Teaching World Religions Through Their Scriptures

Horizons ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Leonard J. Biallas
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
Literary Forms

AbstractTextbooks on world religions offer a vast amount of factual information that often overwhelms undergraduate students. Because they get lost in detail, the students find it difficult to appropriate the religious traditions into their own experience. Is there a different approach to the religions—one that does not get too bogged down in historical dates or various philosophical movements, yet still remains academically respectable—that might better help them to appreciate the religious traditions? I want to suggest that one possible method might be to study selected key passages from the scriptures of the various religions, in particular their stories (rather than other literary forms). Such stories, whether narratives or parables, exist in the scriptures of all the major world religions. Carefully selected for their transformative and paradigmatic power, these stories easily lead into discussions of doctrines, rituals, ethics, and the other phenomenological dimensions of religion. More importantly, certain basic themes in these stories—desire for the direct experience of God, forgiveness, martyrdom, duty, balance of self-nature-society, and self-forgetfulness, for example—transcend their formulation in any one specific world religion. Student awareness of these and other archetypal themes is a healthy step in appropriating the cultural and spiritual life of their own religious traditions.

scholarly journals Ritual & Practices to Attain Spirituality in the light of Religious Scriptures of the World Religion

2019 ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
Tayyaba Razzaq
Keyword(s):  
Research Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Major Purpose ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Ritual Systems

Humans are spiritual beings and preferred to be an element (one way or the other) of this potent mighty power that fascinated him. Men have been urged to look or visualize the Mighty Lord. Different kind of tools and means were designed in various religious communities to offer a few beautified methods to meet this fundamental intuition. To attain spirituality, many ancient religions had their own rituals and ceremonial systems that mostly consist of external rites and practices. The purpose of the study is to examine and determine the importance of rituals that are being practice in the world religions? What the methods religious scriptures has mentioned for their followers to adopt to attain spirituality? The study is to find out similarities and differences in rituals & practices to attain spirituality as mentioned in their religious scriptures? Research methodology for this study adapted is descriptive. This research study has fined out that some ritual systems are concerned with inwards purification rather than outwards. The major purpose of all such practices; fasting, sacrifices, charity etc are all to free men from the entire evil deeds, make him pure as the will of the Lord and closer to it.

Leaf or Chaff: On Poetry in Religion

Horizons ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Francis Patrick Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Religious Poetry ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Experience Of God ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Religious Understanding ◽  
The Way

AbstractPoetry, understood the way Icons are, teaches its readers and writers how words make relationships, put people, places, things in one another's presence. In the relationship called religious, poetry takes on a very crucial task, that of mediating an experience, the human of the divine, the divine of the human, in the various traditions, like the Icon in Orthodoxy. Poetry creates nonreligious relationships too, but uses the same manner of making someone present to something or someone. Poetry becomes anti-presence in religious traditions that deny experience of God. In Christianity of a sacramental kind, poetry is the Icon of language, beauty/truth inseparably set out, the loss of one jeopardizing the existence of the other, language refusing to be idolatrous, and equally, refusing to be inane. Religious understanding in sacramental Christianity requires the poetic Icon.

scholarly journals Surrender to Another Person: The Case of a Spiritual Master

2020 ◽  
pp. 002216782097563
Author(s):  
Amir Freimann ◽  
Ofra Mayseless
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Spiritual Integration ◽  
Extreme Form ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Common Experience ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Self Transcendence

The experience and posture of surrender has been espoused by religious traditions as key to spiritual life and development for millennia. Within psychology, on the other hand, surrender’s position has been likened to an “unwanted bastard child,” and its research has been neglected. Moreover, when occurring in the context of a relationship with another person, the terms “submission” and “obedience,” laden with negative connotations, have been commonly used. We propose that psychologically and spiritually developmental surrender is a common experience both when it occurs in relationship to “reality,” the Self or God, and in the context of relationship with another person, as in love, sex, patientship, followership, and discipleship. We focus on surrender to a spiritual master, which is in some respects the most extreme form of surrender to another person and the most challenging for the modern secular worldview to accept and suggest that, with all its complexity and potential pitfalls, it can be a powerful enabler and facilitator of the search for the sacred, self-transcendence, and spiritual integration.

