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Americans are Switching Religions in Droves
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2008 Comment (1)Given the American penchant for change, it might not be surprising that more than one quarter of all Americans have left the religions of their childhoods. And that number would be close to 44 percent, a new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows, if changes among Protestant denominations were included.
Change and creativity have long been a fact of American religious life. But the extent to which Americans move among different religious groups, or out of religion completely, has been hard to determine, in part because the U.S. Census does not track religious affiliation. But the new Pew survey, based on 35,000 telephone interviews, provides compelling proof that American spiritual life is more fluid than ever. And while it appears that Roman Catholicism has lost the most as a result of adult attrition, the ranks of the unaffiliated (including atheists, agnostics, but mostly people who see themselves as nothing in particular) have swelled the most—with more than double the number of people who say they weren't affiliated with any particular religion as children.
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Meeting Egypt's Grand Mufti
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2008 Comment (1)I set off to Cairo this week to meet and interview a man who is considered to be one of the most influential voices of moderation in the Islamic world. His name is Ali Gomaa, and he is the grand mufti of Egypt, a leading scholar of jurisprudence and head of the Dar Al-Iftah (literally, the House of Fatwas), a state-sanctioned body that issues religious judgments on matters ranging from employment and finance to gender relations to, well, just about anything of importance in a Muslim's life. In terms of religious authority in Egypt, and indeed within the larger Sunni Muslim world, the grand mufti ranks second only to the grand sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, perhaps the foremost center of Sunni Islamic learning.
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Is Britain Ready for Sharia?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2008 Comment (2)The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, is widely known as an intellectual and academic as well as man of the cloth. But he appeared to be surprised by the fury he unleashed both within and outside his church last week when he remarked to a gathering of British lawyers, and then in a radio interview, that the United Kingdom would have to accommodate limited use of Islamic sharia law by its Muslim citizens. Allowing Muslims to use their own courts for civil cases relating to matters such as divorce and finance was not only "unavoidable," Williams said, but necessary for social harmony.
Besieged by criticism—including the outrage of church traditionalists who charged that Williams's proper job was to defend the biblical foundations of British law—the archbishop repeatedly sought to clarify his position. But each successive attempt seemed to provoke even stronger rebukes, including calls for his resignation. While not going that far himself, the former archbishop, George Carey, asserted that Williams had "overstated the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes." And some 150 of the elected church representatives attending this week's general synod were reportedly prepared to sign an open letter of protest if Williams did not issue an apology.
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Tempest in a Texas Teapot: The Bush Library and the Methodists
Tweet Share on Facebook February 4, 2008 Comment (1)Corrected on 2/8/08: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Kansas area jurisdictional bishop. He is Bishop Scott Jones.
The plan to include a partisan think tank in the proposed George W. Bush presidential library at Southern Methodist University has provoked an outcry from many SMU faculty and alumni as well as concerned United Methodist clergy and laypeople from around the country. In a press release circulated last week, some of those critics charged that the proposal of the George W. Bush Foundation was approved without being put through procedures required by United Methodist church law. Here, in part, is what the release says:
"In a conference call held on January 9, 2008, the eleven active United Methodist bishops in the South Central Jurisdiction were asked to issue an interpretation of United Methodist church law that would circumvent a vote by lay and clergy delegates and permit the immediate establishment of a partisan Bush institute at Southern Methodist University (SMU) along with the planned Bush presidential library. The request to the bishops came from the George W. Bush Foundation.