fine, said Maya Wiley, the counsel to the mayor who helped develop the guidelines.

City officials point out that there is nothing new about religious organizations’ housing publicly funded prekindergarten programs; Catholic schools and other faith-based organizations already host half-day versions. But those programs present fewer potential legal problems, because the schools can deliver secular education during one half of the day and religious instruction during the other, when parents, not the city, are paying.

The city is now asking those schools to consider converting their government-subsidized programs to a full day, or six hours 20 minutes, of secular instruction. Richard R. Buery Jr., the deputy mayor in charge of the prekindergarten expansion, said the shift was part of the mayor’s push “to create a single, unified, high-quality system.”

Children at the Chabad Early Learning Center Day Camp in Queens last month with Shabbat candles, fake challah bread and an empty “wine” glass. Credit

Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

With Mr. de Blasio under pressure to meet his goal of offering 53,000 full-day seats by September — and more than 70,000 by next year — religious groups have some negotiating power. Orthodox Jewish schools, which now educate about 8,000 4-year-olds citywide, have already won some accommodations, such as the right to hold class on Sundays, and are pressing for others, including the ability to host a shorter, five-hour program, which would leave them more time for religious instruction.

Nationally, as of 2009, 31 states, including New York, allowed faith-based organizations to receive public prekindergarten funds, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. In Florida, for example, parents may send their 4-year-olds to prekindergarten programs that teach religion. New York strictly prohibits the spending of state funds on sectarian schools and the teaching of religious doctrine. Faith-based preschool providers are permitted only if they ensure that the public money they receive goes to secular programs that serve all children.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that she has already warned city officials that they have created a system “ripe for overstepping.”

Telling religious schools that religious texts may be used for cultural purposes in preschool “is disingenuous,” and is also likely to be illegal, she said. “You plan to tell a 4-year-old that Jesus, Moses or Muhammad is only in their books as a folk hero, and not as a religious leader? That’s kind of a ‘give me a break,’ ” she said.

Another guideline that could face a court challenge, Ms. Lieberman said, is the stipulation included in the one-page city document that says religious schools may give preference to applicants of the same religion or denomination when hiring prekindergarten teachers “to the extent permitted by law.”

Ms. Wiley, the counsel to the mayor, said such discrimination was allowed to give schools the right to hire teachers qualified to provide the religious instruction that is permissible outside the publicly funded hours.

At the Chabad Early Learning Center of northeast Queens, for example, teachers talk about Hanukkah during the public hours as a story of bravery and character, while also focusing on the scientific properties of water and oil. “They are timeless stories, so it is actually easy to find ways to embed the cultural aspect in learning,” said Rebecca Hillman, the preschool director. Outside those hours, the emphasis is on the holiday’s religious aspects.

Though there is no formal count, about 15 percent of the roughly 1,200 private providers accepted into the prekindergarten program as of July 30 appear to be faith-based schools. That includes at least 33 Catholic schools operated by the Archdiocese of New York.

Following city rules, “teachers can discuss the Catholic faith as long as it is embedded into an age-appropriate, multicultural curriculum unit where other religions are discussed as well,” said Timothy McNiff, the archdiocese’s school superintendent. City officials say crucifixes can remain in much of a school building, but must be taken out of public pre-k classrooms. Yet at St. Lucy’s in the Bronx, which will have six publicly funded pre-k classes, the principal, Jane Stefanini, said she had not yet been told to remove the symbols.

At the Dimitrios & Georgia Kaloidis Parochial School, a Greek Orthodox school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, children in the public half-day prekindergarten say they are “thankful” for their food, without mentioning God. Still, Greek culture and spirituality are infused into the school atmosphere, including through prayers that open assemblies. “It is here, it is evident, but we abide by the UPK rules,” the principal, Francesca Mannino, said.

Sophia Pappas, the early childhood education director for the city’s Education Department, said that the city was adding 30 new staff members to its existing team of 40 to ensure that schools follow the rules. There will be at least two site visits per year, and if a school is deemed to be veering into religious instruction, a “corrective action plan” will be formed, and the school may be dropped.

Ms. Pappas said that while none of the existing monitoring staff members spoke Yiddish, the primary language of instruction in many ultra-Orthodox Hasidic schools, they would employ interpreters as needed.

