23AR28-02

pdf = www.bit.ly/3Wcr1QS

AR 28:2 - America's most (and least) liked religious movements

In this issue:

AMERICAN RELIGION - latest winners and losers in the popularity contest

JUDAISM - "nearly two-thirds of young American adults had no clue that 6 million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust"

MARXISM - rinse and repeat

Apologia Report 28:2 (1,599)
January 12, 2023

AMERICAN RELIGION
A November 2022 survey of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens "explores Americans' attitudes toward 35 religious groups, organizations, and belief systems - from those encompassing "the largest shares of Americans - including Christianity, Catholicism, and Protestantism,” all the way to some that are undeniably on the fringe.

Net scores:

+34 Protestantism

+15 Christianity

+11 Amish

+11 Jewish

+10 Buddhism

+10 Catholicism

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-21 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Mormon]

-22 Christian Science

-24 Islam

-27 Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

-31 Jehovah's Witnesses

-49 Church of Scientology

-49 Satanism

The report explains: "Belief systems that are viewed favorably and unfavorably by a roughly equal share of Americans include Pentecostalism, the Assemblies of God, Hinduism, and the Mennonite Church. ...

"The least well-known are Falun Gong (a spiritual movement that originated in China in the 1990s), the Bahá'í Faith (a religion that originated in the Middle East in the 19th century), and Sikhism (a religion that originated in India in the 15th century)."

The researchers find "quite little variation in Americans' views of specific Protestant denominations, with most being viewed favorably by between 20% and 25% of people."

And while "Presbyterianism is viewed favorably by the largest number of people," the Seventh-day Adventist Church "is viewed unfavorably by the largest number."

And it gets more interesting: "Americans who say religion is 'very important' to them are more likely than Americans who say it is 'not at all' or 'not very important' to have a favorable view of many religious groups." Exceptions:

Buddhism and Hinduism, which are "viewed unfavorably by a greater share of very religious Americans than of Americans who aren't very or at all religious."

Even distinct political dynamics emerge: "While Democrats and Republicans are aligned in their views about many belief systems, on others members of the two parties are more highly polarized." Perhaps unsurprisingly, atheism and agnosticism receive net positive ratings among Democrats, but net negative ratings among Republicans." What's more, "Democrats are also far more likely than Republicans to assign net positive ratings to Buddhism, Satanism, Islam, Wicca, and Unitarian Universalism."

Published on Dec 23 '22 by our very own federal government, via "YouGov.com." <www.bit.ly/3CJSQcj> summary and <www.bit.ly/3Xp8uSy> (full results pdf)

POSTSCRIPT, Feb 8 '23: We flubbed.

First: the bit.ly link ending 3CJsQcj is bad. Turns out bit.ly fails to work with the original. That original, permanent link is https://today.yougov.com/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/12/23/americans-views-religious-groups-yougov-poll

Second: YouGov is not related to the US Federal Government as we had stated.

What is YouGov?

We are an international research data and analytics group headquartered in London, UK.

At the heart of our company is a global online community, where millions of people and thousands of political, cultural and commercial organisations engage in a continuous conversation about their beliefs, behaviours and brands.

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/topic/Religion

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JUDAISM

"A Biblical Look at Antisemitism" by Lorna Simcox (editor-in-chief of Israel My Glory) -- "'A movement is now afoot in the United States,' wrote James Sinkinson for JNS.org, 'to drive Jews out of higher education - both teachers and students. ... It is reminiscent of nothing less than the movement to expel Jews from the educational system in Nazi Germany.

"'The UC [University of California] Berkeley Law School's branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) . . . convinced nine law school organizations to adopt a bylaw refusing to invite or sponsor any speaker who supports 'Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel and the occupation of Palestine,' Sinkinson reported. SJP has been linked to Hamas.

"Many say the action establishes "Jew-free zones," which it does. Across America, Jewish professors now complain of open antisemitism; and Jewish students and professors are intimidated and harassed simply for being Jewish." She closes: "This issue of Israel My Glory is about antisemitism - its root, its forms over the years, and how it is infiltrating the church today." Jan/Feb '23 <www.bit.ly/3VUaBMV>

Another editorial in the same issue, "Social Media's Antisemitic Underbelly" by Chris Katulka (assistant director, North American Ministries, The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry) begins: "Twitter and Instagram recently locked rapper Kanye West out of his accounts after he posted, 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going full death con 3 [sic] on JEWISH PEOPLE.'

"West is a social media influencer with more than 49 million followers.... What he says, sells, and shares reaches a global audience in seconds. His antisemitic post followed an interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson <www.bit.ly/3GzdDR5> in which the rapper claimed Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump's Jewish son-in-law, arranged the peace agreements between Israel and the Arab nations 'to make money.'

