different approaches to the study of religion

Discussion about religion has been complicated further by the attempt of some Christian theologians, notably Karl Barth (18861968), to draw a distinction between religion and the Gospel (the proclamation peculiar to Christianity). The implications of the first approach have been resisted in many quarters. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. Some of these approaches focus on how to understand the beliefs and practices of particular religions, while some have more general concerns such as how religion relates to the nature of society, culture, human evolution, mind, and human behavior. TTh 2:40-4:00. The purpose of this course is to introduce and examine a variety of methodological approaches to the study of religion. Looking for a flexible role? a creation of capitalism, for Weber it is the other way roundcapitalism is largely due to religion, more specifically, the Calvinist religion. It studies religion in relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures. Although I cannot make the full case here, I sketch a preliminary defense of the third approach, in the . Let me get back to the starting point of our inquiry: Is religion a valid category of scholarly research? Besides their evolutionary assumption about religion, the followers of evolutionary theory show overwhelming Eurocentric biases. Philosophy of religion tries to settle issues in religion solely by means of the human power of reasoning. The field of religion/worldview is a broadly defined area of study. Updates? One of the significant sociological findings of Max Weber was the significant contribution of that the Calvinist religious ideas had on the development of the economic system of capitalism. Aquinas is famous for his five proofs for the existence of God: his arguments from causation, motion, necessity, design, and degrees of protection. Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. 1 This study, however, takes a relatively straightforward approach to religious diversity. Phenomenology or Religion (3) Study of consciousness and experiences. These strategies have been identified as central to the development of programs that prioritize student development and help improve student retention, engagement, and academic performance. Which of these four approaches do you take in your everyday life, and why? For a Christian, Christ is the only way of salvation and the Bible is the only source of saving revelation today. Others have no clear vision upon their religious identity and are searching possible traditions, ready to meet their spiritual exploration .So they start looking for different approaches to their study ,bringing along different opinions and whatever the process and methodology is, will bring them information from which eventually they will find answers or give opinion. Smart contemplated these question for many years investigating various religions in the world. Religion-making involved singling out certain social activities and cultural practices as religious and de-politicizing them (see Hinduism in India). The author will attempt to evaluate the strengths and weakness of two approaches to religion and try to compare the work of the two representations and their methodology .The first is Professor Ninian Smart as he wrote widely, regarding different topics in religions, with papers and articles appearing in a vast range of publication sand television worldwide developing his own vision and philosophy of human progress and spiritual evolution. This suggests that the works of these thinkers cut across the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. Box No. Network analysis applied to such data may provide insight into real-life mixtures . Aside from being exploited, the workers were also dehumanized or alienated in the workplace. It has emerged as the single most important means of communication for those interested in critical approaches to the study of religion. Religion is also studied within cultural geography, which studies how cultural processes spread. The gods play a merely subsidiary role, for example, in most phases of Theravada (Way of the Elders) Buddhism. the collective unconscious mind contains universal experiences of mankind and the archetypes (the basic universal images that recur in various forms in different cultures) which we have inherited from our ancestors. This course introduces students to the variety of academic approaches to the study of religion and to the procedures and sources used in writing academic papers in religious studies. William James (1842-1910) focused on the psychological process that occurs in a religious conversion, when a nonreligious person becomes religious (Merkur 2005, 172). Geographers study religions and their development based on the role that geography intersects with other important social components within a human geographic approach. The modern sovereign state is grounded in a distinctive political theology that mobilizes the structural categories of metaphysics and theology to bolster and consolidate the higher identity of secular citizenship. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. Thus, when William James describes religion as. (Michael T.Mclaughlin,p96, Editrice Ponteficia Universita` Grecoriana Roma 2003)In many occasions he confirmed that he does not intend to promote any old religion or to find a new one and he strongly oppose religious particolarism. The absence of good (the moral kind) is caused by our disobedience to the will of God. In other words it is a fair and full study of all religions" (Whaling, 2006, "Theory and methods in religious studies: Contemporary approaches to the . Ninian Smarts approach to religion is described in his academic literature as a completely new way to the thinking of religion. 47. How would a strategy of disaggregating religion help here? In particular, a student of theology intends to deepen his/her understanding of a particular religion, while a student of religious studies intends to understand the different religions of the world. Instead, I shall merely sketch an alternative strategy. Both methods tried to avoid the phenomenological approach. The word anthropology means science of human beings or humanity. Summary: 1.Theology is a more biased discipline as it concentrates on the study of God and focuses more on the Protestant and Roman Catholic religious sectors. Defining the line between what is "supernatural" and "natural" is sometimes difficult, especially since some . Second, however, we may ask whether the normative analogy used by egalitarian theorists of religious freedom is the right one. 2 The closer a country comes to having equal shares of the . Conflict sometimes arises because the committed point of view is likely to begin from a more conservative stance, accepting at face value the scriptural accounts of events, whereas the secular historian may be more skeptical, especially of records of miraculous events. The disaggregated approach does not claim that it captures the fullness of the lived, anthropological reality of religion. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Sociology is one such approach that this essay will be looking at through its founding fathers Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx. The growth of various disciplines in the 19th century, notably psychology and sociology, stimulated a more analytic approach to religions, while at the same time theology became more sophisticated and, in a sense, scientific as it began to be affected by and thus to make use of historical and other methods. village and nad level bring in solidarity and unity among different social segments . Moreover, in the absence of a tight definition there will always be a number of disputed cases. Consider an analogy with marriage. He explains that such experience definitely will change positions on previous views regarding religious tradition. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. Methodologies provide a lense of analysis from which to view the field of religous studies. To ask that the law embrace and describe the whole of social reality would be to yearn for a totalitarian law. Human biomonitoring (HBM) approaches can provide inter alia information on the chemicals that are in our body at one point in time. In addition to the main scriptures of a particular religion, theology often involves the study of the works of recognized theologians who are usually believers of the religion. The study of the religious notions of primitive people arose within the context of evolutionary theory. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) defines religion as "a unified system of beliefs and Your email address will not be published. These perspectives offer sociologists theoretical paradigms for explaining how society influences people, and vice versa. It does this by examining the dynamics of the constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age groups (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). c.) the truth or falsity of religion. 4 Ecumenical/Inclusivism. It also depends heavily on the motives the researcher brings to his or her investigation of religious or worldview issues. Another reason is that questions about the origins and functions of religion have often been conflated with questions about the truth of religion, and this has led to controversies that tend to hinder the development of common concepts, methodologies, and problems. Religion should be disaggregated into a number of different values which relate to the law of the liberal state in different ways. The study of religion can roughly be divided between descriptive and historical inquiries on the one hand and normative inquiries on the other. (Peter Connolly,pp1-2Approche to the Study of Religion,Biddles L.T.D.) Religious beliefs, in particular, are only one sub-set of a larger class, which political philosophers, following John Rawls, call conceptions of the good. On this view, a liberal state protects, not only freedom of religion, but more generally freedom of conscience; it disestablishes, not only dominant religion, but also any controversial conception of the good. Registered office: Creative Tower, Fujairah, PO Box 4422, UAE. Required fields are marked *. It may perhaps intensify your religious experience. Approaches to Studying Religion (three courses): Three courses, one in each area, covering more than one major religious tradition; level II or level III courses may be used to fulfill this requirement; a general education course in . Approaches to the Study of Religion. He also introduced a broad program and methodology of comparing religions, which included principles like gaining knowledge of others through their own writings, grouping religions according to their regional, linguistic contexts, and avoiding the common distortion of comparing the positive aspects of one religion with the negative aspects of another (Paden 2005, 212-213). These two neighboring countries have different legal systems and, of course, their own unique characteristics. Mysticism. The Practical and ritual dimensions (BBC.Religion). First of all we have to say that both, Smart and Aurobindo have not defined religion from objective point of view but rather to determine religion in terms of its own value. