Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Religious Indifferents

Image from Patheos

The most important recent development in American religion is the rise of the “Nones,” the increasing number of Americans–it may now be 20% of all adults and 30% of young people–who tell pollsters that they have no religious affiliation. Perhaps surprisingly, most Nones are believers. They reject organized religion, not faith. In fact, the Nones overlap greatly with another much-discussed category of Americans, the “Spiritual But Not Religious,” or SBNRs.

Even the SBNR label doesn’t completely capture things. It’s necessary to dig a little deeper. At the Oxford University Press blog, theologian Linda Mercadante, author of the recently released Belief Without Borders, has a helpful guide to the various kinds of  SBNRs in America today. Mercadante has interviewed hundreds of SBNRs over a five-year period, she reports, and a very large number are best described as “casual” SBNRs. For them,

religious and spiritual practices are generally approached on an “as-needed” basis and discarded or changed when no longer necessary. Spirituality is not felt to be the organizing center of their lives. Many of the “casuals”—especially younger ones—had little or no religious exposure either as children or adults.

In other words, it would be wrong to understand SBNRs or Nones principally as “seekers.” Nor are they hostile to religion. They just don’t care much about it. Better, perhaps, to call these people something else–something more descriptive. “Religious Indifferents” is a phrase that comes to mind.

If we really are looking at a significant and growing percentage of Religious Indifferents in America, the implications for religious liberty could be profound. Consider the politics of religious accommodations. A minority religion that seeks an accommodation in the legislative process needs allies, people who understand why it is important to honor the minority’s religious convictions. Sometimes, the best friends a minority can have are adherents of other religions, who see it in their interest to lobby on behalf of the minority. By banding together, religions can achieve results they might not be able to achieve on their own. This dynamic, as well as the traditional American commitment to religious liberty as a fundamental right, explains how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed in 1993.

Large numbers of Religious Indifferents would change this dynamic. First, Indifferents are unlikely to seek accommodations for themselves. If you don’t care very much about religion, you’re not likely to oppose state action for religious reasons. Second, and more important, Indifferents will not likely feel much affinity for believers who do have religious objections to government policy. If you don’t take religion seriously, yourself, you’re not likely to understand why others do. What’s the big deal, anyway?

Some observers, like Rodney Stark at Baylor, think the numbers of Nones/SBNRs are exaggerated. And many younger Americans who are Indifferents now will no doubt join religions as they get older. If Mercadante is correct, though, the politics of religion in America could be in for a significant change.  

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Dingemans, et al., “The Protections for Religious Rights”

This past October, Oxford University Press published The Protections for Religious Rights: Law and Practice by Sir James Dingemans, Can Yeginsu, Tom The Protections for Religious RightsCross, and Hafash Masood. The publisher’s description follows:

The Protections for Religious Rights is the first practitioner work to offer a full and systematic treatment of the law as it pertains to religious rights in the UK and abroad. A practical working aid to a sensitive and important area of increasing litigation and public debate, this text examines the applicable legal instruments, considers the current state of the law, and reviews domestic, comparative, and international case law to provide a comprehensive reference resource that informs on all matters of significance in this area.

The protections for religious rights in the UK are rooted in international law and the English common law. Religious conflicts have arisen when communities have perceived that their religious rights have been targeted for suppression, or ignored. Despite international human rights instruments which are intended to protect such rights, many courts have adopted a narrow and restrictive approach towards these aspects.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Panel on International Religious Freedom in Washington (Feb 25)

The Berkley Center at Georgetown will host a panel discussion tomorrow, “Is International Religious Freedom Policy Becoming Respectable?”:

Some fifteen years after the establishment of the US Office of International Religious Freedom and the position of US ambassador at large (currently vacant), the government of Canada has become the first country to follow suit. In 2012, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper created the Office of Religious Freedom in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and in February 2013 appointed its first ambassador, Andrew Bennett. Meanwhile, a (sometimes controversial) mainstay of the US international religious freedom policy is the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose job is to sharpen and improve the policy implemented by the State Department. To what extent has the commission been successful? Can the American experience of success and failure help inform Canada’s new policy? What can the United States learn from its neighbor to the north?
Andrew Bennett, Canadian ambassador for religious freedom, and Katrina Lantos Swett, vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom will examine these questions. They will also discuss whether the two North American democracies encourage others to increase attention to international religious freedom. Join us as we discuss and debate these and other questions on February 25. Tom Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project, will moderate.
For details, please click here.
Posted on by Robert J. Delahunty · 9 Comments

Animal Rights Trump Religious Rights

The Great Synagogue, Copenhagen

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

The World Jewish Congress reported late last week that the Danish Minister of Food and Agriculture, a 38 year old Social Democrat named Dan Jorgensen, had signed a regulation effectively banning the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals for food. Jorgensen explained the ban on Danish television by saying “animal rights come before religion” – or, according to another translation, “animal rights precede religious rights.”