"In a separate interview, West claimed Kushner 'is an example of how the Jewish people have their hand on every single business that controls the world.' Besides being untrue, his statement is a textbook antisemitic trope that singles out the entire Jewish race for the world's problems. His words follow a disturbingly familiar pattern: When there is no one left to blame, you can always point the finger at the Jewish people.

"Since being barred from these social media platforms, the rapper has claimed, 'Jewish people have owned the Black voice'; and he invokes racial stereotypes about Jewish people controlling media and money.

"To all his critics, West says he cannot be labeled antisemitic because Black people are Jewish, too, a view held by the Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI). BHI is a fringe religious movement that rejects major tenets of Judaism while asserting that people of color are the true children of Israel. ...

"A 2021 Pew Research poll <www.bit.ly/3XmkF2r> found that nearly half (48 percent) of U.S. adults get their news from social media 'often' or 'sometimes,' while 31 percent regularly get news from Facebook, 13 percent from Twitter, and 11 percent from Instagram. ... A report by The Guardian <www.bit.ly/3kbGB21> found that nearly two-thirds of young American adults had no clue that 6 million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust, and more than one in 10 believe Jewish people caused the Holocaust. ...

"Jewish people make up only 2 percent of the U.S. population, yet they are the target of 60 percent of the country's hate crimes. West's words quickly emboldened antisemites to share his message, as a banner reading 'Kanye is right about the Jews' hung above a Los Angeles highway days after his comments." <www.bit.ly/3jW95N8>

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MARXISM

The previous edition of AR <www.bit.ly/3ig68WY> introduced Conservativism: A Rediscovery, by Yoram Hazony. We had intended to first mention it in this issue, but instead found it fit so well there, if only partially. As it turns out, the book is a good introduction for conservatives who may be interested in better understanding political science in the context of today's related upheaval.

Hazony <yoramhazony.org> begins with a lengthy historical review of conservativism since the 18th century, and how it was overcome by liberal democracy in the 20th, only to be overrun by Marxism in the 21st. His discussion of the consequences for the present, while highly abbreviated, is the clearest and most convincing we've encountered - and it's not so much predictive as merely analytic.

Conservativism concludes with a biographical portrait of Hazony's own experience. This comes right after his brief proposal for the broadest possible conservative coalition of values in a bid to salvage a renewed hope for its future strength in the form of a conservative democracy. In other words, he has enjoyed a taste of the reality behind his vision and he convincingly presents it, though in the most condensed package we can imagine.

Then why the long history lesson up front? Answer: The present has ignored the past to its peril, once again. Take a look at the results which, for example, happened "within a few years after the end of WWII," with civil liberties granted, prayer and Bible banned, restrictions on divorce, porn, immigration, and abortion lifted - all in the name of liberal democracy. "Many Americans and Europeans came to believe [that] liberalism would be adopted by all nations" (xiii). (Think for a second, how much slower in coming reform is.)

Next, rinse and repeat: "No one believes in [liberal democracy] anymore." Why? "On the one hand [we had] Trump's 'America First' administration, Britain's split from the European Union, and growing 'national conservative governments in East Europe, Italy, India, Brazil and other countries." All it took was just "five years of political upheaval - from 2016 to 2020 ... to shatter the hegemony of Enlightenment liberalism" (xiv).

What happened? "At the same time, an updated Marxism ... launched [by someone's/some group's] astonishingly successful bid to seize control of [leading] institutions" that became "woke": media, education, big corporations from pharma to tech, and many US government bodies. "Meanwhile," China embraced a dictator: Xi Jinping (xv). "Yet, [our] most important ideas and institutions" were suppressed and/or stigmatized: "God and family, nation and congregation, marriage and family, man and woman, honor and loyalty, sabbath and sacred," in addition to others. Much of it thanks to "self-proclaimed 'conservatives'" (xvii). Watch, and pray.

Of related interest is The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 91 (Aug 22 '22) titled "Paulo Freire and the Marxist Transformation of the Church" -- the introduction reads in part: "The model for how this is being accomplished mirrors the model used to steal education, so it’s little surprise that the Brazilian Marxist educator Paulo Freire is at the bottom of it. ... James Lindsay [reviews] Freire’s landmark 1985 book, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation." Apologia Report readers may want to note the included discussion of Rick Warren (Saddleback Community Church) <www.>bit.ly/3IH7tAU> and his involvement with the World Economic Forum. <www.bit.ly/3XhnPob>