Does Copernicus Help? Reflections for a Christian Theology of Religions

1977 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Lipner
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
The One

I want to consider in this paper a question that is looming large in the theology of most world religions, not least in the Christian tradition. The following discussion will be confined to the Christian standpoint, though I hope mutatis mutandis the main points will be seen to apply to other religious perspectives as well. Specifically then, this question can be ex–pressed in two ways. We may ask, (i) in the context of the contemporary dialogue situation, how is the committed Christian to regard the adherents of non–Christian religions? and (ii) what status do these alien belief–systems have with respect to the Christian faith–response? Both forms of the issue are often discussed it seems to me without due attention being given to an important distinction between them. So, at the outset, it will be useful to make one or two observations about this. First of all, it is inevitable, I think, that an evaluational factor is implied by both formulations. We are pondering a basically Christian assessment of religious traditions that are non–Christian, and any solution suggested which eventually eliminates a one-sided overall perspective will apparently put us in a dilemma. For, on the one hand, a Christian theology of religions will be expected to produce a Christian (and therefore evaluational) result; on the other hand, a finally nonevaluational solution seems unable to be called a Christian view of things at all. In the event of such a ‘neutral theology’ as the latter resulting (by no means a purely speculative question as we shall see), is the dilemma that becomes apparent a genuine one, or can it be resolved by a more stringent analysis of the relevant issues?

Integrating Feminist Perspectives with the Religious Studies Curriculum: Setting the Question

Horizons ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-301
Author(s):  
Denise Lardner Carmody
Keyword(s):  
General Education ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Feminist Perspectives

My assignment is to set the question for our teaching workshop on integrating feminist perspectives into the religious studies curriculum. In reflecting on this assignment in light of the full program sketched in the brochure for the workshop, I found three journalistic questions coming to mind. The six specialized sub-workshops seemed to deal quite comprehensively with the question of how to effect the integration of feminist perspectives into the religious studies curriculum. Mary Jo Weaver's plenary address promised to treat from the perspective of American religious history where American women now are and may hope to arrive tomorrow. That left the matter of why we should be assembled here this evening, and though I'm sure that many of the other presenters will address it substantially, I have taken it as the proper focus for this kick-off presentation. Inevitably, speaking about why it is important to represent women's voices will imply how we may best accomplish this, but let us begin by reminding ourselves of the telos of our workshop—the prospective good that brings us together. My ruminations on this topic will have three sub-topics; students' needs, intellectual justice, and fidelity to God.This past semester I taught two typical courses: “Women and World Religions” and “The New Testament and Literature.” Both courses are part of the Tulsa Curriculum, our general education sequence. Each course had about thirty students, but only two of those in “Women and World Religion” were men, while “The New Testament and Literature” had about fifteen men. It is hard to say, though, which sex was more in need of feminist perspectives.

Making World Religions

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-230
Author(s):  
Alexander Rocklin
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Other World

This chapter explores the short-lived Trinidad Hindu Mahasabha, which endeavored to articulate a Hindu identity that transcended local politics and concerns of "orthodox" and "reform," in order to unify all Hindus in Trinidad and allow them to take their place, on an equal footing, along with Christianity, Islam, and the other "world religions," on the international stage. This chapter shows the ways in which world religion operated as a lived category for particular communities: how local groups imagined and performed transnational Hindu identities through the consumption and distribution of print media and the promotion and performance of physical culture.

