REL 1850 - World Religious Traditions (4)

This course will enhance your critical thinking skills and better appreciate the ways religion and spirituality shape and are shaped by culture, politics, economics and society.  In addition to providing a solid theoretical base for understanding key ideas and concepts of the great religious traditions, it also addresses specific challenges that these traditions face at the beginning of the 21st century.  Utilizing an academic approach to the study of religious traditions, cross-cultural competencies will be cultivated enabling you to negotiate an increasingly diverse social space and workplace in the progressively larger interlinked global world that we all live now. 

Office: 217 Varner Hal

E-mail: cmabee@oakland.edu          

Office Phone:  1-248-370-2154

Office Hours:  by cell phone appointment        

Cell Phone:  1.517.944.5550

 2.    Knowledge of comparative religious heritages, past and present, as they impact value formation and perspective in these societies.  

Cross-Cutting Capacities: 

1. Social Awareness- This course examines the originating foundational ideas and practices that form the symbolic core of much of contemporary global civilization. It explores them with an eye toward uncovering fundamental concepts and values that exert continuing influence upon social behavior.
2. Critical Thinking- This course examines religious ideas and commitments from the standpoint of neutral analysis, encouraging the formation of critical judgment. It explores the deeper meaning of religious language, probing the deeper questions of human existence underlying global expressions of religious symbolism and metaphor.

Learning Objectives:

1. Characterize the nature of religious studies as an academic discipline.

2.  Application of seminal ideas found at the core of major religious traditions to contemporary social issues;

3. Broad understanding of the history and expression of those ideas expressed within diverse religious communities; 

4. Personal, professional, ethical and societal implications of common ideas and ethical practices found within various religious traditions to the on-going struggle for justice and well-being.

The second text for the class is Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life  (Knopf, 2011).  This book is to be read in its entirety and comes into play only at the conclusion of the class as you relate what you have learned to the idea of a religiously-inspired compassionate life.

In this course grades will be based on equal evaluations of each of the six learning modules and the final paper:  each is worth 1/7 of your final class grade. Remember: Late submission of any work is not acceptable!!

There are 6 major learning modules in the class that last two weeks each.  You will receive a grade indicating the quality of your work for each module utilizing a “20-point” scale.