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ch_13_the_city_worships.pptxThe City Worships
The Role of Religion in Cities
Cities have long exerted an important influence over the development of American religion; in turn, religion has shaped the life of America’s cities. As the city shaped religion, religion shaped the city and the nation.
Historians continue to uncover ways in which urban religion enabled individuals to understand, navigate, and contribute to the city around them.
Across the urban landscape, there are an array of cathedrals, churches, and synagogues that serve as visible reminders of diversified urban congregations.
Urbanists should take religion much more seriously than they often do. That’s because it plays a much bigger role in the city and civic health; providing opportunities for emotional support, moral discipline, social networking, economic assistance, and political participation.
Religions of the World (Pew Research Center)
There are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of the world’s people live in countries in which their religious group makes up a majority of the population.
Religions of the World (2010)
2.2 billion Christians (31% of the world’s population),
1.6 billion Muslims (23%),
1.1 billion have no religious affiliation (16%)
1 billion Hindus (15%),
500 million Buddhists (7%)
400 million people (6%) practice various folk or traditional religions,
14 million Jews (0.2%)
Christianity is prevalent in the Americas, South Africa, Europe, Russia, Indonesia, and Australia.
Islam is prevalent in the Middle East, western Asia, and Indonesia.
Buddhism is prevalent in southern Asia.
Hinduism is prevalent in India.
China is largely unaffiliated.
The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion.
Top findings predicting religious affiliation in the U.S. (to 2050).
Atheists, agnostics and religiously unaffiliated people will increase in the United States (from 16% to 26%) but decline as a share of the total worldwide population.
Also in the United States, Christians will drop from 78% to 66% of population. Muslims will surpass Jews as the largest non-Christian religion in the U.S.
Faith and Government
Most of the world’s countries (85%) allow citizens of any religious affiliation to be head of state.
30 of the world’s countries (15%) belong to a unique group of nations that call for their heads of state to have a particular religious affiliation.
More than half of the countries with religion-related restrictions on their heads of state (17) maintain that the office must be held by a Muslim.
19 nations have religious requirements for ceremonial monarchs who serve as their heads of state. Sixteen of these are members of the Commonwealth of Nations with Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state.
The U.S. and Religious Freedom
The U.S. was founded as a result of religious dissent.
The puritans settled New England (1630) to achieve for themselves a freedom from the church and civil officials in England who had prevented them from pursuing their faith as they believed God wanted them to.
Civil religion is term used to describe the relationship between religion and national identity in the United States. The basic theory maintains that an informal civil religion binds the American people to God. (Bellah, 1967).
According to the tenets of civil religion, God will ensure the spread of American values throughout the world.
The U.S. and Separation of Church and State
The concept of “separation of church and state” has been part of the nation’s cornerstone of American democracy.
The Supreme Court first employed the term “separation of church and state” in 1879 as shorthand for the meaning of the First Amendment’s religion clauses.
Although the phrase is not found in the Constitution, no organizing theory has had a greater impact on the way Americans conceptualize the intersection of religion, culture, and politics than the principle of church-state separation.
Religion and Politics
Religion can strongly influence which party a person supports. People will change their political affiliation to fit their religious beliefs.
Political views can play a major role in religious conversion. People change religions or denominations in order to find a fit for their political beliefs.
As much as secular governments strive for a clean break between religion and politics, the two do in reality mix, and they mix in complex ways.
While support for churches’ involvement in politics has fluctuated, there has been consistent agreement that houses of worship should not directly endorse political candidates.
Assignment for Friday, March 10
Complete Chapter Summary Question 13-2: Map the places of worship in your neighborhood and discuss their role in your community.
This submission should be two pages:
One page includes a map (Google, Bing, Yahoo maps or other source) of the places of worship in your community. This can also be hand drawn (I am not grading you on artistic abilities).
One page is a written response to the question. Please state your community, describe the activities of the places of worship, and the role faith plays in your neighborhood (400-500 words, about one page).
