Invitation to World Religions by Jeffrey Brodd Test Bank

Invitation to World Religions by Jeffrey Brodd TestBank Instructors manual Introductory Comments Invitation to World Religions is designed to provide students with the resources they need to acquire a sound understanding of the essential features of the major traditions. Students typically are drawn to the study of world religions out of a sense of curiosity, and they pursue their study with a healthy dose of wonder—circumstances that make for an exciting opportunity for an instructor. The textbook is also designed to fulfill this promise of sparking students’ curiosity and wonder, while at the same time emphasizing the need to apply sound academic approaches to the study of religions. IWR thus strives to strike a balance between objective presentation of material and attention to the subjective aspects of religion that make it such an alluring field of study. Along with describing the essential features of the world’s religions, the textbook explores how the traditions have answered some of the most fundamental human questions—Why are we here? What is the nature of the universe? How should we live? Religions are multidimensional, and so it is appropriate to present their essential features through an approach that clearly demarcates the main dimensions. The textbook sets forth three dimensional categories: teachings, way of life (practices and modes of experience), and historical development. This use of categories should prove helpful for student readers and for instructors, in part because it facilitates comparative consideration of the religions. IWR was written by a team of authors, each with expertise in particular areas but also with experience teaching survey courses in world religions. We therefore came to the writing of each chapter with a sense for the book as a whole, thinking comparatively about the religions. Students likely will benefit from taking something of a comparative approach, and so the textbook strives to facilitate this without forcing too much by way of “prerequisite” knowledge before reading any given chapter. A comparative approach is foundational to the study of world religions (as explained in Chapter 1, the entire field of religious studies originated as a comparative enterprise). Another vital feature of a sound academic approach is empathy: the capacity to see things from another’s perspective. The textbook strives to facilitate opportunities to practice empathy, in part by providing first-person accounts from adherents of each tradition. IWR also strives to show that religions are inextricably part of a wider cultural context that includes other interconnected phenomena—the arts, politics, economics, and so forth. This Instructor’s Manual is designed to help get the most—for student and instructor— out of teaching with IWR. All of the material is intended to correlate closely with the textbook, in order to supplement its introductory presentation without overextending or straying too far afield. Especially for instructors with relatively limited experience in teaching world religions, the Instructor’s Manual will provide a guide for preparations and for assessment of student learning. General Features of the Instructor’s Manual Each chapter of this instructor’s manual contains the following: • A brief summary of the textbook chapter, organized by the main sections • Chapter goals • Suggested readings, weblinks, and other media, including popular and documentary films • Weblinks to sacred texts with brief descriptions of their content • Definitions of key terms • A sample quiz consisting of 6 to 10 essay questions, 34 to 40 multiple-choice questions with answers, 24 to 30 true/false questions with answers, and 24 to 30 fill-in-the-blank questions with answers (half of the test questions are on this manual’s companion website)   Chapter 1 An Invitation to the Study of World Religions CHAPTER SUMMARY This chapter explores the nature of religion and how to study it from an academic perspective. The main objective is to prepare for the study that follows, but the relatively theoretical and methodological content of this introductory chapter is relevant and challenging in its own right. The chapter introduces the study of world religions by first attempting to define “religion,” and then explaining appropriate strategies for the academic exploration of religion. “Religion” and the Study of World Religions For more than a century, scholars from various academic disciplines have struggled to define the term “religion,” without ever having produced a single definition that pleases everyone. In spite of this, it is important when approaching the study of world religions to clarify to some extent the nature of the subject matter to be included in the study. The importance of agreeing from the outset on a definition of “religion” can be understood through an analogy that compares religions to houses. Embarking on our study without a shared definition of what, exactly, we are studying would be akin to setting off for foreign places to explore the nature of houses without first agreeing on what counts as a house. The attempt to define “religion”—indeed, the entire enterprise of religious studies—is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning at the time of the European Enlightenment. An impulse toward categorically separating religion, coupled with European exploration of distant lands and their unfamiliar “religions,” launched efforts to define religion that have continued to the present day. Various well-known definitions have been set forth by notable theorists in several different fields, among them sociologist Émile Durkheim, psychologist William James, and theologian Paul Tillich. Promising (and more recent) definitions include those set forth by Melford Spiro, Clifford Geertz, Gerald James Larson, and Bruce Lincoln. Drawing on aspects of all of these helpful definitions, we posit the book’s own working definition: religion is a cultural system integrating