Humanism and Political Identity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhem Navarro-Rivera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Life Project ◽  
Landscape Survey ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Religious Landscape

This chapter focuses on humanist political identities and how these shape views on various social, cultural, and political matters. The chapter considers “humanists” as people (a) who are nontheistic, meaning they do not believe in God; and (b) whose worldviews are shaped not by religious belief but by science and philosophy. This definition of humanist overlaps with the segment of the population that consider itself atheist but is not entirely composed of self-identified atheists. For this reason, the humanist cohort is not limited to the nonreligious. An analysis of the 2014 Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project shows that humanists in the United States hold views about politics, economics, and culture that are more liberal than most religious Americans. As humanism becomes better known and embraced by more nonreligious Americans, their views could become an important part of the Democratic Party coalition.

Home on Sunday, Home on Tuesday? Secular Political Participation in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-363
Author(s):  
Mark Brockway
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sharp Rise ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape

AbstractThe American religious landscape is transforming due to a sharp rise in the percentage of the population that is nonreligious. Political and demographic causes have been proffered but little attention has been paid to the current and potential political impact of these “nones,” especially given the established link between religion, participation, and party politics. I argue that the political impact of nonreligious Americans lies in an unexplored subset of the nonreligious population called committed seculars. Committed seculars de-identify with religion, they adopt secular beliefs, and join organizations structured on secular beliefs. Using a unique survey of a secular organization, the American Humanist Association, I demonstrate that committed seculars are extremely partisan and participatory, and are driven to participate by their ideological extremity in relation to the Democratic Party. These results point to a long-term mobilizing dimension for Democrats and indicate the potential polarizing influence of seculars in party politics.

scholarly journals THE EMERGING CHURCH AS A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO THE NEOLIBERALIZATION OF THE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-320
Author(s):  
Maren Freudenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Emerging Church ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Late Modern

The Emerging Church grew in prominence in the United States in the 1990’s as a reaction to seeker-sensitive approaches of nondenominational evangelical megachurches. These megachurches are known for the commodification of religion and the conception of church members as consumers, and are thus prime examples of the neoliberalization of the American religious landscape. In contrast, the Emerging Church opposes institutionalized and neoliberalized religious practices and structures, instead emphasizing local and contextual organization and practice as a basis for more “authentically Christian” lives. Nevertheless, the Emerging Church itself displays characteristics of neoliberalization, which I disclose using Wendy Brown’s definition of neoliberal rationality. This raises the question whether a lived critique of neoliberalization is possible in the late modern era.

Every Sparrow That Falls: Understanding Animal Rights Activism as Functional Religion

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 305-330
Author(s):  
Wesley V Jamison ◽  
Caspar Wenk ◽  
James V Parker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Animal Rights Activism ◽  
Meaningful Role

AbstractThis article reports original research conducted among animal rights activists and elites in Switzerland and the United States, and the finding that activism functioned in activists' and elites' lives like religious belief. The study used reference sampling to select Swiss and American informants.Various articles and activists have identified both latent and manifest quasi-religious components in the contemporary movement Hence, the research followed upon these data and anecdotes and tested the role of activism in adherents' lives. Using extensive interviews, the research discovered that activists and elites conform to the five necessary components of Yinger's definition of functional religion: intense and memorable conversion experiences, newfound communities of meaning, normative creeds, elaborate and well-defined codes of behavior, and cult formation. The article elaborates on that schema in the context of animal rights belief, elucidates the deeply meaningful role of activism within a filigree of meaning, and concludes that the movement is facing schismatic forces not dissimilar to redemptive and religious movements

Every Sparrow That Falls: Understanding Animal Rights Activism as Functional Religion

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Jamison ◽  
James Parker ◽  
Caspar Wenk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Animal Rights Activism ◽  
Meaningful Role

AbstractThis article reports original research conducted among animal rights activists and elites in Switzerland and the United States, and the finding that activism functioned in activists' and elites' lives like religious belief. The study used reference sampling to select Swiss and American informants. Various articles and activists have identified both latent and manifest quasi-religious components in the contemporary movement. Hence, the research followed upon these data and anecdotes and tested the role of activism in adherents' lives. Using extensive interviews, the research discovered that activists and elites conform to the five necessary components of Yinger's definition of functional religion: intense and memorable conversion experiences, newfound communities of meaning, normative creeds, elaborate and well-defined codes of behavior, and cult formation. The article elaborates on that schema in the context of animal rights belief, elucidates the deeply meaningful role of activism within a filigree of meaning, and concludes that the movement is facing schismatic forces not dissimilar to redemptive and religious movements

Secularism, Pluralism, and Publics in America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles McCrary
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Religious Nation ◽  
State Relations

In the United States, religious, political, and social life has been structured by a public/private binary. Oftentimes, religion is understood as private and politics as public. This framework informs a religious/secular binary and carries important implications for the structure of American life. Particularly affected arenas include church-state relations; religious discourse in public life, including prophetic protest and religious nationalism; sexual regulation and the politics of morality; and norms of civic and civil discourse. Real politics and consequences attend the definition of terms like “religious,” “secular,” and “pluralist.” Many observers have called the United States a secular, pluralist nation and, simultaneously, the most “religious” nation in the “developed world.” The perceived incongruities or affinities among these labels betray fundamental assumptions about religion and its place in public life. When public figures invoke the language and imagery of “civil religion,” for example, they may be understood to sacralize the public sphere or bring religion into the public or treat the nation’s “shared” symbols with a religious reverence. Although pluralism, as both a demographical description and a progressive goal, has been broadly championed amid growing religious diversity, certain groups, ideas, and practices have nevertheless remained excluded from the realms of public secularism and private (proper) religiosity. The politics are messy and often subtle, but the consequences can be stark. In these ways and more, American life has been shaped by the entwined concepts of secularism, pluralism, and publics.

