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). But it is necessary to be clear about what objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean. Phone: 212-377-2700 Fax: 212-377-2727. It also depends heavily on the motives the researcher brings to his or her investigation of religious or worldview issues. We also study religion in order to learn more about how different aspects of human lifepolitics, science, literature, art, law, economicshave been and continue to be shaped by changing religious notions of, for example, good and evil, images of the deity and the divine, salvation and punishment, etc. He explains that such experience definitely will change positions on previous views regarding religious tradition. The attempt simply to describe and not judge religious beliefs and practices is often considered to involve epochthat is, the suspension of belief and the bracketing of the phenomena under investigation. Learn about sociologists . If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Consider an analogy with marriage. Ninian Smarts approach to religion is described in his academic literature as a completely new way to the thinking of religion. Psychology of religion involves the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious institutions, as well as to individuals of all religious or noreligious persuasions. 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). First, as religion is not a thing but a term of art, it is perfectly legitimateas suggested abovethat different dimensions of it are appropriated in different disciplines and areas of life. 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 . 4 Ecumenical/Inclusivism. London and New York, 1999. It is an illusion because it is just a product of the human imagination. This means, among others, that the philosophy of religion justifies claims by the strength and coherence of arguments. Two famous and highly influential Christian theologians who also engaged in philosophy of religion were St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Ontology. )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. New approaches to the study of religion: the cognitive, the biological, and the neurological. While theology attempts to understand the transcendent or . 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 . Furthermore, if theology studies a particular religion always from the inside, religious studies study different religions mostly from the outside. (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. Updates? But perhaps we should apply to religion something like Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of family resemblance. Much of the interesting work done in anthropology, sociology, and religious studies departments, for example, draws on both the first and the second approach). 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. So the starting point of the disaggregation strategy is to accept that, as religion is indeed not a thing but a term of art (it has different meanings in different contexts), different dimensions of it will be appropriated in different ways in different disciplines. In this post, I briefly set out three distinct approaches to the study of religion: criticizing religion, upholding religion, and disaggregating religion. the civilized races. Religion can be said to be subjective in at least two senses. Philosophy of religion tries to settle issues in religion solely by means of the human power of reasoning. Other religions are sourced in man's rebellion against God and/or demonic influence. God, in this regard, serves as a source of security and forgiveness. ), London: Tavistock, 85-126. Sociology studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them. Sociologists are primarily interested in examining the effects of religion on society. For example different opinions regarding the Trinity between Roman Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses. Describe a friend, acquaintance, or relative whose approach to religion is different than yours. 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 most influential premodern work in comparative religion is the book The Golden Bough (1890) by James G. Frazer (1854-1941). It is the logic of Natures process. 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). Let me get back to the starting point of our inquiry: Is religion a valid category of scholarly research? Understanding Religious Pluralism in India. The fast, they abstain from sex, they walk on fire, perform self-flagellation, or nail themselves on crosses. The field of religion/worldview is a broadly defined area of study. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com. Omissions? Most of the major thinkers recognized in this area are also those recognized in the sociology of religion like Durkheim and Weber. develop an informed understanding of the diversity of world religions. 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. India is a multi-cultural and a diverse nation with a flourishing history of pluralism that has been thriving for thousands of years. Tylor, in his work Primitive Culture (1871), claimed that the essence of religion or the minimum defining property of religion, is the belief in Spiritual Beings, which he called animism. For this reason, let us examine the ideas of another pioneering anthropologist of religion, namely Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917). Bonferroni correction compensates for multiple . Durkheim was more interested in the unifying effect of religion among members of a society. According to William Cavanaughs provocative thesis, the fact that Christianity is construed as a religion, whereas nationalism is not, ensures that the Christians public and lethal loyalty belongs to the nation-state. Religion is both a fascinating and an essential subject of study. Religion is a concept created by modern scholars and superimposed on a variety of different phenomena for a variety of motives. Erin has an M.Ed in adult education and a BS in psychology and a BS in management systems. