Research On Religion » Countries

Brandon O’Brien on Isaac Backus and Religious Liberty

tonygill — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 08:00:11 +0000

One of our favorite topics of discussion on Research on Religion is religious liberty. Dr. Brandon O’Brien, the Director of Content Development at Redeemer City to City, provides a new angle on that topic as he joins us to discuss Isaac Backus and his new book Demanding Liberty: An Untold Story of American Religious Freedom. After Tony notes that Dr. O’Brien appeared on our show previously talking about the Apostle Paul, Brandon explains his interest in colonial American religious history and how this new book emanated from his dissertation about the religious and political developments of the late 18th century.

Brandon then notes that although we Americans take religious liberty for granted and that it is part of our DNA from the earliest days of our nation, in reality there was an ongoing struggle for religious liberty in the colonial period and the First Amendment to the US Constitution was in no way guaranteed. There were forces championing full public support of religious (select) institutions and partisans on the other side that were very secularist in nature. Enter Isaac Backus, who found a way to thread the needle of these two positions. Brandon reviews the life and times of Isaac, noting his conversion to New Light Christianity during the First Great Awakening, moving towards a “separatist” position.

There were two critical issues that formulated Backus’s view of religious freedom – one theological and the other political. Theologically, Backus wanted to figure out a way to manage the divisive issue of infant baptism when he was a pastor in his Titicut parish. For him, the optimal solution was to allow the freedom for different viewpoints to pursue their own conscience on the matter — i.e., religious freedom. Politically, the issue of religious taxes (or mandatory tithing) was a costly issue for he and his congregants at the time. While Baptists were technically exempt from the Standing Order that required the tax subsidized support of Congregationalist churches in New England, the administration of theses taxes was often arbitrary in execution. Backus pointed out that the British tyranny that patriots were fighting against in the 1770s was the same as minority religious congregations facing the Congregationalist hegemony. All of these came out in Backus’s Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, which helped shaped the background discussion that eventually gave rise to the Bill of Rights.

We finish with some of Dr. O’Brien’s reflections on what he has learned in his varied studies of everything from small churches in the contemporary US, to the bad behavior of Paul, to his most recent publication on Backus. Recorded: June 8, 2018.

RELATED LINKS

Brandon J. O’Brien’s personal website and Redeemer City to City.

Demanding Liberty: An Untold Story of American Religious Freedom, by Brandon J. O’Brien.

The Strategically Small Church, by Brandon J. O’Brien.

Paul Behaving Badly, by Randolph Richards and Brandon O’Brien.

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, by Randolph Richards and Brandon O’Brien.

“An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” by Isaac Backus.

RELATED PODCASTS

Brandon O’Brien on Paul Behaving Badly.

Anthony Gill on the Political Origins of Religious Liberty.

Mark David Hall podcasts on religion and the Founding Fathers.

Podcasts on Religious Liberty.

David Smith on Episodic Religious Persecutions (Encore Presentation)

tonygill — Sun, 13 May 2018 08:00:57 +0000

Although the United States is often viewed as a beacon for religious freedom around the world, thanks in large part to the institutionalization of the First Amendment, the practice of religious toleration has often fallen well short of the ideals set for itself. Prof. David Smith, lecturer in the Department of Government & International Relations and a faculty member at the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney (Australia), discusses his explanation for episodic religious persecution in the United States. Using the Latter Day Saints in the 19th century and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the early 20th century as comparative case studies, he argues that religious minorities that are seen as threats to the established political order will quickly find themselves victims of state-sanctioned persecution.

We begin the discussion with Prof. Smith’s personal journey to this topic. For an Australian studying American politics, a field dominated by quantitative studies of contemporary political behavior, the choice of such a historical topic seems a bit unique. Nonetheless, David points out how the eyes of a foreigner can often uncover interesting behavioral patterns that often go unnoticed by natives. This leads us to a discussion of how “mythic ideals” within a nation often do not match with historical practice, particularly given that human beings are quite fallible when it comes to reaching noble goals.

David then jumps into a detailed elaboration of the persecuted path of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (i.e., Mormons) in the 19th century, from their early days in New York and Ohio, through an “extermination order” in Missouri, to the mob execution of their leader Joseph Smith, and finally through their travails into Utah territory and the struggles to become a state. Along the way, David drops hints at his explanation to come, including how the presence of the Mormons in different areas affected the political calculus among existing elites. David places the debates over polygamy and political partisanship into a context of broader struggles for political power that were affecting the nation in the pre- and post-Civil War era. We learn some interesting things about how Harriet Beecher Stowe, famed feminist crusader, changed her position on whether or not Mormon women should be given the right to vote, and how Reed Smoot (half of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff act) was prevented from taking his seat in the US Senate because of ongoing concerns over polygamy.

