---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tikkun <mir...@tikkun.org> Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 7:47 AM Subject: Why the Left's religiophobia is so self-destructive To: michelsub2...@gmail.com
Editor's Note: The research we at Tikkun and our parent body the Institute for Labor and Mental Health have done over the past decades continues to confirm our findings that one of the major reasons many Americans accept the Right's view that people in the liberal and progressive camps "dont understand you and are elitists who have contempt for you" is that many Americans have encountered an extreme fear and disdain for anything spiritual or religious in the culture of the liberal and progressive worlds. This latest report from the Pew Research Center (below) shows that a very large percentage of Americans have very positive feelings about people in a wide variety of religious communities. The Left says it wants a democratic transformation of American society, but the majority of Americans feel positive about religion and are hence much less open to liberals and progressvies than they would be if the Left had a much more open and embracing attitude toward religion, not just the of the famous progressive African American reliigous people like Martin Luther King, Jr and Rev. William Barber (of North Carolina's Moral Monday campaign) but even of religious practitioners more generally instead of assuming (falsely) that everyone into religion or spirituality is either racist, sexist, homophobic, or at least less intellectually and emotionally developed and sophisticated than those who reject religion or at least don't mention it publicly except to critique the religious extremists. Religiophobia is one of the key distortions of the Left that must be challenged, even while continuing to critique those variants of religion along with those variants of politics that are racist, sexist, homophobia, xenophobic, Islamophobic, or antiSemitic. But we at Tikkun encounter this religiophobia every day by people telling us, "I like your analysis, but I'd never join any movement that has the word 'spiritual' in it--because that is likely a slippery slope to religion, and I hate or fear religion." Of course, some of those who hold that view have grown up in oppressive or bigoted religious communities and feel that they know what they are talking about because of that experience. But they fail to understand that there are many religious people and religious communities that do not share these kinds of distrotions. Religio-phobia is as much a prejudice of any other belief that demeans everyone in a particular group for the behavior of some in that group. Honestly, we are not making this up--it happens to us all the time. This is one of the issues that we address in our Spiritual Activism Training: Beyond Resistance - Strategies in the Age of Trump which you can learn about by clicking here <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2B8uUoaDdeVf%2BwhpSA0GaF0JAfQ8APxX0> or by going to: https://org.salsalabs.com/o/525/p/salsa/event/common/ public/?event_KEY=98701 <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=acpyKimwL9Cc%2FxwynC5BykJAfQ8APxX0> Meanwhile, read the Pew report on how people in the US are becoming ever more favorable to religions. The Pew Research Center Report: *Americans Express Increasingly Warm Feelings Toward Religious Groups* *Jews, Catholics continue to receive warmest ratings, atheists and Muslims move from cool to neutral* WASHINGTON, D.C. (Feb. 15, 2017) – On the heels of a contentious election year in which partisan politics increasingly divided Americans, a new Pew Research Center survey <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=10LwfsYGAVlo1lieg3Pot0JAfQ8APxX0> finds that when it comes to religion, Americans generally express more positive feelings toward various religious groups today than they did just a few years ago. Asked to rate a variety of groups on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100, U.S. adults give nearly all groups warmer ratings than they did in a June 2014 Pew Research Center survey. While Americans still feel coolest toward Muslims and atheists, mean ratings for these two groups increased from a somewhat chilly 40 and 41 degrees, respectively, to more neutral ratings of 48 and 50. Jews and Catholics continue to be among the groups that receive the warmest ratings – even warmer than in 2014. Evangelical Christians, rated relatively warmly at 61 degrees, are the only group for which the mean rating did not change since the question was last asked in 2014. Americans’ feelings toward Mormons and Hindus have shifted from relatively neutral places on the thermometer to somewhat warmer ratings of 54 and 58, respectively. Ratings of Buddhists rose from 53 to 60. And mainline Protestants, whom respondents were not asked to rate in 2014, receive a warm rating of 65 in the new survey. The increase in mean ratings is broad based. Warmer feelings are expressed by people in all the major religious groups analyzed, as well as by both Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and younger and older adults. However, the mean ratings given to particular religious groups still vary widely depending on who is being asked. For example, young adults – those ages 18 to 29 – express warmer feelings toward Muslims than older Americans do. Moreover, young adults rate all of the groups in the study within a relatively tight range, from 54 degrees for Mormons to 66 for Buddhists. By contrast, older Americans (ages 65 and older) rate some religious groups, such as mainline Protestants (75) and Jews (74), very warmly, and others, such as Muslims and atheists (44 degrees each), much more coolly. These are among the main findings of a new Pew Research Center survey of 4,248 adults conducted Jan. 9 to 23, 2017, on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel. The survey also finds wide variation in the ratings that U.S. religious groups give one another. While for the most part Jews and Christians tend to rate each other warmly, atheists and evangelicals continue to view each other in a negative light. The findings are for immediate release and can be found at http://www.pewforum.org/2017/02/15/americans-express-i ncreasingly-warm-feelings-toward-religious-groups <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=n3FBD10C49Qe6%2Bsx%2Be%2FEM0JAfQ8APxX0> For more information, or to arrange an interview with Senior Researcher Jessica Martinez <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IWy50VtNA0ruTCgr1%2BDQzFjEcxCS%2BHv5>, please contact Anna Schiller at 202.419.4372 <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=c0dzC8ERIZEygpgz%2B8NaYFjEcxCS%2BHv5> or aschil...@pewresearch.org <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yBuACvCBAi5acpfx3okVeUJAfQ8APxX0> *Pew Research Center <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FXMlwwObV8MkyQr%2FUN8W0kJAfQ8APxX0> is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=HKSkDJfMBYpxezxT7U4KK1jEcxCS%2BHv5>, its primary funder. 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