Browsing by Subject "Religion"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 62
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    2009 Congregational Economic Impact Study
    (2009) IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy; Lake Institute on Faith & Giving; The Alban Institute
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    42 U.S.C. § 2000bb–1. Free exercise of religion protected
    (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title42/html/USCODE-2009-title42-chap21B-sec2000bb-1.htm, 1993-11-16)
    (a) In general Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section. (b) Exception Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person— (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest. (c) Judicial relief A person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    6 charts that illustrate the surprising financial strength of American houses of worship
    (The Conversation US, Inc., 2019-12-16) King, David; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Association of Surrogate Decision Makers’ Religious and Spiritual Beliefs with End of Life Decisions
    (Elsevier, 2020-02) Torke, Alexia M.; Fitchett, George; Maiko, Saneta; Burke, Emily S.; Slaven, James E.; Newton Watson, Beth; Ivy, Steven; Monahan, Patrick O.; Biostatistics, School of Public Health
    Context: Although religion and spirituality are important to surrogate decision makers, little is known about the role of religion in decision making regarding life-sustaining treatments. Objectives: To determine the relationships between dimensions of religion and spirituality and medical treatment decisions made by surrogates. Methods: This prospective observational study enrolled patient/surrogate dyads from three hospitals in one metropolitan area. Eligible patients were 65 years or older and admitted to the medicine or medical intensive care services. Baseline surveys between hospital days 2 and 10 assessed seven dimensions of religion and spirituality. Chart reviews of the electronic medical record and regional health information exchange six months after enrollment identified the use of life-sustaining treatments and hospice for patients who died. Results: There were 291 patient/surrogate dyads. When adjusting for other religious dimensions, demographic, and illness factors, only surrogates' belief in miracles was significantly associated with a lower surrogate preference for do-not-resuscitate status (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.39; 95% CI 0.19, 0.78). Among patients who died, higher surrogate intrinsic religiosity was associated with lower patient receipt of life-sustaining treatments within the last 30 days (aOR 0.66; 95% CI 0.45, 0.97). Belief in miracles (aOR 0.30; 95% CI 0.10, 0.96) and higher intrinsic religiosity (aOR 0.70; 95% CI 0.53, 0.93) were associated with lower hospice utilization. Conclusion: Few religious variables are associated with end-of-life preferences or treatment. Belief in miracles and intrinsic religiosity may affect treatment and should be identified and explored with surrogates by trained chaplains or other clinicians with appropriate training.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Black History, Islam, and the Future of the Humanities Beyond White Supremacy
    (Duke University, 2016-02-16) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    Interpreting Islam as a form of Black history offers a scholarly framework for reimagining the humanities beyond white supremacy. This paper theorizes such a framework first by showing how modern Black people in Africa and the African diaspora constructed Islam as a religion and civilization of resistance to Euro-American imperialism and anti-Black racism. Second, and more importantly for the future of the humanities as a whole, it argues that reading Islam as Black history undermines regnant disciplinary maps of global culture and civilization that locate human normativity in white chronoscapes. Philosophy, comparative religion, and general education courses on Western civilization are in need of emancipation from their nineteenth-century racialist ontologies. Islam as Black history offers one means to free these fields from their white supremacist bonds. The final half of the paper provides humanities instructors with African and African diasporic primary and secondary sources that can help to inspire a humanities renaissance beyond white supremacy.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Black Religious Woman’s Corporate Survival: An Independent Study of Race, Gender, Religion, and the Superwoman Schema
    (2020-10) Dubrovensky, Toni
    Black religious women have a unique position within corporate America in comparison to their counterparts. As minorities, they face many significant challenges, such as financial setbacks, underrepresentation, microaggressions, limited advocacy, and limited professional resources, which contribute to stunted or delayed professional growth. One of the primary areas of stunted or delayed growth is leadership. Yet, the drive to survive and succeed still exists and oftentimes manifests itself in the Superwoman Schema. While the Superwoman Schema can be applicable to all Black women, Black religious women are more likely to exhibit traits of the Superwoman Schema in a corporate setting due to their religious values. Thus, the focus of this research is the position and fight for survival of Black religious women in corporate America. This includes defining and identifying how the Superwoman Schema can impact how Black religious women navigate corporate spaces. Using Black feminist theory and secondary research, this literature-based research aims to centralize the modern-day Black religious woman’s corporate experience and what it looks like amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing racial tensions. A 2012 study conducted by The Washington Post has revealed that Black women tend to be more religious than their racial and gender counterparts (Labbé-DeBose, 2012), which makes them more susceptible to isolation from company norms. Their susceptibility can hinder professional development and leadership opportunities. Although the Superwoman Schema is motivated by a sense of duty, it can provide Black religious women with a chance to channel defense mechanisms in a space where they are outnumbered and limited by fostering an attitude of independence.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Changes in Religious Giving Reflect Changes in Involvement: Age and Cohort Effects in Religious Giving, Secular Giving, and Attendance
    (4/11/2007) Wilhelm, Mark O.; Rooney, Patrick M.; Tempel, Eugene R.
