This piece titled “Gender and God’s Word: Another Look at Religious Fundamentalism and Sexism” is written by Charles W. Peek, George D. Lowe, and L. Susan Williams. According to these authors, there has not been enough research done to address whether or not individual measures of fundamentalism more applicable to women have different connections to sexism than the typical group measure. They come out immediately and claim, “Research on religion and sexism increasingly points to fundamentalism- an insistence that the Bible is literally true- as an important religious source of prejudice toward women.” These such sources of prejudice increase as groups become more and more fundamentalist. However, before this study came out, there was not much attention paid to this subject because of an insensitivity to gender. This piece in particular was published in 1991, but it is a good indicator of perhaps the progress gender has made in the last 3 decades.

I was not able to identify a specific research question in this study, but there is an overarching research topic of the connection between sexism and religious fundamentalism as it pertains to individual or group identification. This study identifies that they will be using data from the 1985 and 1988 General Social Surveys in their analysis. In this survey there are measures of attitudes towards women, measures of fundamentalism, and other control variables. Unfortunately (and this is noted as a limitation), this study only presents information from white respondents  because this is what fundamentalism research focused on during this time. The variables in this case are sexism, fundamentalism, and other, which included education, occupational prestige, marital status, and female work experience. After statistically analyzing the data, it is found that it is group affiliation with fundamentalism that makes males linked to greater sexism. These groups, however, are not found to influence women, most likely because of their tendency to stay away from them. For women, it is their individual convictions, rather than group,  that affect their gender attitudes. Women who are less religious tend to be less sexist. All of these findings confirm the authors’ idea that gender needs to be addressed with great importance when talking about religious fundamentalism, and it should no longer be pushed to the side. Their final push is for gender sensitivity to be thrust into the religion and sociological fields.

I thought this article was really interesting, especially because it is so relevant to the topic I am looking into myself. My only concern with it is its publication date. It is important to have this information, but having it be published almost 30 years ago makes me wonder what has changed since then. My assumption is that a ton has changed, and gender has begun to look different within fundamentalist groups.

Peek, C., Lowe, G., & Williams, L. (1991). Gender and God’s Word: Another Look at Religious Fundamentalism and Sexism. Social Forces,69(4), 1205-1221. doi:10.2307/2579309

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This research proposal, collected from missionstudies.org, proposes to take a look into postcolonial theory and new research on women and feminist theology as applied to the practice of mission work. The author of the piece has taken this on because of the increase in studies about missions, and particularly the role of women. However, with this “new world order” there are changing events, thoughts, and movements; many of which applying to the mission work women have done. The author claims, “Women still face differences and ‘otherness’ to such an extent that the little we share, is diminished and overshadowed by these differences.” Since the effects of difference throughout the world can be so detrimental, what can be done to break down the barriers? This piece seems to assume that women are the perfect catalysts, being in both an insider and outsider position. A lot of this research proposal is spent explaining the background knowledge and plethora of ideas about this subject, which makes it much easier to understand than if only a simple explanation had been provided. There are 5 or 6 proposed questions in the “Research Areas” section that I assume will all contribute to the overarching project’s aim. Some of the questions are “How do we understand and re-interpret mission in the light of postcolonial theory and hermeneutics?”, “How can mission scholars through their theological work contribute to a positive valuation of difference in church and society?”, and “How do we read the Bible and other religious texts by means of a postcolonial, hermeneutics?” After this section, two different research aims are identified. One is to develop new paradigms of mission from the diverse female perspective in a post colonial world. The other is to encourage women to listen to each other about their experiences and challenges. This proposal, if accepted, will call on participants from missiological and theological institutions to take part in. This is assumed to be a very diverse group of people. For data collection, the author states, “In order to gather the material which is needed to carry out the research project, a call for papers and material which have not yet been published shall be released immediately.” I am not quite sure what papers or material is being referred to, but I am assuming this type of data will be organization (perhaps coming from the churches) or shallow opinions and beliefs if the people discussed above are being interviewed. There is a workshop mentioned, which I could see being similar to a focus group, working well with the latter data type.

Overall, the most impressive thing about this proposal is the preliminary information offered to the reader. However, I find myself knowing much more about the background details than the actual research study itself, which, in a way, seems to defeat the purpose of a proposal. This made is difficult to evaluate just what type of study was to be carried out. Nevertheless, it was an interesting read.

