In the race to produce relevant researched stories it’s important to know that error sometimes occurs that can radically alter what we know. A few months ago when I saw an announcement that the Association of Religion Data Archives had county-level information on religion, I of course wanted to know the spread for the area I live: McLennan County, TX. What I wanted to figure out was how evangelical was this city, as it seems that most everyone I run... Read more
Part 1 in a Series on Personhood. On July 1, 2012, I began a new funded research project entitled “A Virtue Ethics Perspective on Stress and Human Flourishing from Youth to Young Adulthood” (with Nicolette Mangos, Williams College, Co-PI; funded by the John Templeton Foundation, $603,650 over three years). This work builds directly off my new interest in human flourishing, which I have blogged about in a series of posts responding about whether women can have “it all”. When I... Read more
Since 1965, the Buddhist population has grown considerably as a result of increased immigration from Asia. Buddhism is not new to the US since many of the early immigrants, largely Japanese and Chinese immigrants brought their Buddhist faith with them. But as a result of racist policies that tinged with some Christian nationalism (e.g “America is Christian not religiously pluralist”) the number of Buddhist Americans never grew at the normal rate like other groups. Since most Asian Americans today are... Read more
Here’s an insightful op-ed piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Christian Smith, of Notre Dame, about the reaction to Mark Regnerus’ study of same (By the way, an Auto-da-Fe was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics in the Spanish Inquisition–an apt analogy for this situation) “Whoever said inquisitions and witch hunts were things of the past? A big one is going on now. The sociologist Mark Regnerus, at the University of Texas at Austin, is being smeared in... Read more
Part 3 in a series on Women at Work. Anne Marie Slaugther’s article in the Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” begs the question what is “It All?” Although most of her article discusses women having it all (or not having it all) with regards to family and careers, older generations of women were taught that a woman’s place was in the home; a woman couldn’t both have a big career and raise a family. Slaughter’s generation set... Read more
As some readers may know, the 2nd report on religion in Asian America was released. Given the additional time the advisory board (including me and over a dozen professors who do Asian American research) was given to send in comments and the notable changes incorporated into the final product, many of us feel a little better about this report than the first one. In this post I want to share the challenges of understanding religious prevalence in a hard-to-reach group.... Read more
I had the privilege to spend the last week at the 5th Latin American Conference on Evangelization (CLADE V in Spanish), sponsored by the Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL). FTL is well known for its emphasis on integral mission, a Protestant response to many of the social, political, and economic problems occuring in Latin America during the 1960s and 70s. Sociologists would classify most of the people at the event as conservative or evangelical Protestants. The average participant reads the... Read more
Chris Moody’s book “The Republican War on Science” took President George W. Bush to task for suppressing scientific efforts that did not match up with his political and religious agenda. Republicans were connected to legislative efforts to stop stem cell and climate change research. Furthermore they were linked to creation science and the dismantling of scientifically based safety regulations. According to Moody, Republicans simply do not have an appetite for scientific findings that do not comport to their political/religious agenda.... Read more
Fill in the blank: “With great power _______” If you know the answer to this, you’ve been exposed to American comic books. “With great power comes great responsibility” is the lesson that a young Peter Parker ignores from his uncle who subsequently dies from a fatal gunshot wound that Parker could have prevented. So what’s sociology have to do with this? Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize something I just enjoy, but I do think comic books are a window... Read more
Here’s an interesting map that shows the largest religious groups for each county in the United States. As always, I’m surprised at the geographical concentrations of different denominations and traditions which points to the rich social history that produced religion in the US. Read more
Black, White and Gray
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