Assignment 1

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School

Arizona State University *

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Course

320

Subject

Religion

Date

Apr 3, 2024

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docx

Pages

4

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Assignment 1 2021SummerB-X-REL320-41175-42915 Naeim Naeimi Religion today is very different than what it was before. About three decades ago people in their 50s and 60s would go to church and find something that would fill their needs not necessarily follow the religion they were born into and raised. Will Herbert was a sociologist in the 1950s and wrote an important book, that summarizes the religion in the US, named Protestant, Catholic, Jew. Martin Luther was involved in reforming the Protestant, but he does not get enough credit for it. Catholicism reformed itself while Protestant was reforming. 1960s was the time of liberation, tradition. The time of death of segregation (black Americans, women, gay community). The most significant change in terms of religious traditions occurred in the immigration act of 1965. Religion is an internal feeling and emotion that could even express itself in clapping to something people liked at a funeral. This is a representation of how religion work from bottom up not the top down. In 1844 Robert Baird, a graduate of Princeton seminary and a presbyterian minister, published a book titled “Religion in America” in 1856, through which he tried to explain religion in America to his European friends. Beard’s thesis about evangelicals and unevangelical took Americans until 1960s to unravel. Pentecostalism is the most growing form of Christianity in the world today. There are four broad categories that are growing today. Catholicism is number one, Restorationism is number two, the third is Metaphysical, the fourth is Humanism. Catherine Albanese, one of the best religious scholars in Santa Barbara for the past few decades, talks about ordinary and extraordinary religion. Ordinary is categorized as a religion that is synonymous with the culture and sets boundaries for people to live up to. On the other hand, extraordinary religion goes beyond the rules and normal. The line between the boundary and beyond is blurry. Religions are not internally homogenous but diverse. At same time they are dynamic means they change through time. Religions are collection of
ideas, practices, values, and stories that are embedded in that culture not isolated. People are still looking for religion in life because they are not just looking for answers. Religions address the fundamental questions of meaning and provide frameworks for ethical reflection and structures of social formation (caption from the video). The history of the American church is tied to the culture and history of the country. In this book winners and losers are referred to the denominations with the greatest number of members. Urbanization was one the reasons that most churches closed in rural areas. At the time in some rural areas churches closed but other churches would open at the same rate in other rural areas because more conservatives joined their churches and searched for new homes. Along side these changes, sects were also taking shape offering more freedom despite the rules of the religion. Thus, they were growing faster than people who would attend churches. Since the religion is voluntary and free in the U.S. then it has the highest Christian population according to Baird. In this book, Finke and Stark evaluate the churching systems in America and examine how the public is attracted to church. They develop the theory that churches in America grow according to the principles of the free market economy. Therefore, churches need to attract more members to join them so that they can survive in the market. This was the time that mainline denominations lost their first position because they cannot compete effectively within the religious market when the upstart succeed due to their propositions that are more attractive to the public. Thus, the mainline denominations are the losers here and the upstart sects are the winners in this case. Finke and Stark’s vision of the systems of churches in America as the specific market is controversial. Their main statement presented to support the idea is that “since 1776 at least the upstart sects have grown as the mainline American denominations have declined.” “And this trend continues unabated, as new upstarts continue to push to the fore” (Finke & Stark, 2005, p. 237). Thus, it is possible to state that the upstart sects are the real winners in the process when the mainline American denominations lose their influence. The conclusions about these processes are based on the data in relation to the numbers of people who belong to different churches.
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