We then jump into the early 20th century to discuss the rise of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a seemingly innocuous group of Christians who refused to salute the flag or have their children recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Such actions, combined with their visible proselytizing presence, provoked a number of local organizations such as the American Legion to consider them a serious threat to American nationalism. Combined with concern over the balance of political power at the local level and their stand against military service at a time war was on the horizon, a rash of physical harassment of Witnesses arose in the late 1930s and early 1940s, dissipating around 1941/42 when roughly half of the Witnesses young male missionaries were jailed. We further discuss the reasons why the Witnesses were targetted, but not groups such as the Mennonites and Amish, another religious group that resisted military service and spoke German!

Prof. Smith shows how both of these instances of religious persecution were theoretically linked by how each group — Mormons and Witnesses — were perceived as a political threat to the existing state power structure. We then discuss how his explanation played out in other historic instances of religious persecution (or lack thereof) including Catholics, Jews, and the Nation of Islam (a homegrown Muslim group). Interestingly, while the Nation of Islam was facing persecution (around the time of the Witnesses), political authorities were encouraging Muslim immigration from overseas. We also explore why Muslims over the past decade and a half (since September 11, 2001) have not seen the levels of persecution or harassment experienced by the Mormons and Witnesses. David closes with some thoughts on how future persecutions might be contained. Recorded: January 7, 2014.

Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States, by David Smith.

United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

RELATED PODCASTS

Patrick Mason on Anti-Mormonism and Mitt Romney.

Lynita Newswander on Mormons in America.

Jason Jewell on Locke and Religious Toleration.

Mark Koyama on Jewish Expulsions.

Anthony Gill on Religion and Religious Liberty (An EconTalk simul-podcast).

Anthony Gill on the Political Origins of Religious Liberty.

Michael McBride on Religious Free-Riding and Mormons.

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of American Judaism.

David Patel on Religion & Social Order in Iraq (Encore Presentation)

tonygill — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 08:00:13 +0000

We are still on a break. In the meantime, enjoy one of Tony’s favorite interviews from the past.

Why have many women in the Middle East resorted to increasingly conservative modes of dress in recent decades? And what happens after a political regime rapidly collapses leaving society in near total chaos as happened in Iraq in 2003? Dr. David Patel, a junior research fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, answers these questions and accounts for the rise and success of ISIS by using a political-economic approach to religious institutions and behavior. He links these various topics through the importance of social coordination, signaling, and common knowledge to a society, and explains why Shiites were more successful in limiting violence and providing public goods than Sunnis were in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003.

Our conversation begins with a bit of methodological banter as Tony asks David about the various analytical tools he uses including game theory, geospatial analysis, and ethnography. These theoretical and empirical techniques are rarely employed in conjunction with one another in the social sciences, and David offers a spirited defense of his multi-disciplinary approach and notes that ethnography has received a bad rap in the field of political science. We also talk about how these tools came to be applied to the study of religion and politics in the Middle East, and David and Tony share stories about how manuscript reviewers told them to submit their work to sociology journals since what they did “wasn’t political science.”

We then turn to the topic of “veiling” broadly construed. David quickly corrects Tony’s use of that term noting that “veiling” refers to a covering of the face, but many forms of Islamic conservative attire need not do that, including the use of gloves or simple headscarves (hijabs). Nonetheless, David has noted an increase in the use of more concealing clothing amongst Muslim women in the past several decades. He links this phenomenon to the growing interest among all women for more modest and non-Western forms of apparel. However, when all (or most) women began wearing more conservative attire in the 1970s and ’80s, it created a situation where highly pious women were less able to signal their piety to potential mates in the marriage market. As such, there was a ramping up of concealing clothing so that the truly pious could differentiate themselves from those with less religious commitment. He explains this in the context of a societal marriage market and makes a case that social scientists should pay much more attention to this aspect of society. David further observes that there have been similar trends among men, with the length of beards and style of shoes being important markers for signaling religious adherence.

The discussion shifts gears in a seemingly different direction as we pick up on the topic of Dr. Patel’s current book manuscript on the rebuilding of order in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. While appearing unrelated to the aforementioned topic of Islamic dress, the importance of information and coordination tie these two topics together. David notes how massive looting broke out in Iraq in mere days following the US invasion of Iraq and Hussein’s ouster as president. Such a chaotic situation is a rather untenable one for most people and the re-creation of social order becomes a necessity. Quickly after the collapse of the Iraqi state, we see the emergence of Friday mosque sermons as a means of coordinating local priorities, which is unusual as given that Friday sermons are comparatively rare. Shia mosques turned out to be more successful at coordinating such local priorities, facilitating common knowledge, and providing local public goods (e.g., trash pickup and security) as they had a more hierarchical structure under the direction of Ali al-Sistani.