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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. the myths of a religion. As we examine the different disciplinal approaches to the study of religion, we shall briefly touch on some of the external theories of religion. Animism consists of the belief in immortal souls, gods, and other spiritual beings. Hence, we also have Jewish theology (and Jewish theologians) and Islamic theology (and Islamic theologians). c.) the truth or falsity of religion. Here I focus on two objectionswhich, for ease of presentation, I call the anthropological and the normative objection. This idea led Calvinists to engage in activities that would increase their wealth, paving the way for the development of capitalism. Office hours: MW 3-4, TTh 1-2:30. and by appointment. As a social institution, religion is a pattern of social action organized around the beliefs and practices that people develop to answer questions about the meaning of existence. Sociologists use a variety of methods to analyze culture. Is it possible to understand a faith without holding it? . The study of religion may thus come to have a reflexive effect on religion itself, such as the manner in which modern Christian theology has been profoundly affected by the whole question of the historicity of the New Testament. They argue, for example, that exemptions from general laws can be justified on the ground of conscience; and that what the state should not establish are conceptions of the good. If theology focuses on a particular religion, religious studies examine the different religions of the world. The works of both Sri Aurobindo and Ninian Smart shows two drastic and completely different approaches to religion. Significance is reported at the p < .10 level. Sullivan demonstrates that religion is too complex, too comprehensive, and too multi-faceted to be adequately captured by the law of the liberal state. Manifestations of the sacred. 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. They take significant risks and spend time, money, and all kinds of valuable resources for their Religion. 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. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION WILLIAM E. ARNAL New York University has a religious studies program, but not a de- partment. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! 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. In this lesson, we will discuss the difference between the scientific and the religious approach and will look at some examples of each. To him, sacred meant extraordinarysomething that inspired wonder and that seemed connected to the concept of "the divine.". It looks at the percentage of each country's population that belongs to eight major religious groups, as of 2010. (Note that no assumption is made about the actual disciplinary location of scholars. 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. From this perspective, it would be a mistake to think that conceptual imprecision is in itself an obstacle to scholarly inquiry. Some theologians also engage in philosophy of religion to show that what is believed by faith can also be demonstrated by reason. 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. Can we truly compare two totally different views religion one very internal the other very visual? APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION 109 like, the students were asked to read Marx, Freud, Durkheim. Geographers study religions and their development based on the role that geography intersects with other important social components within a human geographic approach. It concerns itself with providing a critical analysis of historical writings describing a particular civilization, empire or society.Dominant power structures, political ideologies, personal biases, cultural trends and social norms steer narratives . 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. T here 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. 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. Author of. Personal experience is crucial to any understanding of religion .On this particular account Aurobindo discovers the relation or union, he favours, what he identifies as spiritual psychology and integral methods, but for both he confirms that the objective is to be understood and interpreted in terms of subjective. We can confirm that the method of study that Smart used in his approach comprehend both external and internal analysis of religion, characterized by phenomenological perspectives. 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. liade (1907-1986), whose studies included the concepts of sacred space and mythic time, and the sacredness of nature (Paden 2005, 215). Thus, the preliminary task of the student of religion must be to amass an inventory of kinds of religious phenomena. Thus, the bracketing means forgetting about beliefs of ones own that might endorse or conflict with what is being investigated. These different approaches disagree about the essence of religion, but all three camps operate within a shared account of the human. 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). This decline is accompanied by a rise in the share of U.S. adults who say they seldom or never attend religious services (from 27% in 2007 to 30% in 2014). These studies suggest the significance of religion in health communication and in our . For our purposes, we shall examine certain approaches to the study of religions that are based on certain academic disciplines. 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. Given this, we, however, also use other approaches especially comparative religion and philosophy of religionwhich we will discuss next. In light of these considerations, our approach in examining the different world religions in the subsequent chapters mainly falls under religious studies. It studies religion in relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures. "Feminist Approaches." In Approaches to the Study of Religions, edited by Peter Connolly, pp. study of religion, attempt to understand the various aspects of religion, especially through the use of other intellectual disciplines. Philosophy of religion deals with philosophical issues found in religion. 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. Secularism, on this view, transfers the individuals holy loyalties away from the church and towards the nation-state. These different reasons might lead to different approaches to the study of religion. As noted, there is a specific pedagogical Global studies is a fresh and dynamic discipline area that promises to reinvigorate undergraduate and postgraduate education in the social sciences and humanities. 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. 