Ethnography as Pedagogy: Learning and Teaching in a Religion Department Internship Class

Internships and other experiential education courses in Religious Studies departments particularly benefit from careful pedagogical preparation. In addition to the usual components of conceptual content and skills, these courses require knowledge about and understanding of human communication and interaction and organizational function. To be successfully collaborative in the classroom and with Community Partners for learning and service, students and teachers need tools for participant observation, integration of data and response, and reflection. This article proposes and discusses using 10 strategies of ethnography as a pedagogical frame. Developed in an internship class, these ten tools are demonstrated through teacher discussion and reflection and students’ written work. Specific connections to the field of Religious Studies are highlighted. The article is written in the hopes of stimulating additional conversations on how experiential learning and teaching, specifically the use of ethnography, can be effectively and appropriately used in Religious Studies courses.     

Religious history as religious studies

What is the relationship between religious studies and religious history? Academic historical thinking emerged in part to repudiate ecclesiastical traditions of history, making the difference between religious history and histories of religion a question of denominational rivalry more than a difference in sect. Scholars working in the academic study of religion and the academic study of history have increased self-consciousness of this contingency but have not developed an account for the consequence of history as the primary mode for our thinking. As a result, scholars of religion frequently fall silent in the wake of postcolonial critiques of religious subjects, believing their work is adequately buttressed when this history (the history of the relationship between colonial oppression and religious classification) is acknowledged. Yet this is only the beginning of our work. Religious history cannot evade the methodological challenges of religious studies precisely because to identify an object as religious is to begin an inquiry into the subject of religion itself. Using the example of the year 1893, the author seeks to demonstrate how scholars of history might justify their subjects as religious, and how scholars of religion might consider their concept of history.     

Teaching the Devout Student: Faith and Scholarship in the Classroom

Increasing numbers of college students enrolling in religion courses in recent years are looking to develop their religious faith or spirituality, while professors of religion want students to use and appreciate scholarly tools to study religion from an academic perspective. Some scholars argue that it is not possible to satisfy both goals in the classroom, while authors in this journal have given suggestions on how to bridge the gap between faith and scholarship. I argue that such authors are correct and that, in my experience, historical‐critical methods can help devout students understand the original texts in their own religion better, comprehend why changes in interpretation have occurred over time, and appreciate the values in religions other than their own. Not all devout students are comfortable with an academic study of religion, but many can attain a more mature faith by such an approach.     

@Preacher_Bot: an experiment in evangelical speech making

This article is an experiment in digital methodology. It applies tools associated with the digital humanities to the study of Protestant evangelicalism in order to ask what digital research methods can offer the study of religion. Beginning with the development of a social media computer program called a Twitter bot designed to mimic evangelical ministers on twitter, the article considers how digital scholarship allows the work scholars produce to mirror more closely the religious worlds they study. Next, the article analyzes the results of the program using text analysis software. In documenting trends in the bot's output, the article highlights how digital research methods can help answer long-standing questions in the field as well as potentially ask new ones. It concludes, The article, then, is both an exploration of contemporary religious cultures and a consideration of new media methods for analyzing them.     

(Inadvertently) Instructing Missionaries in (Public University) World Religions Courses: Examining a Pedagogical Dilemma,its Dimensions,and a Course Section Solution

In this article, I explore an ethical and pedagogical dilemma that I encounter each semester in my world religions courses: namely, that a great number of students enroll in the courses as part of their missionary training programs, and come to class understanding successful learning to mean gathering enough information about the world's religious “traditions” so as to effectively seduce people out of them. How should we teach world religions – in public university religious studies courses – with this student constituency? What are/ought to be our student learning goals? What can and should we expect to accomplish? How can we maximize student learning, while also maintaining our disciplinary integrity? In response to these questions, I propose a world religions course module, the goal of which is for students to examine – as objects of inquiry – the lenses through which they understand religion(s). With a recognition of their own lenses, I argue, missionary students become more aware of the biases and presumptions about others that they bring to the table, and they learn to see the ways in which these presumptions inform what they see and know about others, and also what they do not so easily see.     

Presidential Address: Religion and Power—A Return to the Roots of Social Scientific Scholarship

Early social scientists, including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W. E. B. DuBois, recognized the importance of religion for power systems. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, there has been a decline in scholars examining how religion matters for power. This address proposes that scholars bring religion back to the center of understanding the production, deconstruction, and distribution of power as religion is critical to the flows of power in the social world. I propose that furthering an agenda that interrogates the role of religion for power means we emphasize that (i) religion is an institution; (ii) religious ideas motivate action; (iii) our epistemology sources theories of power rather than those that invalidate the centrality of religion in societies; and (iv) ground‐breaking theoretical and empirical contributions to the social scientific study of religion and power demand that we broaden and diversify the standpoints from which this knowledge is produced.     

