Content Areas
The Religious Studies Department offers courses in three content areas. Each area is listed and described below. If you click on the name of the area, a new window will open up the current Undergraduate Student Bulletin page of course descriptions for courses in that area.
Courses in Area 1 focus on the sacred scriptures of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. The courses examine the historical and cultural backgrounds of these texts and gauge the way that beliefs developed in ancient times. They also look at the ways ideas about these ancient texts have changed over time and impact people's lives today.
Courses in Area 2 deal with three dimensions of "faith seeking understanding," a phrase that has classically described theology as a discipline. Theology seeks to articulate the truth of faith; ethics, the implications of faith in human life and activity; and spirituality, the practice and understanding of the experience of faith. All three dimensions are pursued in dialogue with culture in its various forms of discourse, and all three aim specifically to situate the Jewish or Christian faith tradition within contemporary approaches to the study of religion.
Religion can be studied from the inside, in terms of its scriptures, beliefs, and practices, but religion also can be studied as a phenomenon that is related to and constructive of whole communities and societies. Area 3 courses approach religious studies this way, asking not whether a religious idea, experience or practice is true, but rather how and why people construct truth in this way, or how they perform their beliefs in ritual, or how ideas shape and are shaped by societies. What these courses have in common is the study of religion as a system in society, whether past or present.
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