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This article talks about the increase in the people that identity as nones and the slight decrease in people who identify as Christian and the effect this will have on the voting patterns of voters, and thus the political leaders in our government.

As we have been talking in class the past two days, young people do not vote a lot and they need to be voting more. Also, a few weeks ago, we talked about how a lot of atheists are young, male, students that lean towards being democrat and liberal. These young people are well educated not just about religion but also politics. As more people do research into religion, and ultimately choose to forgo it altogether, will they do more research into politics in order to make sure our elected leadership is representative of their new religious beliefs.

As Trump and other conservative political leaders start to isolate more and mor people, voters will start to associate christianity with people like trump and thus be more likely to not personally associate with any religion, Especially because, as mentioned in class, the more church services you attend the more likely you vote republican. So in contrast,the less church services you attend to less like you are to vote republican. Now not voting republican can mean voting Democrat, but if Democrats are still ot representing your values and beliefs people have two choices, This goes back to the video we watched about the different options for getting more young people to vote. If there is no political candidates that well represents well educated nones, they could simply not vote (what young people are currently doing), or if the government employed a “none of the above” option, young people and other bones could start to demand a voice that represents them more. Change is made when you gather together, centralized  and demand it, such as by not voting for any available candidates and forcing the new people with different ideas to run. The increase is the amount of people that identify as nones will hopefully force change to happen in the political landscape as they demand better representation.

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The shooting at that ChristChurch in New Zealand will be something that is talked about for many many generations, hopefully long after I am gone, especially among Muslims, New Zealanders,and Australians. Each of these groups have been directly impacted by this event, from the white nationalist of Australia coming to light, to the safety of New Zealand being put into questions, and the hurt, pain, and healing that the Muslim community must go through. So many could and is being said about how these three communities have been responding, specially the concrete steps New Zealand is taking to prevent events like this from happening again and the strength, resilience, and faith the Muslim community has shown in this time. 

A unique perspective this article shows, is how other faith communities, specifically Jewish and Catholic faiths have responded in support. In class we learned a lot on how the Jewish community is more than just a religion, that actually, a lot of Jewish people are Jewish by culture and not by faith. Jewish folks are also nonsectarian, meaning they support a separation of church and state, but they also are very involved politically- both verbally and financially, so it makes sense that they have been so supportive and visual during this time of healing for the Muslim community. Furthermore, Muslim and Jews share a lot of experiences in being oppressed, targeted against, and having a small voting percentage, especially in the United States. The similar experiences of these two groups makes it easy for them to related to each other and thus for them to support each other in times of crisis. 

The Catholic church has also been providing support for the Muslim community in this time. As we discussed in class, sometimes there is a lot of criticism and negative attitude from Christians to Muslims because of their different beliefs systems (though Muslims believe in the Christian God, Christians do not believe in the Muslim God and this causes tension). However seeing the groups overcome their small differences in order to come together and support each other in faith (no matter what that faith is) is a reminder of how pluralism can help the world grow stronger together.

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A lot of religions are against the homosexual community; such as evenalgiaic Christians, Mormons, Jehovah Witness, most traditionally black churches, Muslims, and more. This article discusses how the Methodist church is being divided over this issues, and how it is creating such a controversy. Whether or not a church agrees that homosexualty is okay, and to what extent is causing the schism. During the united methodist conference there was voting for whether or not pastor of the United Methodist Church would be allowed to ordinate gay weddings. This is one of the main points that the greater methodist church is asking individual churches to choose sides on and how a church's response decided its funding and support from the great united methodist church. Most churches are strongly against the LGBT community, and thus refuse to ordinate gay weddings. A lot of churches even go one step further and do not welcome openly gay congregation members to the church, they speak openly towards their disgust towards this community and will shun previously loved, and important members of the congregation if they come out as gay.

This shunning tactic is very similar to the way Jehovah Witnesses and the Amish exclude people. One of the most shocking facts that I learned when we were learning about the Jehovah Witness community, was how members are encouraged to separate and disengage with their family members if they are not Jehovah Witnesses. The segregation of religions and communities such as Jehovah Witnesses, the Amish, and conservative Christians, shows how closed minded these groups are. When you hear stories from communities like this being so hateful towards the LGBT+ community, it makes sense why young people are atheists and why “nones” are such a large religious section now. As the fight for civil rights grows stronger and bigger, intolerant , hateful religious people (because not all religious, traditional religions are hateful, sometimes it is just a few followers), are being forced to have conversations like the one that happened at the United Methodist Conference. Sometimes the end result does not result in any tangible change, but we can rejoice in the fact that just having these conversations is changing how our religions, relationships, politics, and laws look.

