Religious Studies

Distinguished Professor C. Conrad Cherry

Professors William J. Jackson, E. Theodore Mullen Jr., Rowland A. Sherrill

Associate Professor Thomas J. Davis

Academic Advising: Cavanaugh Hall 335, (317) 274-1465

Religious studies offers students opportunities to explore the patterns and dimensions of the many different religious traditions of the world from the perspectives of the academic study of religion. The courses are designed to help students develop basic understandings of the many ways in which religions shape personal views of the world, create and sustain the communities in which we live, and interact with politics, economics, literature and the arts, and other structures of society. Through this curriculum, students are provided the skills that will allow them to understand religions as a part of the study of human history and traditional and nontraditional values. The department offers both a major and a minor, allowing students to investigate religious phenomena in depth and encouraging connections with other areas of the humanities and social sciences.

Program Planning

Those students who choose to major in the department are invited first to explore courses, designated by the faculty, to introduce the wide breadth of concerns that belong to the field-religious, social, and comparative ethics; scriptures and traditions; South Asian and comparative studies; religion and American literature and culture.

On the basis of these studies, students are then able to pursue more specialized courses of inquiry, depending on their personal interests and concerns. The faculty stands prepared to help in this regard by presenting more selective and rigorous options within the department, by helping to locate ties with cognate areas in other departments and schools, and by working with upper-level students in courses of independent study.

Major in Religious Studies

Requirements

Double Majors

Minor in Religious Studies

*R100 Studies in Religion (3 cr.)
Select introductory issues in religion. Interdisciplinary in emphasis. May be repeated for up to 9 credit hours under different titles.

R111 The Bible (3 cr.) A critical introduction
to the major periods, persons, events, and literatures that constitute the Bible; designed to provide general humanities-level instruction on this important text.

R120 Images of Jesus (3 cr.) This course is designed to introduce students to the variety of traditions about the figure of Jesus. It will acquaint students with the wide array of images of the Jesus character through a historical analysis of these images portrayed in texts, art, music, film, and TV.

R133 Introduction to Religion (3 cr.) Introduction to the diversity of traditions, values, and histories through which religion interacts with culture. Emphasis on understanding the ways the various dimensions of religion influence people's lives.

R173 American Religion (3 cr.)
A consideration of American religion, with particular emphasis on the development of religious diversity and religious freedom in the context of the American social, political, and economic experience. Special attention will be directed to changes in Roman Catholicism and Judaism as well as to alterations in the nature of American Protestantism.

R180 Introduction to Christianity (3 cr.) Survey of beliefs, rituals, and practices of the Christian community with a focus on the varieties of scriptural interpretation, historical experience, doctrine, and behavior.

*R200 Studies in Religion (3 cr.)
Select intermediate studies in religion. Interdisciplinary studies emphasized. May
be taken for up to 9 credit hours under different titles.

R212 Comparative Religions (3 cr.) Approaches to the comparison of recurrent themes, religious attitudes, and practices found in selected Eastern and Western traditions.

R223 Religion and Imagination (3 cr.) Introductory studies of the nature, function, and significance of myths, symbols, and images in religious and cultural systems, with examples drawn from various traditions and with special attention devoted to their relationships to the contemporary imagination.

R283 Religions, Ethics, and Values (3 cr.) Cultural, historical, logical, psychological, and social relationships between religious and social as well as personal moral values and systems of ethics in traditional and contemporary Western culture.

R293 Ethics of World Religions (3 cr.)
Key figures, literatures, movements, and changes in the world's major systems of religious ethics, with select illustrations drawn both from Asia (Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist) and the West (Jewish, Christian, Muslim).

*R300 Studies in Religion (3 cr.) Selected topics and movements in religion, seen from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. May be repeated twice under different titles.

R303 Religions in the Making (3 cr.) Examination within a broad historical and social-scientific framework of selected religions at the time of formulation and/or during periods of substantive change. Considered will be exemplary ancient and modern movements drawn both from literate and preliterate cultures and from Eastern and Western religious traditions.

R310 Prophecy in Ancient Israel (3 cr.)
The prophetic movement and its relationship to religious, social, and political traditions and institutions in the ancient Near East. The thought of major prophetic figures in Israel, such as Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.

R312 American Religious Lives (3 cr.) A study of selected persons who shaped the religious ideas and practices of the American people. The course correlates the lives, ideas, and social contexts of influential religious leaders in the United States. Figures such as Jonathan Edwards, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothy Day, Isaac M. Wise, and Martin Luther King Jr. will be included.

R313 Religion and American Ideas (3 cr.) Studies of the major figures and works of the American literary and theological traditions, with focus on the ways the literary imagination has variously expressed, explored, and challenged the religious meanings of the American experience.

