The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

New Religion Research from Baylor University: American Values, Mental Health, and Technology in the Age of Trump

By Ken Howard

We now take a break from our series on Vision-Guided Experimentation to explore some cutting edge research on the boundary between politics, values, mental health, and technology with a review of the results of the latest survey by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), American Values, Mental Health, and Use of Technology in the Age of Trump.

Given the angry division over anything Trump, it may be worthwhile to start with some bona fides.

Baylor University (BU) is a private, theologically conservative, Evangelical (Baptist) university in Waco, Texas. ISR is a well-respected research organization, dedicated to observing rigorous standards of scientific objectivity while treating the study of religion with “the respect that sacred matters require and deserve.” Its mandate extends to all religions, everywhere, and throughout history, and embraces the study of religious effects on such things as prosocial behavior, family life, population health, economic development, and social conflict. This is ISR’s fifth “wave” of research findings on religion and society since 2005.

Conducted and authored by Paul Froese and several others, Baylor Religion Survey (Wave 5) is really four surveys rolled into one, with focuses on: (1) the spectrum of religious, political, and ideological views that inform how people vote, including (for obvious reasons) where Trump voters fit into that spectrum, (2) faith and mental health, (3) technology and religion, and (4) geography.

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Fact and Opinion, and their Place in Dialogue

by Ken Howard

As many of my readers may know, I am administering a volunteer-moderated Facebook group I started early this year, Dialogue across Differences: Speaking from the Heart, which is dedicated to promoting respectful post-election dialogue across the many fissures that have developed over the years and were terribly exacerbated during the last election. Recently, in response to a question from a dialogue participant, I wrote this post, which I thought would be useful to many of you.

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Groundbreaking Research Article Published – “The Religion Singularity”

Click on image to download PDF copy

By Ken Howard

I am pleased and excited to announce the publication of my peer-reviewed article, “The Religion Singularity,” in the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. The full title of the article is “The Religion Singularity: A Demographic Crisis Destabilizing and Transforming Institutional Christianity.” In this article, I trace the emergence and impact of a worldwide church demographic crisis that has recently entered a critical stage, but has been developing without attention for more than a century. Click here to download a pdf copy of the article or click here to purchase a bound copy.

The crux of the crisis I describe in the article is this. For nineteen centuries, Christianity experienced strong and steady growth in the total numbers of Christians, worship centers, and denominations worldwide. Since then growth in the number of Christians has continued largely unchanged. But growth in the number of denominations and worship centers, mostly due to fragmentation and schism, turned sharply upward in recent decades, substantially exceeding the growth rate of the total Christian population.

This in turn will send attendance and membership numbers in every denomination into a freefall that will soon make denominations and churches unsustainable in their current institutional forms. Denominations are unlikely to survive in any form. Churches on the other hand, given their smaller size and more organic structure, worship centers may be more likely to survive the religion singularity than their larger counterparts, but only if they are willing to become vision-guided and experimental. Stated plainly, we are witnessing the death of institutional Christianity as we know it, and we have already passed the point of no return.

In the paper, I suggest that this presents us with a window of opportunity. We can choose to view the impending death of our longstanding institutional paradigms as an evil and try to fight it (…and fail). Or we can choose to view it as the work of the Holy Spirit, bringing about the death of the old Way, and join with the Spirit in welcoming the birth of the new Way. Our window of opportunity will not remain open long – perhaps ten years at most. Which means we need to get start getting ready now, preparing ourselves not only for the emerging paradigm but for the journey to get there.  The journey will not be easy. In the article, I compare it to taking a dangerous trip through a wormhole, and ending up in an entirely different place and time.

Future blog posts will explore the religion singularity in greater detail, as well as ways to both survive and thrive through the journey and beyond.

We hope you will join us in that conversation.

