Sociologists use a variety of methods to analyze culture. Fall 2005. 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 . It is the logic of Natures process. Last November, Chris had the pleasure of chatting to Professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi about the psychological approach, how one applies it to . Sociology is the study of patterns and trends in human societies and cultures. . Some religions do not have a deity; others are community-based rather than belief-based; and the boundary between them and secular ideologies such as nationalism is porous. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. Ascension 120. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University has a religious studies program, but not a de- partment. The first is that religion is (as Daniel Dubuisson once wrote) the Wests most characteristic concept, around which it has established and developed its identity. There is a deep and significant continuity between the Christian defense of the true religion and the nineteenth-century invention of world religions. The universalism of the concept masked an internally hierarchical classificatory scheme, which, as Tomoko Mazuzawa has shown, was crafted within the crucible of the missionary and colonial encounter. In brief, it is the study of religious phenomena in so far as they may be understood psychologically (Merkur 2005,165). 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. It may well be that egalitarian theorists have picked a normatively problematic, or normatively narrow, analogy for religion. The most influential proponent of comparative religion in the nineteenth century was Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900). For Jung, religious experiences are manifestations of the archetypes in the collective unconscious in our own consciousness. One of the many reasons for this failure is that each discipline enlisted to study religion has its own distinctive methods and topics, and scholars often disagree about how to resolve the inevitable conflicts between these different intellectual perspectives. Sociology in general looks at people's . Religion can be said to be subjective in at least two senses. 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 During his time, Marx observed that the capitalists, in their pursuit of profits, eventually exploited the workers. The reflexive effect of the study of religion on religion itself may in practice make it more difficult for the student of religion to adopt the detachment required by bracketing. The academic study of religion is an inherently interdisciplinary field, incorporating textual studies of the world's sacred texts, language studies, art, history, philosophy, anthropology, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, comparative literature and literary studies, cultural studies, gender and ethnic studies, legal studies, and . Thus, some political ideologies, such as communism and fascism, have been regarded as analogous to religion. Nor does the origin of a concept in itself discredit its uses: the concept may well have been forged in the crucible of missionary and colonial encounters, but its meanings and uses have further proliferated in non-colonial and post-colonial settings, in ways that escaped, distorted, and subverted the original discourse. Psychology is the study of human and animal behavior and how thinking processes operate. (Scott London ,the future of religion an Interview with Ninian Smart June 1999 issue ofThe Witnessmagazine. ) A criticism of Aurobindos view may be seen that it seeks to remain within religion itself, similar to that of Smart as they both emphasise the importance of the experience of religion, a personal contact with God or Gods, however within Marxism we can see a move away from this religious experience. As we examine the different disciplinal approaches to the study of religion, we shall briefly touch on some of the external theories of religion. 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. 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. Secularism, on this view, transfers the individuals holy loyalties away from the church and towards the nation-state. Kujenga Amani facilitates the exchange of ideas about diverse aspects of peacebuilding in Africa. There are doubts about how far there can be neutrality and objectivity in the study of religion. So neutrality, for liberals such as Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, is generalized non-establishment. Egalitarian theorists of religious freedom offer a compelling response to the critical religion school. It has been argued that religious studies is a polymethodic discipline, and that the student of religion should be familiar with the . The purpose of this course is to introduce and examine a variety of methodological approaches to the study of religion. Most approaches come up with what are called theories of religion, referring to accounts or explanations of the origins and functions of religion. 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. The Hijab Controversy in Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2008). 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. There are religions, however, in which even worship rituals are not central. Can we categorize all religions within Ninian Smart definitions? In the Australian context, the interdisciplinary pedagogy that defines global studies is gaining wider acceptance as a coherent and necessary approach to the study of global change. Other religions are sourced in man's rebellion against God and/or demonic influence. Author of. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! These perspectives offer sociologists theoretical paradigms for explaining how society influences people, and vice versa. Within religious studies there are three common methodologies: Philosophy of Religion ( Phenomenology ), the study of . The findings that focus on the scientific study of religion, including the SSSR and the SSR units within the AAR, are especially highlighted, as are contrasts between sociological and psychological approaches in the academic study of religion. Carl Jung (1875-1961) was the founder of analytic psychology, the name given to Jungs psychological-therapeutic system which divides the unconscious mind into the personal and the collective. But perhaps we should apply to religion something like Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of family resemblance. Instead of organizing the course around different theories of religion, the course is arranged in terms of broad methods according to which religion might be theorized. This approach is known as comparative religion. by Ccile Laborde February 5, 2014. The difficulty of the distinction consists chiefly in a denial that God, as the object of the response, is a religious being (i.e., God is transcendent, not religious in the sense of being a part of the human product), and the question about revelation as a religious fact thus needs to be answered. To him, sacred meant extraordinarysomething that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of "the divine.". Thus in principle it is the study of all religions from a viewpoint not isolated within any one of them. 