Traditionally, in western society, Religious Studies has been taught doctrinally. Indeed, what has passed as Religious Studies has frequently been ‘Christian Education’ and then often with a narrow, dogmatic idea of what constitutes Christianity. Moreover, even comparative religions have been taught from a doctrinal perspective, failing to recognise religions (or aspects of religions) that do not fit the doctrinal mould. As a result, false distinctions have been constructed and a multitude of religious experiences and practices have been trivialised, ignored, or remained simply invisible to western scholarship.
Ninian Smart’s approach to the teaching of religions is to look at different aspects or ‘dimensions’ of religion in each religious tradition. Thus he looks at the practical and ritual dimension; the experiential and emotional dimension; the narrative or mythical dimension; the doctrinal and philosophical dimension; the ethical and legal dimension; the social and institutional dimension and the material dimension of the different religions. By taking such an approach, Smart avoids the difficulties of trying to define religion while providing a framework within which religions can be compared with each other and with secular ideologies.
Smart’s progressive, even Hegelian, view of religions is one commonly adopted in the teaching of Religious Studies. Lloyd Geering , the father of Religious Studies in New Zealand takes a similarly progressive view, strongly reminiscent of Sigmund Freud’s Future of an Illusion. It is a view that lends itself particularly well to the ideology of globalisation. But this is by no means the only approach.
Methodologically, one can approach the study of religions from various disciplinary perspectives including sociology (Asad, Milbank), anthropology (Geertz), psychology (Freud), socio-economics (Marx, Weber), and even biology (Persinger, Wilson). What matters is not so much which perspective one comes from as to know what the perspective is that one is coming from and to be self-critical about one’s assumptions. There is no “view from no-where” and nowhere is that more clear than in the field of Religious Studies.
Although there is no New Zealand curriculum for Religious Studies, the achievement objectives of the Social Studies curriculum and many from the Health curriculum are relevant to Religious Studies. I believe the teaching of Religious Studies should aim to develop students’ research and analytical skills, with a heavy emphasis on critical thinking. To this end, the Ninian Smart approach can be very useful, particularly in junior and intermediate years. It promotes analytical thinking and encourages understanding of other cultures. However, with senior students, I think the progressive approach itself needs to be brought into question.
Postmodernism has raised the question of pluralism in a new way. The universalising tendencies of western modernity are increasingly viewed with suspicion. The universal issue, according to anthropologist, Talal Asad, is one of power. He addresses the perceived universality of the West and generously suggests that the West sees itself as ‘a source of salvation’ and thus, benevolently, wants to make the world ‘in its own image’.
“The project of modernisation (Westernisation), including its aim of material and moral progress, is certainly a matter of history making. But it is a project whose innumerable agents are neither fully autonomous nor fully conscious of it.....The West defines itself, in opposition to all non-Western cultures, by its modern historicity.....Christian attitudes toward historical time (salvation expectation) were combined with the newer secular practices (rational prediction) to give us our modern idea of progress.”
As westerners we like to believe “we are much freer to think for ourselves, to make our own decisions, without having our beliefs and behaviour patterns imposed on us by an external authority.” But, as Asad argues, this can only be an illusion. The modern illusion of individual autonomy is a strong theme in his book, Genealogies of Religion. Asad avers that the invisible structures and systems of modern society impose covert restrictions on the modern agent. We are all bound by our context:
“It is an old empiricist prejudice to suppose that things are real only when confirmed by sensory data, and that therefore people are real but structures and systems aren’t....
Saudi theologians who invoke the authority of medieval Islamic texts are taken to be local; Western writers who invoke the authority of modern secular literature claim they are universal. Yet both are located in universes that have rules of inclusion and exclusion.”
Whatever perspective students chose to take, Religious Studies opens the way to new understandings of our own culture as well as others. Taught well, it creates an awareness that ours is not the only worldview, and we are a much a product of our culture as others are products of theirs.
To put it more clearly, teaching Religious Studies should not be about ‘bible stories’ or ‘the life of the Buddha’ or the like; it should be about how different cultures have experienced, and expressed their understandings of, their relationships with other peoples and the world. Ultimately, Religious Studies gets to the heart of what it means to be human. To teach the subject effectively requires a deep understanding of the nature of the subject, an open mind that is willing to analyse and criticise one’s own assumptions as readily as another’s, and a passion for questions rather than answers.
Return to the Homepage by clicking on the GSD
