World Religions

World Religions is a course I teach one semester per academic year. Last spring, I taught 20 juniors and seniors; this past fall, I only had 6 due to a last minute scheduling change. But what a group! I am excited about the opportunity to offer the class as a summer course for the first time in 2015.

World Religions surveys the major world religious systems and their literature, emphasizing the "big ideas" that each uniquely contributes to our understanding of the relationship between humans and the divine. Our "guidebook" for the class is Stephen Prothero's God is Not One, a book that I find uniquely attuned to the integrity and singularity of religious traditions. We use this overview sparingly, however, and the bulk of the course readings consist of either the great texts of religious traditions (like the Bhagavad Gita, the Torah, the New Testament, and the Tao Te Ching), or books that I have found useful in relating the ideas and experiences of these religions to the lives of the young women and men I teach (such as Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha).

As an educator, I think it's important to give students (particularly in a small class) as many options as possible with regard to what they learn. This year, the students in my class have chosen to emphasize depth over breadth. This means they will be spending less time reading the "textbook" and mastering objective content, and more time reading the religious texts and mastering the big questions they seek to answer.

The course wraps up with a student-directed project on a topic of their choosing. This time around, I'm asking students to look at a World Religion in the Milwaukee community, encouraging them to explore the ways in which unique manifestations of religious belief are present in their own community.

Check out my course syllabus at this site. Once this year's course wraps up, I'll migrate that content over to this site for permanent use.