First up from the God Machine is an annual poll published by Gallup on the role of religion in the United States. This year’s results included plenty of interesting data, but there was one part of the poll that stood out.
Americans are divided in their opinions about the current level of influence displayed by organized religion in America today. Thirty-two percent would like organized religion to have less influence “in this nation,” 27% would like it to have more, and 39% say that the current amount of influence should be kept as is. During the last three years, Americans continued to say that organized religion should have less rather than more influence. […]
There has been a modest change over time in the responses to this organized religion question. Between 2001 and 2004, Americans were slightly more likely to say that organized religion should have more influence rather than less influence in the country. Since 2005, however, the lines have crossed, and now slightly more Americans say that organized religion should have less influence rather than more influence.
I think it’s safe to say this runs counter to the conventional wisdom. In most instances, we’re frequently reminded that the United States is the most religious in the Western world; some even suggest that we’re in the midst of a new religious rival.
And yet, when asked, Americans don’t seem all that anxious to see organized religion have a greater influence. A combined 71% believe it should have the same influence or less.
There are no doubt multiple factors involved in the drift, but it’s also worth noting that during the Bush years, the trend has been increasingly away from organized religion, not towards it. Indeed, in January 2001, the month Bush was inaugurated, 22% of Americans wanted religion to have less national influence. Now that number is 32%. In January 2001, those same people who preferred less religious influence were a distant third nationally (behind influence staying the same and more influence). Now, they’re a strong second.
Next up is a follow-up to a story I first reported on in November. As regular readers may recall, Matthew LaClair, a high school junior in New Jersey, was so fed up with his history teacher proselytizing in class, he recorded the teacher’s in-class religious lessons in order to expose the problem and make the evangelism stop. The teacher, David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher, was heard telling students that if they didn’t accept Jesus, “you belong in hell.” Paszkiewicz also encouraged students to reject modern biology and cosmology.
Paszkiewicz initially lied about his lessons, but LaClair’s recordings set the record straight. In an unsettling turn of events, the school is responding to the controversy by banning recordings in classrooms. (via Norwegianity)
After a public school teacher was recorded telling students they belonged in hell if they did not accept Jesus as their savior, the school board has banned taping in class without an instructor’s permission, and has added training for teachers on the legal requirements for separating church and state.
A junior at Kearny High School in New Jersey, Matthew LaClair, 16, complained to his principal after the teacher in his American history class, David Paszkiewicz, told students that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark and that only Christians had a place in heaven. He started recording the comments in September because, he said, he was afraid school officials would not otherwise believe that the teacher had made them. Matthew said he was ridiculed and threatened after his criticism became public.
After several students complained to the school board that their voices had been broadcast on the Internet and on television news programs without their consent, the board adopted a policy in mid-January that requires students to request permission from an instructor to record or videotape a class.
“Adoption of this rule at this time sends all the wrong messages,” said Paul LaClair, Matthew’s father. “We were in negotiations and this is extremely ill-advised and disrespectful, if not bad faith.”
And, finally this week, a number of churches had planned to use tomorrow’s Super Bowl for congregational gatherings. The NFL, however, won’t let them.
Farmland Friends on Friday joined churches nationwide in abruptly canceling its Super Bowl party for fear of violating a federal copyright law that prohibits public venues from showing NFL games on big-screen TVs. Sports bars are specifically exempted. Churches are not.
The law has been widely ignored for years. Churches routinely draw hundreds of fans to annual Super Bowl parties; some denominations openly use the events as tools for evangelism. The Christian magazine Sports Spectrum even markets a Super Bowl party kit for churches. This year, however, a celebration sponsored by Falls Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis caught the attention of a National Football League attorney, Rachel L. Margolies.
She ordered the church to cancel its party and remove the trademarked Super Bowl name from its website. The Indianapolis Star picked up the story Thursday — and by Friday, pastors across Indiana and beyond were scrambling to yank down their Super Bowl banners and give away their trays of burgers.
“We want to obey the laws of the land,” said Jennifer Lee, the office manager at Farmland Friends Church in Farmland, Ind., about 110 miles northwest of Indianapolis. “But, golly! We were going to have fun.”
Apparently, these gatherings undermine TV ratings — Nielsen only measures viewership at home — so NFL guidelines and federal law mandate that churches, schools and other public venues can hold football-viewing parties only if they use a single, living-room-size TV.
It seems to me very few institutions can crack down on churches like this without a strong public backlash. As it happens, the NFL is just such an institution.