Using census data in the management of religious diversity: an Australian case study

Abstract

Mapping and measuring religious diversity has become critical to the management of interreligious relations in the 21st century. The data about religious identification provided by the Australian census since the formation of Federal Government in Australia, and prior to that in the Colonies, has provided detailed information about the extent of and changes in religious diversity in the nation and in particular cities. Because the census also provides very detailed information about where people of different religions live, it can provide information about the extent to which religious groups are residentially segregated, a factor which affects how people of different religions relate to each other. The methodological issues related to measuring diversity are discussed and the utility in urban contexts of a ‘dissimilarity scale’ is demonstrated. The unique contribution of census data to the mapping and management of religious diversity in Australia is presented.     

Measuring religious affiliation in Great Britain: the 2011 census in historical and methodological context

Abstract

The British religious census of 2011 is located in its broader historical and methodological context. The principal developments in the measurement of religious affiliation (proxy-assigned or self-assigned) in Britain are traced from the Reformation to the present day, charting the relative contribution of the Churches, the State and empirical social science. The key statistics which have emerged from their respective efforts are summarised, with nominal religious affiliation universal until the time of the French Revolution and preponderant until as late as the 1980s. For recent decades, when the profession of faith has been rejected by large numbers of Britons, particular attention is paid to the variant results from different question-wording. Depending upon what is asked, the proportion of the population currently making sense of their lives without asserting a confessional religious identity ranges from one-quarter to one-half. The difficulties of trying to construct a religious barometer through a single, unitary indicator are thus illuminated.     

Advocacy,brainwashing theories,and new religious movements

Advocacy by scholars in the field of new religious movements emerged during the ‘cult wars,’ which in the U.S. had their peak between 1970 and 1990 and continued in Europe and Japan in subsequent decades. Advocacy focused on the question of whether the ‘cults’ used a persuasion technique known as brainwashing. The idea of brainwashing was born during the Cold War, and originally applied to Communist techniques of indoctrination, but was lately first extended to religion and subsequently used as a tool to distinguish between legitimate and non-legitimate religions, labeling the latter as ‘cults.’ Prominent psychologists and sociologists were involved in these battles, with most scholars of new religious movements appearing in court in order to criticize the brainwashing theories advocated by psychologist Margaret T. Singer and a handful of anti-cult academics. After the Fishman decision of 1990, which seriously hit the anti-cult camp, advocacy in this field did not disappear but became somewhat less partisan.     

To Love or Hate Thy Neighbor: The Role of Authoritarianism and Traditionalism in Explaining the Link Between Fundamentalism and Racial Prejudice

Fundamentalism is consistently related to racial prejudice (Hall, Matz, & Wood, 2010), yet the mechanisms for this relationship are unclear. We identify two core values of fundamentalism, authoritarianism and traditionalism, that independently contribute to the fundamentalism‐racial prejudice relationship. We also contextualize the fundamentalism‐racial prejudice relationship by suggesting that fundamentalists may show prejudice based on conceptions of African Americans as violating values but show tolerance when prejudice is less justifiable. These ideas are tested and confirmed using three data sets from the American National Election Studies. Across all three samples, fundamentalism is related to increases in symbolic racism but decreases in negative affect towards African Americans, and these relationships are mediated by both authoritarianism and traditionalism.     

Female face preference in 4-month-olds: The importance of hairline

At 3–4 months of age, infants respond to gender information in human faces. Specifically, young infants display a visual preference toward female over male faces. In three experiments, using a visual preference task, we investigated the role of hairline information in this bias. In Experiment 1, we presented male and female composite faces with similar hairstyles to 4-month-olds and observed a preference for female faces. In Experiment 2, the faces were presented, but in this instance, without hairline cues, and the preference was eliminated. In Experiment 3, using the same cropping to eliminate hairline cues, but with feminized female faces and masculinized male faces, infants’ preference toward female faces was still not in evidence. The findings show that hairline information is important in young infants’ preferential orientation toward female faces.     

Hand preference status and reach kinematics in infants

Infants show age-related improvements in reach straightness and smoothness over the first years of life as well as a decrease in average movement speed. This period of changing kinematics overlaps the emergence of handedness. We examined whether infant hand preference status is related to the development of motor control in 53 infants ranging from 11 to 14 months old. Hand preference status was assessed from reaching to a set of 5 objects presented individually at the infant's midline; infants were classified into ‘right preference’ or ‘no preference’ groups. Three-dimensional (3-D) recordings were made of each arm for reaches under two distinct conditions: pick up a ball and fit it into the opening of a toy (grasp-to-place task) or pick up a Cheerio^® and consume it (grasp-to-eat task). Contrary to expectations, there was no effect of hand preference status on reach smoothness or straightness for either task. On the grasp-to-eat task only, average speed of the left hand differed as a function of hand preference status. Infants in the no preference group exhibited higher left hand average speeds than infants in the right preference group. Our results suggest that while behavioral differences in the use of the two hands may be present in some infants, these differences do not appear to be systematically linked to biases in motor control of the arms early in development.     

Legal and Ethical Implications of Using Religious Beliefs as the Basis for Refusing to Counsel Certain Clients

This article addresses potential legal and ethical implications of lawsuits that have been brought when counselors and counseling students have used their religious beliefs as the basis for refusing to counsel lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transexual clients. Four lawsuits are reviewed, issues relevant to the cases are identified, and implications for counselor educators and counseling students are discussed.     

EXPLANATORY MODESTY

Although I certainly have differences with some of my commentators, I am grateful for the time, effort, and attention that each has devoted to my book, Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. They have helpfully pointed out features of my positions that need clarification and elaboration. I am also grateful to the editor of Zygon, Willem Drees, for this opportunity to undertake that task here.     

Can Muslims Befriend Non-Muslims? Debating al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ (Loyalty and Disavowal) in Theory and Practice

This article analyzes the polemic on the concept of al-walā? wa-al-barā? (commonly translated as “loyalty and disavowal”). While existing academic literature focuses on the usages of this concept by jihad activists, the article centers on the role “loyalty and disavowal” plays in debates between contemporary salafī and wasa?ī jurists and theologians, specifically in their conflicting agendas for Muslims living as minorities. Salafīs, relying on several qur'anic verses and Prophetic traditions, promote an understanding of “loyalty and disavowal” that requires Muslims to refrain from befriending or loving non-Muslims, or imitating their beliefs and customs. Relying on counter-verses and traditions, in particular Q 60.8, wasa?īs have interpreted the concept of “loyalty and disavowal” more narrowly, arguing that it applies only to non-Muslims who fight against Muslims; as part of their integration-oriented doctrine for Muslims in the West, they have in recent years dedicated considerable efforts to refuting the salafī interpretation of al-walā? wa-al-barā?. The article examines the juristic methodologies utilized in the debate, and how it has affected religious decisions (fatwās) on Islamic life in Western societies.     

Reading and reflecting sacred texts in the presence of the other. An empirical study on the use of ‘scriptural reasoning’ in teacher education

In this article the method of Scriptural Reasoning (SR), a text-based approach to interreligious dialogue between participants of the three Abrahamic religions, was implemented for a teacher education setting at a German university. Not only students with an outspoken religious conviction but also agnostic and atheist students, preparing themselves to become teachers in public schools, were invited into the conversation. The article documents and discusses the qualitative-empirical research in which the SR meetings were embedded. The aim of the article is not to create a hermeneutical theory for SR but rather to explore how SR as a method, with its specific learning tool of text-work, can be turned into a broader didactical model which can be transferred to other learning environments and which can in the long run provide empirical evidence on successful teacher education in multi-religious and multi-worldview societies and schools.