American membership in houses of worship has plummeted to below 50% for the first time in eight decades of Gallup polling, from 70% in 1999 to 47% in 2020. And that shift away from organized religion has dovetailed with the rise of an intense form of partisan politics that some see as quasi-religious – providing adherents with a sense of devotion, belonging, and moral certitude.
From MAGA devotees on the right to social justice warriors on the “woke left,” political activism that can feel “absolute” in a religious way is rampant.
Especially among young people, “if your candidate wins, you have that ecstatic feeling,” says Ryan Burge, an expert on religion and politics at Eastern Illinois University who is also a Baptist pastor. A stump speech can feel like a tent revival. Donating regularly to candidates is like tithing.
By Susan Gonzalez
April 14, 2021
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Top row: Isabela Mares, Tisa Wenger; Bottom row: Robyn Creswell, Marisa Anne Bass
Four Yale faculty members are among a group of 184 artists, writers, scholars and scientists awarded 2021 fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Marisa Anne Bass, Robyn Creswell, Isabela Mares, and Tisa Wenger were chosen through a rigorous peer-review process from almost 3,000 applicants on the basis of their prior achievements and exceptional promise. Bass is an associate professor in the Department of the History of Art; Creswell is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Literature; Mares is a professor in the Department of Political Science; and Wenger is associate professor at Yale Divinity School with courtesy appointments in the American Studies program and the Department of Religious Studies.
Princeton faculty Bialek, Dennehy, Mian, Perry, Ralph and Taylor and three graduate alumni win 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships
Jamie Saxon, Office of Communications
April 8, 2021 9:10 p.m.
Photo by Denise Applewhite
William Bialek
They are: William Bialek, the John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics;
Donnacha Dennehy, composer and professor of music; Atif Mian, the John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Finance, and director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs; Imani Perry, the Hughes Rogers Professor of African American Studies, and ; Laurence Ralph,
professor of anthropology and director of the Center on Transnational Policing; and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies.
The struggle for religious freedom â from Thomas Jefferson to Black Lives Matter
Out of America s paradoxical history of religious liberty comes a great push for Black freedom and racial justice
January 23, 2021 5:08PM (UTC)
Thomas Jefferson | Black Lives Matter Plaza poster is seen on a building on the 16th Street NW next to the St. John s Episcopal Church (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)