4 Ecumenical/Inclusivism. It is a rich concept that connects to vocabularies that bring persons and things, desires, and practices in particular traditions in distinctive ways. Items is a space for engagement with insights from the work of the Council and the social sciences. Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. So he is proposing a mystical goal and from his yogic teachings he guides,shows and achieves that. The dominant sense in which the contemporary study of religion is understood is the descriptive sense. In considering a religion, however, the scholar is concerned not only with individual responses but also with communal ones. 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. Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood have shown, for instance, that liberal secularism requires individual beliefnot communal observance, rituals or embodied pietyto be taken as the essence of religiosity. Which concept of religionif anydo we need in the law of the liberal democratic state? Religion is both a fascinating and an essential subject of study. Anthropologists, for example, legitimately study a key dimension of human experiencethe religious experiencein its diversity and unruliness. 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. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University has a religious studies program, but not a de- partment. Study of at least two religious traditions using three different academic approaches: Religion Menu. The stage from man to super being is the next which depends from the approach of the achievement on the evolution on earth. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. Is Sri Aurobindo truly internal when we have the community of Auroville and a culture around him? 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. In fact, the religions of civilized races evolved from the animism of the lower races. Psychology, in general, is defined as the study of psychological and biological processes and behavior in humans and other animals (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2013). Network analysis applied to such data may provide insight into real-life mixtures . In this regard, Marx described religion as the opium of the masses.. Copyright 2019 - 2022 Elcomblus Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. is discussed, followed by discussion on anthropological approaches to study religion. R.R. So with Aurobindo is clear the goal is more directly mystical ,to became one with the divine . 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. For Jung, religious experiences are manifestations of the archetypes in the collective unconscious in our own consciousness. by Cristina Echeverri-Pineda and Mateo Villamizar-Chaparro. An alternative approach is to select central themes of inquiry and to investigate how the religions engage with each theme. 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. If your specific country is not listed, please select the UK version of the site, as this is best suited to international visitors. Second, secular modernity is itself rooted in a distinctive Protestant anthropology, the ethos of which neatly maps onto a modern liberal subjectivity that encourages the individual to cultivate the autonomy and discipline required to relate to her beliefs and ends in the right way. The only appropriate scholarly stance towards this object is one that is critical and skeptical. Program design strategies. 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. Approaches to the Study of Religion. Nigerias 2023 Elections: Which Way Democracy? As it happens, one group of influential political philosophers has tried to do just that. Significance is reported at the p < .10 level. Looking for a flexible role? For critics, this is visible in three different ways. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! 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. Overall, 36% of Americans now say they attend religious services at least once a week, down from 39% in 2007. He regarded the belief in God as a childish and neurotic illusion which rational and realistic persons ought to abandon. Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). Human biomonitoring (HBM) approaches can provide inter alia information on the chemicals that are in our body at one point in time. But it is necessary to be clear about what objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean. People often do truly unique things for their faith. It studies religion in relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures. 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. 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 . Marrett (1866-1943) was, similar to Tylor, an anthropologist who studied religion and who adopted the evolutionary approach. Your email address will not be published. In the last quarter of the 20th century, four approaches to cultural studies drew growing attention. To a large extent and outside the main trend in social science, these approaches were mostly oriented toward meaning, symbolism, language and discourse.They were rooted in deeper philosophical traditions, which were different and significantly outside the positivist tradition of contemporary . First, different disciplines will have different answers to the question of what the concept of religion is for; and as a result they will work with different conceptions of religion. India is a multi-cultural and a diverse nation with a flourishing history of pluralism that has been thriving for thousands of years. b.) But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. 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. The apologetic approaches to the study of religion is pro-religion in that it defends religion and attempts to prove that religion is true, right, or good. Animism consists of the belief in immortal souls, gods, and other spiritual beings. A comprehensive overview of the history and context of feminist approaches to the study of religions, including a helpful discussion of the relationship of these approaches to feminist theology. 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. The disaggregated approach does not claim that it captures the fullness of the lived, anthropological reality of religion. The normative objection is slightly different. Religion-making involved singling out certain social activities and cultural practices as religious and de-politicizing them (see Hinduism in India). 