We conclude our interview with David’s thoughts on the rise of ISIS, why it has been successful, and some of the misconceptions both pundits and policymakers have about its organizational structure. He notes that ISIS’s simple ability to provide public goods and social order in areas where such order is lacking is what can account for its success. We finish with some of David’s personal “ah ha!” moments in his research, including the importance of local social norms and the realization that religion is not merely instrumental but something people hold to be intrinsically valuable. Recorded: September 25, 2015.

Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies.

“ISIS in Iraq: What We Get Wrong and Why 2015 is Not 2007 Redux,” by David Patel.

RELATED PODCASTS

Matthew Derrick on the Geography of the Umma.

Ani Sarkissian on Politics and Religious Civil Society in Turkey.

Paul Kubicek on Islam, Political Islam, and Democracy.

Monica Toft on Religion, Terrorism, and Civil War.

John Owen IV on Confronting Political Islam, Historical Lessons.

Will Inboden on Religious Liberty, Foreign Policy, and the Arab Spring.

Sean Everton on Dark Networks.

Karen Elliott House on Journalism and Saudi Arabia.

Ann Wainscott on Morocco’s Religious Foreign Policy.

Shari Rabin on Jews on the American Frontier

tonygill — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 08:00:08 +0000

What is it like to be a stranger in a strange land on the move, and how does that affect one’s ability to preserve their religious identity? This is a central question take up by Prof. Shari Rabin, an assistant professor of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston and director of the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture, in her new book Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America. We begin, as usual, with a little background on our guest, learning how Prof. Rabin moved from Wisconsin to Georgia and then into the study of Jewish migration. Not surprisingly, we learn that her research interests in graduate school resonated with her own experiences on the move. Shari also gives us a synopsis of the Peralstine/Lipov Center that she runs.

We then move into our discussion on Jewish migration in 19th century America, first with a general overview of Jewish migration patterns dating back to the early colonial period in America. We learn that Charleston actually has the second oldest synagogue in the US dating back to the mid-17th century. Our conversation covers the various “push” and “pull” factors that led many Jews to migrate to American in the early 1800s. In Europe, governments tightly regulated Jewish behavior and living patterns, which served to shape their communities. In the US, by contrast, no such regulations existed and with the opportunity to head out West, it became very easy for one to lose one’s religious identity. The struggle to retain one’s heritage serves to focus the rest of our discussion. It is noted that much of the early Jewish migration was comprised of single males, making it difficult to find a spouse and raise a Jewish family. Intermarriage with Christians always presented itself as one possibility, but there were efforts to provide Jewish matchmaking services in order to retain cultural continuity. Issues of circumcision are also discussed, with Prof. Rabin noting that it was very difficult to find someone qualified to perform the procedure within the required eight days of birth. This, in turn, led to some creative flexibility on the part of Jews who needed to bend the strict rules. Other challenges facing Jews on the move related to finding Jewish “stuff,” such as kosher food, Torah scrolls, prayer shawls, and other elements of the faith that were used on a daily basis. And setting up a synagogue that helped to reinforce communal worship was also difficult as in some communities it was difficult to gather a quorum of believers to establish the congregation.

The final part of our conversation relates to how Jewish theology responded to the physical challenges of living as a minority in mobile times. Shari discusses two central figures in American Jewish history who were aware of these challenges and sought to shape religious identity to the new circumstances — Isaac Mayer Wise and Isaac Leeser. The former was a central figure in the creation of Reform Judaism, whereas the latter tried to preserve more traditional forms of Judaism. Despite their seemingly divergent approaches, Shari points out that these two religious entrepreneurs also shared much in common, using newspapers as a means of communication within the American Jewish community. She notes that the newspapers were not only there to broadcast to Jews the changes in Jewish culture that were occurring, but as Jews wrote into the paper describing their daily challenges, these men were able to keep their “ears to the ground” of the culture and diagnose the problems of the faithful. Their answers to these challenges often led to expanding notions of cultural authenticity, demonstrating that theology can be very flexible to one’s contextual environment. Shari also reveals that because Wise outlived Leeser by nearly three decades, he had a larger imprint on the nature of American Jewish culture. We sum up our discussion with the importance of the year 1877 and two important events. First Isaac Wise’s trip to California led him to write a series of travel letters that indicated his awe of how vibrant the Jewish culture remained in new lands, but also how he was concerned about how some changes (such as intermarriage with Christians) was threatening the long-term viability of the faith. The second major event of that year was the Seligman Affair, wherein a prominent Jewish businessman was prohibited from obtaining lodging in Saratoga, New York. This latter incident revealed that up until that time, Jewish life in American was largely individualistic and invisible, but as the population started to grow and find ways to enhance their communal relationships it often brought with it anti-Semitism and other forms of negative attention. We end the podcast with Prof. Rabin’s thoughts on what she has learned throughout her studies of Jewish life and migration. Recorded: February 23, 2018.

