The Study of Religion in British Columbia

The Study of Religion in British Columbia

Author: Brian J. Fraser

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 0889207992

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The Study of Religion in British Columbia is a story of enterprise, innovation and isolation. In this unique survey Brian J. Fraser examines the history and development of the institutions of higher education where religion is taught and describes the methods used to understand the religious dimension of human endeavour in Canada’s westernmost province. Fraser analyzes the sources, development and persistence of two distinct approaches to the study of religion in British Columbia: theological studies and religious studies. He traces the early strength and recent expansion of theological studies, especially among conservative evangelical Christians, and sets the creation of British Columbia’s only department of religious studies at the University of British Columbia in this context. He also describes the innovative curricula designed by several of the institutions for the study of religion in the province. Finally, he contends that the differing views on the nature of religion held by these institutions and their constituencies have led to a continuing isolation from each other. The Study of Religion in British Columbia is the latest volume in the Canadian Corporation for the Study of Religion’s series on the study of religion in Canada. Readers interested in the rich diversity of personalities and perspectives that have shaped religious studies in British Columbia will find here a concise description of its evolution and a thought-provoking examination of its significance.


Asian Religions in British Columbia

Asian Religions in British Columbia

Author: Larry DeVries

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 0774859423

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British Columbia is Canada’s most ethnically diverse province. Yet in general we need to know more about the diversity of religions that accompanied immigrants to the province and how they are practised today. This book offers intimate portraits of local religious groups, including Hindus and Sikhs from South Asia; Buddhist organizations from Southeast Asia; and Tibetan, Japanese, and Chinese religions from East and Central Asia. The first comprehensive, comparative examination of Asian religions in British Columbia, this book is mandatory reading for teachers, policy makers, scholars of local history and culture and of Asian Canadian studies.


The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

Author: John R. Hinnells

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 0415333113

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The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religioncontains everything a student needs for a full understanding of theory and methods in religious studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues. Written entirely by renowned international specialists and using clear and accessible language throughout, it is the perfect guide to the problems and questions found in courses and exams.


The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

Author: John Hinnells

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 1370

ISBN-13: 1135252858

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The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion is a major resource for courses in Religious Studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues, such as gender, science, fundamentalism, ritual, and new religious movements. Written by renowned international specialists, this new edition: includes eight new chapters, including post-structuralism, religion and economics, religion and the environment, religion and popular culture, and sacred space surveys the history of religious studies and the key disciplinary approaches explains why the study of religion is relevant in today’s world highlights contemporary issues such as globalization, diaspora and politics includes annotated reading lists, a glossary and summaries of key points to assist student learning.


The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

Author: Donald Wiebe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1350103446

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In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.


Fifty Years of Religious Studies in Canada

Fifty Years of Religious Studies in Canada

Author: Harold Coward

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2014-11-07

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1771121033

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In Canadian universities in the early 1960s, no courses were offered on Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam. Only the study of Christianity was available, usually in a theology program in a church college or seminary. Today almost every university in North America has a religious studies department that offers courses on Western and Eastern religions as well as religion in general. Harold Coward addresses this change in this memoir of his forty-five-year career in the development of religious studies as a new academic field in Canada. He also addresses the shift from theology classes in seminaries to non-sectarian religious studies faculties of arts and humanities; the birth and growth of departments across Canada from the 1960s to the present; the contribution of McMaster University to religious studies in Canada and Coward’s Ph.D. experience there; the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria; and the future of religious studies as a truly interdisciplinary enterprise. Coward’s retrospective, while not a history as such, documents information from his varied experience and wide network of colleagues that is essential for a future formal history of the discipline. His story is both personally engaging and richly informative about the development of the field.


From Seminary to University

From Seminary to University

Author: Aaron W. Hughes

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2020-05-06

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1487504977

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From Seminary to University is the first historical, social, political, and institutional examination of how religion is taught in Canada.


Religion in the Public Sphere

Religion in the Public Sphere

Author: Solange Lefebvre

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1442626305

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The place of religion in the public realm is the subject of frequent and lively debate in the media, among academics and policymakers, and within communities. With this edited collection, Solange Lefebvre and Lori G. Beaman bring together a series of case studies of religious groups and practices from all across Canada that re-examine and question the classic distinction between the public and private spheres. Religion in the Public Sphere explores the public image of religious groups, legal issues relating to “reasonable accommodations,” and the role of religion in public services and institutions like health care and education. Offering a wide range of contributions from religious studies, political science, theology, and law, Religion in the Public Sphere presents emerging new models to explain contemporary relations between religion, civil society, the private sector, family, and the state.


New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches

New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, critical, and historical approaches

Author: Peter Antes

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 9783110176988

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Internationally recognized scholars from many parts of the world provide a critical survey of recent developments and achievements in the global field of religious studies. The work follows in the footsteps of two former publications: Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Jacques Waardenburg (1973), and Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (1984/85). New Approaches to the Study of Religion completes the survey of the comparative study of religion in the twentieth century by focussing on the past two decades. Many of the chapters, however, are also pathbreaking and point the way to future approaches.


The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Religion

The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Religion

Author: Justin L. Barrett

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0190693355

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"Over time, more psychologists have become contributors to cognitive science of religion (CSR), but when are they doing CSR and when are they doing psychology of religion? Does it matter? In this chapter, contemporary scientific reflections on notions of death and the afterlife are sketched to illustrate the subtle differences between CSR and psychology of religion. These kindred scientific approaches overlap considerably, but attention to their central differences will assist scholars in finding complementarity, thereby improving both schools of inquiry and their contributions to each other. After developing this thesis, this chapter introduces the organization and flow of the volume as a whole. Beginning with general theoretical and methodological foundations, the volume then considers specific applications of CSR to substantive topics such as beliefs in gods, sacred texts, sacred objects, and ritualized behaviors, before turning to how these domains of cultural expression are sometimes joined (or not) into religious systems. The volume ends with comparisons between CSR and two other neighboring approaches (evolutionary studies of religion and neuroscience of religion) and, finally, implications of CSR for philosophy of religion, religious education, and theology"--