Challenging knowledge in RE: Vol 4: Studying Religion

Religion – our field of study – is vast, rich, complex and contested. Here we have selected content to illustrate how we can study religion in different ways. We might see religious
studies as a home discipline, which then draws on methods from many other disciplines. This contrasts with the theological approaches we often use, which tend to look for coherence
and deal with orthodoxy. RS tends to look at (non)religion as a social fact in descriptive and analytic ways (see Chris Cotter’s investigator file, pp. 8–9)

In this volume we analyse sociological data from the 2021 Pew Research data on religion in India, showing that the tidy boxes in which we often place religions in RE simply don’t reflect the reality of Indian religion (pp. 16–17). We apply methods of literary theory to the Ramayana, reading it from the goddess Sita’s perspective, offering a feminist viewpoint (pp. 18–19). Professor Linda Woodhead’s article (pp. 20–21) introduces her 2021 research, where mixed methods reveal the importance of values in the lives of Generation Z; she suggests that ‘values are the new religion’.

We look through an anthropological lens at ‘material religion’, including the use of amulets in Islam (pp. 26–29), and astrology in Hindu ways of living (pp. 30–31). Anthropological methods help to illuminate the integration of Christian and indigenous practice in southern Africa (pp. 32–33). We use these case studies to open up wider questions about the reality of a spiritual dimension in the lives of the majority of humans, and how this plays out in the secular world of the majority of our students

We also apply a critical lens to the nature of religion itself. In order to explore the relative importance of a range of features of religion, students undertake some research and compare it with data already collected (pp. 8–13). Building on this glimpse of the diversity of lived religion, students are then able to consider whether it is possible or desirable to pin religion down to a definition (pp. 14–15). Throughout, we offer opportunities for students to reflect on their own worldviews.