Prof. Rabin’s personal website (with links to her various writings).

Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America, by Shari Rabin.

The American Israelite, the newspaper founded by Isaac Mayer Wise (originally named The Israelite).

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of Being Jewish in America.

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of American Judaism (different than episode listed above).

Daniel Libenson on Present and Future Judaism.

Ken Wald on the Puzzling Politics of American Judaism.

Linda Weiser Friedman on Jewish Humor.

Click out “Jewish” category on the right hand side of our website for more episodes related to Judaism.

Anselm Rink on Missionaries and Political Authority

tonygill — Sun, 04 Mar 2018 09:00:22 +0000

Missionaries can often convert people to another faith, but do their efforts have other effects? Prof. Anselm Rink, a junior professor of political economy at the University of Konstanz (Germany), joins us to discuss an interesting survey and field experiment conducted in Peru to understand the effects missionizing may have on citizen attitudes towards political authority. We begin the conversation with a bit of Prof. Rink’s background and how he ended up studying Protestants in the Peruvian highlands, and he notes that it was part-and-parcel of his Peace Corps experience in Ecuador. We then dive into his study by defining what “political authority” is. Anselm notes that definitions vary quite a bit, but he focuses his attention on two dimensions borrowed from Max Weber — obedience and persuasion. He covers some of the different perspectives on how social scientists have understood these concepts, including a brief mention of the famous Milgram study.

Prof. Rink then lays out his theoretical expectations on why missionaries should have any impact on the dimensions of political authority. As far as obedience goes, it is possible that there are theological reasons a missionary (or other religious leader) would enhance acceptance of authority in that followers are asked to adopt an authority figure. There is also the possibility that there is a habitual mechanism that enforces obedience through generalized rituals. With respect to persuasion, Anselm notes that exposure to new religious ideas could create an intellectual substitution effect wherein people see things differently, or be affected by cognitive dissonance wherein messages from a religious authority may undermine a political message. Prof. Rink then lays out the religious landscape of Peru, pointing out the growth of Protestantism of the Pentecostal and indigenous varieties. When Tony asks whether messages from Catholic priests would have an effect on the dimensions of political authority, Anselm responds that this is possible but he focused his research efforts on Protestant missionaries because they tend to have a more “otherworldly” dimension to their spiritual message and that his theoretical expectations would be that the effects of new religious messages would be more pronounced with stricter denominations.

The conversation then gets scientific as we go over Prof. Rink’s research design, talking about the 16 villages that he chose and how this helped to enhance his field experiment design. Within these villages, there were Adventists, Maranatha Christians, Peruana (indigenous), and churches that had mixed elements of some or all of these. We go through the qualitative interviews he conducted with missionaries and the surveys he administered to local citizens that included an experiment about giving up coins based upon the roll of dice. His findings from this work were rather interesting. It turns out that while Protestant missionaries tended to make their followers more obedient, they actually were less susceptible to persuasion. As such, the effects of missionaries run in somewhat contradictory directions.

We finish off the interview with a discussion of his work on religious radicalization in Kenya with his co-author Kunaal Sharma. Instead of focusing on macro-political and economic explanations (such as economic crisis) for conversion to radical religious movements (both Christian and Muslim), they have been investigating the micro-level foundations for why individuals in a community setting would sign up with radicalized groups. Anselm’s work in both Latin America, Africa, and Europe allows Tony to prompt him about his reflections on his own research. Anselm noted that the similarities among humans in different contexts should be seen as important and has some further views on altruistic behavior. Recorded: February 19, 2018.

Please note: Due to an international Skype connection, the audio of Prof. Rink is a bit compressed and muted. Nonetheless, the intellectual content is superb.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Anselm Rink’s personal webpage and the Department of Politics at University of Konstanz.

“Do Protestant Missionaries Undermine Political Authority? Evidence from Peru,” by Anselm Rink in Comparative Political Studies. (subscription required)

“The Determinants of Religious Radicalization,” by Anselm Rink and Kunaal Sharma in Journal of Conflict Resolution. (subscription required)

RELATED PODCASTS

Robert Woodberry on Missionaries and Democracy.

Christopher Hale on Religion and Protest in Mexico.

Ruth Melkonian on Latin American Protestants.

Andrew Johnson on Pentecostals in Prison in Brazil.