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. Psychology is the study of human and animal behavior and how thinking processes operate. Copyright 2019 - 2022 Elcomblus Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. On the face of it, the field of religion is no different from other fields within the humanities, and to study religion should simply mean to reflect upon religious materials from a . God, in this regard, serves as a source of security and forgiveness. This means that a student of theology is a follower of the particular religion he/she is studying; whereas a student of religious studies is usually not a follower of the religions he/she is studying. The normative objection is slightly different. But nor does it reduce the normative inscription of religion in the law to a narrow (often ethnocentric) set of concerns and values. (Ninian Smart,pp10-12,Dimension of the sacred an anatomy of the worlds beliefs ,Harper Collins Publisher 1196) We see from Smarts classifactory account, Smarts perspective in sustaining a phenomenological perception to the methodology of approach to the study, is far different from the approach that Sri Aurobindo use. Like most abstract concepts, the concept of religion is a construction projected onto the world, but one consequence of this large-scale projection may well be that our world has genuinely come to exhibit it. Some of these theories may be controversial, or questionable, for some people; nonetheless, knowing them broadens our understanding of the meaning and nature of religion. The most influential proponent of comparative religion in the nineteenth century was Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900). ), London: Tavistock, 85-126. Fall 2005. This is a legitimate perspective from the standpoint of faith. Given this, we, however, also use other approaches especially comparative religion and philosophy of religionwhich we will discuss next. 2. But the historical process itself has to be investigated scientificallythat is, by considering the evidence, using the techniques of historical enquiry and other scientific methods. Sociology in general looks at people's . Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. The method used was to compare the subjective experience with the intent of shaping the arrangement of religion itself from within the structure. Most of the major thinkers recognized in this area are also those recognized in the sociology of religion like Durkheim and Weber. Introduces students to the study of religion, world religious traditions and ethics through an exploration of death and dying. The History of Religion as a Sociological Concept For our purposes, we shall . Thus, the preliminary task of the student of religion must be to amass an inventory of kinds of religious phenomena. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! Items is a space for engagement with insights from the work of the Council and the social sciences. She is the Director of UCLs Religion and Political Theory Centre. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. Department of Religion Pearson 211 Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397 Email: religion@swarthmore.edu Phone: (610) 328-8045 Fax: (610) 328-7687 For the last four decades universities and schools have been acting in response to a constant, steady demand for courses upon the study of religion. After studying the indigenous Australians, Durkheim claimed that the totems (sacred objects used as emblems or symbols of a group of people, family, clan, or tribe) that the aborigines worship represented their own conceptions of a unified group or society. While theology attempts to understand the transcendent or . In the literature, lived religion is treated variously as a term, a concept, an approach, and a field of studyor all of these. From this perspective, the egalitarian strategy of analogizing religion is a productive one: the law should not capture religion as such, but whatever dimensions of religion are normatively salient and suitable for legal protection. Is Sri Aurobindo truly internal when we have the community of Auroville and a culture around him? A field study was conducted to achieve the objective of this research. The author will attempt to evaluate the strengths and weakness of two approaches to religion and try to compare the work of the two representations and their methodology .The first is Professor Ninian Smart as he wrote widely, regarding different topics in religions, with papers and articles appearing in a vast range of . If it is not possible, then cross-religious comparisons would mostly break down, for normally it is not possible to be inside more than one religion. Sociologists use a variety of methods to analyze culture. Continuum International publishing group .2006. What Wittgenstein said about the concept of game also applies to the concept of religion: the fact that we cannot identify a single feature that all religions exhibit does not mean that the concept of religion is meaningless. The term theology, though often used to refer to Christian theology, also applies to the systematic study of the other monotheistic religions, standardly referring to Judaism and Islam. Freud viewed religion negatively. But what the capitalists gave back to the workers as payment for their labor were merely their subsistence wages that were just enough for the workers to survive. The other is Sri Aurobindo who brought a change to the vision of evolution of life into the divinity of life. Contact. So he is proposing a mystical goal and from his yogic teachings he guides,shows and achieves that. In this . This tradition goes back in modern times to the seminal work of the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (180472), who proposed that God was the extension of human aspirations, and it is found in the work of the philosopher Karl Marx, the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, and others. 