Secularism, fundamentalism or Catholicism: the religious composition of the United States to 2043

We provide a cohort-component projection of the religious composition of the United States, considering differences in fertility, migration, intergenerational religious transmission, and switching among 11 ethnoreligious groups. If fertility and migration trends continue, Hispanic Catholics will experience rapid growth and expand from 10 to 18 percent of the American population between 2003 and 2043. Protestants are projected to decrease from 47 to 39 percent over the same period, while Catholicism emerges as the largest religion among the youngest age cohorts. Liberal Protestants decline relative to other groups due to low fertility and losses from religious switching. Immigration drives growth among Hindus and Muslims, while low fertility and a mature age structure causes Jewish decline. The low fertility of secular Americans and the religiosity of immigrants provide a countervailing force to secularization, causing the nonreligious population share to peak before 2043

The relationship between religious involvement and clinical status of patients with bipolar disorder

Cruz M, Pincus HA, Welsh DE, Greenwald D, Lasky E, Kilbourne AM. The relationship between religious involvement and clinical status of patients with bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord 2010: 12: 68–76. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.Religion and spirituality are important coping strategies in depression but have been rarely studied within the context of bipolar disorder. The present study assessed the association between different forms of religious involvement and the clinical status of individuals treated for bipolar disorder.A cross-sectional observation study of follow-up data from a large cohort study of patients receiving care for bipolar disorder (n = 334) at an urban Veterans Affairs mental health clinic was conducted. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the association between public (frequency of church attendance), private (frequency of prayer/meditation), as well as subjective forms (influence of beliefs on life) of religious involvement and mixed, manic, depressed, and euthymic states when demographic, anxiety, alcohol abuse, and health indicators were controlled.Multivariate analyses found significant associations between higher rates of prayer/meditation and participants in a mixed state [odds ratio (OR) = 1.29; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.10–1.52, chi square = 9.42, df = 14, p < 0.05], as well as lower rates of prayer/meditation and participants who were euthymic (OR = 0.84; 95% CI = 0.72–0.99, chi square = 4.60, df = 14, p < 0.05). Depression and mania were not associated with religious involvement.Compared to patients with bipolar disorder in depressed, manic, or euthymic states, patients in mixed states have more active private religious lives. Providers should assess the religious activities of individuals with bipolar disorder in mixed states and how they may complement/deter ongoing treatment. Future longitudinal studies linking bipolar states, religious activities, and treatment-seeking behaviors are needed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78616/1/j.1399-5618.2009.00772.x.pd

Penal reform in Africa: The case of prison chaplaincy

Penal reform is a challenge across the world. In Africa, those who are incarcerated are especially vulnerable and often deprived of basic human rights. Prison conditions are generally dire, resources are limited, and at times undue force is used to control inmates. The public attitude towards offenders is also not encouraging. Reform efforts include finding alternative ways of sentencing such as community service, making use of halfway houses and reducing sentences. These efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. The four principles of retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation guide penal practice in Africa. Retribution and rehabilitation stand in tension. Deterrence and incapacitation aim at forcing inmates to conform to the social order. The article argues that prison chaplaincy can make a valuable contribution to restoring the dignity and humanity of those who are incarcerated. Chaplaincy can contribute to improving attitudes and practices in the penal system and society. In addition to the social objective of rehabilitation, prison ministry can, on a spiritual level, also facilitate repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. The aim is the holistic restoration of human beings

How to speak of God? Toward a postsecular apologetics

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Practical Theology on 11/04/2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1756073X.2018.1460522Against most expectations religion has not vanished from Western culture. If anything, it exercises a greater fascination than ever before. Broadly, we might think of ourselves as occupying a new, 'postsecular' space between a renewed visibility of religion in public life, and a corresponding acknowledgement of the importance of religious values and actors; and persistent and widespread disillusion and scepticism towards religion, and objections to religion as a source of legitimate public discourse. In a world that is more sensitive than ever to religious belief and practice, yet often struggles to accommodate it into secular discourse, how do religious institutions justify their position in a contested and volatile public square? This article argues that the contemporary postsecular context requires a recovery of the ancient practices of Christian apologetics as a form of public, theological witness to the practical value of faith, articulated in both deed and word

Spiritual but not Religious?: Beyond Binary Choices in the Study of Religion

This is a postprint (author's final draft) version of an article to be published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in June 2013. The final version of this article will be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-5906 (login may be required). The version made available in OpenBU was supplied by the author. PLEASE NOTE: per publisher rules, the text of the article was embargoed for twelve months after publication and was then made publicly downloadable."Spirituality" has often been framed in social science research as an alternative to organized "religion," implicitly or explicitly extending theoretical arguments about the privatization of religion. This article uses in-depth qualitative data from a religiously-diverse U.S. sample to argue that this either-or distinction not only fails to capture the empirical reality of American religion, but it does not do justice to the complexity of spirituality itself. An inductive discursive analysis reveals four primary cultural "packages," that is, ways in which the meaning of spirituality is constructed in conversation -- a Theistic Package that ties spirituality to personal deities, an Extra-Theistic Package that locates spirituality in various naturalistic forms of transcendence, an Ethical Spirituality that focuses on everyday compassion, and a contested Belief and Belonging Spirituality tied to cultural notions of religiosity. Spirituality is, then, neither a diffuse individualized phenomenon nor a single cultural alternative to "religion." Analysis of the contested evaluations of Belief and Belonging Spirituality allows a window on the "moral boundary work" (Lamont 1992) being done by the cultural discourse of being "spiritual but not religious." The empirical boundary between spirituality and religion is far more porous than the moral and political one

SECULARIZATION AND LONG-RUN ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper integrates a simple theory of identity choice into a framework of endogenous economic growth to explain how secularization can be both cause and consequence of economic development. A secular identity allows an individual to derive more pleasure from consumption than religious individuals, leading secular individuals to work harder and to save more in order to experience this pleasure from consumption. These activities are conducive to economic growth. Higher income makes consumption more affordable and increases the appeal of a secular identity for the next generation. An extension of the basic model investigates the Protestant Reformation as an intermediate stage during the take-off to growth. Another extension introduces intergenerationally dependent religious preferences and demonstrates how a social multiplier amplifies the speed of secularization

Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa: Critical Intersections

Citizenship in sub-Saharan Africa has undergone profound changes in recent decades as part of wider social and political dynamics. One notable development is the emergence of Christianity, especially in its Pentecostal-Charismatic forms, as a public religion. Christian actors, beliefs and practices have increasingly come to manifest themselves in the public sphere, actively engage with politics, define narratives of nationhood, and shape notions of citizenship. A second major development is the emergence of sexuality as a critical site of citizenship and nationhood in postcolonial Africa. On the one hand, many political and religious leaders are invested in a popular ideology of the heterosexual family as the basis of nation-building, while on the other hand, LGBT communities are becoming more visible and claim recognition from the state. The contributions to this special issue engage these two contrasting developments, examining the interconnections between Christianity, sexuality and citizenship empirically and theoretically through case studies in various African contexts and from several academic disciplines and critical perspectives