Sarah Dreier on Anglicans, Lutherans, and African Churches.

Proselytism, Humanitarianism, and Development: A Panel Discussion.

Religious Freedom and Political Flourishing: A Panel Discussion.

Kevin Den Dulk on Religion, Education, and Civic Engagement.

Charles North on Religion, Economic Development, and the Rule of Law.

Joel Fetzer on Confucianism and Democracy.

Alison Pond on Being a Mormon Missionary.

Religious Liberty and Violent Religious Extremism.

Eli Berman on Religious Terrorism.

Sean Everton on Dark Networks.

Kenneth Vaughan on Consociationalism, Religion, and Lebanon (and more)

tonygill — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 09:00:40 +0000

Can a country comprised of Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Druze, and Maronite Christians hold itself together politically and avoid conflict? Lebanon, a country with this confessional mixture, has had its problems with religious conflict in the past but has seemed to maintain a reasonably stable polity (relative to other countries in the region) via the institutional design of political consociationalism. Kenneth Vaughan, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Baylor University, explains how this balanced political arrangement is viewed by the different groups in society and what potential stresses it may be facing given important demographic shifts in the population. We begin with an overview of the religious landscape of Lebanon, with Mr. Vaughan noting that it is roughly a three-way split between Sunni, Shia, and Maronites, with Druze making up about 10% of the remainder. The exact breakdown is difficult to know as the Lebanese census prohibits questions on religious affiliation, which not surprisingly would be a highly contentious bit of data given that government offices are divided according to this breakdown.

The division of political positions across demographic (and in this case, religious) groups is known to political sociologists as “consociationalism,” a term coined by political scientist Arend Lijphart. Ken reviews some of the basic research conducted on consociationalism, including work demonstrating that it seems to be an effective form of governance in divided societies such as the Netherlands (namely in the work of Lijphart), but that it hasn’t worked as well in other societies, particularly in places such as India (as noted in the writings of Steven Wilkinson). Ken notes that consociationalism has the potential to create “essentializing identity groups” that become locked-in to the reward structure of the government. Given that Lebanon has been crafted as a consociational system since the National Pact of 1943 and reinforced in the Taif Agreement following a civil war in the mid-1970s, Mr. Vaughan set out to test how different groups view this institutional arrangement, particularly under the realization that demographic trends have been shifting over the past several decades with more Maronites leaving the country and Shiites tending to gain in relative proportion (based upon other research conducted). He finds that Shia Muslims tend to be more trusting of governmental institutions and believe Lebanon to be relatively democratic. Maronites, on the other hand, view Lebanese governing institutions as less trustworthy, democratic, and free. Sunni Muslims were located somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Ken covers his research design using the Arab Barometer survey and the various factors that he controlled for as well, such as age, education, and income.

Following our discussion of Lebanon, we talk about Ken’s current research on religious tolerance and persecution in post-Soviet republics, a study that is in its initial stages. He notes that Muslim republics have tended to have lower levels of religious regulation than nations that are predominately Orthodox Christian, and also sees elements of nationalism being intertwined with religious politics. We close out with some of Ken’s other experiences with religion in other non-Western societies, most notably his time teaching English in China. He tells us about the struggles of various Christian worshipers and house churches, including a variety of illustrative stories about individuals such as the (recently deceased) Samuel Lamb. Ken ends our interview with some interesting reflections on how unique the religious landscape is in the United States relative to the rest of the world and why understanding religion in an international and comparative perspective is important. Recorded: February 19, 2018.

Acts of Faith, by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (mentioned in podcast).

The Plot to Kill God, by Paul Froese (mentioned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

Jeremy Menchick on Islam, Tolerance, and Democracy in Indonesia.

Chris Soper on the Challenge of Religious Pluralism.

Jason Klocek on Religious Conflict and Repression.

Lawrence Rubin on Islam and Ideational Balancing.

David Patel on Religion and Social Order in Iraq.

Paul Kubicek on Islam, Political Islam, and Democracy.

Denis Dragovic on Religion and State-Building.

Nathan Brown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ani Sarkissian on Politics and Religious Civil Society in Turkey.

Ani Sarkissian on Religious Liberty in the Post-Soviet World.

Bradley Murg on Orthodoxy in the Post-Soviet World.

Karrie Koesel on House Churches in China.

Karrie Koesel on Religion and Politics in China.