The Baltimore Mural Project: An approach to threshold concepts in religious studies

The Baltimore Mural Project (BMP) seeks to connect religious studies education to the growing literature on threshold concepts in order to address bottleneck areas in student learning. The project is designed for undergraduate service courses comprised of mostly non‐majors: for example, world religions. Students in these courses often struggle to understand and apply the discipline's unique approaches to the study of religion (i.e. its threshold concepts). Rather than merely memorize certain facts about a religious tradition's myths [or world forming stories], rituals [or embodied disclosures], materials, and so on... students are asked to apply threshold concepts related to religion, art, and the social good to the study of murals in Baltimore. Through a series of project elements (including: field work, photography, digital geomapping, and quantitative, qualitative, and archival research) the BMP helps students who struggle with threshold concepts in religious studies by creatively connecting the more conventional aspects of world religions courses to social justice issues related to mural art in Baltimore. By experientially helping students to make these connections, they are able to find creative routes through otherwise hindering barriers to their learning in religious studies.     

World religion and fake news: A pedagogical response in an age of post‐truth

This article describes a pedagogical response to teaching world religions courses in a post‐truth age. The course assignment and its application, utilized in both online and in‐person formats, bridge student academic pursuits with religious traditions, require students to engage with source‐based journalism, and extend beyond the classroom into many of the contemporary politics encroaching upon the humanities fields. Related to the first, the objective of the assignment is for students to discover that religiosity permeates multiple sectors, both private and public, corresponding with student career paths. As a result, students discover that religion is relevant to their academic pursuits and that they must consider the possibilities of how religion might integrate with their career choices. Regarding the second objective, the assignment develops student digital media literacy skills as a form of civic education that challenges the current political attacks on journalism and factuality. Last, this exercise acknowledges the realities facing many humanities programs across the country and offers this assignment as a way of engaging with those issues within the classroom. See as well, published in this issue of the journal, three short companion essays by Sarah L. Schwarz, Jonathan R. Herman, and Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, each of which analyzes this pedagogical strategy for their particular teaching contexts.     

BRIDGING SCIENCE AND RELIGION: "THE MORE" AND "THE LESS" IN WILLIAM JAMES AND OWEN FLANAGAN

There is a kinship between Owen Flanagan's The Really Hard Problem and William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience that not only can help us to understand Flanagan's book but also can help scholars, particularly scholars of religion, to be attentive to an important development in the realm of the "spiritual but not religious." Specifically, Flanagan's book continues a tradition in philosophy, exemplified by James, that addresses questions of religious or spiritual meaning in terms accessible to a broad audience outside the context of organized religions. Both James and Flanagan are concerned to refute the popular perception that the sciences of the mind pose a threat to meaning and particularly to meaningful processes of human growth and transformation. Where James used the subconscious to bridge between science and religion and persuade his readers of the reality of the More, Flanagan uses a scientifically grounded understanding of transcendence to enchant his readers into believing in Less. Although I think that Flanagan's attempt to link the psychological and sociocultural levels of analysis via the concept of transcendence is scientifically premature, his attempt at a naturalistic spirituality raises questions of definition that scholars of religion need to take seriously.     

Taking spiritual experiences seriously in the religious education classroom: a transrational approach

ABSTRACT

Spiritual experiences are common across religious and non-religious faiths, but schoolchildren are often afraid to share these because they fear ridicule from peers who are convinced religion is irrational. The need to speak about spirituality in religious education is increasingly recognised. Signposts suggests that intercultural understanding implies recognising religious students’ perception of reality and helping others understand it. Religious education in Norway now includes exploration of existential questions as a core element, and in England, making sense of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences has been suggested as a big idea. In this paper, we discuss how the dualistic paradigm of modern science makes it difficult to take spirituality seriously as lived experience and empirical phenomenon. Instead we suggest a transrational approach to explore our multidimensional reality in an intercultural dialogue where insiders and outsiders learn from each other. We also explore examples of transrational research on spiritual phenomena.     

Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation: analysis of an Iranian measure in university students in the United States

Previous research examining Iranian university students suggested that an Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation may be more important than an Extrinsic Social Religious motivation in maintaining Muslim religious commitments. The present project demonstrated that a similar conclusion seemed applicable to the largely Christian commitments of American university students. In the United States, an Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation Scale displayed a factor structure like that observed in Iran, was a more robust and consistent predictor of psychological adjustment than the Extrinsic Social Religious Orientation, and was sensitive to spiritual as well as religious dimensions of commitment. Peace and Justice and Cultural Foundations factors from this scale were relatively more positive in their adjustment implications than were Disorder Avoidance and Family and Social Order factors. Noteworthy contrasts between the present American and previous Iranian data appeared in Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation relationships with a sense of identity and with cognitive empathy. These results confirmed that the Extrinsic Cultural Religious Orientation deserves additional research attention in both Muslim and more secular Western societies.     

Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums

The aim of this paper is to connect the debates on individualisation and mediatisation of religion and transformations of religious authority online on theoretical and empirical basis. The classical and contemporary concepts of individualisation of religion, rooted in the secularisation debate, will be connected with Campbell’s [2007. “Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3): 1043–1062] concept of four layers of religious authority online. The empirical material consists of a joint analysis of German Christian and Polish Catholic Internet forums. In a transnational comparison, the findings show similar tendencies of individualisation and emerging communities of choice, as well as a lasting significance of textual religious authorities, although different levels of authority are negotiated and emphasised to a varying extent. However, in both cases critique of the Church and religion usually emerges offline, and is then expressed online. While the forums do not have a subversive potential, they facilitate adopting a more independent, informed, and reflexive approach to religion.     

On Qualifying Religious Literacy: Recent Debates on Higher Education and Religious Studies in Japan

This article describes and analyzes controversies in Japan brought about by an intercollegiate educational project on religion. The project team, consisting of selected members of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies and the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society, has been planning a new system for qualifying undergraduates as “specialists in religious cultures” (shūkyō‐bunkasi). It is anticipated that students with this qualification will be engaged in various occupations that require knowledge of different cultures. The project reflects an increased awareness that the academic study of religion should play a social role and be recognized as worthwhile by the public. This article will focus upon the academic and pedagogical challenges that the project members faced in the process of planning a system to assess and qualify students’ literacy in religious traditions. It will argue that religious literacy involves the dynamic ability to put knowledge into practice as well as to reflect continuously upon previously acquired knowledge.     

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self‐Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self‐disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self‐disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion‐designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner's reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self‐disclosure.     

Multiple Religious Belonging among visitors of Dominican spiritual centers in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

In the religiously pluralized Western world, a trend called ‘Multiple Religious Belonging’ (MRB) has been identified. Although it is a much theologically debated concept, empirical research on the practice of MRB is limited. The present research project therefore explores the phenomenon of MRB among visitors of Dominican spiritual centers in the Netherlands (n=472). It investigates to what extent and in which ways such visitors combine elements from more than one religious tradition in their lives and what they perceive to be the benefits of combining elements. It links this information to their views on religion, the resources they draw from, their (religiously diverse) networks, and their motivations for attending spiritual activities. The results indicate that respondents who combine elements from more than one religious tradition (‘combiners’) are more likely than ‘non-combiners’ to: a) see religion as something that is constantly changing during the life course; b) have networks which are religiously diverse; c) place importance on nature, in-depth conversations, personal rituals or practices, and theological, philosophical, and spiritual texts as resources; d) be motivated to attend spiritual centers because of a focus on self-exploration.     

Thinking Through Hall and Ames: On the Art of Comparative Philosophy

With the publication of their first collaborative book Thinking Through Confucius, David Hall and Roger Ames launched a comparative philosophical project juxtaposing American pragmatism and Chinese Confucianism (Hall and Ames 1987). This essay focuses on the role pragmatic assumptions play in Hall’s and Ames’s announced goal of opening a “new route” into Chinese intellectual history. Hall and Ames aim to teach scholars whose scholarly sensibilities have been formed in the West what they must acknowledge about their own traditions before they can engage Chinese thinkers constructively. After happily acknowledging my own debt to Hall and Ames and defending as hugely helpful the broad arc of their work, this essay raises questions about the way they deploy pragmatic assumptions as tools for “removing the useless lumber” that they claim “block” Western thinkers’ access to Chinese intellectual history. Specifically it argues that the “useless lumber” metaphor is misplaced.     

Putting the Mystical Mind Together

This article reviews and responds to various issues that have been raised in critical analysis of our work studying the relationship between religion and the brain. An adequate response necessitates a discussion about the origins of this research, the potential pitfalls of doing empirical research in this field, and the complex requirements of interpreting the implications of such an approach. Through inquiry such as this, the study of the brain and its relation to religion and religious experience will continue to advance and uncover the many fascinating questions that await.     

Does Education Develop or Diminish Spirituality in Taiwan?

There has been little research on the effects of education on religion and spirituality in Chinese societies. This gap is addressed through quantitative analysis of a new dataset, the Religious Experience Survey in Taiwan, in conjunction with the repeated cross‐sectional Taiwan Social Change Survey. In Taiwan, people with higher education are less likely than others to say that they have a religion, to worship or pray frequently, and to regard those activities as important. They are more likely, however, to express an interest in mystical or supernatural things, and to report a variety of religious experiences. This paradox arises not because the educated Taiwanese are spiritual but not religious, but rather because they are somewhat polarized: those who have no religion and those reporting religious experiences are not the same individuals. Although education is highly correlated with both birth cohort and income, the findings strongly suggest that education is the key explanatory variable. The official promotion of Confucian thought and its adoption by the educated elite helps to explain the surprising conjunction of declining religious affiliation and increased engagement with spirituality.