In Theory: A professor argues in favor of religious studies

In an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed, William “Chip” Gruen, professor of religious studies at Muhlenberg College, makes his case that in an increasingly complex world, religious studies can teach students to understand others better.

From stories about Syrian immigrants to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gruen notes that many news headlines mention religion, but many readers, he says, will dismiss these stories as really about identity politics.

However, Gruen writes that individuals and communities are inspired by their religious identities, for better or for worse. Religious studies, he says, aim to “expose differences in those worldviews so that we might understand the beliefs and practices of a wide variety of cultural actors.”

What’s more, religious studies, as an academic discipline, are not rooted in a single ideology and shouldn’t be confused for religious training.

“If the only people who understand Christianity are Christian, or Islam are Muslims, or Hinduism are Hindus, we are condemned to a world of misunderstanding, conflict and sectarianism.”

Q. What do you think of Gruen’s article?

Yes, absolutely. We need religious studies in schools, not religious training. I just had a discussion online about faith-based programing in schools versus purely objective analysis of all world religions. Students should understand all belief modalities and how they manifest in people and communities. However, religious proselytizing has no place in public schools.

In order to sympathize with and understand our fellow humans, we must treat everyone as a unique individual rather than judge based on broad assumptions and categorization. To do this, we have to better understand what different people think and believe and why they do so.

When 9/11 happened, the first thing I thought was we should build a world religion information center there, including Islam. I am no fan of Islam but, such an institution could have advanced our narrow understanding of the world and other cultures and done much more to prevent another attack. Instead, to our detriment, we seem to have chosen anger, hate and retribution.

Ignorance leads to hate, prejudice, violence, radicalism, etc. Education and understanding leads to cooperation, tolerance and peace. We have a duty to educate our youth about the world and its peoples. Comparative religious studies is a vital part of that. I also think that opening our eyes to the many manifestations of religious belief and creation myths will lead future generations away from absolute faith in religious dogma — belief in the unknown and unknowable — and towards a humanistic “faith” in each other.

I am an atheist but I realize religion is here to stay, at least for my lifetime and my children’s. So, rather than create an us-against-them situation, we must use education, compassion, respect and understanding to bring us together as one human race.

Joshua Lewis Berg
Humanist Celebrant
Glendale

I believe Gruen makes a valid point. Essentially, it comes down to the necessity of listening to and understanding others who are not like us in order to (hopefully peacefully) coexist with them. Certainly we can’t make peace by ourselves without the cooperation of the other party. In Romans 12:18 the Bible wisely says: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” God allows for the possibility that others simply will not be peaceable with us. Countless people refuse to be peaceable even with God. But the first step toward peacefulness and reconciliation is learning about the other party. Proverbs 4:7 says, “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding.”

Humanity, for the most part, has become hostile to God. Psalm 14:2-3 says, “The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt…” But in love God is always reaching out to us. As Creator he knows us, but even further he took humanity upon himself in the Incarnation. He has experienced what it is to be human. Because of this we can be confident that the “man Christ Jesus” understands us fully, weaknesses, trials and all, and he is ready to receive us whenever our hearts become open to him.

Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank

Have you ever tried to imitate a regional recipe from somewhere far away? You’ll find that however it comes out it will likely lack the nuanced flavors and texture that people from its home would notice. Nonetheless, you could know its core ingredients and how it’s generally made, but there’s still the stuff one can only learn by going whole hog. If you traveled to the place and tried everyone’s version, and lived there awhile, you’d start to “get it,” and your perceptions would change, as would your approach.

Religion is not unlike this. Without spending a modicum of time investigating the motivating factor for most of civilization’s advance, we harm ourselves and cannot possibly hope to understand our neighbors. I know that my own religion is misunderstood by so many people who think they have a handle on it. They engage me in conversation and think that pastors just talk from their own imaginations on Sunday morning, and do so completely ad-lib! And while Christmas is appreciated as our gift to their secular world, the person for which it’s named is thought to be merely another in a long line of celebrities with days named for them, right up there with Christopher Columbus, and most recently, Kobe Bryant.

But if they understood the “core” of Christianity, much of the stuff like church buildings, and religious garb, and worship ritual would be understood for what it is; peripheral. Such things are like seasonings in the pot that distinguish one Christian subculture from another, and yet the core remains. All religions are like this, and if people had a core understanding of the handful of primary religions, they would easily recognize cultic divergents, and would understand better why behavior differs between groups. Sun Tzu said, “Know thy enemy.” We might say similarly, “Know thy friend,” but you can’t know either without knowledge, and so religious studies ought to be taught.

The Apostle Paul once stopped in Athens and said, “I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship — and this is what I am going to proclaim to you” (Acts 17:23). Knowledge of your neighbor’s belief informs dialogue, and if truth is to be conveyed, it must first be broached. Knowing is key.

Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga

Professor Gruen makes good points about the importance of religious studies, quoting Secretary of State John Kerry who says that, were he starting college today he would major in comparative religion rather than political science, since “religious actors and instutions are playing an influential role in every region of the world.”

No surprise that Gruen assumes entire classes in his chosen field, bringing employment opportunities and heightened academic stature to the discipline. A better approach to me is to integrate the relevant religious aspects into each field of study — be it history, political science, history or others. Good teachers seeking to impart a broad and deep knowledge of their field to their students already do this as a matter of course.

I agree with Gruen that without understanding others’ beliefs “misunderstanding, conflict and sectarianism” will be our future, but it cannot be assumed that all Christians understand Christianity, nor Muslims Islam, or Hindus Hinduism. It is apparent that often the most intractable conflicts and horrendous suffering arise from an erroneous, or at least incomplete, understanding of a faith by those who claim to speak for it.

For a neutral analysis of religion’s role in the world, I think that schools could do a lot worse than hiring subject-qualified atheists, agnostics, humanists and other religiously unaffiliated scholars and teachers.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose