Research On Religion » race

Timothy Neary on Race, Sports, and Catholics

tonygill — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 09:00:06 +0000

In the first half of the twentieth century, the city of Chicago was going through a number of economic, political, and demographic changes that drew the attention of the Catholic Church. Prof. Timothy Neary, an associate professor of history at Salve Regina University (Newport, RI), discusses how a popular sports program – the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) – was developed by the Catholic archdiocese in response to growing challenges from secularism, communism, and a changing racial landscape. Prof. Neary recalls how he came to study such a topic in graduate school, taking us back to his past education in Jesuit institutions from high school through his doctorate. We then lay out the scope of his new book Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago 1914-1954, starting with what Chicago as a city looked like at the turn of the century and the changes it experienced over the next half century. This transformation included the rise of Catholic politicians and increased immigration from African Americans, transforming the formerly Irish Catholic neighborhoods of South Chicago into one with a majority black population. We explore the nature of the religious scene paying particular attention to an influential minority of African American Catholics. Tim then explains how an important auxiliary bishop in the Chicago archdiocese — Bernard Sheil — brought his interest in sports to bear on an increasing concern among the clergy to engage in social work as a counter to a number of changes they saw facing their communities in the era of urban industrialization. Inspired by the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno, Bishop Sheil creates the Catholic Youth Organization in 1930 to give adolescents — a newly identified demographic with more teenagers attending high school — an alternative outlet to other less savory activities. Partially inspired by the Protestant YMCAs that were popping up throughout the country, the CYO offered young men and women the opportunity to participate in a number of individual and team sports that crossed parish boundaries and brought disparate members of the Catholic community together in unified activity. We spend some time talking about a very popular sport at the time, boxing. Tim notes that despite being a competitive, martial sport, the CYO was able to use this activity to promote discipline, upright behavior, and a love of God, country, and the papal encyclicals. Open to non-Catholics, it also brought in some converts. Despite the Chicago branch of the CYO falling into disarray after the death of Bishop Sheil, Prof. Neary details the long-term influence this program had in terms of creating greater awareness for racial justice (a growing concern of Sheil) and cultivating a cohort of Black Democrat leaders including the likes of Ralph Metcalfe. (Tony points out that Mr. Metcalfe, a CYO participant and Olympian, was a graduate of Marquette University, his alma mater.) Tim finishes up by discussing what he learned throughout the course of his studies and what the future might hold for Catholics and race relations. Recorded: December 30, 2016.

Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914-1954, by Timothy Neary.

Urban History Association.

Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North. by John McGreevy (mentioned in podcast).

Play Like a Champion Program (Notre Dame).

For God & Country: Bishop Sheil’s Vision for Youth Sports (Feb. 10, 2017 at the University of Notre Dame – public lecture by Prof. Neary).

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Bradley Wright on Religion, Race, and Discrimination

tonygill — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 08:00:05 +0000

When it comes to welcoming a stranger to a new church, are mainline churches, evangelicals, or Catholics more likely to discriminate based upon racial-sounding names? Prof. Bradley Wright — an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut — reveals the findings from his field experiment designed to answer this question. The answers may surprise, and Brad provides some insight into why mainlines churches may differ from evangelicals when it comes to welcoming individuals who are different from them.

The first half of our interview is devoted to a methodological and ethical discussion of Prof. Wright’s innovative study. While this may sound a bit dry to some, understanding how academic studies that are reported in the news are conducted is very important, and both Brad and Tony spice up things with a bit of humorous banter. Brad lists the colleagues who helped in the study, their various roles, where the idea for the project came from (hint: his first book that we link to below), and how the study was set up. To uncover the possible prevalence of racial discrimination across different religious denominations, Brad and his team sent emails out to several thousand churches across the U.S. mentioning that the they were a person moving to the area and looking for a new congregation. The emails were randomly tagged with “racial sounding” names. Prof. Wright discusses how they came up with these names, and how the sample of congregations was generated. We also get into the ethics behind such a study. Brad describes the “internal review board” process and how the identities of participants were protected.

We then review how Brad and his team decided to measure and code responses from churches, determining whether they were “warm and welcoming” or “terse.” We also talk about the all-important category of non-responses, which contain as much information as responses. Tony questions Brad as to whether some responses represent “racial discrimination” or whether the church staff avoided answering a response because they believed they didn’t have the language capacity to minister to certain individuals (particularly true with Asian and Latino congregants). Brad has some interesting comments on this topic.

The second half of the interview looks at some of the theoretical expectations behind the study. Brad introduces Tony to the term “homophily,” which is a sociological concept wherein individuals tend to clump together with others who are like them. While Christianity espouses an openness to all humans, Christians are individual people who do sort out according to demographic and cultural characteristics. That people like to attend churches close to them, and that neighborhoods are clustered according to similar demographics pretty much determines that congregations will be hemophilic as well. But what if somebody of a different race seeks to move into one of these neighborhoods? Who will be more welcoming? The standard hypothesis is that mainline Christians who prefer a “social gospel” theology of racial inclusiveness and justice will be the ones with more open arms to those from different races or ethnicities. Evangelicals, it is assumed, will tend to be more exclusive, fitting in with the general stereotype of them in the media.

