Final Cultural Reporter Project

Summary

For almost 3 months, I have stretched my comfort boundaries and experienced part of a culture I never thought I would. I have conducted informative interviews about religion and its affect on people’s lives as well as attended a predominately catholic event. I have learned a lot about how people’s lives are affected by religion and how religion impacts people’s lifestyles. I have also learned about a different perspective by looking at this intercultural communication from the perspective of the majority.

It is evident that some people have committed their lives fully to religion. Several people that I have spoken with have committed the next several years to serving their faith in a variety of ways. I cannot say that I agree with these people, but it has been interesting feeling their compassion about this subject. I spoke to one person who is graduating with a future in medicine, but giving up the first two years to do missionary work.

Figure 1. Gallup survey results

From my point of view, it seems like many people who are strongly religious seem to have a very narrow mindset. This is even supported in the results from a survey concluding that 30% of Americans take the Bible literally (Jones, 2011).  After collecting a pretty good amount of data myself, it became easier to put myself in their shoes. It becomes less close minded and more just expressing a strong religious identity. Some of my interviewees said that they couldn’t consider picking a different religion, and among those people, there was a spectrum of opinions when considering how they thought other religions should be viewed (Emily Cook, personal communication, March 14, 2012) A number of answers came with something along the lines of “the church is the only source that has the fullness of truth” (Beth Cowles, personal communication, April 3, 2012) combined with “most religions have some truth to them” (Katie Fenwick, personal communication, March 9, 2012). I thought one of the more interesting results was that those ‘typical’ answers ended up in the middle of the spectrum, with people being on both ends of their commitment to their faith and people being on opposite ends of what they thought of other religions (Sarah Maresh and anonymous, March 8, 2012).

The next most interesting result I collected was what people thought about their majority/minority experiences. This also ended up to parallel what I learned in my experience. Most people shared that when they are in the majority, it is easier to share and express their opinions. People in the majority then paid different amounts of attention to the minority. Some questioned the beliefs of the minority, why they believed what they did that put them in the minority group, while others mostly ignored the minority (anonymous, March 9, 2012). When considering the opposite scenario, when religious people were in the minority, they almost always didn’t question their beliefs and only became distraught when people in the majority were offensive. For the most part, my results paralleled those predicted by Martin and Nakayama in both religious identity and majority and minority communications (Cowles 2012). There ended up being a few outliers, which was as expected.

My experience at a catholic event was also very interesting. I did not end up going to a service, due to time constraints, but rather a social event following the service. I felt like this was a good opportunity to understand this new culture, by experiencing life as they experience it, and not just the service part. It was interesting especially because most of the people there seemed to be of college age, so I expected more of a ‘normal’ college atmosphere. The event ended up feeling like I was in the minority the entire time, even though I knew a fair number of people there. Even when I did interact with people, it quickly reverted to status of me being in the minority (personal observations, March 23, 2012). Because of this, I feel like my interviews gave me a much deeper insight on how catholic people lived and what their culture was really about.

Now that all of my data has been collected and compiled, I realized that I actually have learned quite a bit about intercultural communication. I had originally designed my project to be about religious identity, but it has also picked up aspects of majority/minority communications. I have learned that to make a complete and accurate judgment about somebody, it is more important to know exactly what their thoughts are instead of just guessing. There turned out to be many people that were catholic, and shared many beliefs, but also differed in a couple areas. These turned out to be primarily what they think of other people. If I redid this project, I would have narrowed down my cultural group criteria to be more specific than just catholic, because of the variety of responses that I still managed to obtain. I have also learned that even if you try something, you may be going about it completely wrong and not gain any insight that you thought you would gain. When that happened, I returned to what was more successful for me (interviews and talking to people individually) and stayed away from going to actual events. I have also learned firsthand many of the topics Martin and Nakayama have mentioned. Intercultural communication is uncomfortable, but the benefits definitely outweigh the negative aspects. One of the most important things I have learned is to retain motivation to not shy away from intercultural situations, regardless of contexts and prejudices.

