Here is an article about religious diversity on campus. It isn't election politics per se (though it does mention the election), but it does resonate with some of the themes we've talked about so far.
It came as no surprise to me to read the recent New York Times article indicating that Muslim students feel particularly welcome on Roman Catholic campuses...
A pleasurable benefit of being educated is encountering references that you've read before, understanding the reference in more depth and how it fits with the rest of the article even without needing to read it. In this article, you know one of the cited authors:
Robert Putnam, who teaches American politics at Harvard, emphasizes that faith communities are the single largest repository of social capital in America, but...
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I, personally, am not surprised that religion and faith have become such open discussion topics with everyone. For those of us who do have a faith and a belief system, that usually has a pretty big part to play in our lives and in our identity. There is now more diversity on college campuses, in workplaces, and in businesses than there ever was before, and this diversity introduces a lot of different religions into the mix. Also, with all of the conflict in the middle east, it is obvious that religion would come up in discussion over that issue. That being said, it is not surprising to me that religion has become more of an open topic. It is also not surprising to me that college campuses are becoming more and more tolerant of different religions. In today's society, discrimination is illegal. People's attitudes towards race, gender, and religion have changed, and people are more accepting of differences. We realize now that being closed minded towards something is not helpful, and is in fact damaging to society. The tolerance of Muslim students on a Catholic campus is simply the result of years and years of equality movements, such as desegregation and human rights movements. I think that as time goes on, tolerance of religion will become even more widely used, and we won't even think twice about someone being different than us.
ReplyDeleteI found this article was very thought provoking, when it came to interreligious colleges and inter-faiths studies and organizations. I agree with the author in regards to the fact that if we as Americans somewhat force or motivate students to mingle and co-live with others from different religions than one day Americans will not see people as from certain religious groups but for who they are as people. The author makes a good point about how in the 90’s there was a movement toward racial equality and now on campuses and in the White House we see people from all different races working, and living together. I believe that in today’s world we as American as less likely to be racist than we are to be religiously prejudice, and this could all change if we allowed people our age and students across the US to co-mingle with other religions freely, instead of having the minority hiding behind the majority for fear of humiliation. To which I conclude that with years upon years of co-mingling, and somewhat forcing students to participate or learn about of religions besides their own, we as Americans can overcome the strong religious prejudice we have, to create a world where like the author says could have a Sikh person as President.
ReplyDeleteThis article is very thought provoking, particularly because research shows that more and more people practice no religion. I think this article relates well to the things we've been talking about in class. Times are changing, obviously. When our nation was founded, it was largely normative to hold Christian values. And although Christians are called to "love their enemies" and "bless those who persecute them", they have a really bad track record of doing just that. I believe that this has been a huge contributing factor to the secularization of our culture - when people are hurt or burned by the church, why would they want to be a part of it? When people do not have something outside of their own moral compass by which to measure their actions, we reach this "anything goes" society. "Tolerance" is a popular movement in our culture. While some see tolerance as something positive, I've heard others comment things like "tolerance is for the person who lacks conviction". Since everyone seems to define tolerance differently, this is a hard issue to approach. Anyways, this is me thinking out loud. But I believe it is important and positive for people to have inter-religious knowledge and I don't think Appalachian is "there". I feel safe saying that the overwhelming majority of students on our campus would consider themselves Christian, and that they know nothing about other faiths. I would even venture to say that those who are religious know little about the faith that they claim to posses. Perhaps I am wrong - only speaking from my personal experiences and conversations. Did this even make any sense...
ReplyDeleteI agree with the article where it states that we should no longer ignore faith identity. With attention going to every aspect of someone’s life, religion should also be taken into account. Faith identity needs to be carried out in a positive and proper fashion. I feel that it’s great that religion has become such an open conversation, it’s able to allow much more diversity opposed to previously. One of the previous posters mention how that in today’s world we as Americans are less likely to be racist than we are to be religiously prejudice. I agree with that statement. As time goes on though, I think that people will become less judgmental and far more respectful of other forms of religion.
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