Quin Monson on Norms, Religion, and Politics

tonygill — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 09:00:11 +0000

How do people view other religions? Are there norms of tolerance (or intolerance) that Americans hold in common? If there are differences in these norms, do they cut across political affiliation? These are some of the questions that Prof. Quin Monson, associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, sets out to answer in a paper that he co-authored with his BYU colleagues Christopher Karpowitz and Kelly Patterson. We discuss their recent findings published in the journal Politics & Religion entitled “Who’s In and Who’s Out: The Politics of Religious Norms.” Before that, though, we include a bit of banter about what it is like being a political science professor and having to answer questions about why we can’t seem to predict the outcome of recent elections. Prof. Monson shares some insights here and notes that scholars are trying to rectify some recent errors and are rediscovering some important research from the past.

We then jump into the world of norms and norm enforcement. Quin defines what norms are — the collective consciousness of a community — and provides a few examples of norms and how they operate. We talk about the norm of standing in line and “first come, first served” and how violations of this commonly known rule are enforced. Prof. Monson notes that the more that is at stake with respect to a norm, the more individuals will seek to sanction a norm violator. He also mentions Tony’s recent work on tipping (gratuities), allowing him to post a link to that conversation below! Quin further illustrates the role of norms in politics through an earlier study he conducted on how voters perceive privacy at the ballot box. A field experiment conducted at polling sites, wherein tape was placed around voting booths to signify a private space had an effect on how poll workers interacted with citizens. We then review the difficulty in measuring norms within a quantitative framework.

This conversation on measuring norms leads us into Quin’s recent survey experiment on the religious attitudes people hold and whether they are willing to sanction people with respect to “inappropriate” statements against certain denominations. We briefly cover the history of religious discrimination in American that includes anti-Catholicism, anti-Mormonism, and anti-Semitism. Prof. Monson leads us then through an interesting survey experiment he conducted with the help of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a research project involving some 50,000 subjects that can be broken down into 1,000 person modules for specific projects. Quin reviews the pre- and post-test design of the study and explains how he and his colleagues sought to measure religious intolerance and the willingness to chastise other individuals for holding such views. He reads a vignette that was given randomly to respondents which was based off of some comments that comedian and social commentator Bill Maher had made towards religion. They modified this statement to include the religious categories of Catholics, Mormons, Jews, evangelical Christians, Muslims, and Mitt Romney. The latter was added as an interesting control given the 2012 test surrounded the presidential election involving Mitt Romney, the first Mormon presidential candidate. The findings from this study indicated that the level of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism was relatively low, and that individual respondents were often upset at people holding such views. The largest effect, though, related towards whether or not individuals would sanction comments calling Muslims “weird.” Democrats were more likely to disapprove or sanction negative statements against Muslims, whereas Republicans were not. Quin mentioned that this may be have been a precursor of what happened in the political rhetoric of the 2016 election. We finish off the podcast with Quin’s thoughts on how norms may be changing in society and what things he has most learned throughout his career. Recorded: December 15, 2017.

“Who’s In and Who’s Out: The Politics of Religious Norms,” by Christopher Karpowitz, Quin Monson, and Kelly Patterson (requires subscription).

Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics, by David Campbell, John Green, and Quin Monson.

Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

Anthony Gill on Tipping (EconTalk podcast mentioned during discussion).

RELATED PODCASTS

David Campbell & Quin Monson on Mormons and Politics in America.

Patrick Mason on Anti-Mormonism and Mitt Romney.

David Smith on Episodic Religious Persecutions.

Lynita Newswander on Mormons in America.

Jeremy Castle on Religion and Voting Behavior.

Luis Bolce and the Media and Anti-Fundamentalism.

Bradley Wright on Religion, Race, and Discrimination.

Laura Olson on Attitudes toward Religious Free Exercise.

Jason Jewell on John Locke and Religious Toleration.

Corwin Smidt on Religion, Elections, and the God Gap.

Gerald De Maio on the Electoral God Gap.

Tracy McKenzie on the First Thanksgiving (Annual Encore)

tonygill — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 16:33:01 +0000

While Tony is taking an extended sabbatical and trying to update some technical issues with the audio, we encourage you to enjoy this annual favorite of his.

What events led up to the “First” Thanksgiving and what was life like for the Pilgrims who celebrated it? Prof. Tracy McKenzie, a professor in the Department of History at Wheaton College, takes up this topic from the vantage point of a Christian historian. He challenges some of our “grade school” understandings of what that event was all about, but in a manner that retains the reverence for the people and events during that time.

We start our conversation by looking at the topic of “revisionist history.” Prof. McKenzie provides a very profound and nuanced discussion of what it means to be “revisionist,” while simultaneously admitting that he is not a fan of that term. A good portion of what Tracy does in his most recent work is not only to discuss Thanksgiving, but is designed to prompt Christians to think critically about their history as a means of living their faith more honestly. As part of this, we quickly learn that the “First” Thanksgiving celebrated on the fourth Thursday of every November is not actually the first thanksgiving in the New World. Tracy explains why this is.

