Is There A 'faith Divide' In America Today?

[SJRod55]

As a 'foreigner' I visited the colonies (America) some 23 years ago.... and stayed for some 17 years. Coming from the UK I discovered a plethora of riches that did not exist or were long forgotten back in 'the home country.' The differences in the people were perhaps my biggest surprise. This morning whilst reading my daily intake from the BBC web site (Old habbits die hard) I found this wonderful article and felt it could be the basis for a discussion, perhaps even a debate on what is really happening in America (sorry - the United States - as my Mexican son and Canadian friends get most upset when I 'lump together' their sovereign states in to 'America' meaning the USA). Please read on.... it is perhaps a humerous take but also a realistic one and does highlight that ones perceptions form your realities and that perhaps is why we are so different whilst be so similar...... What do you think - USA residents as well as those from the international reaches of Phatmass.

[b]From Our Correspondent - BBC News:[/b]

[quote]The current US presidential debates are almost certain to see the candidates asked to comment on spiritual issues, but some Americans are worried about the trend towards religiosity in public life.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be challenged on their beliefs
At my twins' annual school camp in West Virginia, you are meant to leave your troubles behind.

It is an idyllic couple of days - a communing with nature which my wife gallantly insists is simply too enjoyable for her to take part in - it has to be a dad's experience.

Actually it is not that uncomfortable. The tents are sensible structures with plenty of room to stand up. There are rudimentary bunk beds you can bang your head on in the early morning.

The setting is a reminder too of the size of the United States - only two hours from the nation's capital, these are woods and fields as empty and isolated as any in the Scottish Highlands.

The kids love it. They and 20 other seven-year-olds, roast marshmallows by the campfire, catch tadpoles in the pond, and roam around, unwashed, at five in the morning in the early light of the West Virginia day, pointing their torches into each other's tents.

[b]Silence before breakfast [/b]

"Did Cole see a bug and sleep in his dad's car? Did Peter's water bottle break? Did Talia's mum fall out of bed?" Etc etc, and then comes breakfast.

Breakfast is an indoors affair, not luxurious but hey this is America and these are middle class kids and some parents are beginning to flag by seven in the morning and there is a need for the familiar comforts of multi-coloured cereals and soy milk.

First though - a silence.

"Please take off your hats," asks the jolly camp counsellor (yes, that is what they call them). She looks down and up again.

The silence lasts less than 30 seconds and my two children discover that there are pancakes with M&Ms inside them and we give the silence not another thought.

But I am a foreigner here, an anthropologist, and one of the pitfalls of anthropology is that there are some things you have to be a member of the tribe to really get.

Unbeknownst to me the silence has caused outrage, or to be more precise, has caused pleasure to some and great outrage to others.

I discover this later when talking to a dad about the post silence debate which took place between certain concerned parents and the silence enforcing camp counsellor.

[b]Religious divide [/b]

Basically the problem is this: What was the silence? Was it contemplative or was it religious? The distinction to my English mind was unimportant. I am personally not religious but I am not fussed about the trappings of religion in the public space.


"The Creation Museum exhibits the Earth's history according to the Bible
To me it is part of life, no big deal, but in modern America it is a big deal. "

Some parents believed that the breakfast silence was an attempt by a religious cabal to take over our camp, to insinuate their beliefs into our get-together, to steal the minds of our kids.

Are they right to be in such a funk? I am not sure that they are.

America is famously religious, infamously if you like, but try as they might, the real hard-line theocracy crowd repeatedly fail to get their ideas to fly.

When you visit them, as I did, coincidentally, just days after the breakfast silence issue, you find a group of people in a funk comparable to that of the atheists.

I was at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, the day after it opened, a moment evangelicals should really have been celebrating with great gusto. And to an extent they were.

The museum is a striking place, with wonderfully life-like models of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden, and an airy, well put-together feel.

But I did not get the impression from those in charge or from those visiting, that they considered themselves to be on the march in modern America.

In fact the whole thing had a slightly beleaguered feel.

One parent confided: "At last there's a place I can bring the kids where they are taught what we teach them at home."

Another asked me almost plaintively whether I was convinced by the museum's planetarium where the sun was created after the Earth.

[b]Freedom of choice [/b]

I had to be honest and say that I was not, but I felt quite sorry as I did.

There is nothing remotely convincing about the Creation Museum and frankly if it poses the threat to American science that some American critics claim it does, that seems to me to be as much a commentary on the failings of the scientific establishment as it is on the creationists.

There is a reason, I think, why theocracy will never fly in the United States and it has been touched on, inadvertently, by George Bush himself.