teachings, practices, modes of experience, institutions, and artistic expressions that relates people to what they perceive to be transcendent. What Religions Do In analyzing various functions of religion, we concentrate especially on the fundamental questions to which religious traditions provide answers. Functionalist explanations of religion have tended to be limited in scope, and also “reductionist”—reducing religion to the status of being the effect of some other phenomenon or phenomena. Durkheim’s theory, for example, reduces religion to being the effect of societal forces. Sigmund Freud set forth a psychological explanation of religion, calling it the “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity,” thus reducing religion to being the effect of psychological malady. Political philosopher Karl Marx, like Freud an atheist, offered a similarly reductionist and antagonistic explanation, famously labeling religion “the opium of the people.” We can widen our vantage point on the functions of religion and produce a fairer and more accurate depiction by considering the variety of life’s challenges that these traditions help people to face and to overcome. To this end, we explore three prominent questions that recur in some form in nearly every religion: 1. What Is Ultimate Reality? 2. How Should We Live in This World? 3. What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? Theism in its various forms, atheism, and monism are among the concepts that address ultimate reality. Religions typically describe how ultimate reality is revealed to human beings. Cosmology—understanding of the nature of the world—relates to issues regarding ultimate reality, most clearly for those many religions that posit a creator god or that hold the world itself to be sacred. Religions also explain what it is to be a human being, and these explanations figure largely into ethical or moral considerations, and thus the question: How should we live in this world? Given what a religion says about the human condition, what ultimate purpose is the religious life intended to achieve? Is there a state of existence to which the religious person can hope to aspire that perfectly completes or even transcends the human condition? Issues involving the problem of mortality enter into these considerations. Basic Components of Religions Some scholarly approaches to the world’s religions feature specific categories of phenomena as the primary means of organizing information. This book organizes phenomena into three general categories: teachings, way of life, and historical development. Teachings include doctrines and myths. A religion’s way of life encompasses practices, often in the form of rituals, and modes of experience. Historical development normally incorporates a vast array of social, artistic, and other cultural phenomena. Religions in the Modern World A sound analysis of the world’s religions must pay heed to the rapid changes that characterize the modern world. Historical transformations, accelerated during the past several centuries by such diverse and powerful factors as colonialism, the scientific revolution, and economic globalization, have reshaped religious traditions. This book introduces four specific phenomena: modernization, urbanization, globalization and multiculturalism, and the encounter of religion and science. An Academic Approach to the Study of Religions Scholars approach the study of religion in a variety of ways, and although there is no such thing as the correct approach, it is helpful to keep some basic concepts in mind. One concept is the maintenance of a healthy balance between the perspective of an insider (one who practices a given religion) and the perspective of an outsider (one who studies the religion without practicing it). Another basic concept for the academic approach to religion is empathy, the capacity for seeing things from another’s perspective. A sound study of the world’s religions also features a comparative approach, and it is multidisciplinary, or polymethodic, drawing on a variety of scholarly fields of study, including history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and women’s studies. CHAPTER GOALS • To introduce the challenge of defining “religion,” with examples of notable attempts • To provide a working definition of religion for the book • To explore three basic questions that point to what religions do • To introduce three categories—teachings, way of life, and historical development—that provide the book with its primary organizational structure • To consider various features of religions in the modern world • To introduce the most important aspects of an academic approach to the study of religions SUGGESTED READINGS, WEBLINKS, AND MEDIA Readings Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper and Row, 1961. Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Pals, Daniel. Eight Theories of Religion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Smart, Ninian. Worldviews: Crosscultural Explanations of Human Belief. 3rd ed. New York: Scribner’s, 1999. Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1982. Taylor, Mark C., ed. Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Film The Long Search 13: “Reflections on the Long Search: Loose Ends” (1978) DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS atheism The belief that there is no God or gods. cosmology Understanding of the nature of the world that typically explains its origin and how it is ordered. empathy The capacity for seeing things from another’s perspective, and an important methodological approach for studying religions. globalization The linking and intermixing of cultures. henotheism The belief that acknowledges a plurality of gods but elevates one of them to special status. modernization The general process through which societies transform economically, socially, and culturally to become more in keeping with the standards set by industrialized Europe. monism The belief that all reality is ultimately one. monotheism The belief in only one god. multiculturalism The coexistence of different peoples and their cultural ways in one time and place. mysterium tremendum and fascinans The contrasting feelings of awe-inspiring mystery and of overwhelming attraction that are said by Rudolf Otto to characterize the numinous experience. mystical experience A general category of religious experience characterized in various ways, for example, as the uniting with the divine through inward contemplation or as the dissolution of the sense of individual selfhood. myth A story or narrative, originally conveyed orally, that sets forth basic truths of a religious tradition; myths often involve events of primordial time that describe the origin of things. nontheistic Term denoting a religion that does not maintain belief in God or gods. numinous experience Rudolf Otto’s term for describing an encounter with “the Holy”; it is characterized by the two powerful and contending forces, mysterium tremendum and fascinans. pantheism The belief that the divine reality is identical to nature or the material world. polytheism The belief in many gods. revealed ethics Truth regarding right behavior believed to be divinely established and intentionally made known to human beings. revelation The expression of the divine will, commonly recorded in sacred texts. ritual Formal worship practice. secularization The general turning away from traditional religious authority and institutions. Stoicism Ancient Greek and Roman pantheistic religious philosophy. theistic Term denoting a religion that maintains belief in God or gods. transcendence General category for whatever is perceived as being beyond the normal or mundane sphere of things, whether understood as external or as within the individual or world. urbanization The shift of population centers from rural, agricultural settings to cities. SAMPLE QUIZ Essay Questions 1. (W) With regard to both what a religion is and what a religion does, how is the study of the world’s religions analogous to a study of houses? 2. Compare the definitions of religion set forth by Melford Spiro and Cifford Geertz, noting possible strengths and weaknesses of each. 3. (W) Explain the significance of “transcendence” (or the “transcendent”) for the definitions of religion set forth by Gerald James Larson and Bruce Lincoln. 4. What is the significance for an academic approach to religion of sociologist Peter Berger’s comment on the challenge of defining religion, “a definition is not more or less true, only more or less useful”? 5. (W) Analyze this book’s working definition of religion. Include comment on the relevance of the key terms “cultural system” and “transcendent.” 6. In what ways might the study of another person’s religion be analogous to studying a goldfish in a pond? Multiple-Choice Questions 1. (W) Wilfred Cantwell Smith in The Meaning and End of Religion argues that use of the term “religion” by theorists a. Is necessary in order to maintain clarity with regard to the subject under investigation b. Should be abandoned altogether, due to its ambiguity and misleading inferences* c. Needs to take into account “spirituality” in order to provide a suitably complete perspective d. Has been unnecessarily confusing, mainly because of scholars’ differing attitudes toward religion 2. Efforts to define religion that have continued to the present day were launched by the European Enlightenment impulse toward categorically separating religion, coupled with a. European exploration of distant lands and their unfamiliar “religions”* b. The expanding influence of British culture, which tended toward special interest in religion c. Increased power of Hindu and Muslim nations d. The rise of deism and thus of a tendency to belittle the “religions” of others 3. (W) French sociologist Émile Durkheim insists in his definition of religion on a. An emphasis of its effects on the individual’s psyche b. The harm brought about by religion, the “opium” of the people c. The unification brought about by “beliefs and practices,” culminating in a “moral community called a Church”* d. The notion of “transcendence” as its essential aspect 4. The Protestant theologian whose definition of religion connects it to a focus on “man’s spiritual life” and refers to it as “ultimate concern” is a. Immanuel Kant b. Søren Kierkegaard c. Rudolf Bultmann d. Paul Tillich* 5. (W) The definition that describes a religion as “an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings” was set forth by a. Peter Berger b. Karl Marx c. Melford Spiro* d. Max Weber 6. (W) Recently, the definition of religion set forth by Clifford Geertz has been the subject of much criticism, in part because of a. Dependence on the social aspect of religion, with its focus on “community” b. Its emphasis on the private or internal thoughts and feelings of the religious person* c. Being problematically narrow, leaving out what many assume to be “religions” d. Being too assertively critical of religion 7. A category sometimes integral to definitions of religion that suggests a supra-ordinary realm or experience is a. Immanence b. The mysterious c. Transcendence* d. The unique 8. (W) Bruce Lincoln’s definition of religion emphasizes four “domains”: a. Discourse, practice, community, and institution* b. Essence, existence, freedom, and regeneration c. Inner, outer, esoteric, and exoteric d. Eastern, Western, African, and Australian 9. Religion functions in an unhealthy manner as an “opiate” that deters the suffering individual from attending to the true cause of affliction, according to a. Émile Durkheim b. Sigmund Freud c. Karl Marx* d. Paul Tillich 10. For the academic study of religion, as opposed to doing religion or being religious, a. Consideration of the true nature of the divine is the central focus b. Psychological and sociological studies are not highly relevant c. Analysis of empirical data is not possible because of the nature of religion d. Supernatural beings and events normally are held to be beyond its reach*