Under the new regulation, all animal slaughter must be carried out after stunning, which is contrary to the Jewish practice of shechita, or ritual slaughter. Denmark’s Jewish community (which numbers a mere 6,000 persons) opposes the minister’s decision. The European Commissioner on Health, Tonio Borg, questioned the legality of the ban, saying that it “contradicts European law.” On the other hand, Jorgensen’s decision was acclaimed by the Animal Welfare Intergroup, of which he had been President.

If the Danish government and parliament let the decision stand, Denmark will join several other western European nations, including Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Poland and Switzerland in prohibiting such ritual slaughter. (Holland had attempted to ban shechita, but a Read more

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Boston, “Taking Liberties”

Next month, Random House will publish Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do by Taking LibertiesRobert Boston.  The publisher’s description follows.

Increasingly, conservative religious groups are using religious liberty as a sword to lash out at others. In this forcefully argued defense of the separation of church and state, Robert Boston makes it clear that the religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment is an individual right, the right of personal conscience, not a license allowing religious organizations to discriminate against and control others. The book examines the controversy over birth control, same-sex marriage, religion in public schools, the intersection of faith and politics, and the “war on Christmas,” among other topics. Boston concludes with a series of recommendations for resolving clashes between religious liberty claims and individual rights

Posted on by JCPW

Elver, “The Headscarf Controversy”

9780199769292Next month, Oxford University Press will publish The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion by Hilal Elver (University of California Santa Barbara). The publisher’s description follows.

Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women’s rights.

After evaluating political actions and court decisions from the national level of individual governments to the international sphere of the European Court of Human Rights, Elver concludes that judges and legislators are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration and multiculturalism, and by issues such as Islamophobia, the “war on terror,” and security concerns. She shows how these influences have resulted in a failure on the part of many Western governments to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms.

Employing a critical legal theory perspective to the headscarf controversy, Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the role of religion, and also the position of women in modern society. The Headscarf Controversy demonstrates how changes in law across nations can be used to restore state commitments to human rights.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Christians and Circumcision

My post last week about a movement in Scandinavia to ban the non-therapeutic circumcision of boys drew many comments. I’d like to respond to one of them. At Patheos, Joel Willitts criticizes Christians, like me, who oppose such bans. Willitts suggests that we are being inconsistent, perhaps even hypocritical. “The Christian tradition has little high ground on which to stand when it comes to the issue of banning Jewish practices,” he writes. After all, the “Gentile church” has prohibited circumcision for millennia as part of its “supersessionistic theology.” Who are Christians to criticize others when they, too, seek to end the practice?

I’m not a theologian, and I’m a little confused by the references to the “Gentile church” and “supersessionistic theology.” I think Willits is  alluding to debates about Messianic Judaism. But it’s not necessary to get deeply into theology to explain why his criticism of my position is misguided.

First, it’s not correct to say that Christianity bans circumcision. It’s true that Christianity rejects ritual circumcision. From the apostolic period until today, Christians have regarded baptism as the substitute for ritual circumcision–the sign of what Christians believe to be the New Covenant. Continuing to circumcise boys out of a sense of religious obligation, Christians believe, would be a category error. The Old Covenant has been fulfilled; why continue to observe its rituals? But circumcision for non-religious reasons is different. If, for example, the best medical learning is that boys should be circumcised for reasons of hygiene, Christianity does not oppose this. With respect to circumcisions carried out for non-religious reasons, Christianity is simply neutral.

Second, even if Christians reject ritual circumcision for themselves on theological grounds, they can still object in good faith to proposals that the state ban it for others. Christians do not build sukkot, either; but Christians can object to proposals that the state prohibit Jews from building them. Unlike the church, the liberal state is supposed to be neutral about such things. Christians who object to proposals to ban practices other religions hold sacred are not being inconsistent or hypocritical. They are holding liberalism to its deepest commitments, and showing respect for  traditions other than their own.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 25 Comments

Banning Circumcision in Scandinavia

The Great Synagogue, Copenhagen

A serious campaign is underway in Scandinavia to ban the non-therapeutic circumcision of boys. A Danish doctors’ association says that, unless medically indicated, circumcision is a kind of child abuse. A Swedish medical association recommends setting the minimum age for the procedure at 12 and requiring the boy’s consent. Last September, the Nordic Ombudsmen for Children issued a joint statement declaring non-therapeutic circumcision of boys a violation of international human rights law. Although for now no country seems ready to outlaw the practice, surveys suggest large numbers of Scandinavians would favor a ban.