Heidemanns, K., & Van Schalkwyk, A. (n.d.). How to deal with difference? Creating new paradigms of mission from the perspective of women in a postcolonial world. Missionstudies.org . Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://missionstudies.org/archive/4groups/women/project_description.htm

Now that I have started to look into the reasons behind women choosing to enter into religious communities (particularly fundamentalist), I thought I would give myself a starting point by reading some literature on the reasons behind why people, in general turn to religion. This article/study by Steven Reiss is titled “Why People Turn to Religion: A Motivational Analysis.” It was written in 2000, so perhaps the world of religion has changed somewhat since the publication date, but it is still valuable data to take into account. The research question at hand is “What psychological forces drive people to turn to religion?” This study takes an already established psychological measure called the Reiss Profile of Fundamental Goals and Motivational Sensitivities. This identifies and then looks into 15 fundamental desires, beginning by evaluating ordinal data responses of “very,” “somewhat,” and “not religious” from mental retardation service providers and college students. All of these responses are found to, in some way, correlate with the 15 fundamental desires. These desires are independence, power, honor, family, vengeance, order, romance, idealism, status, acceptance, social contact, tranquility, eating, curiosity, and exercise. The two groups tested are chosen because of availability and access, which in my opinion doesn’t seem to create a completely representative sample, but the individuals within the groups seem to be of a variety of different backgrounds although 411 of the total 556 are women, and 454 are caucasian. Each individual is provided with a 120 item self- reported survey on their personal opinion in relation to aspects of the 15 fundamental desires.

The results of the study first and foremost show no difference between men and women. In general, high levels of religiosity correlate with low desires for independence. Religious people are also found to value honor more than their religious counterparts, who also place lower value in family and order. However, the author recognizes that the most significant finding is that of a correlation between high religiosity and low independence. Instead, these individuals are depending on God, which has historically been identified as a sign of weakness, but this study rejects such claims. It also shows that people who are religious are more likely to be loyal to their family and honor. Therefor, these are the forces that attract people either towards, or away from religion. More than anything, this indicates how certain individuals would like to behave, rather than how they actually do.

For the sake of my research topic, I would have liked to have seen where the data from women fell in this study. I can assume that since the individuals participating in the study were of a female majority, the results are pretty indicative of their choices. However, being able to see how their responses differed compared to men would have been interesting. Overall, the article and study was very informative and took into account a lot more facets of religious affiliation than I had ever considered before.

Reiss, S. (2000). Why People Turn to Religion: A Motivational Analysis. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39(1), 47-52. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.books.redlands.edu/stable/1387926

Joaana Blogowska and Vassilis Saroglou work together on the piece “Religious Fundamentalism and Limited Prosociality as a Function of the Target” to ask the question, does religion imply altruism or prejudice and violence? To answer this question, they dive into two traditional claims. One of which is the idea that being really religious implies prosocial tendencies. Prosocial, since I was unaware of its meaning before reading this article, applies to voluntary behavior that is beneficial and in pursuit of doing good and promoting social acceptance. The second historical claim is that religious fundamentalism is associated with prejudice, since its roots tend to be resting in right-wing authoritarianism. The authors compile the data associated with these two claims and try to find if indeed religious fundamentalism also predicts prosociality. Another facet of these claims is that they only apply to certain groups and individuals. In the case of religious fundamentalism, predicted prosociality was found in regards to nonfeminists, rather than feminists and to friends, but not to strangers.

In order to answer their research questions, the authors took on two different experiments. In the first, the data being collected is that of self identity. A group of participating Polish college students were randomly assigned either an experiment or a control condition, and were given surveys that were later evaluated to find how their self identities affect their prosociality. Experiment two was an extension of experiment one, but also looked into the distinction between prosociality toward friends rather than strangers. The participants in this study are from a less random pool because they were either Catholics or had received a catholic education. The conclusion from these experiments is that people are more willing to help people they know rather than strangers, but this is not exclusive to religious fundamentalist groups. Therefor, the argument is that this also fails to contribute to violent tendencies There is, however, data showing that a religious fundamentalists do show some prejudice and hostility.

Although this study was pretty abstract and contained language I wasn’t familiar with, I thought it was really interesting. A stereotype that typically aligns with fundamentalist groups is the idea of violence within such communities. This was an interesting perspective to to take on how violence is expressed, perhaps where it comes from, and if it really exists among typical fundamentalist groups.