At Reform Jewish schools, the language is English, but the Union for Reform Judaism has been discouraging its synagogues from taking the government funds because of the difficulty of toeing the church-state divide.

“You just can’t separate out the religious piece,” said Cathy Rolland, the director of early childhood engagement for the organization. “We don’t teach Judaism; we weave Judaism into our work.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 5, 2014, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: De Blasio’s Prekindergarten Expansion Collides With Church-State Divide. 

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Is the Religious Right responsible for America’s fading allegiance to religion?

Posted: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:26 by Terry Sanderson





Terry Sanderson on the Religious Right's baneful attempts to desecularize the United States with a raft of "religious freedom" bills.

There seems to be something of a disconnect in America between the rising number of people who profess to have no religion and the state legislatures that are falling over themselves to enact legislation that is little short of theocratic.

Research is repeatedly showing a sharp rise in the number of Americans who have no religion - the "nones" as they are known to academics who study the changing dynamics of religion.

Many evangelical Christians have been comforting themselves with the idea that even though these "nones" don't associate themselves with a particular church, they are still Christians at heart who worship in their own way.

But David Voas, a sociologist at Essex University, begs to differ. He has found from his own research that the "fuzzy faithful" – those who claim to believe in some kind of unidentified higher power and perhaps go to church at Christmas – are really drifting towards complete indifference to religion and all its trappings.

In his 2008 paper The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe, Professor Voas concluded that those who sometimes define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are actually more likely to be entirely indifferent to religion – a state of affairs that he says is much more dangerous for the future of religion than outright scepticism.

If the same pattern is repeating in America – and it seems to be – then the hope among evangelicals that the "nones" are really just non-practising, but faithful, Christians is little more than wishful thinking.

But despite this rapid secularisation of American culture, there are bills being brought forward in state legislatures that give mighty privilege to religious believers.

So-called "religious freedom" bills have been proposed in several states, but so far have only succeeded in completing the legislative process in Arizona. And even there the Governor still hasn't signed it into law. [Note: Since this blog was originally published, the Governor of Arizona has vetoed the bill].

But there are other battles over supposed "religious freedom" (which usually translates into religious privilege or the right to discriminate against gay people). The Catholic Church and its acolytes are fighting hard to destroy President Obama's flagship Affordable Healthcare legislation because they object to having to supply contraceptives.

Obama gave them an opt out that would relieve them of that duty, then he gave another one, but still they are not satisfied and continue to attack the Affordable Care Act in the courts. At present, a ruling on the matter is awaited from the Supreme Court.

And this is the problem with religious accommodation. Once one concession is made, another demand quickly follows. Religious hierarchies will never stop until they have complete control.

In Arizona the new law seeks to make it legal for businesses and individuals to deny services to gay people if doing so would offend their religious conscience. There could be all kinds of unintended consequences from this legislation (as well as it likely being unconstitutional).

So why is it happening? Why this sudden surge of bills seeking to give religion special privileges in American society? To get religion back into schools, to control what books can be read in colleges (if they are deemed anti-religious) and to promote creationism over evolution in schools?

The answer is that the Republican Party – fused as it now is with the Religious Right – is seeking revenge for the success of gay marriage campaigns around the nation.

As it realises it has lost the war against gay marriage, the Religious Right seeks compensation in the form of "religious freedom" bills, the ultimate aim of which is to make sure gay marriage becomes impractical, despite being legalised.

By putting more and more barriers up against gay people achieving equal rights before the law, the Religious Right and its Republican representation in politics now seeks to make life almost impossible for gay couples in some parts of the country.

But this may end up being a case of making the same mistake twice.

During the last election campaign, the Republicans/Religious Right came to realise that the tide of history had turned against their opposition to gay marriage, and they pragmatically toned down the poisonous anti-gay rhetoric that had been so prominent on their previous electoral platform.

After being trounced again at the ballot box by Obama, they have regrouped and their new plan is to derail gay marriage wherever and however they can with these supposed "religious freedom" bills. But hiding behind the high-falutin' claims of "protecting the liberty of believers to practice their faith" lies rank bigotry.

If they imagine this is going to revive their fortunes they are sadly mistaken. Much of America was repelled by their vile homophobia last time, and it is unlikely it will be impressed with it this time.

