Teaching Religion Around the World: A Modest First Glimpse

This essay introduces a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). The central question uniting this collection is whether religious studies is a unified and global pedagogical field, and this introduction teases out salient continuities and discontinuities driven by broad cultural and political contexts. These essays are published together with this introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.     

西方宗教心理学的历史:理论和方法

过去,心理学家在研究宗教的时候往往使用如下三种范式:诠释现象学、实证自然主义、宗教整合。每种范式都有很多理论假设,还有一套具有不同优点和缺点的方法论。强调数量调查方法论的实证自然主义范式是最有影响的,但是对从心理学角度理解宗教来说也是最没有帮助的,尤其是在非西方处境下。而与之相对应的,历史调查的范式通常会对21世纪如何研究宗教心理学提供很多观点和实践中的建议。     

Religion in the Twenty-First-Century World Society

This article presents the main theoretical approaches to the religious phenomenon: functionalism, constructivism, civil religion, invisible religion, diffused religion, rational choice, vicarious religion, and so on. It is difficult to accumulate empirical data that in general are considered too weak. The state of the art of sociology of religion seems promising because of the presence of new generations of sociologists who are deeply involved in their work. For the future a specific theory on migration mobility is necessary. Another necessity is a wider development of qualitative analysis for a better knowledge of religious dynamics.     

Psychology and Religion at Rice University: A Brief History

This essay provides a brief history and overview of the psychological, especially psychoanalytic, study of religion at Rice University.     

A Concise History of Chinese Psychology of Religion

The history of religious thought and the history of human thought are closely interrelated, so the study of Chinese psychology of religion should pay attention to the study of Chinese history. In this paper, we summarize the history of Han Chinese psychology of religion in three stages from the perspectives of the history of Chinese thought, the history of Chinese religion, and the history of Chinese psychology. In the accumulation stage during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, debates about “human nature” were central to a psychology of religion. We hope that this will be helpful for the further study of Chinese psychology of religion.     

A History of Psychology of Religion in the West: Implications for Theory and Method

The study of religion in Western psychology has an interesting history that provides many lessons for future attempts to understand the spiritual aspects of human experience. In the past, psychologists have typically operated from one of three paradigms in their study of religion: (1) hermeneutic–phenomenological, (2) positivistic naturalism, and (3) religious integration. Each of these paradigms has a number of important theoretical assumptions and a preferred set of methodologies that offer significant advantages and disadvantages. The paradigm of positivistic naturalism, with its emphasis on quantitative questionnaire methodology, has been the most influential but also the least helpful in generating new ideas for the psychological understanding of religion, particularly as it is practiced in non-Western contexts. A historical survey of the other competing paradigms offers many insights and practical suggestions about how research in the psychology of religion might proceed in the twenty-first century.     

A Common Earth Religion: World Religions from an Ecological Perspective

On the basis of a critical analysis of the place of world religions in an era of globalization, and drawing on the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock, this paper argues for the need for a shift in perspective from a world economy to an earth economy, and for world religions to become earth religions. Here the anthropocentrism of the modern world is overcome and humanity is viewed as an integrated element in planet earth as a whole. This view implies that the world religions need to give back to the earth the virtues they have projected onto the world beyond, and abandon their denial of life and their capacity for violence. In secular terms, this means that world religions need to engage with the ecological perspective and start by applying it to themselves. For if the earth can no longer support life, that means the end of the human world, and the end of world religions.     

历史向世界历史转化的哲学回应——马克思世界历史理论的中国个案

马克思世界历史理论深刻揭示了历史向世界历史转化的实际进程、总体背景和基本规律,为我们提供了考察和研究世界历史时代的哲学变革所应当依据的一个基本的解释框架。用马克思世界历史理论作为深入解读、研究中国近代哲学的哲学范式和解释框架,把中国近代哲学的演进过程作为历史向世界历史转化之哲学回应的一个典型案例,不仅有助于马克思世界历史理论研究的深化,而且也是深入考察中国近代哲学的一个独特而有益的视角。     

Citizens of the World and their Religion

Abstract

The notion of a ‘cosmopolites’ has diverged quite far from its philosophical origins, but may eventually serve a similar function. The hope of a global peace or any sort of global management is probably better fulfilled in a federation or complex network of self-governing communities than in a global empire. With or without such an empire though we need some widely shared ‘morale’ or ‘religion’ that will sustain cooperation and obedience to the common good. There are many such competing ‘religions’ and utopian ideals, such that an ongoing global war between superficially distinct but also alarmingly similar power blocks (as described by Orwell) may seem inevitable. A more hopeful future would be one where bourgeois values, a new respect for other terrestrial life, and an awareness of the vastness and strangeness of the cosmos provide a backdrop for such cooperation, on Earth or out among the stars, as we can manage. The rules of trade and transport in such a future may be in the hands of something like Kipling’s Aerial Board of Control, staffed by a new sort of cosmopolitan, subject to occasional popular rebuke. Whether such an order would avoid division must be doubtful still.     

宗教与全球治理:一个跨宗教的比较视角

宗教与全球治理的关系是当今国际政治的一个重要命题。从宗教观念自身来看,宗教在和平与冲突中的角色是矛盾的。具体说来,每种宗教都包含和平的因素,同时却又常常成为冲突的动力。然而,这一矛盾的角色却促成了宗教与全球治理的关键机制。这其中的核心在于全球公民社会的建构,公民宗教是具体的表现形式。其具体的步骤包括:全球民主的机制、国家与社会关系的重构、宗教人权、宗教对话等。治理概念的引入标志着与孔汉思的全球伦理不同的路径以及理解当今宗教与全球秩序之间关系的新视角。