c. 2005 Religion News Service

Survey Indicates Support for Stem Cell Research

(RNS) Three out of four Americans say they support or might be able to support embryonic stem cell research, according to a recent survey.

“The issue of stem cell research isn’t going to go away,” said Pam Solo, president of the Civil Society Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in Newton, Mass. “Everyone has someone in their family with a disease who might be helped by stem cell research.”

The survey, released Tuesday (Feb. 15), was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for the Institute’s Results for America Project. The poll found that 76 percent of Americans support or might support state initiatives to encourage embryonic stem cell research.

In 2001, President Bush placed restrictions on the funding and number of cell lines that could be used in embryonic stem cell research.

Legislation was introduced Wednesday (Feb. 16) in Congress that, if passed, would increase the funding for and the number of stem cell lines eligible for federal stem cell research. The legislation is sponsored by Reps. Michael Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

Some religious groups are expected to oppose the bill, and one religious leader questioned the validity of the poll.

The poll does not mention that “the embryos killed for this research are alive and developing when they are killed,” said Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

He said that because embryos for stem cell research are “obtained by killing live human beings,” the Catholic Church objects to this research and will oppose the bill in Congress.

_ Kathi Wolfe

Oxford to Examine Link Between Faith and Pain

LONDON (RNS) Can religious faith affect the perception of pain? That is one of the questions to be investigated by a new research project at Oxford University.

The project is funded by an initial two-year grant of $2 million from the Templeton Foundation, the same organization that funds the annual Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which began in 1972.

The Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind said the study will bring together six university departments: anatomy, pharmacology, philosophy, physiology, theology and the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, which concentrates on medical ethics.

The project hopes to develop a better understanding of how the brain works, when people are thinking and when they are not.

“Very little is known about pain and how the brain copes with it,” said the project’s deputy director, Dr. Toby Collins.

Collins said there will be carefully controlled and monitored experiments to find out how subjects react to painful stimuli, either by applying a chili-based gel to the skin or by applying a heat pad that also produces a burning sensation. Among other things, researchers will show volunteers religious symbols while subjecting them to the painful stimuli to see how they respond.

Collins told the Associated Press that subjects will be asked to access a belief system, whether secular or religious, with results compared.

“Everyone, when they suffer pain, has a strategy for coping, and often they will turn to religious beliefs,” Collins told the AP.

_ Robert Nowell

Sex Abuse Scandal Has Affected Catholic Giving, Survey Shows

(RNS) A national survey indicates that fewer Catholic parishioners are giving money to the church in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.

A national survey of 803 regular Mass attendees found that 19 percent of parishioners said they reduced or stopped donating on a national level, and 14 percent decreased or stopped giving to their home parish. At the same time, 5 percent increased financial support in light of the scandal.

“The donor base is getting smaller, but they’re actually giving more, so when you’re measuring year to year you end up with the same money or more,” said Francis Butler, president of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities Inc., a consortium of 50 private foundations that sponsored the survey.

The December 2004 survey also showed that two-thirds of Catholics think abuse settlements would impede the church’s educational, pastoral and social service work.

“The most active Catholic parishioners _ that’s the donor base for the church _ are worried that the church won’t be able to carry out its mission,” Butler said. “That’s a very important audience.”

The survey showed that churchgoers don’t want parishes to shut down to pay for abuse settlements. Instead, 38 percent of Catholics support selling church property, 36 percent support a special collection and 35 percent are in favor of the dioceses declaring bankruptcy.

“You’re going to see a much more active donor in the future; at least these survey findings indicate that people want to know more,” Butler said. “They want more disclosure, more openness.”

The survey also showed that almost two-thirds of Catholics said the church should upgrade its method of collection beyond collection baskets to include credit card swiping, which has been implemented in some churches, and deferred giving programs or direct mail.

“I think Catholics are generally unhappy with that (collection basket) method. It’s somewhat limited if you figure that many Catholics aren’t in church on Sunday,” Butler said, adding, “It is a credit card world. Very few people carry cash these days.”

Zogby International and the Center for the Study of Church Management at Villanova University conducted the study, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

_ Andrea James

Half of Protestant Churches Have a Web Site

WASHINGTON (RNS) Half of Protestant churches have a Web site, and most of those are large churches, according to a study released by Ellison Research, a Phoenix-based marketing and research company.

