While searching for something else yesterday, I came across the Chicago Maroon’s 2008 interview of Jonathan Z. Smith, a leading historian of religion and author of several important books in the field, including Map Is Not Territory, Imagining Religion, and Drudgery Divine. You can find the full text of the interview here. If you have [...]
Tags:comparative religious history·Drudgery Divine·Greek myth·Hegel·historian of religions·History·Imagining Religion·J.Z. Smith·Jonathan Z. Smith·Map Is Not Territory·New Testament·Supriya Sinhababu·Yale Divinity School
Over at HuffPo Religion, a well meaning Matthew Anderson suggests that all American junior-senior high school students should be required to take a minimum of two classes on world religions so as to be exposed to something other than their parents’ religion. He supposes that these courses would foster tolerance and lead to a more [...]
Tags:believing versus thinking·Buddhism·Christianity·ecumenical·essentialized categories·essentializing·genealogy of religions·high school curriculum·Hinduism·History·history of world religions·Islam·Judaism·junior high curriculum·Mathew Anderson·paleolithic supernaturalism·religious classes·religious teaching·rise of organized religions·The Case for Blending Church and State·theology·tolerance
Over at HuffPo Religion, Diana Butler Bass asks: “Is Western Christianity Suffering from Spiritual Amnesia?” Her affirmative answer is simultaneously strange and naive. Most religions avoid objective histories of their origins and development for good reason: history — far more than science — corrodes religious faith.
Butler begins her article by explaining that she was teaching [...]
Tags:biblical canonization·Diana Butler Bass·early Christianity·F. Max Muller·Hans Kippenberg·History·Mormon history·philology
