Diane L. Moore, Harvard Divinity School, argues that there are three significant assumptions about religion that we must all understand. These are that religions are embedded in culture, they are diverse and not uniform, and they change and evolve over time. She developed a number of activities that I copied and adapted to prove each of these assumptions. You can find each in the buttons below. I copied the basic methodology linked here and gave to the students.
Religious scholar Andrew Mark Henry (Boston University) reviews these three assumptions in "3 Things Everyone Should Know about Religion" which is part of his You Tube series, Religion for Breakfast.
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Recognize the ways that religions are embedded in human cultures and not isolated in a discrete private sphere. In this short assignment, students explore two simple ways to see how religion is embedded in culture by considering the calendar and national monuments or significant cultural sites.
Case Study: (taken directly from Professor's Moore's online course about religion)Examine the internal diversity of Islam by comparing its expression in Turkey and Indonesia. Watch The Muslims video below from 25:37-34:43 (Turkey) and 38:14-48:52 (Malaysia). (To find the relevant time stamp, start the video and move the curser to the bottom of the screen where you'll see time stamp options along the horizontal bar. Go to the times listed above for the selected features.) There are several different segments to the documentary that you may wish to view at another time, but for this exercise please focus on the two outlined above.
Here is another example representing internal diversity--this one within Hinduism. Read the following two articles on the epic Ramayana. The first is an overview of the epic from Professor Vinay Lal from UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles.) The second is a 2011 news story from the Sunday Guardian about how an influential essay entitled “300 Ramayanas” from the renowned scholar A.K. Ramanujan was removed from the B.A. syllabus of Delhi University.
Keeping in mind your reactions to both the readings above and the video segments from The Muslims, write your reflections in your journal. What surprised you in these depictions? What did you find compelling or challenging?
Keeping in mind your reactions to both the readings above and the video segments from The Muslims, write your reflections in your journal. What surprised you in these depictions? What did you find compelling or challenging?
Note: This exercise from from Professor Moor''s online course about religion.
Look at images one- three here. Note your perception of these images. Next look at Olfi's Blessed Virgin Mary. Note your reaction. Next read about the controversy here.
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"Often referred to as the “Father of Peace Studies”, Norwegian theorist Johan Galtung has developed a three pronged typology of violence that represents how a confluence of malleable factors merge in particular cultural/historical moments to shape the conditions for the promotion of violence (and, by inference, peace) to function as normative. "
- Direct Violence represents behaviors that serve to threaten life itself and/or to diminish one’s capacity to meet basic human needs. Examples include killing, maiming, bullying, sexual assault, and emotional manipulation.
- Structural Violence represents the systematic ways in which some groups are hindered from equal access to opportunities, goods, and services that enable the fulfillment of basic human needs. These can be formal as in legal structures that enforce marginalization (such as Apartheid in South Africa) or they could be culturally functional but without legal mandate (such as limited access to education or health care for marginalized groups).
- Cultural Violence represents the existence of prevailing or prominent social norms that make direct and structural violence seem “natural” or “right” or at least acceptable. For example, the belief that Africans are primitive and intellectually inferior to Caucasians gave sanction to the African slave trade. Galtung’s understanding of cultural violence helps explain how prominent beliefs can become so embedded in a given culture that they function as absolute and inevitable and are reproduced uncritically across generations.
- Note: This is copied directly from Diane Moore's lesson on Galtung Typologies.
Assignment
Students examine Christianity's role in chattel slavery, learn about phrenology as an alleged science and watch the two video clips below. Then they choose or are assigned one of the seven case studies. In groups of two, students research their case, and then present to class.
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Students create a poster showcasing the religious and cultural make-up of their assigned county.
The Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity has excellent profiles of five countries--Brazil, Syria, France, Nigeria, and Qatar. Students should try to show how their countries represent the cultural method approach to the study of religion.
The Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity has excellent profiles of five countries--Brazil, Syria, France, Nigeria, and Qatar. Students should try to show how their countries represent the cultural method approach to the study of religion.
Here is a lesson from Harvard's Divnitity EdX Course, Relgion, Conflict and Peace. Students research differerent examples of cultural peace and violence. Student's can apply Galtung's typologies of violence and peace to the example.