About 88 percent of large churches, or those with more than 200 weekend worshippers, have a Web site, while only 28 percent of small churches, or those with fewer than 100 people, are online, according to the study, which was released in January.

Small churches face technology obstacles such as a lack of money and staff, but small churches may need Web sites the most, according to Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research. Younger people are more likely to look to the Internet to find church information, Sellers said.

“The increased use of technology in churches has a real potential to widen the gap even further between small churches and medium or large congregations,” Sellers said in a statement. “Pastors need to take a hard look at where technology might no longer be a matter of style or a luxury for the congregation, but an expectation.”

Despite the lack of Web sites, 91 percent of church leaders have Internet access, regardless of church size, the study found. About one-third of ministers have content filters that block offensive Web sites, and Baptists and Pentecostals are the most likely to have content filters.

Of the denominations, Lutherans are “less convinced of the importance” of technology uses such as Bible study software, communication with missionaries, and showing graphical presentations during worship. Methodist ministers are more likely to use e-mail to communicate with their congregations, while Pentecostal ministers see Bible study software as the most important use of technology.

The study also found that churches with pastors under age 60 are more likely to have Web sites.

Ellison Research surveyed 700 Protestant ministers nationwide and the study has a 3.6 percent margin of error.

_ Andrea James

Analysis of November Election Shows Religious Influence of Moderates

(RNS) In the final Election Day reckoning in November, the race did not go to the loudest or most passionate religious voices.

Instead, the judgments of moderate Catholics and Protestants were more influential than an impressive turnout by religious liberals and conservatives, according to the University of Akron’s fourth national survey of religion and politics released in early February.

The post-election survey of 2,730 adult respondents showed an increasingly polarized religious electorate, with nearly 90 percent of conservative evangelical Protestants voting for President Bush and nearly four in five liberal mainline Protestants choosing Sen. John Kerry.

But it was in the center, among moderate Protestants and Catholics, that the Republicans gained a decisive edge on Election Day. Fifty-five percent of centrist Catholics, 58 percent of centrist mainline Protestants and 64 percent of centrist evangelical Protestants chose Bush.

“The most obvious message would be to the Democrats … to do better among the centrists,” said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

But Green said the survey results also should caution Republicans that if they put too much emphasis on pleasing religious conservatives, they could alienate the critical constituency in the religious middle.

The survey sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life was conducted in November and December. The margin of error for the overall findings is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

In a report on the study, researchers Green, Corwin Smidt, James Guth and Lyman Kellstedt said the American religious landscape was even more strongly polarized in the 2004 presidential election than in 2000.

The good news for Democrats was that the religious left, in part motivated by opposition to the Iraq war, turned out in large numbers for Kerry. Seventy-eight percent of liberal mainline Protestants voted for Kerry, helping to divide the overall mainline Protestant vote 50-50 among Bush and Kerry. Sixty-nine percent of liberal Catholics voted for Kerry. Both groups had about a 70 percent voter turnout rate, well above the 61 percent turnout for the general population.

Bush, however, took 88 percent of the conservative evangelical Protestant vote and 72 percent of the conservative Catholic vote, two groups that also turned out in large numbers.

In notable shifts from the 2000 election, in part reflecting voter interest in issues such as same-sex marriage, Bush notched a gain of 31 percentage points among Latino Protestants, a 17-percentage-point gain among conservative Catholics, an 11-percentage-point gain among moderate Catholics and a 12-percentage-point gain among black Protestant voters.

Faith did matter to many voters. Forty-seven percent of the respondents said faith was either the most important factor in their voting decision or about as important as other factors.

_ David Briggs

Anti-Semitic Incidents Rise in England in 2004

LONDON (RNS) More anti-Semitic incidents took place in Britain in 2004 than in any year since 1984, when the Community Security Trust started recording such incidents. The total was 532. The previous highest total was 405 in 2000; the second intifada started in Israel in September of that year.

The Community Security Trust was set up to advise Britain’s Jewish community on matters of anti-Semitism, terrorism and security. Its findings cover Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) and the Channel Islands.

Among the incidents were 83 assaults _ the highest total ever recorded, and a sharp increase over the 54 recorded in 2003. These included four cases of extreme violence when the victim’s life was in danger.

There were also marked increases in the number of threats (93) and abusive behavior (272) _ in both cases the highest levels ever recorded.

_ Robert Nowell

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