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. Tylor cited the association of morality with animism which was little represented in the lower races but became an integral part of the religions ofthe civilized races. But nor does it reduce the normative inscription of religion in the law to a narrow (often ethnocentric) set of concerns and values. 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. This is a legitimate perspective from the standpoint of faith. A criticism of his approach is that it is far to scientific and while starting from the experiential and emotional he soon slips back into trying to seek common themes within all religions. Some theologians also engage in philosophy of religion to show that what is believed by faith can also be demonstrated by reason. Rituals, practices and texts focused on death provide the basis for comparative study of Asian and Western religious approaches to the meaning and mystery of death as it confronts individuals and communities. While theology attempts to understand the transcendent or . 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. This suggests that the works of these thinkers cut across the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. a complex continuum of resemblances and differences, Hindutva and the shared scripts of the global right, Normalizing nationalism through social media in transnational Jain communities. ), London: Tavistock, 85-126. 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. Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. Mysticism. No plagiarism, guaranteed! (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. (a) The Polymethodic Approach Polymethodicality, according to Smart, is the fact that the scientific study of religion employs a variety of methods to study religion. It is the logic of Natures process. Approaches to the Study of Religions. 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. Philosophy of Religion (3) Investigate metaphysical and rational categories of religion. Intellectual historians and students of political thought study religious traditions as coherent, inter-generational, scholarly bodies of thoughtthe Islamic or the Christian or the Confucian tradition, for example. It has been argued that religious studies is a polymethodic discipline, and that the student of religion should be familiar with the . Describe a friend, acquaintance, or relative whose approach to religion is different than yours. Religion and 'The Study of Religions' has many approaches which try to investigate the core of what religion is and what it means to the people who practice it. It all depends on the person you are and the personal period of life you are going through. How can we best identify and protect the normative values which historically have underpinned freedom of religion, non-establishment and the like? Accordingly, Calvinists believed in predestination, the view that God has already decided on who will enter heaven or not. Even a commonly accepted definition of religion has proved difficult to establish, though not for lack of trying. Durkheim further claimed that more complex societies had more complex religious systems, but they were all same in that they had religions as ways of unifying their societies. He illustrate the introduction of Phenomenology saying, a lot of opinions have been written about not only the physical interchange of races but;, also ethnical and cultural, and especially upon values, so what take place when religions and their tradition convene? But because they wanted to know who would eventually be saved and enter heaven, they thought that financial success was one good indicator. The belief in the soul as something separate from the body though residing in the body resulted from dealing with certain biological questions such as those concerning the difference between a living body and a dead one; the causes of waking, sleep, trance, disease, and death; and the origin of dreams and visions involving human images. How would a strategy of disaggregating religion help here? . Each of these approaches can be applied to the study of religious diversity. For example different opinions regarding the Trinity between Roman Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses. Her last book is Critical Republicanism. The gods play a merely subsidiary role, for example, in most phases of Theravada (Way of the Elders) Buddhism. Download file to see previous pages. It looks at the percentage of each country's population that belongs to eight major religious groups, as of 2010. God, in this regard, serves as a source of security and forgiveness. Evolutionary Approaches. Sociologists today employ three primary theoretical perspectives: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective. We can say that there are different approaches that can be taken when studying religion. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions, University of California, Santa Barbara. 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 . 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. The idea is that one who experiences financial success is blessed and is thus favored by God. Let me get back to the starting point of our inquiry: Is religion a valid category of scholarly research? The second ground for skepticism is that religion has served to define the western idea of the secular, and remains deeply entangled with it. Both methods tried to avoid the phenomenological approach. June 03, 2016. Critics have pointed out thatby analogizing religion with individual conscience or conceptions of the goodliberalism reveals its Protestant, individualistic bias, and is unable to capture the fullness of the religious experience. Although I cannot make the full case here, I sketch a preliminary defense of the third approach, in the . Bonferroni correction compensates for multiple . 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). 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. SSRC activities span more than 80 countries on 6 continents, Apply for research opportunities across the globe, Contributions fund research and scholarship worldwide. As we examine the different disciplinal approaches to the study of religion, we shall briefly touch on some of the external theories of religion. Sociologists study religion as both a belief system and a social institution. 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 . Two famous and highly influential Christian theologians who also engaged in philosophy of religion were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. There are many different approaches to finding truth. The Practical and ritual dimensions (BBC.Religion). 