Religion (Bachelor of Arts and Minor)
Bachelor of Arts in Religion:
Religion majors explore the riches of the world’s religions and study faith seriously as a universal quality. They also examine how faith motivates people for good, and sometimes for evil, and have the opportunity to appreciate the history and scriptures of Christianity, the world’s largest religion.
Other topics include the study of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions. Because people of different faiths have lived alongside each other for centuries, the major problems of religious faith in the contemporary world are addressed. Religion students also grapple with age-old issues such as the problem that suffering raises for any belief in divine goodness. The major involves researching the relationship of religion to the hard and soft sciences as well as developing a sound methodological grasp of the subject of religion.
Emphasis is placed on developing critical thinking and the creative imagination, understanding diversity, and making links between different subject areas. It is for this reason the religion is an ideal second major for students. It is also why religion students find themselves working for multinational firms or in the caring professions. Many students majoring in Religion do very well in graduate school because of the interdisciplinary skills they have already learned.
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN RELIGION - 31 semester hours‡
Required Courses: 16 semester hours
REL2060 Exploring Religion (4)
REL2200 The Shaping of Christian Identity (4)
REL3400 Love the Stranger: the History and Significance of Interfaith Dialogue (4)
REL4990 Seminar in Religious Studies (4)
Selected Courses: Choose 15 semester hours, of which at least 7 hours must be at 3000 level
REL1050 An Introduction to World Religions (4)
REL1100 The Christian Bible (4)
REL2310 The Faiths of Abraham (4)
REL2320 The Faiths of India (4)
REL3250 Religions and Human Suffering (4)
REL/PHL3100 Philosophy of Religion (3)
REL3200 Jesus (4)
REL3300 Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust (4)
MINOR IN RELIGION - 18 semester hours
The minor in Religion encourages students to explore issues of personal faith, whether their own or those of others, or both, in a rigorous, sympathetic yet critical way. It gives students the opportunity to develop an appreciation of the history and Scriptures of Christianity, the world’s largest religion. Religion is also studied as a social phenomenon. It is therefore an ideal minor for those majoring in the behavioral sciences and political studies, as well as history and other cognate subjects. A student who engages in Religion as a minor will therefore learn to assess both personal issues of truth, ethics and values; but also how religion shapes and is shaped by broader societal forces.
Required Course:
REL2060 Exploring Religion (4)
Selected Courses:
Select an additional 14 semester hours from the Religion program, including at least 8 hours at the 3000 level or above.
RELIGION COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
REL1050 An Introduction to World Religions 4 semester hours
This course introduces students to four major families of the world’s religions: Primal Faith; Semitic Religions; South Asian Religions; and East Asian Religions. It looks in depth at one representative way of faith from within each major family group. It explores these issues through an examination of art and music and individual thinkers, as well as an examination of beliefs and practices.
No prerequisites.
Meets General Education: “Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression” Group A requirement.
REL1100 The Christian Bible 4 semester hours
This course introduces students to the history and theology of ancient Israel and of the New Testament church, through the medium of the Christian Bible. It examines how and why the church chose the books that form the Christian Bible, and illustrates how the Bible has been used, and continues to be used, to define and reform Christian faith.
No prerequisites.
REL2160 Exploring Religion 4 semester hours
This course introduces students to the study of religion, and distinguishes religion from the religions. While it acknowledges the importance to religion of the older social sciences (specifically: anthropology, sociology and psychology), it stresses the importance to religious studies of cultural studies. It also looks at the claims by religion to transcendent, revelatory truth, and inquires how the truth of such claims might be established. In the process, it explores whether religious studies is a discrete field of study, or a multi-disciplinary area of inquiry, or even a vague and nebulous ‘subject’ that has no place in a respectable university.
No prerequisites.
Meets General Education: “Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression” Group A requirement.
REL2310 The Faiths of Abraham 4 semester hours
This course introduces students to the study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their interaction. It examines their core beliefs and practices, partly through sacred texts. Students are encouraged to take seriously the cultural and aesthetic achievements and interaction of these religions. Special attention is given to the interaction of these religions in the contemporary world. Students will and must visit local places of worship if they take this course.
No prerequisites.