Example One: Thich Nhat Hanh and Engaged Buddhism
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" during the Vietnam War to represent his active work for peace and to respond to the traumas of war. Please go here for an overview of his life and teaching, here for a list of the fourteen precepts of Engaged Buddhism, and see below a video documenting his return from exile to Vietnam to found a monastery and how it was later banned by the Communist government. In reflecting on Thich Nhat Hanh's long service as monk, what is unique about his peacebuilding efforts and what are the sources of his inspiration to forge new pathways?
Example Two: Liberation Theology, and the "Preferential Option for the Poor" in Latin America
Peruvian Roman Catholic priest Gustavo Gutierrez is known in many circles as the "father" of liberation theology which is a movement that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and is associated with interpreting the Christian Gospels through the experience of the poor and marginalized. In 1981, Pope John Paul II named Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) as Cardinal-Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, an office charged with defending and affirming official Catholic doctrine. In this role, Cardinal Ratzinger condemned liberation theology and accused it of having Marxist affiliations and inciting violence. See here for an article about Gustavo Gutierrez and a recently published collection of his writings, here for a 2008 article highlighting the tensions between the Vatican under Pope Benedict and liberation theology, and here for an article describing how Pope Francis is more aligned with the tenets of liberation theology than his predecessors were. How can Galtung's typologies help understand the emergence of and controversies surrounding liberation theology?
Example Three: 1790 Exchange of Letters Between Jewish Leader Moses Seixas and President George Washington
Moses Seixas, was the Warden of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, now the Touro Synagogue. In 1790, the year that the new Constitution of the United States was ratified, President Washington visited Rhode Island and Mr. Seixas was one of the dignitaries selected to greet the new president. Mr Seixus penned a letter for the occasion that highlighted, in part, how Jews had been "deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens..." but that they now look to the newly established Republic to be "a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction [and] to persecution no assistance..." President Washington responded a few days later with a letter of his own that read, in part, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." He went on to assert that "For happily, the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens..." See here for further information and full transcripts of both letters (courtesy of the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom). Please reflect upon the social and cultural conditions that gave rise to this aspirational exchange.
Example Four: The Passion Play at Oberammergau
Beginning in 1634 and with few interruptions, the people of the village of Oberammergau, Germany have staged a Passion Play depicting a dramatic rendition of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. According to legend, in 1633 the bubonic plague had come to the region and the townspeople vowed to regularly perform a Passion Play if they would be spared. It is the longest running continual performance of a Passion Play in the world. Over the past several decades, critics have asserted that the play is anti-Semitic. See here for an article by Professor Anna Lisa Ohm depicting the history of the play and here for a promotional video produced by the town. One of the questions raised in the article is whether a "good" (e.g., not anti-Semitic) passion play is possible. How might Galtung's typologies help us to better understand this controversy?
Example Five: Gandhi's Legacy
See this excerpt and read pages 15-27 for an overview of the three basic precepts of Gandhi's foundation for nonviolence: Satyagraha, or "Truth Force" in Joan Bondurant's classic 1958 study of Gandhi entitled Conquest of Violence. See this National Geographic story about some of ways that Gandhi's legacy endures in India today. From the perspective of Galtung's typologies, reflect upon how cultures of peace are cultivated and sustained over time, especially when they are countering more pervasive cultures of violence.
Example Six: Meet the Mohammads: An Iraqi Family Displaced by Violence
In 2003 the United States (supported by a very small coalition that included the UK and the Netherlands) invaded Iraq with the justification that Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that defied a UN resolution. This accusation was later proved to be false, but Hussein was removed from power and later executed. A great deal of instability ensued in the face of this abrupt power vacuum with varying degrees of relative stability between insurgencies, internal tensions, and continued US military presence. This instability helped give rise to the Islamic State (known as ISIL, ISIS, and Daesh), a faction of which seized control of several northern areas of Iraq in early 2014 and carried out what is now called the Sinjar Massacre in August of 2014. Many were killed and thousands of families were displaced during this period. This video is a portrait of one family, the Mohammads, who fled their home in Sinjar and eventually found their way to the Harsham Internally Displaced Persons Camp (IDP) just outside of Erbil, Iraq. This was filmed in late 2017. Please offer your reflections on the confluence of forces that Iraqis have faced since 2003 and how this particular family's story can be understood through Galtung's typologies.