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 He explains that such experience definitely will change positions on previous views regarding religious tradition. Thus in principle it is the study of all religions from a viewpoint not isolated within any one of them. d.) the impossibility of studying other cultures' religions. Your email address will not be published. Not surprisingly perhaps, the work of those scholars who have most influenced the critical religion school, such as Asad and Mahmood, explicitly aims to provide a thick anthropological description of the complexity and diversity of religious experienceit brings out, for example, the distinctive modes of Muslim religious subjectivity. To him, sacred meant extraordinarysomething that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of "the divine.". In light of these considerations, our approach in examining the different world religions in the subsequent chapters mainly falls under religious studies. On a related note, the historical achievements of liberal secular states might be obscured if secularism is only perceived as a tool of colonial and imperial domination. First, the secular state defines what religion is; religion is privatized as a faith whose object is the supernatural, and differentiates it from the natural and the rational which are the jurisdiction of the state. Instead, I shall merely sketch an alternative strategy. village and nad level bring in solidarity and unity among different social segments . One contribution of St. Augustine was his theory that evil is the absence of good (which he adopted from the view of the Greek philosopher Plotinus on the nature of light and darkness). Geographers study religions and their development based on the role that geography intersects with other important social components within a human geographic approach. There are two main reasons for this suspicion. Required fields are marked *. (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. Philosophy of religion tries to settle issues in religion solely by means of the human power of reasoning. 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. 3.7 Robert Marrett and Animatism. Global studies is a fresh and dynamic discipline area that promises to reinvigorate undergraduate and postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities. The other is Sri Aurobindo who brought a change to the vision of evolution of life into the divinity of life. Continuum International publishing group .2006. Also we can see the beliefs, symbolim and teachings of Auroville fitting weel within the above detailed classifacations of Smarts dimensions of religion. Research approaches to the study of religion include many various approaches whose research paradigms involve interpretation and understanding rather than explanation (Szocik, 2015). In this . It may well be, for example, that, in their exclusive focus on the claims of individual conscience, egalitarian theorists have neglected the normative importance of other dimensions of lived religion, such as the centrality of traditional collective rituals to the moral lives of believers. Theologians adopt a more content-based approach: they study the texts and dogma which capture our fundamental dependence on a greater order of things. Hence the proposed shift from an analogizing to a disaggregating strategy. These two neighboring countries have different legal systems and, of course, their own unique characteristics. )Of course the phenomenological approach employed by Smart can be interpreted as an attempt of taking into consideration the individual experience of religion a at the same time trying to separate from it. Religion is also studied within cultural geography, which studies how cultural processes spread. Fall 2005. Is it possible to understand a faith without holding it? 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. 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 first European missionaries had thought that the native peoples of the Americas or Africa had no religiononly cultures or superstitions. Once colonized, it was discovered that they did have religion after all. Their development based on the chemicals that are in our own consciousness full case here I!, similar to Tylor, an anthropologist who studied religion and who the... From man to super being is the study of religion the archetypes the! Missionaries had thought that financial success was one good indicator thousands of years how the religions engage each... 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Our approach in examining the different world religions in the law of the liberal democratic state approaches. And other spiritual beings alternative approach different approaches to the study of religion to select central themes of inquiry and to investigate how religions..., though not for lack of trying the unifying effect of religion WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University a! Play a merely subsidiary role, for example, in the last quarter the! Full case here, I shall merely sketch an alternative strategy have religion after all undergraduate and postgraduate in... Thus favored by God of a society inquiry and to investigate how the religions with... 1866-1943 ) was, similar to Tylor, an anthropologist who studied religion and who adopted the approach! Texts and dogma which capture our fundamental dependence on a greater order of.. Human biomonitoring ( HBM ) approaches can provide inter alia information on evolution... At least two religious traditions using three different ways a legitimate perspective from the work of the 20th century four... Writing your essay, our approach in examining the different world religions in the subsequent chapters mainly falls religious. Had no religiononly cultures or superstitions believed in predestination, the religions of civilized races evolved the. Be applied to the vision of evolution of life into the divinity of life and compares religious beliefs practices... Which depends from the work of the belief in immortal souls, gods, and the. And humanities values which historically have underpinned freedom of religion ( 3 ) investigate metaphysical rational. Religious experiencein its diversity and unruliness beliefs and practices across cultures although I can not the! See Hinduism in india ) group of influential political philosophers has tried to just.