Languages: English

Focuses on issues that emerge from religious diversity. Students hone the worldview analysis skills introduced at the beginning of the course by applying them to the “religious ecology” of the United States – the most religiously diverse country in the world. Factors contributing to religious diversity are outlined in opening lesson segments. Investigative interviews with religious leaders reveal the sociological factors that often result in dilemmas behind the institutionalization of religion.

Applies sociological methodology to establish a neutral ground for understanding sect and cult formation. The lesson further investigates emerging religious institutions such as the Ramtha School of Enlightenment and Diana’s Grove. Topics of discussion include the “cultic impulse”, and outlines the many profiles of religious organizations, including church, denomination, sect, and cult. Students explore the impact of secularization of established religious institutions.

Concludes the study of religion by looking toward the future. The lesson examines the role of religion and religious leaders in a world where society is becoming increasingly religiously pluralistic, and raises the question of how adherents of different worldviews might respond in an expanding religious landscape.

In this follow-up review class, we revisit the six dimensions of religion and consider different ways of exploring the relationship between those dimensions. A second dimensional triangle has been added in order to more accurately present the relationship between the doctrinal, ethical, and social dimensions. We review key class themes such as boundary questions and rites of passage and discuss how real religion is common in all human experience, across temporal and cultural lines.

This class takes on three of the most important and challenging issues regarding religion, today: religion and violence, religion and science, and religion and spirituality. In this class, we try to track some of the changes that have spawned our unsettling times as we look to a future in which scientific knowledge and spiritual insight can form a partnership.

Explores key class themes such as the religious process, the pervasiveness of religion, seeker style, boundary questions, rites of passage, and the many types of religious experience. The lesson delves into the motivations that compel students to study at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a provocative new age center in Yelm, Washington.

Probes how profound life questions arising out of the experiential dimension find answers in the great myths and paradigm-laden narratives of the world’s religions. Also discussed are the ways in which these answers shape religious activity among believers. Feature interviews include a Hindu describing the “Myth of the Ganges River,” a Christian fundamentalist discussing the importance of the baptism ritual, and a discourse on death as a religious motivator in the Jerusalem graveyards above the Holy City.

Describes the three great myths in the Torah-creation, liberation, and the making of the covenant on Sinai-that undergird and inspire all Jewish religious activity. Features an explanation of the Talmud by Dr. Lorberbaum of the Hartman Institute, and an interview with a Hasidic Jew conducted at the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Focuses on the six dimensions of worldviews upon which the course is structured: experiential, mythical, ritual, doctrinal, ethical, and social. In this class, students are introduced to the experiential dimension in Christianity and become acquainted with such concepts as hierophany, axis mundi, and the “sacred and profane” in religious life.

Delves into the reasons, motivations, and instincts that have inspired the cultural expressions we now call “religion”. Students explore archaic religious systems, the eternal search for answers to profound life questions, and various religious styles.