Social Science Research Council

In the Boston Review, Tara McKelvey reports on the hope of Veterans Affairs administrators that religious faith could be a replacement for costly psychiatric care for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan:

During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

Continue reading at the Boston Review.

K.L. Noll begins his recent essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education with a relatively uncontroversial clarification of what the academic study of religion represents:

Religious study attempts to advance knowledge by advancing our understanding about why and how humans are religious, what religion actually does, and how religion has evolved historically. (The latter is my subdiscipline.) Of course, each religion provides its own explanation about why and how the religion exists, but their answers to these questions depend on truth-claims advanced by the religion itself.

He then, however, goes on to insist that theology, while potentially academic, does not actually advance knowledge:

Whereas the theologian advances ideas about the religious value of ritual, religious study attempts to advance knowledge about ritual. Moreover, research suggests that most religious participants either do not know or do not care about the theologian’s ideas concerning the ritual’s significance. They are content to construct their own ideas about ritual, which reveals an irony many theologians fail to comprehend: Not only are the theologian’s ideas about ritual irrelevant to the religion researcher, they are irrelevant to most religious people.

In sum, the religion researcher is related to the theologian as the biologist is related to the frog in her lab.

Read more at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Inside Higher Ed reports on a new phenomenon that is beginning to gain attention and grow: humanist chaplains on college campuses. Writes Steve Kolowich:

The Tufts Freethought Society—a group of about 150 students who identify as atheistic, agnostic, or otherwise non-religious—wants the university to establish a “humanist” chaplaincy to serve as a resource for students who are interested in exploring how to live “ethical and meaningful lives” without subscribing to any religion. They may not be alone, according to Alexander W. Astin, founding director of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, who has studied the issue. “Most students—religious and non-religious—have an interest in what we consider to be spiritual issues: the meaning of life, their most deeply felt values, why they’re in college, what kinds of lives they want to lead, how connected they feel to others, etc.,” Astin wrote in an e-mail. “The current chaplaincies just don’t address the needs of those students,” said Xavier Malina, president of the society at Tufts. “A lot of students might want spiritual guidance but don’t feel comfortable going to the available chaplains on campus, [who] might not satisfy their spiritual needs.”

Continue reading at Inside Higher Ed.

Patheos, a site devoted to “global dialogue about religion and spirituality,” which launched last year, is now partnering with On Faith for a contest that asks college students to make and submit videos about their religious faith and practice:

From Nov. 12, 2009 through Jan. 31, 2010, we invite submissions of short videos (under 5 min. in length).

Videos may be submitted under three categories:

1.  Why I am a [fill in your religion]
2.  How I live my beliefs on campus
3.  Rituals and practices of my faith

The overall winner will receive a $2,500 cash prize. In addition, we will award $1,000 each for the best video in each of the three categories listed above.

Learn more and submit entries at Patheos.

At Religion Dispatches, Richard Ricketts interviews Sharon Nepstad, a sociologist of religion whose new book, Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement, explores the nearly 30-year history of the Catholic anti-war group:

I felt that it was an important movement to document, but I also thought there is a fascinating story here about the role of religion. For whatever reason, a lot of people still have the assumption that religion is a purely conservative force. So I wanted to show another side of it and to show what elements of a faith-based movement make it effective in working for peace. I was also interested in how a shared religious identity helped to link Christians in North and Central America, bridging some of the cultural, class, and ideological differences between these groups.

She also insists that peace work can’t end with the cessation of violence:

Some people feel that once a peace treaty is signed, the conflict is over. But it is certainly not; there is a whole lot more work to be done. Many times during the course of the conflict there have been so many wounds created that it sets the stage for another conflict to erupt. More attention is now being given to post-conflict reconciliation and that is essential. If you look at the literature over time, early references name this field “conflict resolution.” The assumption is that we have fixed the conflict and it’s now completely resolved. More recently, people are starting to use other terms such conflict transformation; people are recognizing that you don’t typically solve conflict in one fell swoop. These are often longstanding, historically-rooted tensions that you can, overtime, transform into a more peaceful situation. But it usually is not resolved with one peace treaty.

Read more at Religion Dispatches.

Harvey Cox and E.J. Dionne, two luminaries of American progressive Christianity, will be discussing Cox’s The Future of Faith tonight at WNYC’s Greene Space in lower Manhattan:

Cox posits that Christianity is undergoing a third period of transformation marked by a disregard of dogma in favor of a more open “spirituality,” and a collapse of barriers between different religions. One of the casualties of this transformation is an historically influential actor in American politics: religious fundamentalism.

Joining Professor Cox will be E.J. Dionne, whose most recent book—Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right—announced the end of the Religious Right’s narrow social agenda, and the rise of more open-minded, social-justice oriented faith movements on both sides of the political aisle. The two will engage in a lively discussion [moderated by Todd Gitlin] on the current and historical role of religion in American politics, and what this ongoing transformation means as current and future administrations struggle with a wide range of foreign and domestic policy challenges.

The event, co-sponsored by the Progressive Book Club and the Center for American Progress, will also be streamed live on Street Prophets. Admission is free and directions to the Greene Space can be found here.

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, Carlin Romano argues that training for journalists needs to be more deeply grounded in philosophical reflection:

If you examine philosophy-department offerings around America, you’ll find staple courses in “Philosophy of Law,” “Philosophy of Art,” “Philosophy of Science,” “Philosophy of Religion,” and a fair number of other areas that make up our world.

It makes sense. Philosophy, as the intellectual enterprise that in its noblest form inspects all areas of life and questions each practice’s fundamental concepts and presumptions, should regularly look at all human activities broad and persistent enough not to be aberrations or idiosyncrasies. (The latter can be reserved for Independent Studies.)

Why, then, don’t you find “Philosophy of Journalism” among those staple courses?

Continue reading at the Chronicle.

Over the summer, a Turkish television station announced its plan for a new game show in which leaders from four world religions vie to convert atheists. Roughly translated as Penitents Compete, the show awards successful converts an all-expense-paid pilgrimage to a holy site of their new faith. At Sightings, Joseph Laycock considers what it might mean for the conversation about religion in Turkey:

If not illegal, many Turks regard the show as inappropriate.  Hamza Aktan, the chairman of Turkey’s High Board of Religious Affairs, has called the show a ratings ploy that is disrespectful to all religions.  He added, “Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs.”  But in a society where so much of religious life is at the discretion of the state, is it reasonable to expect a popular consensus about what constitutes a “respectful” attitude towards religion?

[...]

Nilüfer Narlı, a sociologist from Istanbul Bahçesehir University, commented that Turkey has experienced rising “curiosity” about religion for the last ten years. While Penitents Compete may strike some as gauche, it appears to be an honest exploration, if perhaps a naïve one, of topics that have traditionally been mysterious and taboo. And in a culture where religion has been a controversial subject, Penitents Compete may be the beginning of an important public conversation about pluralism. The format of an unscripted reality show has the potential to challenge assumptions about other religions. For example, the producers do not seem to have considered that Buddhism may be far more palatable to atheists than the Abrahamic religions. Similarly, by putting a human face on Turkey’s atheists, Penitents Compete may ultimately lead towards extending tolerance to non-religious philosophies. If the open discussion of religion remains civil (unlike most American reality shows), the show could even tip the scales in Turkey’s ongoing political battles over head coverings and other forms of religious expression.

Read the entire piece here.

At Big Think, an interview with Cornel West on renewing a sense of value over and above the merely chrematistic:

Read the transcript and see more interviews here.

In the Boston Globe “Ideas” section, Michael Fitzgerald reports on a new Harvard study about how religious belief appears to affect economic behavior: