Many U.S. Catholics have independent streak – survey
A majority of American Roman Catholics feel strongly about the sacraments and traditional church values such as caring for the poor, but they may not agree with the church teachings on topics such as abortion, same-sex marriage and maintaining a celibate, male clergy, a survey has found.
The “Catholics in America” survey of Roman Catholics published by the National Catholic Reporter found 86 percent said Catholics can disagree with aspects of church teaching and still remain loyal to the church.
“Stated in simplest terms, Catholics in the past 25 years have become more autonomous when making decisions about important moral issues; less reliant on official teaching in reaching those decisions; and less deferential to the authority of the Vatican and individual bishops,” according to the study led by William D’Antonio, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America.
The weeklong survey was conducted online with a representative sample of 1,442 Catholic adults beginning on April 24 (Easter Sunday), and had a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.
“It is noteworthy that helping the poor is almost as core to Catholics’ identity as their belief in Jesus’ resurrection, with 67 percent rating this dimension of Catholicism as very important,” the survey said.
Seventy-three percent said belief in Jesus’ resurrection was very important to them personally.
By contrast, 40 percent said the church’s teachings opposing abortion are very important to them, and even fewer said church teachings opposing same-sex marriage and the death penalty were very important to them.
Egyptians want more Islam in politics, according to Pew poll
With so much speculation about what role the Muslim Brotherhood might play in any future political system in Egypt, it’s worth looking at some opinion polling data to see what they say they think about the role of Islam in politics. One recent poll says they want a bigger role for Islam in politics, they want democracy and they reject Islamist radicals such as Osama bin Laden. Respondents also showed quite high levels of support for traditional Islamic punishments such as stoning for adulterers, cutting off thieves’ hands and death for apostates from Islam.
Whether and how the views mirrored in these results get turned into policy naturally depends on many factors, so this poll the Pew Research Center published in December cannot be any kind of projection of what to expect. Still, it provides at least some data on what Egyptians may want to see from a future government.
The poll surveyed attitudes among Muslims in seven countries — Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. The questions in the survey are part of Pew’s Global Attitudes Project, which has been collecting this data since 2002. The results are based on responses from 1,000 adults questioned between April 12 and May 3 in face-to-face interviews in Arabic.
For the detailed results from Egypt extracted from the report, see our Factbox: Egyptians want more Islam in politics: poll.
“Death for apostates from Islam” The Christ in Christianity died for our sins & didn’t ask us to kill!Quite a different approach don’t you think!
In France, far right seizes on Muslim street prayers
A call to prayer goes up from a loudspeaker perched on the hood of a car, and all at once hundreds of Muslim worshippers touch their foreheads to the ground, forming a sea of backs down the road. The scene is taking place not in downtown Cairo, but on a busy market street in northern Paris, a short walk from the Sacre Coeur basilica. To locals, it’s old news: some have been praying on the street, rain or shine, for decades.
But for Marine Le Pen — tipped to take over from her father this weekend as leader of the far-right National Front party — it is proof that Muslims are taking over France and becoming an occupying force, according to remarks she made last month.
Her comments caused a furore as she seized on the street prayers to drive home the idea that Islam is threatening the values of a secular country where anxiety over the role of Muslims in society has deepened in the past few years.
More than two thirds of French and German people now consider the integration of Muslims into their societies a failure, pollster IFOP said in a survey published on Jan. 5. In France, where Islam is the second-largest religion after Catholicism, 42 percent saw it as a threat to national identity.
“This has become a key political issue,” said Frederic Dabi, IFOP’s head of research. “Street prayers and the perceived growing influence of Islam are seen as impinging on French values of secularism, communal living.”
Germans more negative towards Muslims than other Europeans
Only about one third of Germans think positively of their Muslim neighbors, a much lower proportion than in other western European countries, according to a new poll published on Thursday. In contrast, 62 percent of Dutch and 56 percent of French people responding to the TNS Emnid survey indicated they had positive attitudes toward Muslims.
Detlef Pollack, a Muenster University sociologist who led the study, attributed Germans’ views to their lack of contact with Muslims compared to people in other nations surveyed. “The more often you meet Muslims, the more you view them as generally positive,” he said.
The survey broke down the German results into western and eastern responses, reflecting continuing divisions in the once-divided country. Only 34 percent in the west and 26 percent in the east had positive impressions of Muslims, it said.
Contact with Muslims also showed regional differences, with 40 percent of westerners but only 16 percent of easterners saying they occasionally met Muslims. French people appear to have the most contact with Muslims, 66 percent of those responding saying they had such contacts.
The survey was conducted before former Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin plunged Germany into a heated debate over Muslim integration with a controversial best-selling book published in August.
Read the full story by Eric Kelsey here. There plenty more in this study — click here for the English-language press release.
Thilo Sarrazin is of arab descent, the only thing which made him a German was his family adopting the protest religion. The German population is strictly under the control of the church, who pay ten percent of their income to the Church, unless they opt to leave the church. The church in germany is a very powerful institution in Germany and have deliberately kept its followers unaware of Islam, says the former chancellor of Germany Helmuth Schmidt. The xenophobia in Germany saw its climax during the third Reich when Jews became the main group which suffered. There is a lot of improvement in their outlook but certain elements such as the sarrazin keep bringing up Nazi philosophies about different races.
The statistics are misplaced and needs to be qualified.
Rex Minor
Young Americans more loyal to religion than Baby Boomers
Younger Americans, between the ages of 36 to 50, are more likely to be loyal to religion than Baby Boomers, according to new research.
In a study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Philip Schwadel, of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said this was true even though they were less likely than previous generations to have been brought up with a religion.
He said the trend “is good news for those who worry about declining religious adherence.”
