Title: How to study religion
Course: REL 201 RTZ > Section: Week 1 - Introductions, Introductions to the Course and Introductions to Religion

There are many ways and methods that a scholar can study religion.  Before reviewing how to study religion we will look at some of the fields of religious studies.

1. History – The historian studies facts within the larger context of history
2. Anthropology – The anthropologist studies religion as a part of human culture
3. Phenomenology – The phenomenologist wants to describe religions without incorporating bias through explanations, interpretations or judgements
4. Philosophy – The philosopher studies the logic, meaning and truth of the religious belief systems and myths
5. Sociology – The sociologists studies ways that religion interacts with social experiences
6. Theology – Theologians study God(s)
7. Psychology – Psychologist explores psychological experiences of religious phenomena
8. Literary – Literary critics study sacred texts

This is a just a sampling of the different fields of religious studies.  As you work through this course you will employ these methods plus many more in your study of religion. The easiest way to summarize how to study is that religious scholars uncover facts, describe, interpret, explain, and evaluate religious data.

Uncover facts

When pursuing the study of religion a scholar must become an archaeologist and uncover religious truths and parcel the data into the appropriate categories of verifiable fact, unverifiable facts or other.

Religious facts can be verified in many ways. Facts can be verified through science.  Also, written history through other religions and cultures can verify facts.  It is not enough to take a religion’s own ‘facts’ and declare them as facts if they are not cross verified with other data.  These facts will temporarily be stored in the unverifiable facts.

Unverifiable facts are facts within a religion that has not been verified with science or other documentation.  Because a fact is not verified does not make it false.  Because we are still discovering new information and still interpreting dead languages we have a lot to learn regarding many cultures and religions.

Other is a catch – all pot that contains facts that have been proven to be false and religious stories are known to be teaching stories and not facts even if the stories are presented as actual events.  The facts that are displaced as false are relegated to the realm of a teaching story.

Description

Description is a very misleading category because description is a personal bias on what is observed and defined. I use description as the methodology of taking the religious information and putting that data into categories and presenting the data outwardly.

Interpretation

Interpretation looks at the data and attempts to decipher the data into meaningful information.
This meaning has many perspectives because interpretation is different for practitioner, general society and the scholar.  Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation and provides the scholar with avenues to understand the religious data presented to them.  Hermeneutics can focus on isolated religious data such as rituals or scriptures.  Likewise, hermeneutics can be inclusive and interpret the entire religious experience.

Explanation

Explanation can be used by some scholars to understand religious phenomenon.  Other scholars use explanation to determine the reason for the religious phenomenon.

Evaluation

Explanation is a theory on religious phenomenon and not a proven fact.  This is where evaluation comes into production.  Evaluation helps to determine if the theory given in the explanation is correct.  This becomes a much harder task than using the scientific method like scientist to verify their theories.  Come to think about evaluation, how does a scholar verify the esoteric, the supernatural?  Can verification be achieved let alone a process be developed?

Many scholars do not employ an evaluation to their studies claiming it is too difficult to verify theories on the esoteric and supernatural.  However an attempt should be made to verify the following, in essence creating a process:

1. Where the facts verified correctly
2. Where the facts categorized correctly
3. Where the hermeneutics used vigorously and thoughtfully
4. Was a cross analysis conducting against other theories and/or scholarly works
5. Was logic and consistency employed in the explanation process