The fanatic evangelicals with their hysterical televangelists and lying propagandists are turning off young people, not just from Republicanism, but from religion in general.

The "nones" are growing, but the Religious Right does not seem yet to have made the connection between that trend and their hate-mongering. They have made religion toxic and Americans are fleeing it in their thousands.

Terry Sanderson is the President of the National Secular Society. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NSS.


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Cremation: The New American Way of Death

Thursday, June 13, 2013 | By Josh Sanburn

Lars Tunbjörk—Agence Vu for TIME
A dead body ready for cremation has just been inserted into an eco-friendly Resomator machine. Instead of flames, this stainless steel chamber owned by Bradshaw Funeral and Cremation Services uses a combination of water, potassium hydroxide and heat to break down bodies into peptides, soaps, salts and sugars.





Swedish photographer Lars Tunbjörk has documented frenzied consumerism, the soul-deadening effects of office life and the strange theatrics of U.S. politics, always displaying a sense of humor and a grasp of the absurd that would not be out of place in a George Saunders short story. For our feature on the increasing popularity of cremation around the country, TIME sent Tunbjörk deep into the American heartland to chronicle the goings-on at three separate crematories.

For decades, burial has been by far the most common form of disposition in the United States. Most Americans never gave it a second thought: their grandparents were buried; their great-grandparents were buried—it just made sense that they’d get buried, too, in the family plot, beside their closest relatives.

(Click here to read TIME’s special report on cremation and find out why our changing attitude toward this final rite of passage says everything about the way we live now.)

But today we’re a far different society than we were just a few decades ago. Within the next few years it’s projected that, for the first time, more Americans will get cremated than buried.

Much of the recent rise of cremation’s popularity can be credited to the Great Recession. Cremations can cost as little as a quarter as much as traditional burials. But it’s not just the price tag that makes cremation a popular alternative.

For one, we’re a much more mobile society today. We don’t buy family plots the way we used to because more of us get an education, start a family, get a job and retire far from our birthplaces. When it comes time to find a final resting place, transporting an urn is much easier than dealing with a casket.

Historically, the U.S. has been a majority Christian nation, and Christianity favors burial for a number of reasons. But Americans are becoming increasingly secular and many of us now identify as atheist, agnostic or, even if we consider ourselves religious, aren’t affiliated with a particular faith. That separation from a religion with ties to traditional burial has led to more Americans exploring other options of disposition.

Cremation has also appealed to those looking for a more eco-friendly solution than burial, which involves placing a body filled with embalming fluids on a plot of land that will need to be maintained in perpetuity. And while flame-based cremation is a more environmentally sensitive solution than traditional burial, a new breed of eco-friendly cremations is just starting to become popular. “Green cremations,” which use a mixture of water and potassium hydroxide, are available in a handful of states and are outpacing flame-based cremations in the areas where they’re offered.

The practice of cremation will in all likelihood only grow as we become more mobile, secular and eco-conscious as a society. In fact, in the not too distant future, burial might well be seen as a peculiar option in light of the eminently reasonable, less expensive and environmentally sound method now so widely available—and increasingly embraced.

Click here to read TIME’s special report on cremation and find out why our changing attitude toward this final rite of passage says everything about the way we live now.

Lars Tunbjörk is a photographer based in Stockholm. He previously photographed the 2012 Iowa Caucuses for TIME.

Josh Sanburn is a writer/reporter for TIME in New York. Follow him on Twitter @joshsanburn.



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The Occult Birth of the Movement and its Dangers today

Megiddo II - The New Age - The Occult Birth of the Movement and its Dangers today - Chris Pinto

DaysFor Discernment

Published on Feb 26, 2013


Some of the greatest and most recognized people of the modern era (including Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, John Lennon, Adolf Hitler and Hillary Clinton) have been influenced by the movement that has re-awakened mankind's communication with the spirit realm, and re-shaped the Western view of God and His relationship to mankind. What are the implications of this "paradigm shift" that seeks to introduce a new global consciousness? Will this new consciousness really bring mankind into the dawning of a golden era? Or the awakening of another dark age?

Full of highly detailed research and exhaustive documentation, Megiddo II challenges even the most skeptical viewer to consider the consequence of the global awakening taking place before our very eyes.