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As we discussed in class, the United States has not always been an implicitly “Christian Nation”. The founding fathers started the United States as Deist; it was the election of Carter and Clinton that started to shift the country towards evangelical Christianity. Trump is just another in a long line of evangelical Christian Presidents; this trend keeps happening though because conservative evangelical Christians have a strong voting power and strong voice when election times come around. They are typically heterosexual, white, rich males that have conservative beliefs towards government and human rights. These are the people that not only make an effort to vote (because they have always been allowed to), but they also empower the people around them (with similar views and beliefs) to vote too. Which is how we get people like Trump in office. However because Trump is racist, sexists, and overall close minded he doesn't represent other religious groups that think differently than him.  

What I appreciated about this article was that it points out the though many conservative evangelical Christians still support his political beliefs, they do not believe he has been the best moral example. As a Christian myself, I believe that someone is a “good Christian” when they example Jesus’ love, social activism, and support for the oppressed, and poor. Trump does not do that. He supports the majority while Jesus intentionally went after the minority. Young people are moving further away from organized religion because it is not representative of their values and beliefs, specifically towards human rights issues. Trump’s portrayal of the stereotypical, close minded Christian is reassuring people of idea that all Christians are like that. In contrast, when you think about how Mormons and Muslims are focused on social service and activism or how African Americans vote Democrat in terms of government assistant, it makes sense why Trump is not being supported by most other religious groups.

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Celebrities are getting more bold with their faith, however as discussed in this article, it is mostly evangelical Christians that feel safe enough to be open about their faith. Another way to look at it is, is that the most openly religious celebrities that are getting attention, are the evangelical Christians. This is because of a lot of reasons. One would be that the United States is mainly Christian, as evidence by the repeated election of Christian Presidents. Another reason is that evangelical Christians are one of the more organized and vocal religious groups.

Take in comparison, atheists. Madalyn O’hair gave atheists a large, loud voice when before her, there was not one, but she could have done much more if atheists as a whole were more organized and vocal. One factor that goes into the decentralization of atheists is that they do not all agree with each other, some are strong God haters, others are fairly passive agonists, and still others just fall in the in-between of being a none. Evangelical Christians though, have similar values, and beliefs, and thus are empowering each other to speak up. For example, in the article it talks about Justin Bieber’s faith conversation and how the church was extremely supportive towards him, making his transition into Christianity easier. Or even how the article opens by listing well known celebrities that attend the same church. When one person, someone with an  voice that leaves a lastly impact or someone with a large platform they can use to spread ideas, starts to talk about something, it spreads among their peers and then others. O’Hair had the voice and eventually the platform, but she was missing the engagement of peers and others. On the other hand, a well known, liked celebrity such as Chris Pratt has the platform, voice, and engagement of followers.

Because celebrities are elites, they have a lot of power in the broader societal voice. When being Christian starts to spread and become more popular among celebrities  it spreads easier. Their positions determine what the representation of religion is like in movies and shows and music. For example, our textbook mentions how a lot of Christian movies are very low or just moderate production quality, yet as this article mentions, in the four years since the book has come out, there have been more Christian movies that are not only higher quality but also have been fairly popular.

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Authorities in Russia are electing to place a statue of a religious figure in a instead of a political figure. The political figure in question was Vladimir Lenin, a Communist dictator from the Soviet Union Era Russian is electing to place a figure of Jesus Christ in the spot that was originally designated for an oppressive political figure. In the long run this makes sense because Lenin was not a political figure to be admired. However the idea is still very interesting because of who they decided to make the statue for instead and for what reason.

Firstly, I find it interesting that the Russian government and people decided to do a statue of Jesus Christ. As a largely Catholic country, this is not out of the ordinary, however it is still interesting that the government went the completely opposite direction in terms of no longer using the statue for a political figure. Though a lot of the public has soon support for the project a few others have expressed concerns as to where the funds would come from. In the article it says “Tsurkov said that private investors would fund the construction of the statue but that total costs had yet to be finalized.” but people are still frustrated over the fact that those funds could go to such a better cause.

I want to look at how this situation would be a responded to in the United States. Firstly, though the first amendment only explicitly prohibits the government from culture around the first amendment discourages the government from taking actions that clearly support a specific religion. A statue of Jesus Christ would definitely be a violation of that social norm and expectation. Especially because if the government can create a statue of Jesus Christ, that takes them one step closer to creating laws the favor a religion. If this statue was a possibility in the United States, it would more likely that not, but funded through citizen taxes and so, by third degree a law is making people support Jesus. Already, the habit of the United States to have an evangelical Christian President, implicit supports the religion of Christianity while ignoring, overlooking, and undeserving other religions.