    We present two patterns over time in religious giving, secular giving, and religious service attendance. The first pattern describes the prewar cohort (born 1924–1938) as they aged between middle adulthood (ages 35–49) and their senior years (ages 62–76). The second pattern compares the baby boom cohort (born 1951–1965) in middle adulthood to the middle adulthood of the prewar cohort. We present patterns for all families as well as separately for Catholic and Protestant families using data from three sources. The prewar cohort increased their religious giving and attendance as they aged, but—compared to the prewar cohort in middle adulthood—baby boomers give less than expected to religion and attend less. Baby boomer giving is noticeably less-than-expected and attendance noticeably lower among Catholic boomers, but less so among Protestant boomers. We argue that together these patterns are evidence that changes in religious giving reflect changes in religious involvement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Christian Personalism and Human Rights Prior to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Philosophical and Theological Exploration
    (2024-12) Williams, Andrew Lloyd; King, David P.; Badertscher, Katherine; Haberski, Raymond J.; Steensland, Brian
    The high tide of modern transnational institution-building occurred in the immediate aftermath of two profound crises: the Great Depression and World War II. No document better captures the aspirations for a post-war era of greater human welfare than the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR elevated the rights of individual humans above the doctrine of state-sovereignty and embodied the burgeoning view that states have a responsibility to secure the welfare and rights of all persons. A “new” school of human rights historiography has shown that Christian personalists were among the few advocates of “human rights” in this period. Moreover, Jacques Maritain and Charles Malik, prominent Christian personalists, were directly involved in United Nations efforts to codify universal human rights. Yet new-school historiography has over-corrected for “classical” historiography’s penchant to rely heavily on arcane philosophical and theological developments dating centuries and even millennia into the past. New-school historiography deracinates Christian personalism form its nineteenth century forebearers: philosophical personalism, phenomenology, existentialism, and neo-classicism. It also underplays the orthogonal character of a movement that aspired to create a third way between established polarities. The very term “personalism” connotes a middle position between individualism and collectivism: individual human beings have inviolable dignity and are inherently relational. As such, the current picture of the advent of human rights discourse in the mid-twentieth century is incomplete. By connecting Christian personalism to its nineteenth-century philosophical roots and contextualizing its views of the relationship between the individual and the state in the crisis milieu of the transwar era, I fill an important gap in the history of “human rights” discourse in the buildup to the UDHR.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    "Churches in the Vanguard:" Margaret Sanger and the Morality of Birth Control in the 1920s
    (2015-03-30) Maurer, Anna C.; Robertson, Nancy Marie; Cramer, Kevin; Lantzer, Jason S.
    Many religious leaders in the early 1900s were afraid of the immoral associations and repercussions of birth control. The Catholic Church and some Protestants never accepted contraception, or accepted it much later, but many mainline Protestants leaders did change their tune dramatically between the years of 1920 and 1931. This investigation seeks to understand how Margaret Sanger was able to use her rhetoric to move her reform from the leftist outskirts and decadent, sexual connotations into the mainstream of family-friendly, morally virtuous, and even conservative religious approval. Securing the approval of religious leaders subsequently provided the impetus for legal and medical acceptance by the late-1930s. Margaret Sanger used conferences, speeches, articles, her magazine (Birth Control Review), and several books to reinforce her message as she pragmatically shifted from the radical left closer to the center and conservatives. She knew the power of the churches to influence their members, and since the United States population had undeniably a Judeo-Christian base, this power could be harnessed in order to achieve success for the birth control movement, among the conservative medical and political communities and the public at large. Despite the clear consensus against birth control by all mainline Christian churches in 1920, including Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, the decade that followed would bring about a great divide that would continue to widen in successive decades. Sanger put forward many arguments in her works, but the ones which ultimately brought along the relatively conservative religious leaders were those that presented birth control not as a gender equity issue, but rather as a morally constructive reform that had the power to save and strengthen marriages; lessen prostitution and promiscuity; protect the health of women; reduce abortions, infanticide, and infant mortality; and improve the quality of life for children and families. Initially, many conservatives and religious leaders associated the birth control movement with radicals, feminists, prostitutes, and promiscuous youth, and feared contraception would lead to immorality and the deterioration of the family. Without the threat of pregnancy, conservatives feared that youth and even married adults would seize the opportunity to have sex outside of marriage. Others worried the decreasing size of families was a sign of growing selfishness and materialism. In response, Sanger promoted the movement as a way for conservatives to stop the rising divorce rates by strengthening and increasing marriages, and to improve the lives of families by humanely increasing the health and standard of living, for women and children especially. In short, she argued that birth control would not lead to deleterious consequences, but would actually improve family moral values and become an effective humanitarian reform. She recognized that both liberals and conservatives were united in hoping to strengthen the family, and so she emphasized those virtues and actively courted those same conservative religious leaders that had previously shunned birth control and the movement. Throughout the 1920s, she emphasized the ways in which birth control could strengthen marriages and improve the quality of life of women and children, and she effectively won over the relatively conservative religious leaders that she needed to bring about the movement’s public, medical, and political progress.