To put it mildly, a ban on the non-therapeutic circumcision of boys would cause some hardship for Jews and Muslims. At the very least, parents who wished to have their sons circumcised for religious purposes would need to have the circumcisions performed outside their countries–assuming a ban on circumcisions would not also prohibit parents from transporting children for such purposes. Most likely, a ban would simply cause Jews and Muslims to leave Scandinavia in large numbers. In fact, opponents of the ban allege that is its goal.

I doubt that religious bigotry, as such, has much to with it–though anti-Muslim sentiment, at least, is on the rise in Scandinavia, as in much of Europe. Rather, what we’re seeing is a clash of values between a secular worldview that has little patience for traditional religious expression, and the followers of the traditional religions themselves. To put it bluntly, the secular human rights community finds it increasingly difficult to take seriously the arguments traditional religion puts forward, especially when sex is somehow involved.

Here’s an example. Last week, The Copenhagen Post ran an op-ed by Morten Frisch, a doctor and sex researcher who favors a ban. Circumcision, Frisch writes, is problematic not only because it violates a boy’s bodily integrity when he is too young to consent. (Actually, any medical treatment would present that problem). What’s really bad is that circumcision decreases sexual pleasure later in life. “To most Europeans,” Frisch writes, “circumcision is an ethically problematic ritual that is intrinsically harmful to children: every child has the right to protection of his or her bodily integrity and the right to explore and enjoy his or her undiminished sexual capacity later in life.”

What about the fact that Judaism and Islam have required male circumcision for millennia? Isn’t that a factor to consider? You might think that practices that have lasted thousands of years come with some presumption of validity, even if you disagree with them. Millions of people across time have thought such practices important, even sacred. Frisch summarily dismisses these concerns. “Religious arguments,” he writes, “must never trump the protection of children’s basic human rights. To cut off functional, healthy parts of other people’s bodies without their explicit and well-informed consent can never be anybody’s right–religious or otherwise.”

Now, I don’t know whether exploring one’s undiminshed sexual capacity really qualifies as an international human right nowadays; I don’t follow the literature too closely. And this is the first I’ve heard that male circumcision leads to to a decrease in sexual pleasure later in life (I’m not speaking of female circumcision). But let’s assume what Frisch says is correct. The fact that he so impatiently dismisses any hardship a ban would cause traditional religious communities is striking. There is, it seems, simply nothing to be said for traditional practices that violate contemporary norms in this context; the sooner we get rid of them, the better. Frisch’s essay, like the proposed ban itself, is another indication that the clash between religious tradition and secularism is heating up, and that secularism is in little mood to compromise.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Too “Christian” to Excite the Left, Too “Foreign” to Excite the Right

Here’s a great piece by The Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty on the persecution of Mideast Christians. Doughtery offers an explanation for why the human rights community in the West is largely ignoring the problem:

Western activists and media have focused considerable outrage at Russia’s laws against “homosexual propaganda” in the lead-up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. It would only seem fitting that Westerners would also protest (or at the very least notice) laws that punish people with death for converting to Christianity.

And yet the Western world is largely ignorant of or untroubled by programmatic violence against Christians. Ed West, citing the French philosopher Regis Debray, distils the problem thusly: “The victims are ‘too Christian’ to excite the Left, and ‘too foreign’ to excite the Right.”

That really says it quite well.

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James, “Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise”

On January 9, Oxford University Press published Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise by Susan James (Birkbeck College). The publisher’s description follows.Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics The <i>Theologico-Political Treatise</i>

Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise is simultaneously a work of philosophy and a piece of practical politics. It defends religious pluralism, a republican form of political organisation, and the freedom to philosophise, with a determination that is extremely rare in seventeenth-century thought. But it is also a fierce and polemical intervention in a series of Dutch disputes over issues about which Spinoza and his opponents cared very deeply.
Susan James makes the arguments of the Treatise accessible, and their motivations plain, by setting them in their historical and philosophical context. She identifies the interlocking theological, hermeneutic, historical, philosophical, and political positions to which Spinoza was responding, shows who he aimed to discredit, and reveals what he intended to achieve. The immediate goal of the Treatise is, she establishes, a local one. Spinoza is trying to persuade his fellow citizens that it is vital to uphold and foster conditions in which they can cultivate their capacity to live rationally, free from the political manifestations and corrosive psychological effects of superstitious fear. At the same time, however, his radical argument is designed for a broader audience. Appealing to the universal philosophical principles that he develops in greater detail in his Ethics, and drawing on the resources of imagination to make them forceful and compelling, Spinoza speaks to the inhabitants of all societies, including our own. Only in certain political circumstances is it possible to philosophise, and learn to live wisely and well.