Brad finally reveals his findings and, much to his surprise, it turns out that evangelicals are more welcoming to those of different races than are mainline congregations! He also reviews the difference in response rates and response quality to different races, with Asian respondents being the least likely to be welcomed. Brad suggests that this surprising result is due to evangelicals’ emphasis on personal salvation and that this makes them more likely to engage with people one-on-one. This is contrasted with mainline theology that looks more towards groups, and larger systems of social justice. Tony probes Brad’s data a bit more, getting Brad to reveal that there are geographic differences in responses as well, something that he is saving for a future publication. We finish off with some updates on SoulPulse, a “big data” project that seeks to measure how people interact with their faith on a day-to-day and hour-to-hour basis. Listeners can participate in this study by clicking the link below. Recorded: August 21. 2015.

Prof. Wright’s personal blog.

SoulPulse, a unique smart phone-based study that you are participate in.

“Dear Pastor, Can I Come to Your Church?” by Bradley R.E. Wright on Christianity Today (preview).

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told, by Bradley R.E. Wright.

Upside: Surprising Good News About the State of Our World, by Bradley R.E. Wright.

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Darrin Mather on Evangelical and Racial Attitudes.

Luis Bolce on the Media and Anti-Fundamentalism.

Margarita Mooney on Religion & Haitian Immigrants

tonygill — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:00:34 +0000

Although the 2010 earthquake in Haiti generated a great deal of media attention to the plight of individuals living in that country, there has been less focus on the large populations of Haitians who have fled their native country over the past several decades to places such as the United States, Canada and France. Prof. Margarita Mooney — assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center — examines how personal faith and religious organizations assist immigrants adapt to their new surroundings. We briefly review the history of Haiti and the difficulties that immigrants face in a foreign country. Our discussion then turns towards how religion — both personal faith and church institutions (specifically the Catholic Church) — can assist immigrants in finding a personal and communal identity. During the middle of the interview, we take an interesting detour to discuss the methodology behind Prof. Mooney’s research. We have an open discussion regarding how Margarita’s initial expectations for her fieldwork were somewhat frustrated until she began listening directly to her interview subjects about the important role that faith plays in their lives. We talk about how many scholars have often overlooked the role of faith and also discuss what role a researcher plays in studies that involve direct observation. This is a very insightful discussion for both graduate students, undergraduates and non-academics who will gain insights into how social scientifice research is conducted. Afterwards, we talk about what role Catholic religious organizations (both parishes and social service groups) have played in assisting immigrant Haitians in Miami, Montreal, and Paris. Margarita notes that the efforts of Notre Dame d’Haiti and the Pierre Toussaint Center in Miami has been much more successful in helping Haitians adopt to their new circumstances than similar organizations in Montreal and Paris. Prof. Mooney explains this by the specific relationship that local and national governments play in partnering with religious institutions. At the conclusion of the podcast, Margarita shares insights she gleaned from her research on religious organizations with how that may help secular groups better serve their own constituencies. Recorded: July 15, 2011.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Margarita Mooney’s personal website and website at the University of North Carolina.

Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora, by Margarita A. Mooney.

Pierre Toussaint Center (Miami).

Gordon Melton on Mega-Trends in American Religion

tonygill — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:00:19 +0000

J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, joins RoR to talk about changes in American religion over the past two hundred years. We discuss the importance of denominationalism in American religious life, the influx of new religious movements in the 1960s, the influence of immigration on the spiritual landscape and why there has been a significant decline in the number of “unaffiliated” over the past century (despite a small increase in the past decade). We survey the growth and changes in the Baptist Church, Methodism, Pentecostalism and a number of other groups. Dr. Melton, also an ordained Methodist elder and author of Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religion, makes the case that denominationalism is an enduring and important component of American religion. The podcast concludes with some thoughts about race and religion in the United States. Recorded: July 7, 2010.

RELATED LINKS

J. Gordon Melton’s website at Baylor’s ISR.

Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions, 8th Edition, by J. Gordon Melton.

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Brad R.E. Wright on Christian Stereotypes

tonygill — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:00:30 +0000

Bradley R.E. Wright, associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, discusses his new book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told. Is it true that evangelical Protestants have a divorce rate equal to or higher than the secular public? Are Christians really more honest than their unchurched counterparts? Are evangelicals simply poor, white Southerners who are easily led? Using data from a variety of sources, Prof. Wright challenges some commonly held myths about Protestantism in America — myths that are not only propogated by a secular media, but often perpetuated by Christian leaders themselves! We end the podcast with an observation that it may be harmful for Christian ministers to alarm the public about the decline of religion and Christianity. Don’t miss our discussion of big hair or the revelation about a tragic incident in your host’s past! Recorded: July 5, 2010.

RELATED LINKS

Bradley Wright’s website and blog.

Christians Are Hate Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told by Bradley R.E. Wright.

American Religious Identification Survey.