Hinduism Growing Quietly, Almost Invisbly in America

The Association of Religion Data Archive (ARDA) reports that while various forms of Hinduism were small and exotic in America's past with Transcendental Meditation and the International Associatin of Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna), it has changed and grown over more recent decades:

"What is propelling Hinduism in the United States into a role as one of the nation's largest minority religions is a steady stream of Indian immigrants who have built hundreds of temples across the nation, according to a new study.

"In what it calls the first effort to conduct a Hindu census in the United States, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Institute of American Religion discovered some 1,600 temples and centers with an estimated 600,000 practicing Hindus.

"That number could easily rise up to the estimated 1.2 million who self-identify as Hindus in national studies by adding in the mostly Indian Americans who limit their involvement to private spiritual practices or celebrations of semi-secularized holy days such as Diwali, said J. Gordon Melton, the Institute executive director, Melton announced the results of the census at the recent annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics and Cultural in Washington."

Read the whole ARDA report here.

Harold Camping of Family Radio Predicts World's End May 21

From a report at SFGate, Christian fundamentalist radio and television preacher Harold Camping is predicting the end of the world later this month:

"Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.

"'That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,' Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. 'It's like a fairy tale.'

"The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.

"The Mayans and the recent Hollywood movie "2012" have put the apocalypse in the popular mind this year, but Camping has been at this business for a long time. And while Armageddon is pop science or big-screen entertainment to many, Camping has followers from the Bay Area to China."

This article can be read here, and you can view CNN's report on a group of traveler's connected with Camping spreading this warning here.

Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture, written by Christopher D. Bader, F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph D. Baker (New York: New York University Press, 2010).

A visit to most bookstores, particularly large chain bookstores, will reveal a large collection of books that explore various facets of the paranormal. These phenomena and experiences are found throughout popular culture, and are frequently depicted in popular television programs and films. Recently, three scholars conducted sociological research that looked at those involved in the paranormal as a part of American religious culture. In the interview that follows Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken, and Joseph O. Baker discuss their research findings as compiled in their book Paranormal America. Bader and Mencken are Associate Professors of Sociology at Baylor University, and Baker is Assistant Professor of Sociology at East Tennessee State University.

John W. Morehead: Thank you for your fine book, and for your willingness to discuss the results of your research. As you know, the paranormal has a marginalizing effect among those who give it any kind of credibility, even as a research topic. How did you come to develop an interest in the sociology of the paranormal, and why were you willing to engage the subject matter perhaps at the risk of your academic credibility?

Christopher Bader: I have long been interested in the paranormal as a sociological phenomenon as I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was always fascinated with Bigfoot. It is risky for scientists of many fields to take the paranormal seriously. As sociologists we are interested in the behaviors of people, rather than the reality (or lack thereof) of a given phenomenon. So long as people believe in something and act upon that belief we are interested as sociologists. In other words, we are not really studying Bigfoot, ghosts and UFOs, rather we are studying people who believe in such things. We do not come down on either side of the fence with regard to the reality of paranormal phenomena, since doing so is irrelevant to our work. Certainly we have received our share of giggles and jokes as the result of our research, but the nature of our perspective protects our credibility.