Press Release: Open Letter to President-elect on Post-election Violence

Conflict resolution experts ask President-elect Trump and other government officials to take a stand to reduce post-election violence

Hundreds of post-election reports of vandalism, beatings and threats since the US election have prompted dozens of leading experts in conflict resolution to urge Donald Trump and government officials at all levels to take an urgent, public stand against post-election acts of discrimination, harassment and violence across the US with significant spillover into Canada.

In an open letter to Trump, members of Congress,State Governors and other officials sent today, dozens of conflict resolution academics and practitioners from across the US, Canada and other countries are asking Trump and other officials to “to use their leadership positions to ensure public understanding that no elected or appointed leaders will condone violence or discriminatory acts or speech.”

The letter advocates that government leaders make “urgent and firm public statements that emphasize the rule of law and the US Constitution, including the First Amendment that guarantees peoples’ rights to freedoms of religion, speech, the press and peaceful assembly.” The experts also seek concrete steps to prevent acts hatred and to foster mutual understanding, respect and civility within the USA.

For the full text of the letter, click here.

Signatories’ quotes:

Barbara Coloroso, internationally recognized speaker and best-selling author of The Bully, The Bullied, and The Not-So-innocent Bystander and Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide…and Why It Matters warned, “It is a short walk from hateful rhetoric to hate crimes to crimes against humanity. ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,’ Mark Twain once said. We are on the precipice of a new stanza.” Contact Barbara Coloroso at info.kidsareworthit[at]gmail.com; phone (+1) 303-478-8253.

Dr. Michael Loadenthal, Executive Director, Peace and Justice Studies Association, stated: “As academics, activists, and educators committed to advancing peace and justice in our world, we are concerned that without an explicit, loud and recurring condemnation of recent hate crimes by the incoming administration, their silence will only encourage more acts of violent hatred.” Contact Michael Loadenthal at info[at]peacejusticestudies.org; phone (+1) 202-681-2057.

Dr. Julie Macfarlane, Distinguished University Professor and professor of law at the University of Windsor in Canada, and author of The New Lawyer: How Settlement is Transforming the Practice of Law commented: “It is not the unique insight of the conflict resolution community that there are profound fault lines of difference and privilege in American, and Canadian, society – differences of race, gender, ethnicity and even opinion. The election rhetoric and result, rightly or wrongly, has empowered those who exploit these differences in a hateful and aggressive way. These acts must be called out, and we expect the state – in both Canada and the US – to act to protect us all from harassment, threats and abuse.” Contact Julie Macfarlane at Julie.Macfarlane[at]uwindsor.ca: phone (+1) 519-733-3327.

The Rev. Ken Howard, Executive Director of The FaithX Project and author of Paradoxy: Beyond Us and Them said: “This election has presented us with a crisis containing both danger and opportunity: we can go further down the dangerous path of destructive, us/them, friend/enemy, left/right divisions, or we can seize this time as an opportunity to seek the radical middle path of transcending our differences by treating all our neighbors as we would like to be treated. I vote for the latter.” Contact Ken Howard at ken@faithx.net; phone (+1). 301-704-3290.

Professor Kevin Clements, Foundation Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand “urges the incoming administration to do all in its power to put an end to the divisive environment in which we are seeing racism, intolerance and challenges to taken-for-granted constitutional rights. The consequences are global. Here in New Zealand, which prides itself on harmonious race relations, new groups have emerged since the election that are stirring up hatred against indigenous peoples and Asian migrants to New Zealand. For the sake of American and global harmony, all leaders in the US must now work to put a stop to rhetoric that fuels prejudice and discrimination.” Contact Kevin Clements at kevin.clements[at]otago.ac.nz or phone (+64) 3 4794546, DDI (+64) 3 4799468, mobile (+64) (0) 212471103 or Skype kevinpclements.

For more information, contact:
Catherine Morris, Director, Peacemakers Trust, Canada, office[at]peacemakers.ca; (+1) 250-477-0129.
www.peacemakers.ca

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