We then explore who the Pilgrims were and what motivated them to eventually set sail for Virginia, initially, but had them landing in modern day Massachusetts. This discussion includes what the Pilgrims believed theologically and how they acted out their faith. Surprisingly, we discover that the Pilgrims were very averse to celebrating the traditional holidays we take for granted today, such as Christmas and Easter, but rather considered only Sunday as the only “holy day.” Prof. McKenzie then shares how “days of thanksgiving” were celebrated by the Pilgrims, but not as a regular holiday but rather as a “particular holy day” that would only be called on special occasions.

We also bring up several other characteristics of the Pilgrims that might surprise us, including their dislike of the King James Bible and how they prayed with eyes upward rather than heads bowed. And one of the more interesting aspects of the Pilgrims to come up was that they never gave thanks for their food before eating, although they did pray to have the food blessed. The political views of these Separatists then comes into our discussion as well as the diversity of the passengers aboard the Mayflower and how that diversity would be managed with the Mayflower Compact. The economic conditions of the Pilgrims in their first year falls under our scrutiny, observing that they first set out with a communal farming structure but this breaks down after two years and William Bradford agrees to privatize parcels of land.

Other topics covered include relations with the Wampanoags, how the “first” Thanksgiving was celebrated, and how this event is forgotten for nearly 200 years until it came to capture the American imagination in the 1820s and ’40s. Tracy also reveals how Thanksgiving was considered a “Yankee” holiday during the secessionist crisis that led up to the Civil War and how it eventually became a nationally-recognized holiday under the FDR administration.

Prof. McKenzie finishes the interview with his own reflections on what this story of Thanksgiving has meant to him and his family, and how Christians need to celebrate their history as well as remembering it for what it really is. His insights as a father, and not just a historian, should resonate with many of our listeners. This is an encore presentation. Recorded: November 5, 2012.

Faith & History, Tracy McKenzie’s personal blog.

The First Thanksgiving, by Tracy McKenzie.

Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War, by Tracy McKenzie.

One South or Many? Plantation Belt and Upcountry in Civil War Era Tennessee, by Tracy McKenzie.

RELATED PODCASTS

Thomas Kidd on the Pilgrims.

Scott Carroll on the King James Bible.

Evan Haefeli on the Dutch Origins of Religious Liberty.

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of Being Jewish in America (Encore Presentation)

tonygill — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 09:00:02 +0000

Welcome new visitors. Please enjoy this episode and other great discussions in our archives (now 350+ episodes deep), and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Also, we are on a short sabbatical but will return soon with some crescent fresh interviews.

What are the various cost constraints with being Jewish in America? Prof. Carmel Chiswick, a research professor of economics at George Washington University, uses the lens of economics to reveal the various constraints facing a religious minority in the United States and how this affects Jewish culture. We walk through her book Judaism in Transition: How Economic Choices Shape Religious Tradition.

We start the conversation with a general overview of Jews in America, including the size of the population, their immigration history, and other demographic features. It is pointed out that Jews are both an ethnic group, and a group with a distinct religion. We chat a bit about how Jewish (in terms of religion) Jews are in America. Prof. Chiswick then discusses the difference between Great Tradition and small tradition Judaism. The former focuses on the essential religious components of Judaism, including the Torah, Talmud, Mishnah and several key holy days. Small tradition Judaism, on the other hand, is a reflection of different cultural practices and emphases that can vary across different groups of Jews (e.g., Spehardi or Ashkenazi) and across time. This is mixed with some personal reflection on her own life growing up Jewish, which gives this academic topic a much more personal touch. Carmel explains why she chose to write her book with these personal stories, noting that she uses economics everyday to understand her own daily choices.

We then begin a discussion of how economics is used to explain Jewish behavior and traditions. Carmel gives us a good introduction of how actions not only have a financial cost but a time cost as well, resulting in what economists call the “full price” (or “real cost”). She points out that there are a variety of constraints on Jews in America that affect how they make decisions about worship and other aspects of life. For example, as an individual becomes wealthier, the cost of their time also increases and this has an impact on how synagogue worship has been conducted given that Jews have been an upwardly mobile community. We also talk about the issue of human capital and education and the constrained choices that have to be made here. Carmel reflects upon her family’s decision whether to send their children to Hebrew or public school, as well as the reliance upon summer camps and other activities that are designed to preserve Jewish religious culture in an environment where time becomes more valuable for professional parents.