Schwadel attributed the younger generation’s overall loyalty to religion to a less staid and more innovative religious scene in America today, while religion in the past was more conservative, less diverse and stricter. If people are not happy with one religion now, they can easily switch to a different denomination or faith, he added. By contrast, Baby Boomers were a more rebellious generation and experienced the anti-establishment culture of the 1960s.
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Shavon Gardner, 17, prays as she sings with the Redeemed Christian Church of God youth choir at Redemption Camp in Floyd, Texas June 17, 2009.
Religion now hottest topic of study for U.S. historians – AHA survey
Religion has become the hottest topic of study for U. S. historians, overtaking the previous favourite — cultural studies — and pulling ahead of women’s studies in the latest annual survey by the American Historical Association. Younger historians are more likely than older ones to turn their sights on faith issues.
The proportion of U.S. historians working on religious issues now stands at 7.7%. If that seems low, compare it with the more traditional fields in the study of the past — political history (4.6%), military history (3.8%) or diplomatic history (3.8%). Cultural studies stood at 7.5% and women’s studies at 6.4%.
Among the reasons cited by the AHA were:
- Interest in the rise of “more activist (and in some cases ‘militant’) forms of religion.”
- An “extension of the methods and interests of social and cultural history.”
- The impact of the “historical turn” in other disciplines, including religious studies.
- Increased student demand for courses on the subject.
- “I think the category has become more popular because historians realize that the world is aflame with faith, yet our traditional ways of dealing with modern history especially can’t explain how or why,” said Jon Butler, a professor of history, religious studies and American studies at Yale University. “The ‘secularization thesis’ appears to have failed and so we need to find ways to explain how and why it didn’t die as so much written history suggests.”
- “I came to recognize that (expressions of faith) were woven into just about every aspect of life, not separate subjects I could leave for another time or someone else,” said University of California at Berkeley historian William Taylor. “My ongoing research and writing about religious matters continues to be carried out in this spirit—not as a field apart, but as integral to my reckonings with how people then understood their lives and acted upon those convictions.”
- Jeanne Kilde of the University of Minnesota said “students in the late 1990s began coming to class with questions about religion” due to its influence on recent elections, growing attention in the media and an increase in public displays of religion.
Religion just like politics is losing its grip because trust is being lost (i think).Religion still holds a lot of power in developing countries with the exception of maybe America.I see it as playing a roll in peoples lives where hope in other things has failed.To me religion should be included under a topic such as ‘Coping Mechanisms’.The world is ever changing and facts or truths about certain things keep coming out – thanks to the freedom of information act.Peoples belief in a lot of things is being corroded.Some people who are losing faith need to understand that if religion is a coping mechanism then there are other alternatives – religiouse or non religiouse of filling the void that adresses issues of the soul.The soul in itself is a grey subject of discussion – which divides religon and science.Who fully understands out of their own understanding what the soul is??? Therefor lets agree to disagree and tackle the important – which is the effects of religion.I have often said – Religion is like a chefs knife, which when used by a Chef can help creat some tasty dishes but in the hands of a Killer can result in the taking of life.As a coping mechanism Religion becomes a tool which an individual uses or needs to deal with day to day issues affected by economic,political,social,e.t.c factors.The use of drugs is on the increase – to me thats a coping mechanism,practising Yoga or Tai Chi, or simply going to the gym or watching your favourite sport (e.g football) are coping mechanisms as all these can make one to ‘religiously’ participate in them for one to feel a sense of belonging, relaxation or distraction from day to day vectors and vagaries that STRESS our day to day lives.It is therefor imperative to tackle the root causes (such as social injustice,lack of jobs, past history e.t.c) that cause people to think, behave and congregate into different social groups or gangs instead of wasting time on plucking the leaves and cutting off branches that can only grow back with time.
Most U.S. Protestant pastors see Islam as dangerous – survey
Here’s an interesting survey that was released on Monday by LifeWay Research, which is the number crunching arm of the South Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical group.
It says that two-thirds of Protestant pastors in America regard Islam as a dangerous religion. You can see their press release here. The full survey has not been posted on their site.
But in a nut shell, the survey of over 1,000 pastors of different Protestant denominations found that 45 percent strongly agreed with the statement “I believe Islam is a dangerous religion,” while 21 percent agreed to it “somewhat.”
The survey was conducted in October, before the massacre at the Fort Hood army base in Texas allegedly by a Muslim soldier.
Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, said: “… our survey asked whether pastors viewed Islam as ‘dangerous,’ but that does not necessarily mean ‘violent.’ ‘Dangerous’ can be defined in a variety of ways, including from the perspective of spiritual influence. Regardless of the definition, the numbers tell us that Protestant pastors are concerned.”
Given the very conservative cast of the SBC and strong evangelical Protestant support over the years for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some people will automatically take the survey with a grain of salt. But the survey did include clergy from mainline Protestant denominations as well as evangelicals.
Not surprisingly, it found that: “Mainline denomination pastors are less likely than evangelicals to say Islam is “a dangerous religion.” While 77 percent of evangelical pastors either somewhat or strongly agree Islam is dangerous, only 44 percent of mainline pastors feel the same way, and 38 percent strongly disagree.”
I dont know what topic is discussing here. i am a Muslim by birth. i m 31 years of age . worked in very famous banks in Pakistan as wel as dubai. i want to convert as Christan, if i announced here in Pakistan or UAE every one would feel honor to kill me. can any one guide me how i can get the amnesty and conversion
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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Catholics may think that they can be pro-choice, use contraception,
support same-sex ,and use in vitro fertilization and be a good catholic.
You are in a big danger to lose your soul, you have never read the teachings(catechism)of the Catholic Church.
The church is a 2000 year old wise mother., and only wants to protect you.
For more information you “catholics”. please visit this w e b site CATHOLICANSWERS.