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. 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 . The essence of religion and the context of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions, Neutrality and subjectivity in the study of religion, Theories of the Renaissance and Reformation, Historical, archaeological, and literary studies, Anthropological approaches to the study of religion, Theories concerning the origins of religion, Functional and structural studies of religion, The concerns of the philosophy of religion, Modern existentialist and phenomenological studies, Relationship between Western and non-Western philosophy in regard to religion, The relationship of Western Christianity to other religions, Modern origin and development of the history and phenomenology of religion, https://www.britannica.com/topic/study-of-religion. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. Its object is not personal, although is a necessary condition of the yoga. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. Religion should be disaggregated into a number of different values which relate to the law of the liberal state in different ways. Anthropology of religion, on the other hand, explores the ways religious practices are embedded in specific forms of sociality, regimes of power, historical struggles, and modes of production (Lambek 2008, 5). Transcribed image text: To address the following questions, consider the four approaches to religion described in the introduction to this module exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism and empathetic interest in other people. Looking for a flexible role? b.) These philosophical issues include, among many others, whether we can adequately prove the existence of God, reconcile the existence of evil with the existence of a God who is wholly good and all-powerful, reconcile Gods omniscience (the power to know everything) and foreknowledge (the power to know future events) with human freedom, explain the nature of miracles, determine the meaningfulness of religious language (how religious linguistic expressions acquire their meanings), and many others. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Not surprisingly, religion-making quickly became a tool of colonial and neo-colonial governance. 3.7 Robert Marrett and Animatism. Also we can see the beliefs, symbolim and teachings of Auroville fitting weel within the above detailed classifacations of Smarts dimensions of religion. There are two main reasons for this suspicion. n 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. Psychology, in general, is defined as the study of psychological and biological processes and behavior in humans and other animals (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). Since becoming aware of our unconscious makes us a whole person (a fully realized Self), religion is thus seen by Jung as something positive (Merkur 2005, 177). Philosophy of religion tries to settle issues in religion solely by means of the human power of reasoning. 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. Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. Instead, I shall merely sketch an alternative strategy. study of religion, attempt to understand the various aspects of religion, especially through the use of other intellectual disciplines. 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! If theology focuses on a particular religion, religious studies examine the different religions of the world. According to a number of scholars (often influenced by Foucauldian or post-colonial thought), the category of religion is deeply implicated in the history and practice of western statism and imperialism. As it happens, one group of influential political philosophers has tried to do just that. For our purposes, we shall . Although there is still no agreement on this issue, the frontier between traditional religions and modern political ideologies remains a promising topic of study. The point has been made with particular acuity by legal scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan in her book The Impossibility of Religious Freedom. Items is a space for engagement with insights from the work of the Council and the social sciences. While for Marx religion isa creation of capitalism, for Weber it is the other way roundcapitalism is largely due to religion, more specifically, the Calvinist religion. Here religion involves subjectivity in the sense of individual experience. How a believer of a certain religion (an insider) will study his/her own religion, for instance, will differ from how a nonbeliever of that religion (an outsider) will study it.Their motivations and methods will be different. No consensus among scholars concerning the best way to study religion has developed, however. The challenge is threefold: we must attend to the concerns of the critical religion school while, at the same time, be sensitive both to the lived reality of religious experience and belief, and to the protection of the normative ideals underpinning freedom of religion in the law. Each of these approaches can be applied to the study of religious diversity. 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. . Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). (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. Corrections? So how would Aurobindo address questions upon doctrine say within the New Testament? Nevertheless, common to all these different terms and their respective definitions of approach was the motivation to dispense with theologically orientated normative constructions in the study of religion. 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