10. A more promising method would seem to be that of exhibiting aspects of religion that are typical of religions, though not necessarily universal, such as the occurrence of the rituals of worship. Reformulated in this way, Sullivans critique has bite. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. He is not final. As noted, there is a specific pedagogical Sociology is one such approach that this essay will be looking at through its founding fathers Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University has a religious studies program, but not a de- partment. "Feminist Approaches." In Approaches to the Study of Religions, edited by Peter Connolly, pp. Religion is a concept created by modern scholars and superimposed on a variety of different phenomena for a variety of motives. On the other hand, some view it as a way of purifying religion from the idolatry or worship of human-made objects. 1 Review. Yet we may wonder whether analogizing religion with conceptions of the good is satisfactory. The people who take these courses are usually involved in religion themselves ,many are involved a in religious communities or, wishing to know more and learn regarding the religious beliefs of others. So how would Aurobindo address questions upon doctrine say within the New Testament? O . The study of multiple religious traditions in order to prove the existence or non-existence of God The scholarly examination and comparison of the beliefs, rituals, customs, and traditions of two or more religions It can be seen to designate: a) religion as practised in particular locations or by particular people; b) a specific modality of religious practice; c) the fundamental nature of all religion. Yet the strategy of disaggregating religion has a further, more portentous implication for normative political theory. Erin has an M.Ed in adult education and a BS in psychology and a BS in management systems. describing how religion is experienced by practitioners. Aurobindo offers no guidance upon other religions as his account is purely personal. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). These (and others) are all legitimate uses of the concept of religion. The distinction, however, is not an absolute one, for, as has been noted, descriptions of religion may sometimes incorporate theories about religion that imply something about the truth or other normative aspects of some or all religions. They suggest that, even though historically the liberal state may have defined itself in relation to a problematic construal of religion, it has since broadened the scope of its moral concern, and is therefore less vulnerable to charges of ethnocentrism. Even if an inventory of kinds of belief and practice could be gathered so as to provide a typical profile of what counts as religion, some scholars would maintain that the differences between religions are more significant than their similarities. As an academic discipline, anthropology studies human beings in aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal species. Anthropology has two major fields: physical anthropology, which studies the the origin, evolution, and diversity of people, and cultural anthropology, which studies culture in all of its aspects and uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). Method & Theory in the Study of Religion publishes articles, notes, book reviews and letters which explicitly address the problems of methodology and theory in the academic study of religion. The worry here is the hard-won liberal right to religious freedom will not elicit much respect if the existence of religion itself is radically questioned. The only appropriate scholarly stance towards this object is one that is critical and skeptical. It fosters innovative research, nurtures new generations of social scientists, deepens how inquiry is practiced within and across disciplines, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. Download file to see previous pages. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Social Science Research Council There are religions, however, in which even worship rituals are not central. This approach is known as comparative religion. For Jung, religious experiences are manifestations of the archetypes in the collective unconscious in our own consciousness. Normative inquiries primarily concern the truth of religious claims, the acceptability of religious values, and other such normative aspects; descriptive inquiries, which are only indirectly involved with the normative elements of religion, are primarily concerned with the history, structure, and other observable elements of religion. So with Aurobindo is clear the goal is more directly mystical ,to became one with the divine . The law does not describe and regulate the full experience of marriage: the fact that, in law, marriage is a contract does not mean that marriage is, or should be experienced as, a contract. To a great extent, the meanings now attached to the terms religion and religions have tended to promote the study of religion in order to understand the world in which we live rather than as part of a desire for personal religious self-fulfillment. Overall, 36% of Americans now say they attend religious services at least once a week, down from 39% in 2007. She has published extensively in the areas of republicanism and toleration, theories of law and the state, and global justice. The other sense of the subjectivity of religion is properly a matter for theology and the philosophy of religion. The Christian theologian, for example, may see a particular historical process as providential. 