Women Performers and World Religions

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Sarah Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Women Performers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Different Cultures

This chapter describes the two approaches to comparison taken in the book. One involves documenting and comparing the practice of lamentation and mockery in prenuptial events in many different cultures across several religions; the other explores the ways in which women actively exploit the ambiguity generated by performance in ritual contexts to express their opinions or do something they would not normally be allowed to do. The chapter draws on the work of Tomoko Masuzawa and Catherine Bell in the examination of the ideas of world religion and ritual. The book’s meta-ethnographic approach is illustrated through the analysis of the Dormition Pilgrimage in Jerusalem while the localizing effect of women’s practices is demonstrated through an analysis of the rise of feminist Christian theology.

scholarly journals “Small Teaching” with First-Year Undergraduate Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate DeConinck
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Active Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Teaching Strategies ◽  
Concept Maps ◽  
First Year ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Guest Speakers

This contribution to the forum on James Lang’s Small Teaching analyzes one instructor’s implementation of Lang's techniques in a world religions course for first-year undergraduate students. Two types of strategies are considered in depth: those that use prediction to help students acquire and retain knowledge of class material, as well as those that cultivate connections to previously mastered material and encourage active learning. For example, one activity asked students to use prediction as a tool for preparing for local guest speakers, helping to unsettle pre-existing stereotypes and assumptions. Another activity asked students to create concept maps to draw connections across religious traditions. Ultimately, the author argues that these “small teaching” strategies did not require substantial work or resources from the instructor or her students but went a long way in fostering learning and critical thinking. The insights gleaned from this article could be applied to other courses and teaching contexts.

World Christianity, ‘World Religions’ and the Challenge of Insider Movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-103
Author(s):  
Christian J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
World Religion ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Historical Series ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
Other World ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
The One ◽  
Insider Movements

While studies in World Christianity have frequently referred to Christianity as a ‘world religion’, this article argues that such a category is problematic. Insider movements directly challenge the category, since they are movements of faith in Jesus that fall within another ‘world religion’ altogether – usually Islam or Hinduism. Rather than being an oddity of the mission frontier, insider movements expose ambiguities already present in World Christianity studies concerning the concept of ‘religion’ and how we understand the unity of the World Christian movement. The article first examines distortions that occur when religion is referred to on the one hand as localised practices which can be reoriented and taken up into World Christianity and, on the other hand, as ‘world religion’, where Christianity is sharply discontinuous with other world systems. Second, the article draws from the field of religious studies, where several writers have argued that the scholarly ‘world religion’ category originates from a European Enlightenment project whose modernist assumptions are now questionable. Third, the particular challenge of insider movements is expanded on – their use of non-Christian cultural-religious systems as spaces for Christ worship, and their redrawing of assumed Christian boundaries. Finally, the article sketches out two principles for understanding Christianity's unity in a way that takes into account the religious (1) as a historical series of cultural-religious transmissions and receptions of the Christian message, which emanates from margins like those being crossed by insider movements, and (2) as a religiously syncretic process of change that occurs with Christ as the prime authority.

scholarly journals Perceived discrimination and psychological distress among immigrants to Canada: The mediating role of bicultural identity orientations

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022199008
Author(s):  
Mustafa Firat ◽  
Kimberly A. Noels
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Perceived Discrimination ◽  
The Other ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Bicultural Identity ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
The Relationship

Bicultural identity orientations have rarely been examined in relation to both perceived discrimination and psychological distress. Furthermore, these constructs have usually been studied in isolation, but their intersection is essential for understanding intercultural relations in multicultural societies. Using cross-sectional data from 1,143 Canadian undergraduate students from immigrant families, this study explored the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress, and how bicultural identity orientations might mediate this relationship. The structural equation modeling results indicated that perceived discrimination was associated with higher levels of psychological distress and hybrid, monocultural, alternating, and conflicted orientations, but lower levels of complementary orientation. Alternating and conflicted orientations were related to higher psychological distress, whereas the other orientations were not. Alternating and conflicted orientations mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress, whereas the other orientations did not. The findings are discussed in light of theories on identity integration, rejection–identification, and acculturation.

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