The editor of our textbook, Paul O. Myhre, has made the case for why we should study religion at the college level. Now we turn to the question of how. How do we study religion in a manner befitting of higher education? As in all disciplines, the answer to the question includes issues of consensus and debate. Debra Majeed gives us the lay of the land.
Please define the following terms. You’ll want to commit these to memory because we will use them a lot.
- Insider/devotional/theological study of religion (for our purposes, these are synonyms)–
- Outsider/academic/critical study of religion (for our purposes, these are synonyms)–
- Anthropological approach to religion-
- Ecological approach…
- Phenomenological approach…
- Psychological approach…
- Sociological approach…
- Feminist approach…
- Womanist approach…
Majeed (a la Carl Olson and Zayn Kassam) invites us “to explore ‘the passion and drama’ of ‘how human beings have mapped out or understood what it means for [one’s] existence to be meaningful at different times and places.’” (19) If the academic study of religion indeed requires self-awareness from its students, how might you respond to the following questions:
(1) The womanist approach is especially sensitive to persons’ “… multiple and diverse positions of belongings” (25). What are some of the different socio-cultural locations you inhabit? For your reference, social location refers to identifiable aspects of who you are and the world that has shaped you (i.e. race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexuality, gender, religious affiliation, homeland/town, etc.) (125 words)
(2) How does your social location shape your understanding of religion in society? (125 words)
Sowing the Seed 