2 Psychological. The Immanent Frame publishes interdisciplinary perspectives on religion, secularism, and the public sphere. The study of religion emerged as a formal discipline during the 19th century, when the methods and approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and other fields were brought to bear on the task of determining the history, origins, and functions of religion. Psychology of religion is the application of the different psychological theories and methods to explain religious phenomena, which include the belief in God, religious experiences and behaviors, and spirituality. An internal theory of religion is a particular religions account of its own origins and functions (e.g., Christianitys own account of the origins and functions of the Christian religion); while an external theory of religion is an account of the origins and functions of particular religions, or religion in general, using the methods of certain academic disciplines. The author as part of his degree course has studied these two vastly differing approaches. This means, among others, that the philosophy of religion justifies claims by the strength and coherence of arguments. Kujenga Amani facilitates the exchange of ideas about diverse aspects of peacebuilding in Africa. Human health risk assessment of chemical mixtures is complex due to the almost infinite number of possible combinations of chemicals to which people are exposed to on a daily basis. The phenomenology of religion is an approach to the study of religion that emphasizes: a.) St. Augustine used this theory to resolve the philosophical question, If everything comes from God, where does evil come from? According to him, evil exists in the world but it does not come from God, for what only comes from God is good. Author of, Robert Segal, Chair in Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: Our academic writing and marking services can help you! Describe a friend, acquaintance, or relative whose approach to religion is different than yours. The goods that the workers helped produced by means of their labor (using the materials and machines owned by the capitalists) were sold in the market at a certain value. Aurobindo did not just stick to an immanental experience of a divine being but that there must be transcendence within the individuals life which is seen in Auroville with a lived approach to ones faith rather like that which is common within Charismatic and Evangelical Churches. Depending on the researcher's perspective, it is approached in various and often quite different ways. But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. On the one hand, some view psychology of religion as a program that reduces religious phenomena believed to be real to mere psychological phenomena. There are many ways of studying religions. We may conclude saying that maybe religions will never combine in to one global faith ,but we do think that the society is moving towards a global ideology that have a space for religion and identify the contributions of the diverse ethnicity and traditions and bring a new way in helping us to work together for the support of human values and spirituality. In Marrett's view, the first form of religion was a belief in an ever-present and ubiquitous force that gave power to all elements of life (Durkheim 203). The Essay Writing ExpertsUK Essay Experts. For egalitarian theorists of religious freedom (as I call them), there is nothing special about religion as such. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives. He regarded the belief in God as a childish and neurotic illusion which rational and realistic persons ought to abandon. In the last quarter of the 20th century, four approaches to cultural studies drew growing attention. "The notion that such a study is the objective and comparative study of religion. As to the first sense, one of the challenges to the student of religion is the problem of evoking its inner, individual side, which is not observable in any straightforward way. Religious fundamentalism is the approach of those religious groups that look for the literal interpretation of original religious texts or books believing that teachings obtained from . The author will attempt to evaluate the strengths and weakness of two approaches to religion and try to compare the work of the two representations and their methodology .The first is Professor Ninian Smart as he wrote widely, regarding different topics in religions, with papers and articles appearing in a vast range of . Understanding Religious Pluralism in India. The specific question which political and legal philosophers (should) ask themselves is this. Methodologies in religious studies are the interpretive models on which the analysis of religious phenomena and resources are discussed.
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