REL2320 The Faiths of India 4 semester hours
This course introduces students primarily to the study of Hinduism and Buddhism, but also examines Jainism and Sikhism. It studies their origins in the South Asian subcontinent. It explores some of their seminal texts and divergent beliefs and practices. Students are encouraged to take seriously the cultural and aesthetic achievements and interaction of these religions. It introduces students to diaspora communities (‘dispersion’ into other countries, including the USA) and to modern reconstructions of faith. Students will and must visit a local Hindu or Buddhist place of worship if they take this course.
No prerequisites.
REL2200 The Shaping of Christian Identity 4 semester hours
This course examines various momentous occasions which have contributed to the cultural and doctrinal identity of contemporary Christianity. These would include, among other events: the Council of Jerusalem, which incorporated Gentiles as well as Jews into Christian faith; the Council of Chalcedon, which interpreted the meaning of Christ for Christians; the iconoclastic controversy in the 8th and 9th century Byzantine Empire, which foreshadowed the splitting of the Eastern and Western churches, and focused the issue of the place of the appropriateness and importance of artistic representations of God for Christians; the consequences of Martin Luther’s “Here I stand; I can do no other,” and the founding of Protestant religion; the first great awakening, and its effect upon North American Christian identity; the modern ecumenical movement, and its development within an increasingly interlinked world. Students will study Christianity’s impact upon civilizations and upon culture, as well as its claims to religious truth.
No prerequisites.
REL3250 Religions and Human Suffering 4 semester hours
What problems for religion and belief in God does human suffering pose, and what answers can religion and religions give to them? This course looks at Christian and other faithful perspectives, and explores not only intellectual and devotional responses, but also artistic, musical and other cultural explorations of the transcendental meanings of pain, loss and death.
No prerequisites.
REL3350 Jesus 4 semester hours
This course introduces students to different portrayals of Jesus, mostly within, but occasionally outside, the Christian religion. This course: describes a number of New Testament understandings of Jesus; explores understandings of Jesus conveyed by music, art and architecture; describes understandings of Jesus in at least one religion other than Christianity; and explores contemporary Western understandings of Jesus, influenced by secularism.
No prerequisites.
REL3360 Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust 4 semester hours
This course examines the radical reshaping of Christian (especially Roman Catholic and Protestant) beliefs and practices toward Jews in the wake of the impact of Christian teaching upon the Nazis’ justification for the destruction of European Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s. This reshaping has particularly affected Christian liturgy (including hymns and set orders of worship), approaches toward mission and evangelism, core teachings about the meaning and purpose of Jesus as God’s messenger to humankind, and attitudes toward the meaning of the State of Israel for both Christians and Jews. Students will also examine recent Jewish reflections upon how Jews now regard Christianity as an instrument of the divine purpose.
No prerequisites.
REL3400 Love the Stranger: The History and Significance of Interfaith Dialogue 4 semester hours
This course argues that interfaith dialogue is an exciting and vibrant part of contemporary religious studies, and must be taken seriously as a faithful alternative to fundamentalist and other exclusive claims to truth. It explores the origin of a dialogical approach to other faiths from its roots in seminal religious texts, and its growing importance since the first Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893. It also introduces students to the views of important contemporary and near contemporary intellectuals, mostly but not all Christians, who have examined this issue. These may include, among others: Geoffrey Parrinder, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Seyyed Hossain Nasr, Kenneth Cracknell and Diana Eck
.No prerequisites.
PHL/REL3100 Philosophy of Religion 3 semester hours
This course is a study of the philosophical issues in religion: the nature of religion, the relation between philosophy and religion, the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God, the problem of evil, the nature of religious knowledge and language
.Prerequisite: An introductory philosophy or religion course.
Meets General Education “Aesthetic and Philosophical Expression” Group A requirement.
REL4990 Seminar in Religious Studies 4 semester hours
This is the senior capstone for the Religion major and it is conducted in seminar fashion. A topic, which may change from year to year, is chosen from the major areas of contemporary religious studies for an in-depth study and presentation. Students will engage in individual research specific aspects related to the topic. Course content will vary according to contemporary issues and research interests.
Prerequisites: REL2060 and additional coursework in Religion.
Please note:
The information listed on this page is current according to the 2006-2008 Undergraduate Catalog, unless otherwise noted.
‡ This information has been added since the printing of the 06-08 Undergraduate Catalog.
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