R315 Hebrew Bible (3 cr.) A critical examination of the literary, political, and religious history of Israel from the period of the Patriarchs to the Restoration, with emphasis on the growth and formation of the major traditions contained in the Hebrew Bible.

R316 New Testament (3 cr.) An examination of the history, culture, and literature of the New Testament period, with special emphasis on the emergence of early Christian beliefs.

R319 Origins of Israel (3 cr.) An investigation of the problems involved in the reconstruction of early Israelite history, religion, and society. Major emphasis on the ways in which modern scholarship has attempted to interpret the biblical traditions dealing with the patriarchs, the exodus-Sinai events, and the settlement in the land.

R320 Development of the Jesus Traditions
(3 cr.) Types of traditions about Jesus: their origins, development, and functions in early Christianity, compared with similar forms of traditions in non-Christian movements.

R325 Paul and His Influence in Early Christianity (3 cr.) Life and thought of Paul, in the context of first-century Christian and non-Christian movements. Development of radical Paulinism and anti-Paulinism in the second century; their influence on the formation of Christianity.

R326 Studies in Biblical Religion (3 cr.) Examination of selected major topics in the religious traditions contained in the biblical materials. Topics such as the following will
be treated: early Hebrew traditions and heroes, the kings of Israel, the development of apocalyptic literature, the period between the testaments, the development of Christology, the Johannine School, and others. May be taken twice for credit under different topics.

R329 Early Christianity (3 cr.) This course introduces the religious world of early Christianity by examining its formation and development. The course emphasizes intellectual history while placing religious ideas in historical, cultural, social, and economical contexts. It underscores diversity and explores how ideas shape religious faith, how religious practice guides religious thinking, and how culture and religion interact.

R339 Varieties of American Religion (3 cr.) Approaches to the diversity and complexity
of that part of American religion that has existed outside of the mainstream of U.S. church life. Emphasis on the origin, history, organizational structures, beliefs and devotional practices of such groups as the Quakers, Shakers, Millerites and other millenarian sects, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Pentecostals, as well as groups whose orientation is Eastern rather than Western.

R343 Religion and Contemporary Thought
(3 cr.) Contemporary religious and anti-religious thinkers, with emphasis on those whose writings have significantly influenced modern thinking about human beings, God, society, history, and ethics.

R344 Reformations of the Sixteenth Century (3 cr.) This course introduces students to the religious reformations of sixteenth-century Europe. It examines the historical background to the Reformation and surveys a number of reformation movements. While intellectual history is emphasized, the ideas of religious thinkers are placed in broad historical, cultural, social, and economic contexts.

R346 Religious Women in the United States (3 cr.) The study of women's roles in several different religions. Focus on women's religious roles in the U.S. today, women's efforts to interpret and revise their religions, and ideas about women that characterize various religious traditions. Involves oral history interviewing as well as a formal regimen of scholarly study.

R352 Religion and Literature in Asia (3 cr.) The treatment of religious issues in Asian literature (Hinduism in the Epics) or the significance of the literary forms of religious texts (the genre of recorded sayings), showing how the interplay of religious realities and literary forms reveals the dynamics of religious development in India, China, or Japan.

R361 Hinduism and Buddhism (3 cr.) Examination of the origins and cultural developments of classical Hinduism and Buddhism through studies of selected lives and writings, religious practices, and symbolism in the arts through explorations of these two worldviews as reflected in historical, literary, and ritual forms.

R366 Religion and Civil Society (3 cr.) An examination of religion as a social institution which operates in civil society-that public space where people come together to promote mutual interests, voice common concerns, and even protest against ruling authorities. The focus is on the operation of, and the problems arising from, religion and civil society in different cultural settings, notably the United States and Middle East.

R383 Religions, Ethics, U.S. Society (3 cr.)
The foundations for and applications of religious ethical positions on social justice issues in education, economics, family life, government, and politics.

R384 Religions, Ethics, and Health (3 cr.)
The positions of religious ethical traditions on issues such as the control of reproduction, experimentation with human subjects, care of the dying, delivery of health care, physical and social environments, and heredity. May be repeated once for credit under different focus.

R393 Comparative Religious Ethics (3 cr.) Comparisons of key figures, issues, and themes in the social-ethical systems of the world religions. To include intracultural studies of American Jewish and Christian positions on social questions and cross-cultural studies of similar positions in an Asian and in a Western tradition.

*R400 Studies in Religion (3 cr.) Specialized and intensive studies in religion with an interdisciplinary emphasis. May be repeated twice under different titles.

R433 Senior Seminar (3 cr.) An integrative and summative course of study in which majors, in cooperation with two or more faculty, shall develop an hypothesis about the interaction of several dimensions of religion and about the ways in which they both mirror and shape social and cultural forms.