REL 203 Religion in U.S. Culture

Lecture Hours: 4
Credits: 4

Explores the varieties of religious experience in the U.S., both contemporary and historical, along with the roles played by religion in public discourse. Asks critical questions about how faith traditions have responded to the challenges of colonial and post-colonial American life, with particular attention to the impact of secularism on religious belief and practice in the modern United States.

Prerequisite: Placement into WR 115(or higher), or completion of WR 090(or higher) with a grade of C or better; or consent of instructor.
Recommended: Placement into WR 121Z (or higher), or completion of WR 115 (or higher) with a grade of C or better.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Identify and distinguish between the dominant religious traditions in the United States.
Articulate how world religions have adapted their practices and beliefs to the U.S. context, paying particular attention to the immigrant experience.
Relate the reasons for the transformation of indigenous religiosity and formation of new religious movements, especially their attempts to address crises of individual and communal identity.
Explain the context and development of the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.
Explain how student’ own experiences and worldview relate to public discourse about religion in the U.S.
Use strategies to thoughtfully and respectfully engage those who hold a different religious worldview.
Write coherent essays using textural support, documentation (where applicable), and standard grammar/mechanics.

Statewide General Education Outcomes:

Interpret and engage in the Arts and Letters, making use of the creative process to enrich the quality of life.
Critically analyze values and ethics within a range of human experience and expression to engage more fully in local and global issues.

Cultural Literacy (DPR) Outcome:

Identify and analyze complex practices, values, and beliefs and the culturally and historically defined meanings of difference.

Content Outline

Study of Religion
- Religion defined
- How to study religion
  - Respect for the religion studied
  - Academic honesty
- Worldview
  - Meaning for adherents
  - Values held
  - Practices lived
- Conduct
  - Engage diverse perspectives with thoughtfulness and respect
  - Learn in disagreement
  - Openness to new insights and understandings creates better learning
- How to write a religious studies paper
  - Appropriate language for describing and comparing religions
  - Sources
    - Approaches to sources from religious practitioners vs. expert outsiders
    - Methods of analysis of primary vs. secondary texts
  - Professionalism
    - Textual support
    - Documentation
    - Standard grammar/mechanics
”Big Picture” View of Religion in the U.S.: Secularism as a Challenge to Religion, and the Search for Truth and Belonging
- Defining secularism
  - Daily life
    - Impact of post-enlightenment rationalism
    - Creativity with which practitioners of various religions have responded to needs of the frontier, industrialization, and modernization
- Public discourse on religion
  - First Amendment
    - Context of development
    - Transformation of meaning through application to real-life cases
  - Political discourse
- The search for truth and belonging
  - Indigenous experiences
  - Immigrant experiences
  - Impact of secularism on individual and communal identity
Religion as a Lived Practice
- Indigenous religions
  - Native American religions
    - Variety of beliefs
    - Pan-Indian movements
    - Appropriation of indigenous traditions today by White practitioners in modern spirituality movements
  - African American religions
    - Movements that seek to maintain connections with Africa
    - Movements that disassociate from Christianity or link White racism with Christianity
    - Movements that seek to restructure Christianity based on the unique experiences of a particular community
  - New Religious Movements (NRMs)
    - Why do such movements form in the U.S.
      - LDS Church
        
        Struggle of prophet Joseph Smith to make sense of religious upheaval
        
        Polygamy controversy, Smith v. the United States (1897)
- Immigrant Religions
  - Protestantism
    - Ties with European immigrants and their motivations for immigration
      - Religious persecution
      - Utopian visions, manifest destiny, and White privilege
    - Transformative impact of revival movements
      - Ultimate influence over late 20th and early 21st century society and politics
      - “Mega-churches” as off-shoots of revival movements
    - Roman Catholicism
      - Confluence of various cultures: Hispanic, Irish, German, modern Latino
      - Conflicts and developments as minority religion
      - Current issues
    - Judaism
      - Reform Movement: reasons for formation
    - Islam
      - Islam as America’s New “Other,” realities of American Muslims vs. media stereotypes of extremism
        
        Variety of Muslim communities
        
        Reasons for immigration to U.S.
      - Interaction with Judeo-Christian culture
    - Eastern Traditions
      - Appropriation of Eastern traditions by Transcendentalist movement in the 19th century
      - New Age religion, holistic medicine, well-being culture, and environmentalism
- Fundamentalism
  - Defining fundamentalism
  - Violence associated with fundamentalism
  - Resistance by “nonparticipation” in secular life