The Jerk Club

Someone very close to me inadvertently joined the jerk club. You see, she was trying to submit a book order to a person at the campus where she works. The fellow did not respond, so she sent another order. Still no response. Finally, upset about the problems that it would cause she sent a strongly-worded message insisting that he get back to her.


She learned a few days later that he had passed away a couple months ago. Oops....


She told this to a colleague, and the colleague welcomed her to the "jerk" club for chewing out a dead guy.


This colleague then told her of other inductees, and, well, there are good stories of dumb things people do on campus.

Today's obscure religous metaphore

"Go to heaven in a wheelbarrow" To be damned to eternal suffering; to go to hell. This obsolete expression has been traced to a window in Gloucestershire, England, depicting Satan wheeling away a termagant woman in a wheelbarrow.

This oppressor must needs go to heaven, … But it will be, as the by-word is, in a Wheel-barrow; the fiends, and not the Angels will take hold on him. (Thomas Adams, Gods Bounty, 1618)

Source

Sociologists on strike cartoon

Thanks Steve!

Thoughts about the Vineyard Denomination

Yesterday I received and e-mail that was encouraging and depressing at the same time. It was from a member of the Vineyard denomination, and noted that my book contains a story about the Vineyard, and he wondered, with concern, if I had had a bad experience with the Vineyard.


In the story, I tell of going to a healing meeting held by some friends at college who had gotten involved with the Vineyard. At my first meeting, I was all ready to receive the spirit, and during worship I felt a warm tingling feeling on my arm, and, to make a long story short, it was just the heating vent on the floor.


I meant the story as simply another "foolish me" story (and there are a lot of them), not at all a critique of the Vineyard. I actually was profoundly influenced by my friends' services such that I started attending Vineyard Conferences, and, upon graduating from college, moved to SoCal to be involved in a Vineyard for several years. Much of how I understand Christianity now was shaped by the teachings and my experiences with the Vineyard, and I have nothing but appreciation for the Vineyard and the people that I knew. 

So, I was depressed that I had communicated poorly, but I was very encouraged that the Vineyard person handled the situation so well. He wrote with concern and clarification--just like a Christian should. I suppose that fits with the theme of the book--that Christians very often act as they should. Well done Vineyard!

How professors dress

Thanks Gerardo...

Is it true? Atheists know more about religion than Christians

Periodically I get e-mails regarding a statistic that has recently come out regarding Christianity. I appreciate these e-mails, and I got a bunch this week regarding a study recently released by Pew. In this study, Pew administered a 32 question test about different world religions to 3,400 Americans, and when the results were tallied, it turns out that Atheists, Jews, and Mormons scored the highest. Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics the lowest, White Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mainline Protestants in the middle. Here's the table from Pew:

In response, some Atheists have crowed about their knowledge, implying this survey supports the wisdom of their position. From the New York Times, the president of the American Atheists said: “I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people.... Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”


My thoughts about this study? Well, first of all Pew is a very reputable source of information about religion in America, and I frequently use their data in my own research. They have solid methods and present the material with a minimum of sensationalism.


For me, the more interesting data comes in the reports next table, presented here:

When broken down by type of question, it turns out that atheists and agnostics know more about other religions, but some types of Christians know more about Christianity.  Evangelicals, for example, score higher (though I'm not sure about the statistical significance of this difference).  In fact, for me the big surprise of the report was that Evangelicals scored higher than mainline Protestants (though I'm not sure why I would have expected otherwise).  This goes against the argument that atheists/agnostics reject Christianity because they have learned so much about it. As such, it might be more accurate to say that they know more about "religions" than "religion" per se.


I make this distinction because this test asks basic historical, biographical, and theological questions about religion. However, for many people, including myself, my interest in Christianity isn't one of detached fact-collecting, rather it's the practice of it. So, knowing about Jonathan Edwards, a cool 18th century Christian theologian, may be interesting, but it's not that important for me to know as a Christian.


I certainly don't fault Pew for this test... it's interesting for what it is. To illustrate what it doesn't do, imagine a test that describes various life situations and asks what a Christian should do (e.g., love your enemy, serve the poor, have faith in God, etc...). This type of test would get at the essence of Christianity in a way that factoids do not.

An interview in Christianity Today

Here's an interview with me in the magazine Christianity Today.  I really enjoyed talking with Ted Olsen, and his editing made me sound more well-spoken than I really am.  Thanks Ted!

