The subject of marriage is on many minds lately, not the least of which are journalists and the POTUS. I love nothing more than to sit in front of pages of population estimates by state or country, over time, and discern the stories in the numbers. Since you the reader probably aren’t likely in a position to be—or worse, have no interest in—indulging such an interest, I’ll save you the work and report some interesting factoids here. No politics from... Read more
Part 1 in a Series on Teaching Sociology of Religion Online. Next week, I start my first online course in sociology of religion at the University of North Carolina, and I’m about as nervous about it as when I first entered the college classroom 5 years ago as a new professor. Despite my trepidation, I agree with New York Times columnist David Brooks who wrote in a recent column that online education can certainly be done easily and quite poorly, but... Read more
Here’s a very interesting article by Stanford anthropologist, Tanya Luhrmann, about gender and prayer. Specifically, she takes on the issues of why women pray more than men, and the answer, she writes, is imagination. Previously I blogged on the finding that Christian women experience God’s presence more frequently than do men, which would fit with Luhrmann’s general point. Here’s Luhrmann’s article: ” Women pray more than men do. The 2008 Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that two-thirds of all women surveyed pray... Read more
As part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the Census provides a fact sheet of the latest numbers on this particular collection of ethnic groups that are bundled under this racial term. Ever wonder why the Census Bureau knows about racial characteristics of the US? Believe it or not, it’s in our Constitution! Article I. Section 2 reads: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective... Read more
“Fleecing the faithful,” it’s called. The sort of story featured on the front cover of Saturday’s New York Times tends to rankle everyone’s feathers, from the utterly agnostic to the truly devout. I might also add that such stories tend to surprise no one. There’s news here, to be sure, about grandchildren calling their grandparents out on their moral and fiscal crimes. But it’s hardly new news. While it may raise eyebrows that Americans continue to bankroll televangelists—$20, $50, or... Read more
Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month everyone! May is a tough month to reflect on my roots and the stories of other Asian Americans, partly because there are cool holidays like Cinco De Mayo (which is no small deal in Texas), and partly because May is when all the transitions at school happen. But the wonders of the internet keep getting better as I can now subscribe to feeds that show up in my email, or as friends on Facebook... Read more
Earlier this week I attended what a church calls their “Theology on Tap” series. In it, they host a speaker at a local tavern, invited friends and family, and basically spent 2 hours drinking, eating, and talking Christianity. It was quite enjoyable at many levels, but the thing I’ve thought most about was the effect of place on Christian gatherings. You see, this was an Episcopal church, and while I have not been to their Sunday services, I’ve been to... Read more
In a recent post on Black, White and Gray, Wheaton sociology professor Amy Reynolds asked “What Makes a Development Expert?” Pondering who should be the next president of the World Bank, and what approach he or she should take to development, Reynolds argued that the end of development is the human person–or human development. She further argued that the next president of the World Bank should not only be a “technical” expert, but someone who understands how culture influences development.... Read more
By George Yancey The question of academic bias has been one many people have argued about for decades. Some have pointed out that people in the sciences are more likely to be politically liberal and irreligious and that this overrepresentation is proof of this bias. Others argued that this political and religious disparity is due to the fact that political conservatives and the highly religious are less interested in a scientific occupation. While there may be a different level of... Read more
Culture is, among other things, the power of legitimate naming. Or so says James Hunter, sociologist of culture at the University of Virginia. Makes sense to me. In his book To Change the World, he notes that culture change is most enduring when it penetrates the structure of our imagination, our frameworks of discussion, and our perceptions of everyday reality. This became evident to me the other day when, while on Facebook, I noticed that a kid (age 10 or... Read more
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