Join speakers Dave Hunt, Caryl Matrisciana, Dr. Kent Hovind, Pastor Joe Schimmel, and Dr. Stan Monteith who expose the movement that seeks to unite mankind in a one-world religion through the United Nations.

Global adherents claim to await a "universal Christ" to lead the world. What happens to those who will not follow this world leader? And are there sinister warnings against those who refuse to be "initiated" into the New Age?

Please support this wonderful video series by buying it from Pinto's website, and check out his other brilliant films.http://www.adullamfilms.com/MegiddoTw...


REVIEWS

"... one of the greatest movies ever produced.
I think it's one of the most important videos I ever saw in my life ..."
-- Elizabeth Border, Radio Host, The Divided Kingdom

"This stunning video is a loud & ringing wake-up call for slumbering Christians.
It covers the gamut from the roots of evolution in Genesis, the rise of spiritualism,
humanist world views, and the very real effects it has on our government and our own lives.
Don't miss this one."
-- K.Chap

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The Sunday Assembly, an atheist church in London, is a runaway success that is drawing standing room only crowds

The brainchild of stand-up comedians Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones, The Sunday Assembly offers monthly services in north London for atheists and nonbelievers. “We’ve been quite surprised — amazed really — that so many people have turned up,” Evans said.

BY DAVID KNOWLES / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013, 7:33 PM



Taking organizers off-guard, large crowds have attended the atheist church's first two monthly services. 


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In London, losing one’s religion does not mean giving up church.

The Sunday Assembly, a congregation for atheists and nonbelievers started in January, is drawing overflowing crowds to its monthly services at the Nave, a deconsecrated church in the northern part of the city.

“We’ve been quite surprised — amazed really — that so many people have turned up,” co-founder and stand-up comedian Pippa Evans told the Daily News.

While 200 people turned out for the first service, that number swelled to 300 for the second, forcing the church to send more than two dozen people to a bar around the corner to catch a live computer feed of the proceedings.

“We thought we’d have about 20 people.” Evans said. “The idea is about keeping a center of community for those who are losing their religious faith.”

RELATED: 1 IN 5 HAVE NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION: SURVEY

SUNDAY ASSEMBLY WITH SANDERSON JONES

Co-founder and stand-up comedian Sanderson Jones says that The Sunday Assembly will soon set up a YouTube channel to share its message.

The gatherings themselves are not unlike something you might find at regular church, albeit a bit more rollicking in temperament. A live band greets guests, and congregants are encouraged to sing along to secular classics like Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”

At the first two meetings, guest speakers have included a children’s author, and physicist Harry Cliff, who, along with other researchers at Switzerland’s CERN Large Hadron Collider, helped in the discovery of Higgs boson, the so-called “God Particle.”

Evans and fellow stand-up comic Sanderson Jones came up with the idea of The Sunday Assembly while driving to a comedy show together.

“We both talked about wanting to do something in a church, just without the God bit,” Evans said.

While the congregation is made up primarily of non-believers, Evans says the focus of the services is in no way to demean people of faith.

RELATED: MORE MORMON WOMEN EXPECTED TO SERVE AS MISSIONARIES

With speakers ranging from children's authors to particle physicists, The Sunday Assembly's motto is "Live better, help often, wonder more."

“The point isn’t to put down other religions, it’s to say, we don’t have faith, but what do we have?” Evans said.

Next month’s sermon is titled “Lend a Hand,” and will focus on the need to volunteer to better the world. That civic-mindedness may be one reason that the Sunday Assembly has received such a warm welcome in the community.

“We’ve had a pretty positive response from people of faith. Hardly anyone seems to be saying anything negative.” Evans said. “Atheists, in fact, seem to be the ones most upset with us because some say we’re creating a religion.”

As for the future, Jones says he and Evans will add a second service each month, and he is working on setting up a YouTube channel so that the atheist services can be viewed around the world. The Sunday Assembly’s website also features a page for those who would like to start up congregations in their own home towns.

“At the moment we’re concentrating on honing the service itself and building the organization but, when that is all in place, we will do everything in our power to make your Assembly a success,” Jones and Evans say on the site.

Judging from the response so far, The Sunday Assembly seems all but certain to continue growing. Evans and Jones welcome that possibility, even if it means missing a few more comedy gigs.

