Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 For such a time as this: the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, 1969–2009
- Part I Inventing and reinventing the field of religious studies
- Part II Method and theory in religious studies
- Part III Teaching religion
- 14 Confessions of a former establishment fundamentalist
- 15 Confessing away the soul with the sins, or the risks of Uncle Tomism among the humanists: a reply to Robert Bellah
- 16 Criteria for organizing the introductory course in religion
- 17 Teaching about religion at the state university: taking the issue seriously and strictly
- 18 Teaching about religion at the state university: a reply
- 19 Teaching about religion at the religiously affiliated university: taking the issue seriously and strictly—a reply to Robert Baird and Robert Minor
- Part IV Women and the bible in religious studies
- Part V Religion and religious studies in civic life
- Part VI Religious studies and identity politics
- Part VII Islam and 9/11
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
19 - Teaching about religion at the religiously affiliated university: taking the issue seriously and strictly—a reply to Robert Baird and Robert Minor
from Part III - Teaching religion
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 For such a time as this: the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, 1969–2009
- Part I Inventing and reinventing the field of religious studies
- Part II Method and theory in religious studies
- Part III Teaching religion
- 14 Confessions of a former establishment fundamentalist
- 15 Confessing away the soul with the sins, or the risks of Uncle Tomism among the humanists: a reply to Robert Bellah
- 16 Criteria for organizing the introductory course in religion
- 17 Teaching about religion at the state university: taking the issue seriously and strictly
- 18 Teaching about religion at the state university: a reply
- 19 Teaching about religion at the religiously affiliated university: taking the issue seriously and strictly—a reply to Robert Baird and Robert Minor
- Part IV Women and the bible in religious studies
- Part V Religion and religious studies in civic life
- Part VI Religious studies and identity politics
- Part VII Islam and 9/11
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
Summary
The last two issues of the Bulletin contain discussions bearing on the purpose and method of the discipline of religious studies. In their June 1983 article, Robert Minor and Robert Baird argue that curriculum and program should be related to a clearly articulated purpose, determine such a purpose by distinguishing teaching religion from teaching about religion, and suggest that only the latter is “constitutionally appropriate at the state University” (Minor & Baird 1983: 69). Recognizing that many teachers may find this difficult— they may, e.g., regard their discipline as “existentially relevant,” or assume that understanding a religion requires participation, or claim that by not recommending a particular worldview they unconsciously promote skepticism, relativism, and the like—the authors nevertheless stick to their guns. Neither helping students fulfill personal quests for identity, nor the inculcation of values and character formation (the Indiana University Study is dismissed on this account as “both naive and parochial” [ibid.: 71]), but only teaching about religions to “enable students to understand other people and cultures” (ibid.: 71) will do as a valid rationale for the study of religion in the state university.
In their October Bulletin reply, Julia Benton Mitchell and David B. Annis, perhaps with a more restricted view of the term “religion” in mind, argue that Minor and Baird have drawn invalid conclusions from the valid premise of the necessity of teaching only about religion.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Reinventing Religious StudiesKey Writings in the History of a Discipline, pp. 115 - 118Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013