A near-death experience

Spent a couple days in New York City last week at a symposium, and during one of the breaks I started chatting with a guy sitting next to me. He mentioned having had a heart attack several years earlier, and he had one of those see-the-light near death experiences. Apparently he was medically dead on the operating table for a bit before they could revive him, and during that time, he talked with God. He experienced God telling him something along the lines of: "You know, I've always been with you" to which this guy replied "I know". Then God said "And I'll be with your children" to which he gave the same reply.


I really enjoyed hearing this story, and after we had talked about it for awhile, I asked him how people responded to it. He said that about half were very interested, but about half felt very uncomfortable and just changed the topic.


Stories like this are fascinating, and I've read some books based on them. But, theologically I'm not sure how to make sense of these kinds of experiences. Aren't they sort of Heaven's version of catch-and-release?


At least the people who experience them usually have positive messages. Imagine hearing "who are you?" or "are you ever in trouble."

A great departmental website

Now, this is how department websites should be done!

Just the social facts, ma'am

My good friend David Weakliem just started a blog.  He's a master at finding obscure, interesting survey data, and here's his place for sharing his findings.  Always interesting, perhaps occasionally important.  :-)


http://justthesocialfacts.blogspot.com/

Check it out!

I think this is a compliment?

From another e-mail, from someone who has known me for awhile...


"In our often uncertain world, your somewhat sick, sarcastic, make-me belly-laugh sense of humor is commended for its almost droid-like consistency!"


I think this is good?

Twittering

I decided that having a Facebook account, blog, e-mail, phone, and stamps for letters simply didn't not give me enough ways to communicate with others, so I've started twittering as well.


http://twitter.com/bradley_wright


More and more my ideas and thoughts about life don't exceed 140 characters, so Twitter seems like a good idea. :-)

A critique from an Asian Christian

One of the interesting things about writing a book is seeing how people react to it. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail I received from a self-identified "Asian-Christian" (Chinese judging from the name). S/he starts out with some nice things to say, and then offers these corrections. Basically, they boil down to 1) I shouldn't tell jokes about sacred things and 2) what I perceive as discrimination might be acceptable. Not that I agree with these comments, but they highlight for me some very real cultural differences in how Christians think.


*****


On P77 - Don't blaspheme using the term "holy trinity" in a joke; it must not be used other than describing the Godhead in a respectful way. I have seen frequent misuse of the word "Trinity" even among Christians. Has blaspheming become a trend among Christians in N. America?


On P20 - You should not have used a femine pronoun for a pastor since the Bible clearly prohibits female's spiritual authority over males and in fact the vast majority of ordained pastors are males. It's a mockery to male pastors.


On P69 - No Christians will try to find the future by the crystal ball; i t's a demonic sorcery.


On P178 - Christians MUST oppose gay speaking. Why should any Christians support or be neutral regarding perverts speaking in public? What do those humans who feel sexual desires for the same sex have anything worth to say? They are out there to promote perversion. Does American society force us to hear child molesters or the criminals of incest? Not yet. The question must be if Christians could dine with perverts and share the Gospel. Nothing more. We don't need peace when the society is so accepting of immorality. Immoral, pervert civilization won't have peace, since it doesn't deserve it. Christianity is for righteousness, not peace alone.


Next are my questions for you to ponder


On P 178 - Why is it wrong for whites to oppose kin's marriage to blacks or colored? Nothing is wrong with that!! I'm an Asian myself and we usually never favor inter-national marriage, let alone inter-racial merriage. Opposing inter-racial marriage is a natural inclination of mankind to preserve a race and order, not always racism. Of course we expect exceptions, but they are exceptions nontheless.


I have a personal question here for you. Why do white people nowadays so harsh on themselves or their ancestors? It looks ridiculous to outsiders. A picture of self-destruction. We colored people respected white people a lot more 30, 40, even 50 years ago and before. Whites don't need to be bash themselves to maintain respect. Colored people have plenty racism, vicious nature and horrible pasts(and current goings); I hope more white Americans could master some non-European languages so they can find more wholesome reality of the world.


On P 193 - Nothing is wrong for Christians to have negative opinion on cults and pagans and anti-God groups. It'd be a real problem if we don't have low opinion on them! They have outright serious theological and ethical and other problems. The right questions would be "Would you host a dinner for them?" Or "talk with them kindly and help them?" That's as far Jesus went, nothing beyond. Christians have been really compassionate throughout the history and the barbaric mankind learned to accept others through Christianity.

Article about religion and education

Yahoo, a paper just got accepted on which I'm a coauthor. It's written by a student, Michael McFarland, who is now working on his PhD at Texas.

It's entitled: "Educational Attainment and Religiosity: Exploring Variations by Religious Tradition," and it will be coming out in Sociology of Religion.


Here's the abstract:
This study examines the relationship between educational attainment and various dimensions of religiosity. On the basis of a network closure argument, we hypothesize that the relationship between education and religiosity varies by religious tradition. Analyzing data from the 1972–2006 General Social Survey, we found that educational attainment predicted increased attendance at religious services, decreased levels of prayer, increased inclination to view the Bible as a book of fables, and decreased inclination to view the Bible as the literal word of God. These relationships, however, significantly interacted with religious tradition. Increased education largely resulted in greater religiosity among evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, and Catholics but not among mainline Protestants and the nonaffiliated. Overall, this study shows that education does not uniformly decrease religiosity and highlights the importance of considering religious tradition in future research.




Always gratifying when journals say "yes"

A statistic about Christian pastors mutates

Here's a nice discussion about some stats about christian pastors that are floating around the net. It claims that thousands of pastors leave the church each month, and it attributes the stat to Barna (though I read somewhere else that Barna doesn't claim it).


Either way, yet another cancerous stat.


Thanks Mike.

School sign (pic)

Things people do when they are texting

For awhile now, I've been noticing that people text while doing just about anything else. Yesterday I was driving across campus, which has lots of construction underway, and a police officer directing traffic almost caused an accident because he didn't see two cars coming into the intersection at the same time. Why? Because he was texting.


I've also seen gratuitous texting while people are:
* Driving (of course)
* Walking across the state highway next to UConn, amidst traffic
* During one of my lectures (who wouldn't want to)
* Using a urinal at a Notre Dame football game, while also holding a big cup of beer
* Scolding their child in a supermarket parking lot
* Playing with their children in a park
* Riding a roller coaster at Six Flags
* Talking to me during office hours


Any to add to this list?

Gen X kids are more loyal to religion

From the Scientific American website: (Thanks Jay!)


***
"Research published this week reveals a surprising trend among the American generation X—the group who came of age in the late 1980s and 1990s and are known for their rejection of all things conventional. It appears that in comparison to the baby boomers, Gen-Xers are significantly more loyal to religion.


Scientists analyzed survey responses from more than 37,000 people between the years 1973 to 2006. Their results are published in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. They found that boomers are 40 to 50 percent more likely to abandon their religious faith, than gen-Xers.


Interesting to note, from those surveyed, the number of Americans with no religious affiliation doubled in the 1990s and continues to increase through the first decade of this century.


The researchers attribute this drop off to the boomers who were likely to have abandoned religion in young adulthood perhaps due to the rejection of organized authority or what the researchers call the “1960s effect.”


So what’s up with this newfound loyalty in the younger generation X?


Well the authors note that it probably has to do with the expansion of the “religious marketplace” in recent decades, and suggest that instead of this trend watering down religious faith, they say that more choices is influencing the increase in affiliation and commitment to religion."


—Christie Nicholson

Bob and Audrey Meisner

Earlier this summer I had the chance to spend a couple days with Bob and Audrey Meisner, Christian Broadcasters up in Winnipeg, Canada.


I've spent some time thinking about and analyzing Christians' behavior that break their moral beliefs. In talking to Bob and Audrey, I realized that I've missed half the story. It's not just whether Christians act immorally (or, how much, I should say), but how they respond to it.


Bob and Audrey had a very public ministry for years, three kids, and all seemed well, except Audrey had an affair and got pregnant. In response, they fought hard for their marriage and incorporating the child into their lives, and they now use the whole situation to teach others about marriage.


From their website:

"She had an affair,
They kept the baby,
Through pain they were rescued,
Their life now exceeds their wildest dreams"


I appreciate how hard they've worked to bring beauty out of pain.

Why do adults become Christians?

Here's a very interesting article about the adult conversion process.


In it the author, Mike Fleischmann, a pastor from Southern California, sets out to learn how many Christians become so in adulthood (rather than childhood), and what is the process they take.


He speaks of the 85/18 rule which is an axiom that 85% of Christians become so before age 18. He concludes that:


"I must admit that the "85/18 Rule" was partially confirmed in my research. In fact 84.5 percent of evangelicals do accept Christ before that age. However, the statistic only holds true if they were raised in a home where both parents were Christians with either a high or moderate level of spiritual activity. If, however, they were raised without that benefit, the percentage drops by two-thirds. The rest of the unchurched make their faith decisions throughout the course of adulthood and even into retirement."


He also has some interesting observations about the conversion process for adults.


Thanks Ed!