Example One: Thich Nhat Hanh and Engaged Buddhism
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" during the Vietnam War to represent his active work for peace and to respond to the traumas of war. Please go here for an overview of his life and teaching, here for a list of the fourteen precepts of Engaged Buddhism, and see below a video documenting his return from exile to Vietnam to found a monastery and how it was later banned by the Communist government. In reflecting on Thich Nhat Hanh's long service as monk, what is unique about his peacebuilding efforts and what are the sources of his inspiration to forge new pathways?
Example Two: Liberation Theology, and the "Preferential Option for the Poor" in Latin America
Peruvian Roman Catholic priest Gustavo Gutierrez is known in many circles as the "father" of liberation theology which is a movement that emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and is associated with interpreting the Christian Gospels through the experience of the poor and marginalized. In 1981, Pope John Paul II named Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) as Cardinal-Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, an office charged with defending and affirming official Catholic doctrine. In this role, Cardinal Ratzinger condemned liberation theology and accused it of having Marxist affiliations and inciting violence. See here for an article about Gustavo Gutierrez and a recently published collection of his writings, here for a 2008 article highlighting the tensions between the Vatican under Pope Benedict and liberation theology, and here for an article describing how Pope Francis is more aligned with the tenets of liberation theology than his predecessors were. How can Galtung's typologies help understand the emergence of and controversies surrounding liberation theology?
Example Three: 1790 Exchange of Letters Between Jewish Leader Moses Seixas and President George Washington
Moses Seixas, was the Warden of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, now the Touro Synagogue. In 1790, the year that the new Constitution of the United States was ratified, President Washington visited Rhode Island and Mr. Seixas was one of the dignitaries selected to greet the new president. Mr Seixus penned a letter for the occasion that highlighted, in part, how Jews had been "deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens..." but that they now look to the newly established Republic to be "a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction [and] to persecution no assistance..." President Washington responded a few days later with a letter of his own that read, in part, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." He went on to assert that "For happily, the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens..." See here for further information and full transcripts of both letters (courtesy of the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom). Please reflect upon the social and cultural conditions that gave rise to this aspirational exchange.
Example Four: The Passion Play at Oberammergau
Beginning in 1634 and with few interruptions, the people of the village of Oberammergau, Germany have staged a Passion Play depicting a dramatic rendition of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. According to legend, in 1633 the bubonic plague had come to the region and the townspeople vowed to regularly perform a Passion Play if they would be spared. It is the longest running continual performance of a Passion Play in the world. Over the past several decades, critics have asserted that the play is anti-Semitic. See here for an article by Professor Anna Lisa Ohm depicting the history of the play and here for a promotional video produced by the town. One of the questions raised in the article is whether a "good" (e.g., not anti-Semitic) passion play is possible. How might Galtung's typologies help us to better understand this controversy?
Example Five: Gandhi's Legacy
See this excerpt and read pages 15-27 for an overview of the three basic precepts of Gandhi's foundation for nonviolence: Satyagraha, or "Truth Force" in Joan Bondurant's classic 1958 study of Gandhi entitled Conquest of Violence. See this National Geographic story about some of ways that Gandhi's legacy endures in India today. From the perspective of Galtung's typologies, reflect upon how cultures of peace are cultivated and sustained over time, especially when they are countering more pervasive cultures of violence.
Example Six: Meet the Mohammads: An Iraqi Family Displaced by Violence
In 2003 the United States (supported by a very small coalition that included the UK and the Netherlands) invaded Iraq with the justification that Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that defied a UN resolution. This accusation was later proved to be false, but Hussein was removed from power and later executed. A great deal of instability ensued in the face of this abrupt power vacuum with varying degrees of relative stability between insurgencies, internal tensions, and continued US military presence. This instability helped give rise to the Islamic State (known as ISIL, ISIS, and Daesh), a faction of which seized control of several northern areas of Iraq in early 2014 and carried out what is now called the Sinjar Massacre in August of 2014. Many were killed and thousands of families were displaced during this period. This video is a portrait of one family, the Mohammads, who fled their home in Sinjar and eventually found their way to the Harsham Internally Displaced Persons Camp (IDP) just outside of Erbil, Iraq. This was filmed in late 2017. Please offer your reflections on the confluence of forces that Iraqis have faced since 2003 and how this particular family's story can be understood through Galtung's typologies.