DKnowles@nydailynews.com

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/atheist-church-huge-success-london-article-1.1257274#ixzz2KHfW432T

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Pope: Secularism can not destroy the human search for God

05/11/2011 14:15

VATICAN

Continuing his reflections on prayer during the general audience, Benedict XVI says that " 'Digital man just like the caveman, looks for religious ways to overcome his limitations" Praying is an inner attitude before a series of practices and formulas, a way of being before God. "

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - In this age of relativism and secularism, in which "God seems to disappear from the horizon of some people or become a reality to which we remain indifferent," but at the same time one in which we are witnessing a religious reawakening, of the "need for spirituality," which shows how the prediction of those who, since the Enlightenment, heralded the demise of religions and praised an absolute reason, detached from faith, a reason that would dispel the darkness of religious dogmatism and would dissolve the world of the sacred, restoring to man his freedom, his dignity and his independence from God has failed". "The experience of the last century, with the two tragic world wars has undermined that progress which the autonomous reason, man without God seemed to guarantee".

In a continuing series of reflections, which started last week and are dedicated to prayer, Benedict XVI spoke today to 30 thousand people in St. Peter's Square for the general audience about how "prayer and religious meaning are part man throughout history "that" there was no great civilization from times immemorial to the present day, which was not religious "digital man just like the caveman, looks for religious ways to overcome his limitations”.

Man, in short, is religious in nature "because" the Creator's image is imprinted in his being and he feels the need to find a light to give answers to questions about the profound sense of reality; answers he can not find in himself, in progress or in empirical science. " "Besides, life without a transcendent horizon be without perfect meaning and happiness', for which we all yearn, naturally projected towards the future, a future yet to be fulfilled."

The Pope, in this regard recalled that the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate, "said in the various religions man is looking for the answers to the enigma of the human condition:" the nature of man - who am I? - The meaning and purpose of our lives, good and evil, the origin and purpose of sorrow, The path to true happiness, death, trial and punishment after death, and finally the last unutterable mystery which engulfs our being, where do we come from and what are we striving towards". Man "no matter how much he is deceived and still deludes himself today, experiences first hand that he is not enough for himself."

Man "carries a thirst for infinity, a longing for eternity, a search of beauty, a desire for love, a need for light and truth, which lead him to the Absolute, man bears a desire for God". This "attraction to God, that God himself has placed in man is the soul of prayer, which then takes on many forms and modalities according to history, time, the moment, grace and even the sin of each of us" .

Prayer is an experience in every religion and culture, it is not tied to a particular context, rather it is inscribed in the hearts of every person and every civilization.

Prayer is an attitude, before being a series of practices and formulas, a way of being in front of God before being an act of worship or pronunciation of words. " It has its centre in the depths of the person and is not easily decipherable, and, for the same reason, may be subject to misunderstanding and mystification. In this sense we can understand the words: praying is difficult" because "In fact, prayer, is the place par excellence for gratuitous tension toward the Unseen, the Unexpected and the Ineffable. Therefore, 'the experience of prayer is a challenge to all, a 'grace' to be invoked, a gift from Him to which we turn". In this "looking at Another, in this going beyond is the essence of prayer as an experience of a reality that goes beyond the sensible and the contingent." "But only God that is revealed does the human search find fulfilment. Prayer is openness and elevation of the heart to God, it becomes a personal relationship with him. " And God continues to call man to the first mysterious meeting in prayer. " As the Catechism says: "This loving step of the faithful God, always comes first in prayer, the first step is always an answer."

Let us learn - the Pope concluded – to spend greater time before God, the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, let us learn to recognize in the silence, deep within ourselves the voice that calls us and leads us to the depth of our existence, the source of life, the source of salvation for us to go beyond the limit of our lives and open ourselves to the extent of God, to a relationship with He who is infinite love".