scholarly journals Contemporary Religious Changes in the U.S.: Responses to the Fracturing of Religious Life

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Verna Marina Ehret
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Building Community ◽  
Landscape Survey ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape

The purpose of this essay is to explore the changing religious landscape of the United States in relation to social and political changes and how scholars of religion ought to respond to those changes. These changes are being evaluated through recent developments in theological narratives of the last 15 years in light of the data provided by the Pew Forum’s Religious Landscape Survey from 2007 and 2014. Special attention is paid to the impact of the 2016 election on social and political narratives and their impact on religious life and religious narratives. The essay argues that scholars of religion have an important voice in this changing landscape to provide tools for building community in diversity and challenging narratives of exclusion that seek to dominate the religious landscape of the United States.

Millennial Missionaries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Dugan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Gender Essentialism ◽  
Craft Beer ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
Religious Landscape

This book is an ethnography of millennial-generation Catholic missionaries. The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) began hiring young adults to evangelize students on college campuses in 1998. Since then, FOCUS missionaries have developed a style of Catholic evangelization that navigates between strict and savvy interpretations of Catholic teaching in contemporary US youth culture. The Catholicism that FOCUS missionaries embrace and promote grew up with them and amid their middle-class American norms—missionaries own iPhones, drink craft beer, and create March Madness brackets. Born in the 1990s, millennial missionaries in their skinny jeans and devotional tattoos, large-framed glasses and scapulars embody an attractive style of Catholicism. They love saints and have memorized the “Tantum Ergo,” are fluent in college-student slang, but reject hook-up culture in favor of gender essentialism dictated by papal teachings. Missionaries rely on their social capital to make Catholicism cool. Many of their peers have been characterized as defectors from religious institutions. Yet, underneath the rise of “nones” is a story of increased religious piety. This book studies religion in the United States from the perspective of proud Catholic millennials. As they navigate their Catholic and US identities, these missionaries propose Catholicism as uniquely able to overcome perceived threats of secularism, relativism, and modernity. How, why, and with what implications is this Catholicism enacted? These questions, which point to power struggles between US culture and religious identity, drive this book. Through their prayers and evangelization efforts, missionaries are reshaping Catholic identity and shifting the religious landscape of the United States.

Populism and Liberal Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takis S. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Original Definition ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
Definition Of

Based on an original definition of modern populism as “democratic illiberalism” and many years of meticulous research, Takis Pappas marshals extraordinary empirical evidence from Argentina, Greece, Peru, Italy, Venezuela, Ecuador, Hungary, the United States, Spain, and Brazil to develop a comprehensive theory about populism. He addresses all key issues in the debate about populism and answers significant questions of great relevance for today’s liberal democracy, including: • What is modern populism and how can it be differentiated from comparable phenomena like nativism and autocracy? • Where in Latin America has populism become most successful? Where in Europe did it emerge first? Why did its rise to power in the United States come so late? • Is Trump a populist and, if so, could he be compared best with Venezuela’s Chávez, France’s Le Pens, or Turkey’s Erdoğan? • Why has populism thrived in post-authoritarian Greece but not in Spain? And why in Argentina and not in Brazil? • Can populism ever succeed without a charismatic leader? If not, what does leadership tell us about how to challenge populism? • Who are “the people” who vote for populist parties, how are these “made” into a group, and what is in their minds? • Is there a “populist blueprint” that all populists use when in power? And what are the long-term consequences of populist rule? • What does the expansion, and possibly solidification, of populism mean for the very nature and future of contemporary democracy? Populism and Liberal Democracy will change the ways the reader understands populism and imagines the prospects of liberal democracy.

scholarly journals Factors Influencing Land Values in the Presence of Suburban Sprawl

1974 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce E. Lindsay ◽  
Cleve E. Willis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Land Values ◽  
Suburban Sprawl ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Definition Of

The spread of suburbs into previously rural areas has become commonplace in the United States. A rather striking aspect of this phenomenon has been the discontinuity which results. This aspect is often manifest in a haphazard mixture of unused and densely settled areas which has been described as “sprawl”. A more useful definition of suburban sprawl, its causes, and its consequences, is provided below in order to introduce the econometric objectives of this paper.

International Law and Administrative Insulation: A Comparison of Refugee Status Determination Regimes in the United States, Canada, and Australia

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (04) ◽  
pp. 933-968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Definition Of

International law provides nations with a common definition of a refugee, yet the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many institutional, cultural, geographical, and political similarities. This article compares the refugee status determination regimes of three popular asylum seeker destinations—the United States, Canada, and Australia. Despite these nations' similar border control policies, asylum seekers crossing their borders access three very different systems. These differences have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy than with the level of insulation the administrative decision-making agency enjoys from political interference and judicial review. Bureaucratic justice is conceptualized and organized differently in different states, and so states vary in how they draw the line between refugee and nonrefugee.

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