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Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is the scientific study of religion. There is no consensus on what qualifies as religion and its definition is highly contested. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing empirical, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
- Anthropology Or Theology?
- Descriptive Or Normative?
- Comparison and Theory
- Religion and The Us Supreme Court
- The History of “Religion”
The academic study of religion is fundamentally an anthropological enterprise. That is, it is primarily concerned with studying people (anthropos is an ancient Greek term meaning “human being”; logos means “word” or a “rational, systematic discourse”), their beliefs, behaviors, and institutions, rather than assessing “the truth” or “truths” of thei...
Although the academic study of religion—sometimes called Comparative Religion, Religious Studies, the History of Religions, or even the Science of Religion—is concerned with judging such things as historical accuracy (e.g., Did a person named Siddhartha Gautama actually exist, and if so, when and where?) and descriptive accuracy (e.g., What do Musl...
Like virtually all scholarly disciplines in the modern university, the academic study of religion is a product of nineteenth-century Europe. Although influenced a great deal by European expansionism and colonialism (the study of religion is largely the product of Europeans encountering—through trade, exploration, and conquest—new beliefs and behavi...
Although the study of religion came to North American universities prior to World War I and, for a brief time, flourished at such schools as the University of Chicago, Penn, and Harvard, it was not until the late-1950s and early-1960s that Departments of Religious Studies were established in most public universities. In the U.S., the establishment ...
Perhaps you never thought about it before, but the very term “religion” has a history and it is not obvious just how we ought to define the term. Obviously, “religion” is an English term; therefore, we can ask, “Do non-English speakers have religions? Would an ancient Egyptian name something as ‘a religion’?” We know that our term “religion” has eq...
Study of religion, the intellectual academic attempt to understand the various aspects of religion. It emerged during the 19th century, when the approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, and various social sciences were used to examine the history, origins, and functions of religion.
Feb 6, 2021 · Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
The academic study of religion as we know it today can be traced to the 19th century encounter of Western scholars and theologians with non-Western cultures. In the United States, departments of Religious Studies began to emerge in public universities beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s.
May 3, 2017 · But before proceeding, I should say something about why the field, known in North America as Religious Studies, is sometimes also called the Academic Study of Religion–in fact, the latter name might better describe what a scholar of religion does.
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Dec 3, 2019 · Defining Religious Studies. In contrast to theology, The Encyclopedia of Religion (2005) defines the study of religion as follows: "Unlike theology, the academic study of religion seeks to provide accounts of the world's religions from perspectives that have no confessional (religious) ground or agenda. As an empirical pursuit, it is concerned ...