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Secularism in America: Growing American movement raises concerns

Posted By The Catholic Free PressApril 20, 2012 | 6:34 pm | Spiritual

By Chaz Muth
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Arianne Gasser of Canton, Ohio, is proud to call herself a graduate student at a prestigious Catholic university, and she also is proud to call herself an atheist.
The pride she has in her atheist status is part of what inspired her to travel from the Philadelphia area, where she is enrolled at Villanova University, to Washington in March to join thousands of other atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers for the “Reason Rally,” an event that was billed as an assembly to unify secular people nationwide.
Carrying a sign that reads, “This is what an atheist looks like,” Gasser is part of a growing segment of Americans under the age of 30 who identify themselves as atheists or agnostics.
It’s a movement that concerns Catholic leaders worldwide, including Pope Benedict XVI.
“We have morals and we have beliefs and we have these values,” said Gasser, as she walked along the National Mall and marveled at how many people turned out for the rally. “People just think that we’re evil, God-hating. We’re just people. We just don’t believe that something happens to us after we die.”
A survey released in 2009 by the Pew Research Center found that a quarter of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 surveyed said they were atheists, agnostics or had no religion.
“Radical secularism” threatens the core values of American culture, the pope warned a group of U.S. bishops visiting the Vatican in January. He called on the church in the U.S., as well as politicians and other laypeople, to render “public moral witness” on crucial social issues.
“The larger concern with secularism is that it damages people, and that it actually keeps people from being reasonable with one another,” said Chad C. Pecknold, assistant professor of systematic theology in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
“It creates a great level of intolerance for people of faith. I think secularism for Pope Benedict is a feature of this growing bifurcation between faith and reason,” he told Catholic News Service.
Pecknold, who also is the author of the 2010 book “Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History,” said secularism is a greater threat to humanity than to the Catholic Church because it could lead to great social unrest and fragmentation.
Vilification of Muslims in the United States following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania can be viewed as an example of secularists’ intolerance.
Richard Dawkins, vice president of the British Humanist Association and author of the 2006 book “The God Delusion,” was quoted as saying religion is dangerous “because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others.”
His remarks are an illustration of hostilities toward people of faith, Pecknold said.
“These are all examples of an attempt to cause civil unrest, which I don’t think are sustainable,” he said. “It could actually lead to greater and greater social unrest, and could potentially give so much power to culture wars that we become an increasingly fragmented society.”
The greatest threat to civil society comes from militant atheists, Pecknold told CNS.
Gasser and many of the atheists and agnostics who gathered at the “Reason Rally” said they don’t see the secular movement as a threat to society. They just want people to respect their right to shun organized religion and to have their voices heard by politicians and policymakers.
They carried signs that read “Good without a God,” “Proud to be an atheist,” and “It’s OK to be an atheist.”
Others carried signs or wore shirts that had more provocative messages, such as “If you really believe prayer worked, you’d stop voting,” “Freedom is the distance between church and state,” and “No God, No Devil, Just Us.”
Gasser said she just wants her voice to be heard with the same volume as Christians, Muslims and Jews.
“I’m not really into politics, but I do think that secular beliefs need to be treated equally with people who are believers,” she told CNS. “I don’t think we’re recognized in the government policies and the way people cover campaigns. It’s just all appealing to religious people, but there are so many of us who want to have a say in how our country is run.”
The poll numbers revealing growing atheist numbers and events like the “Reason Rally” have theology scholars focusing on what they believe is driving the secularism movement.
“The cultural conditions have become more conducive to atheism. We can see that in economic ways in that we are encouraged to think of ourselves as economic individuals,” Pecknold said.
“We see that in the Tea Party, a libertarian approach to economic good in which economics is something that is merely representing my own self-interests,” he said. “That kind of radical individualism in economic terms or philosophical terms is itself kind of a practical atheism, in which you detach yourself from any sort of transcendent notion of the good, any sort of sense of a common good that you would participate in.
“A kind of view in which I can participate in something bigger than myself is kind of eroded from our economic practice as human beings.”

PHOTO:Alberto Valdez from Del Rio, Texas, joins others March 24 for the Reason Rally, a gathering of atheists and nonbelievers held on the National Mall in Washington. Research shows a growing number of young adults who say they are atheists, agnostics or have no religion. (CNS photo/Tyrone Turner courtesy of Religion News Service)

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National Day of Prayer, A Largely Christian Event, Grows In Popularity As It Stirs Debate

Posted: 05/ 3/2012 11:12 am

Selena Lockwood of Byram, Miss., holds her hand up in a prayerful salute during the National Day of Prayer at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., last year.