Mr Bush often makes the point that the philosophy of the Islamic radicals, full of hate and oppression, would not be attractive to people who truly had the freedom to choose.

Similarly the philosophy of the Old Testament, so much celebrated by some evangelicals here, has a limited power to enthral free people.

At the Creation Museum, goggle-eyed children watch depictions of the Great Flood in which children and their mums and dads are consumed, because God is cross.

In a nation of kindly moderate people I am not sure this is the future.

I put my faith - in America.[/quote]

[Budge]

The whole left right thing is a sham.

The faith divide, well give me some honest atheist [people I probably could witness too better] over some pretend Christians who use the cross and flag to get votes.

Anyhow most evangelicals and others who voted for Bush, even Peggy Noonan recently realized they were had for suckers.

[url="http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/06/farewell-to-bush.html"]http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/0...ll-to-bush.html[/url]

It is itneresting for me, because I never voted or supported him, and things I warned people of years ago are now coming to past, like our borders being nonexsistent.

Edited June 3, 2007 by Budge

[jeffpugh]

O don't have much to say except I didn't like the article that much. I didn't totally see the point except the fact that creationists are blatantly ignoring science in order to uphold a bigger "fantasy", and a bunch of people gripe about a bit of silence at a camp. Give me a freaking break here. People don't get silence in their life anymore. Why can't people enforce some once and a while instead shoving noise down our throats as usual.

[hoosieranna]

I'm a born Yank. I spent five months reading geography in Bangor, North Wales and got to know the area fairly well. There weren't many other US students. Local views about us weren't as tempered as they might have been with a large Yank population.

I caught more flak about the president (I didn't vote, by the way) than I did anything else. American religiosity was rarely mentioned-Italian and German religiosity were of more consequence.

I have to agree with Sacred Music Man and admit that I didn't see much of a point to the article. I'm not particularly worried about a theocracy. That would require a large proportion of the population to agree, and that doesn't often happen. I would hope that moderates and swing voters, who actually make up the majority of the population, would see the silliness of such an idea and trounce the small group that wanted to advance it.

There are definite problems within the US scientific committee. Skepticism is all right, as long as the scientist is skeptical about the correct side. Climate is an example. Woe to the researcher that has questions about the accuracy of long-term modelling!

Maybe I missed the whole point. It wouldn't be the first time. Either way, that's my experience and view.

Edited June 4, 2007 by Nadezhda

[Socrates]

All that secularist screeching about "theocracy" that is currently the rage among liberals is absolutely ridiculous.
Support any restrictions whatsoever on the "right" to abortion, allow prayer (or even a "moment of silence") in public schools, or oppose "gay marriage", and suddenly you're part of an alleged plot to bring America under Taliban-like theocratic rule, which presents an immanent threat to freedom and the American way, and must be opposed at all costs!

Nothing but a ploy to drive atheists/secularists to political activism.

Edited June 6, 2007 by Socrates

[Budge]

Actually there is a grain of truth in those secularists going nuts about a theocracy....[they also like many are being given a false view of Christianity. {Before I knew what Jesus taught and Gods Word, I judged Christianity as well by all the power-mongers as well while UU}

Dominionism isnt a pretty thing....

[url="http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/dominionism_rise_of_christian_imperialism.htm"]http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment...imperialism.htm[/url]

[quote][b]This paper is a brief overview of the three main dominionist movements operating inside evangelicaldom and examines how all three of these sects are now converging around a global “kingdom” agenda.[/b] {the Vatican shares this as well via their involvement with the United Nations} This paper is not a treatise on doctrine, nor is it an historical record, nor is it a thorough analysis of the multifarious streams of evangelical dominionism. This paper does not cover the broader issue of dominionist sects within other world religions, except for a few brief noteworthy mentions. To examine the totality of the individuals, the organizations, and their cross-linkages would require an exhaustive study which is beyond the scope of this brief synopsis. Even so, every point made in this paper could be validated by dozens, sometimes hundreds, of pieces of documentation. The inquiring reader may check out the footnotes and references.

Only a small handful of Christian discernment and apologetics ministries, of which this writer is a part, have been paying attention to the intersection of the dominionist streams. The apologetic ministries fulfill a Scriptural role to examine and expose false doctrines and teachers, and to warn other believers of heresies (Jude 3, 2 Peter 2:1). Increasingly, over the past two decades, many apologists have become seduced by dominionism, blunting their ability to critically examine the roots and fruits of this rapidly rising new church era.[/quote]

Edited June 6, 2007 by Budge