Is It Possible to Study Religion Academically?

Religions have always played a major role in people's lives, may it be an active or a passive one. They have always been influencing our lives and the lives of people around us. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that numerous social conflicts which nowadays seem to happen on an everyday basis, have their origins in religions. Living as we do in an increasingly interdependent world, in order to understand those conflicts better we would do well to pay closer attention to the different world religions and their background. However, understanding the different religions does not only contribute to the understanding of some social conflicts, it also helps us to broaden our minds, understand other religions and traditions as well as build religious tolerance.

There are two approaches to study religion: the confessional and the academic. These two approaches start from different premises, ask different questions and use different vocabulary, but the major difference being the fact that the confessional (or devotional) approach actively promotes one religion and the academic approach is limited to the objective analysis and the comparative study of religions. In the West for a very long time the education concerning religion was solely the responsibility of the Church, meaning that only confessional study was practised. Thus the academic study represents a relatively new and modern way of teaching and studying religion.

The question that arises to everybody's mind who wants to deepen their knowledge of religions is whether or not it is even possible to study it academically. It certainly is challenging, since the desire to view another religion from the perspective of your own one can be very tempting. Furthermore, the risk of unconsciously judging or downplaying the importance of another religion is high since the philosophies and theses of our own religion are so deeply internalised that we are not even aware of them. Therefore, the attempt to set aside our own beliefs and assumptions about the meaning of human life, the existence or non-existence of gods, and the truth or untruth of particular religious tradition are essential. We, the students as well as the teacher have to undertake the role of an onlooker; we have to become mere observers, handling the topic as impartially as possible.

If we want to look at a religion objectively, we need to be aware that there are many elements or dimensions to it. A scientific analogy might be oceanography; one must know biology to study sea life, chemistry to study sea water, physics to study the water's movements, and geology to study the marine bottom. Similarly, religion is made up of numerous elements. The narrative element: Every religion tells a story, some being expressed in a scripture and some orally. The story a religion tells conveys the other elements of that religious tradition: its history, metaphysical teachings, practices, its concept of the nature of human society, its understanding of how religious community should be organized and should function, its experience of the sacred, and its ethics. Religious narrative can be studied via narrative or textual analysis, hermeneutics (the interpretation of texts), linguistics, semiotics, art criticism, and other methods. Another element is the teachings or doctrines. All religions convey beliefs, explanations why things are the way they are, descriptions of the sacred and any ultimate state of being the adherent can achieve, boundaries on membership and behaviour, and many other matters. Some types of teachings can be arrayed into a systematic explanation or theology, which can be studied logically, philosophically, or theologically. Then there are the rituals and practices that every religion expects their adherent to conform to or utilize. These can be practices of prayer, fasting, rituals for transitions in the life cycle or seasonal rituals. Moreover, all religions offer critiques of contemporary society based on concepts of an ideal society and must incorporate an understanding of the relationship between sacred and secular power and the religious and political institutions embodying each. Especially important for this element are some in anthropology and sociology developed ways to study the societal aspects of religion. Furthermore, in every religion there is a concept of a community; how it is organized, how it functions and how it interacts with the outside world. This element somehow interferes with the element of experience, since the community is created and developed on the basis of experience and tradition. Additionally, one of the most important elements is ethics. All religions offer an understanding of the moral life because they are centrally concerned with the problem of how human beings are to live together peacefully and reciprocally.

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