References

Jones, J. (2011). In u.s., 3 in 10 say they take the bible literally. Gallup, Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Religious Identity

"Religious identity often is conflated with racial or ethnic identity." It is one of the more complicated identities, not determined by but affected by region, practice, lifestyle, and family. Officially, religious identity is the sense of belonging to a religious group. Unfortunately, because of its profound affect on peoples lives, it cannot be confined to just what religion people identify with, but must be expanded to how people's lives are changed by religion and how people's experiences change their religious views.  My cultural experience has been with religious people, and with the help of surveys, interviews and new experiences, I have collected information on how other people's religious identity affects their life.

According to the CIA, 78.5% of all Americans identify themselves with Christianity, putting that religion in the majority. This majority is evident in the United States, but definitely is different throughout the world. In the United States, people who identify with no religions make up only 4% of Americans, and people who consider themselves unaffiliated or are unspecified make up 14.6%. This mere 18.6% can be seen as a minority in many places in the United States. After looking into how religion affects people's lives, one of the more interesting topics I have found is that church attendance is declining. Because going to church is very foreign to me, I looked more into it and found that it somewhat correlates to our nation's prosperity. My overall goal became to further find out how religion affected 79% of Americans and how their experiences changed their view on religion.

After speaking with a number of people, the most prominent characteristic is that regardless of how religious people were, it has made a big impact on their lives. Many people will only talk about it with their close friends, and most people also use their faith as an indicator of moral goodness. Beyond that, it seems that many religious people do not let their religion determine who they interact with and for the most part how they interact with other people. It was interesting to find that lots of people who say they belong to a particular religion have unique and independent ideas on their religion. As far as how religion is affected by their life, one of my interviewees stated that "there is a direct correlation between the amount of time I have spent at a church and the desire to not practice a religion." This person is clearly unique and extreme in their opinions, especially when compared with others of the same religion, it is interesting that the responses that I have received illustrate a spectrum in many aspects in life.

I think that for me, someone who's religious identity involves not having come close to participating in religion, the research I have done on religious identity has shown that it is much more than just participating in a religion. When you try to communicate with someone from a different culture, the religious identity has yet to create a barrier that is impassible. It is also interesting and beneficial to learn more about how the majority of people I've talked to identify with each other and how they differ in their beliefs.

References:
CIA. (2012). The world factbook. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
Frey, B., & Gallus, J. (2011). Religion makes people happy, so why is church attendance declining? VOX
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Religious Intercultural Introduction

I have viewed this culture from the outside for the last 22 years, and finally will get the chance, and the motivation to explore it in depth. I was raised without a religion, and have never gone to church save for a few funerals, weddings, and concerts. Because of my upbringing, I have never really been informed in a completely unbiased way about one of the cultural majorities of our community: the Christian culture. I know many Christians, but I have never made an effort to experience their culture until today.

                Religious identities often conflict with racial and ethnic identities, and must therefore be examined dialectically. Religious differences have led to many modern conflicts, often times when the religious beliefs are imposed onto people that do not share the same beliefs. These conflicts can sometimes shed religious identities and religious cultures in a bad light (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).

                It is my goal to examine the Christian culture, how it influences modern society, and how it effects and is affected by other cultures. Specifically I’ll look into how one’s Christian identity affects different aspects of their life: their life goals as well as personal and political goals. I will also examine how racial and ethnic identities tie into religious culture and the Christian identities and histories. I plan on exploring religious meetings and immersing myself in an intercultural environment. One of my goals in reporting on this culture is to be as unbiased as possible, hopefully to study not the ideals of Christianity but more how the ideals influence the culture, and the way people live.

                Christianity does affect many people’s view on life and more specifically society. “We imagine a Church that can play the role of an international umpire, upholding justice and settling disputes between secular powers” (Drury, 2004). This kind of ideal is apparent to an outsider as to how a Christian views the Christian culture and I plan on looking more into this and exploring other aspects of the Christian culture.

Reference:

BBC. (2012). Religion: Christianity. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/

Drury, S. (2004). Terror and civilization: Christianity, politics, and the western psyche. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

My first Cultural Reporter Blog