Carmel next lays out some of the contemporary challenges facing Jews in America. Most notable among these challenges are the new demographic categories that are emerging, principally “young adult singles” and “empty nesters.” With marriage ages increasing quite substantially over the past few decades, there is a growing population of individuals in their 20s and early 30s who are not married, do not have children, and who do not feel as connected to the synagogue. Whereas people often connect with religious institutions when they have children, and synagogues often cater to the needs of this group, the decade or so wherein individuals are not married or having children becomes a time when they can drift away from their faith. We also discuss the issue of intermarriage and how that might affect the Jewish population in the future. Interestingly, the rise of “young adult singles” also gives rise to another demographic group known as “empty nesters” who are not actively raising kids yet are not grandparents either. Once again, this becomes a life cycle point where people do not feel as connected to the synagogue. (Note: These issues arise again in next week’s podcast with Daniel Libenson, who discusses some attempts to deal with this new environment.)

We finish off with some of Carmel’s personal observations on what she has learned in her years studying the economics of religion, being Jewish in America, and writing her highly readable book. Recorded: April 7, 2015.

Judaism in Transition: How Economic Choices Shape Religious Tradition, by Carmel U. Chiswick.

Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC).

RELATED PODCASTS

Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of American Judaism.

Daniel Libenson on the Jewish Future.

Linda Weiser Friedman on Jewish Humor.

Colleen Haight on Jewish Peddlers in 19th Century America.

Larry Iannaccone on Sacrifice, Stigma, and the Economics of Religion.

Jeff Levin on Judaism and Health.

Mark Glickman on the Cairo Genizah.

Mark Koyama on the Economics of Jewish Expulsions.

Ken Wald on the Puzzling Politics of American Jews.

Ellie Estrin on the Traditions of Chanukah.

Rajdeep Singh on American Sikhs and Religious Liberty.

Robert Nelson on Lutheranism and Nordic Social Democracy

tonygill — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 08:00:20 +0000

The Nordic nations of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have long been known for maintaining quality governance, high levels of socio-economic equality, and high levels of happiness amongst the population. While political economists have been pressed to explain the success of these countries, Prof. Robert Nelson, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, suggests that it may have something to do with its “Lutheran Ethic.” We begin this discussion with a retrospective of Prof. Nelson’s career, which had him completing a PhD in economics and focusing on land use issues for several decades. The curious question for listeners becomes how he began writing on issues related to religion, to which he gives a very interesting and introspective reply, including a bit of discussion of his own thinking on whether a god exists. We then move into his definition of religion, which tends to be broader than used by other scholars. The conversation turns to a discussion of the “Protestant Ethic” as famously noted by Max Weber, and Bob’s corrective which points out that Weber was really talking about a Calvinistic ethic, which was different than the theological culture that Luther himself gave rise to within Lutheranism. We talk about who Luther was, what he considered to be important virtues, and how he viewed “free market capitalism” (to the extent that something like that was explicitly known in Europe at the time). Prof. Nelson notes that Luther was hostile towards the idea of “self-interest,” had a strong sense of community (more so than, say, the Calvinists), emphasized the virtue of “calling” and the need to serve community, and was big on the Golden Rule. He provides some insight into how this translates into Finnish culture about “general rights,” a notion of property that is different than what is thought about in the United States. Bob covers a few other differences that Lutheranism has with respect to Calvinism, including that Lutheranism was more “top down” in in application of community. We also review Luther’s changing attitudes towards governmental authority, particularly in light of the “mob rule” of the Peasants’ Revolt. The next topic up involves a survey of “social democracy,” and what that means in contemporary Scandinavia. We briefly review the history of the Nordic social welfare states, how these nations jettisoned the class warfare mentality of early 20th century socialists, and how it is viewed culturally as “The People’s Home.” Dr. Nelson notes that over time the notion of “economic progress” by way of social science came to replace many of the Lutheran ideas that were inculcated in those countries in centuries earlier, but how this new secular ideology has much in common with previous Lutheran theology. We go through a number of key points within Lutheranism and compare them to contemporary social values and norms within Nordic society. The interview concludes with some of Bob’s thoughts on where Nordic social democracy is today, and why it may be headed into crisis. Recorded: October 2, 2017.

Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of Social Democracy, by Robert Nelson. (Also available with e-book version at Aarhus University Press.)

God? Very Probably: Five Rational Ways of Thinking about the Question of a God, by Robert Nelson.

The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America, by Robert Nelson.

Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond, by Robert Nelson.

Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics, by Robert Nelson.

Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government, by Robert Nelson.

Public Lands and Private Rights: The Failure of Scientific Management, by Robert Nelson and Sally Fairfax.

Mind and Cosmos, by Thomas Nagel (menti0ned in podcast).

RELATED PODCASTS

The Protestant Reformation Series (including other podcasts from Goldman, Pfaff, Sorenson, Gray, and Stark).

Robert Nelson on Environmentalism as Religion.