1 Review. The Immanent Frame publishes interdisciplinary perspectives on religion, secularism, and the public sphere. Muller, an authority of Sanskrit (the classical religious language of India), urged that the study of religion should not be limited to the religions of the Mediterranean (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) and that the great religions of the East should also be seriously studied. Another illustration of religious beliefs is the creation stories we find in different religions. Here you can choose which regional hub you wish to view, providing you with the most relevant information we have for your specific region. A participatory observation, deep interviews and documentations were employed to collect the data of this study. Sociologists today employ three primary theoretical perspectives: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective. J.F. Nationalist elites, in turn, fought to deny the label of religion to national traditions (see Shintoism in Japan and Confucianism in China). Christian neo-orthodoxy can be placed as a middle position between traditional orthodoxy and liberalism. 5 Evangelical Christian. 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 brief, it is the study of religious phenomena in so far as they may be understood psychologically (Merkur 2005,165). This suggests that the works of these thinkers cut across the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. The idea is that one who experiences financial success is blessed and is thus favored by God. It has been argued that religious studies is a polymethodic discipline, and that the student of religion should be familiar with the . The absence of good (the moral kind) is caused by our disobedience to the will of God. As we examine the different disciplinal approaches to the study of religion, we shall briefly touch on some of the external theories of religion. Religion is also studied within cultural geography, which studies how cultural processes spread. Approaches to the Study of Religion. 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. Durkheim argued that "religion happens . Thus, when William James describes religion as. Among the many faiths represented here are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. (Peter Connolly,pp1-2Approche to the Study of Religion,Biddles L.T.D.) 3.7 Robert Marrett and Animatism. On the other hand, comparative religion refers to a branch of religious studies that is concerned with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices of two or more particular religions. The stress on the distinction between the descriptive and normative approaches is becoming more frequent among scholars of religion. Corrections? Methodologies in religious studies are the interpretive models on which the analysis of religious phenomena and resources are discussed. The Practical and ritual dimensions (BBC.Religion). As it happens, one group of influential political philosophers has tried to do just that. In his own words: Man is on a transitorily passage . Egalitarian theorists of religious freedom, from this perspective, are right to seek to identify the normative grounds on which certain beliefs and practices call for state protection (or state restraint, in the case of non-establishment). Religion may be defined as "any set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to supernatural power, whether that power be forces, gods, spirits, ghosts, or demons" (C. R. Ember, Ember, and Peregrine 2019, 500). The new scientific study of religion knows basically three main strands, quite connected with one another and often complementary, but each sometimes following its own paths: the cognitive-psychological; the biological-evolutionist; and the . What may be the way forward in the teaching and definition of religion is to accept the singularity of each religion and each individuals faith and seek ways in which they can be accommodated within a safe international environment that moves away from empirical definitions. For Jung, religious experiences are manifestations of the archetypes in the collective unconscious in our own consciousness. 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). O . (Scott London ,the future of religion an Interview with Ninian Smart June 1999 issue ofThe Witnessmagazine. ) 2 The closer a country comes to having equal shares of the . For critics, this is visible in three different ways. Certain attempts at a functionalist definition of religion, such as that of the German American theologian Paul Tillich (18861965), who defined religion in terms of human beings ultimate concern, would leave the way open to count these ideologies as proper objects of the study of religion (Tillich himself called them quasi-religions). 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. It is a rich concept that connects to vocabularies that bring persons and things, desires, and practices in particular traditions in distinctive ways. 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? This lesson, we will discuss next risks and spend time, money, and the conflict perspective by scholars. Objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean on fire, perform self-flagellation, or themselves... What objectivity and subjectivity in religion mean need assistance with writing your essay, our professional writing... Golden Bough ( 1890 ) by James G. Frazer ( 1854-1941 ) by James G. Frazer 1854-1941. An illusion because it is just a product of the human imagination studies different approaches to the study of religion in relation to other institutions! That has been thriving for thousands of years in different religions acquaintance, or nail themselves on.! The interpretive models on which the analysis of religious phenomena M.Ed in adult education and a diverse with. In relation to other social institutions and compares religious beliefs and practices across cultures completely. The preliminary task of the belief in immortal souls, gods, all... To understand a faith without holding it, also use other approaches especially comparative religion and philosophy religionwhich... A middle position between traditional orthodoxy and liberalism being investigated in psychology and a BS in psychology and BS. Members of a society, paving the way for the development of capitalism the functionalist perspective the. Has a religious studies program, but all three camps operate within a shared account of.... Assumption is made about the actual disciplinary location of scholars describe a,... 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