Hundreds of Texans are expected to come to downtown Dallas Thursday for an eight-hour string of faith-based celebrations that will include Sikh drummers, Islamic prayers, Hindu singers, a Jewish cantor and Methodist and Baptist congregations.

It may sound like a standard interfaith event, another of the many that have become popular in increasingly diverse American cities, but the revelry at the the city's Thanks-Giving Square in observance of the National Day of Prayer is unique in how far it's departed from its Protestant roots.

The National Day of Prayer, which has been observed on the first Thursday in May for 24 years, is still a largely Christian event, in which millions of Americans from thousands of churches across the country will participate, bowing their heads to God in prayer on the day that traces its history to the nation's earliest years. There will beBible read-a-thons in front of city halls, police officers will pay tribute to the nation's first-responders at churches, and the devout will descend upon courthouse steps across American cities to grace the buildings with prayer.

But the event, designated via presidential proclamation, has increasingly faced accusations of encouraging an uncomfortable mingling of church and state and being too narrowly focused in practice on Christianity.

On one side, secular humanists and atheists have responded by promoting their own event, Thursday's National Day of Reason. Now in its ninth year, the nonreligious celebration has expanded to more than a dozen cities, where it's observed with blood drives, training on pro-secular policy lobbying and voter registration drives, as well as social events.

On the other hand, believers such as those in Dallas have tried to change the day's legacy by broadening its appeal. The Thanks-Giving Foundation, which typically observes the National Day of Prayer with an interfaith breakfast or luncheon, has made this year's event into a day-long festival, where more than half the events are purposefully devoted to non-Christians.

"We believe in the idea that gratitude is something that all faith traditions and all cultures value," said Chris Slaughter, a Christian Scientist who is president of the Thanks-Giving Foundation, which will be celebrating its 30th National Day of Prayer. "It can be used as a beginning point of conversation to learn about each other to gain respect and understanding."

That's a stark contrast to the theme of the Colorado Springs-based National Day of Prayer Task Force, one of the largest prayer event organizations. The group, which is chaired by Shirley Dobson, wife of evangelical group Focus on the Family's founder James Dobson, aims to "preserve America's Christian heritage," according a statement on its website.

A representative from the National Day of Prayer Task Force did not reply to a request for comment, but thewebsite includes listings for thousands of events across the nation on Thursday. Representatives for the organization have said in interviews that interest in hosting Christian prayer events has increased by 35 percent this year.

John Inazu, a law professor who specializes in the First Amendment at Washington University in St. Louis, said the increasing popularity of Christian and interfaith National Day of Prayer events and the National Day of Reason reflects a growing conflict over the role of religion in public life.

Inazu pointed out that it's been 50 years since organized prayer in public schools was declared unconstitutional in Engel v. Vitale, a landmark Supreme Court case, but that laws that allow for voluntary prayer or moments of silence in schools and initiatives to have prayers in government buildings and in public spaces have gotten more popular.

"Some religious believers will likely use the Day of Prayer to call attention to what they view as a regrettable and consequential court decision," Inazu said. "But there's an important distinction between official school or government prayer or a public school or public space that allows prayer. The key is that it's voluntary and the guidance is made as non-sectarian and as general as possible."

The National Day of Prayer has met few legal challenges since it was made official in 1952 by President Harry Truman, who left it to subsequent presidents to decide its date each year. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation that set its observation to the first Thursday in May.

Two years ago, a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that the government-sponsored National Day of Prayer violated the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing religion. After an appeal from President Barack Obama's administration, a higher court reversed the decision last year and ruled that the government proclamation did not require anyone's participation.

As is customary, Obama issued a proclamation this week on the Day of Prayer in which he asked "all citizens of our Nation, as their own faith directs them, to join me in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy" and called for "individuals of all faiths to pray for guidance, grace, and protection for our great Nation."

But while President George W. Bush hosted interfaith events at the White House to observe the day, Obama has not publicly observed the day and has no such events scheduled Thursday.

Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman, said in an email that Obama "has been honored to celebrate prayer and faith through events like his recent Easter Prayer Breakfast, an annual event for Christian leaders begun in the Obama Administration, and speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast ... As a devoted Christian, the President prays daily and deeply appreciates the important role that prayer plays in the lives of millions of Americans."

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