All in all, the statue of Jesus Christ in Russia is much better than a statue of Vladimir Lenin, however the funds that are being donating to make the statue possible could go towards a lot of other things such as infrastructure or education. Furthermore, I wonder if and or how the statue will affect Russia's views of Christianity.

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It was interesting to read this in light of the events that have been happening on campus with the Black Student Resource Center (BRC). As a black student on campus I know how much of a pillar this center has already become for black students on campus, even though its only been open for about a year. Black christian students meet often in the black resource center for fellowship and the center is a place for black Muslim students to be in community. The vandalism of the BRC is having an effect not only of the broader black community, but also African american students of faith. It is important in times like these for us to have strong black religious leaders to guide us through racists events.

When Smith talked about the fact that race has always been an determinant in what positions African Americans can hold, it reminded me of what Professor Whitaker said in class, how the black church and faith in the black community has been strong for a long time, because slaves’ faith was a way for them to endure their horrendous conditions. The limitations African Americans face in the leadership opportunities is another thing from enslavement.

The fact that African Americans have been so restricted in their professional pursuits is not news, however I never thought that it was still so restricted in the religious sphere. This just further proves that faith in the black community is closely tied to the slavery era. Enslavement has put African Americans behind in so many sectors, including as religious leaders. As mentioned in class, most black churches are run but male leaders, however since these male leaders will lead their church for many many years, there are not a lot of openings. In other denominations and religions, black religious leaders are still being restricted in their opportunities for growth, a side effect from enslavement.

Another thing that stood out in this article was when Gregory said “‘I was not elected to Congress,” he quipped. “I intend to speak and to promote the church’s moral and doctrinal teachings. That comes with the job … But I’m not going to be at any negotiating tables. My place is in the pews with my people.”’. It reminded me of the position Martin Luther King jr took. A lot of people image MLK jr of being more of a social rights activists, but he started as a pastor. He was trained in ministry and that had been his goal. When he was picked to be a leader in the civil rights movement, it was because he had a strong congregation and thus had proven he knew how to speak and lead people. This is relevant to this article because it shows that sometimes spiritual leaders come in with a focus on teaching people about faith, but their natural leader position in their congregations lives, gives them a platform to talk about politics.

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In this article, Aimee Madonna shares her story of being denied a foster child application because of her Catholic faith, by a Protestant organization.

In the west region of South Carolina, Catholics are regularly discriminated against for “not being Christian”, particularly by this foster care organization.

This article relates to a few things that we talked about in class. It discusses groups are considered Christian and  religious group focusing on service opportunities. I will cover that and also how other groups would react to seeing the article or how other groups would react to Ms. Madonna’s request if they were in Miracle Hill’s position.

This article does a great job of sparking the debate of what make a religion a branch of Christianity. According to Dr. Whitaker, for a group to be considered Christian, there has to  be a belief in Jesus and His divinity. Groups like Jehovah Witnesses do not believe in the divinity of Jesus and thus are not considered Christian, especially among more traditional or conservative Christians. Mormons are a tricky group because they do believe in the trinity, but their inclusion of the Book of Mormon in their study, makes many conservative Christian say that Mormons are not Christian. The Mormon church see themselves as Christian, as exampled in a video we watched in class where a Mormon women expressed the frustration people of the Mormon faith feel when others refer to them as Mormon and not Christians. Many people a part of the Mormon church identify as Christian, especially because the full name of their church is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”. If a person of Mormon faith attempted to submit an application with Miracle Hill, they would probably be rejected as well, since they are not Protestant.

As for Jehovah witness, the fact that they do not believe in the the divinity of Jesus Christ classifies them as non-Christian, and thus they would not be granted permission to foster a child by Miracle Hill either.

Miracle Hill is a type of ministry that only allows “born-again Christians” to work at the ministry. They take it a step further by only allowing Protestant, “born-again” Christians to foster the children in their care. This suggests that the ministry would turn away Christians that are liberal or not conservative. This goes well with the idea that a religion’s effect and view of politics and social issues will affect how it is perceived by other religions. If Miracle Hill was run by the Mormon church or by Jehovah Witnesses, Ms. Madonna most likely would have received the same rejection. Though all three of these religions have a heavy focus on community service, they also place a large focus on evangelize and the best way to ensure that the foster children are exposed to specific faiths, are to only place them in homes that practice that faith.

Lastly, this article relates to the government's involvement with politics. In the article it mentions that many Catholics, including the leaders of the Catholics churches in the area, have come to accept this discrimination. On one hand, there are people such as Madonna that are not accepting of this discrimination and who are seeking help from the government. Some would say the government should interfere because this business is not following the first commandment while other would say that the group has the right to discriminate against religions and that the government would be wrong to infer, that the inference would be an intersection of church and state.