Blogowska, J., & Saroglou, V. (2011). Religious Fundamentalism and Limited Prosociality as a Function of the Target. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,50(1), 44-60. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01551.x

Joseph Laycock’s “Where do they get these Ideas? Changing Ideas of Cults in the Mirror of Popular Culture” examines how new religious movements (NRMs) are affected by  popular culture, specifically movies and television, more than perhaps tv news stories. Laycock argues that this type of media is able to shape public discourse because it has the ability to create any type of story about NRMs. This therefor creates a population uninformed about the realities of NRMs. In the past, when researchers have looked into hypotheses concerning the media portrayal of NRMs or cults, they have only focused on the news media, but there is so much in today’s popular culture that discusses this topic as well. The author identifies three ways in which pop culture has influenced public perception of NRMs: medicalization, deviance amplification, and convergence. Medicalization applies to a process in which deviant behavior is defined as a medical problem to be treated within the medical profession. Most cults are accused of brainwashing their members, making them liable for medicalization. Deviance amplification refers to a media hype, where media has the ability to distort deviant behaviors into representations of a bigger social issue. Convergence draws a parallel between two or more activities that have been amplified, to make a problem appear even more widespread.

To  address his research topic, Laycock uses data from reports of acts, behaviors, and events, and perhaps some organizational data as well. To collect this data, he went into public records and literature concerning his topic of interest. He looked into public records of televised programs such as The Simpsons, The Manchurian Candidate , Get Smart, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Charmed, South Park, and Dollhouse. The author does recognize, in his conclusion, that to further this study, more quantitative should be done. This would allow for measurement of the effects of fictional narrative on public attitudes. That being said, most of his research is qualitative, looking at documented text, speech, and observable patterns. Overall, this article was really interesting! I do, however, agree with his concluding ideas of adding in some quantitative data to round out the research. I think this is an important subject to take on, given the negative ideas swarming around society as it pertains to cults and NRMs. It is essential to examine how public opinion is so greatly influenced by the media, especially the sectors that are given creative freedom.

Laycock, J. (2013). Where Do They Get These Ideas? Changing Ideas of Cults in the Mirror of Popular Culture. Journal of the American Academy of Religion,81(1), 80-106.

The article I came across in the library was from the Journal of Religion and was titled “On Giving Religious Intolerance Its Due: Prospects for Transforming Conflict in a Post-Secular Society”. The author, Jason A. Springs, through this essay tries to find if intolerance and conflict, coming from moral and religious identities and commitments, can be rearranged and used as resources of constructive social and political purposes. In today’s day in age when our society is becoming more and more secular, it is interesting to look at articles such as this one to find out the current significance of religion within society. Especially when it comes to politics, and political speech, are such discussions important. Throughout this piece, the author takes three different steps to investigate his topic. First, he explores the social limits to which religion is accommodated for within public and political life. He then goes on to explore the attempt of Charles Taylor to improve the discussed accommodation through mutual understandings of identity-based opponents. The third section looks at how religiously affiliated conflict and intolerance can be reframed. Within this, he proposed that perhaps the most good comes from intentional conflict, arguing that intolerance is not good, but it can somehow lead towards progress. In all of this research, the fact that America has become so incredibly diverse comes about, as can be seen through an increasing number of secular communities contrasted against a variety of religious fundamentalist groups. Within such a society, there is bound to be the fusion and creation of new horizons. In this piece, the author seems to look at the surface level information addressing the topic of his research. Through looking at reports of acts and events, he rounds his argument through the eyes and work of other researchers. I think an argument could also be made for his use of detached observation and grounded theory of hidden social patterns as they relate to society’s view of religion today.

Although this particular article was somewhat hard to understand, given the particularity of the subject matter, I thought it was really interesting. Although I have thought a lot about the decline of religion in the United States, I had never thought to look into how social and political narratives affect religious intolerance and conflict. I think, if anything, this article does a sufficient job of beginning to address such issues. However, I do think it could have gone farther in depth, looking past the literature on the topic and into more real life scenarios. This is definitely an article I can circle back to as a resource, and one whose references would be useful as well.

Springs, J. A. (2012). On Giving Religious Intolerance Its Due: Prospects for Transforming Conflict in a Post-secular Society. The Journal of Religion,92(1), 1-30. doi:10.1086/662203