Teaching on the Wide-Open Conceptual Landscape of Lived Religion (original) (raw)

The proposed paper describes the University of Denver's first course explicitly on lived religions and the instructor's conception of it, in addition to her discoveries about the congeries of studies under the umbrella of lived religions. The paper argues that the label's indeterminateness makes it useful for introducing undergraduates to the study of religion, including the exploration of what "religion" might be. Specifying what "lived religions" is in order to teach it, one confronts religious studies from various angles, such as sociology, anthropology, practical theology, and history. The course could therefore discuss epistemologies, change over time, methods, intriguing practices, secularization, and the spiritual-religious distinction and its problems, among other topics. In the course offered at DU, the readings moved from an old approach, that of Joachim Wach seeing religion in action as ritual and morals, to studies designated "lived religions," especially their inclusion of practices like gardening that are often not considered religious. The paper proceeds from a review of the field by Nancy Ammerman, one of its leading lights, to the practical questions of what undergraduates need and want in a course, to the materials available for such a course, and to the resolution of pedagogical issues, including experiential learning, in the course at DU. The paper contributes to the field by clarifying the range of the term "lived religions" for people who find it attractive but began their scholarly work under different categories. The paper also can help teacher-scholars reflect on how to teach religious studies to students who frequently want to know what religion is and who come to our classes thoroughly drenched in institutional religion, or never having set foot in a building made for religious practice, or somewhere in between. Finally, the paper invites discussion of the design of courses on lived religions. When I designed the undergraduate, general education course "Lived Religions," I assumed the conceptual landscape of the topic "lived religions" would be "wide open," as my title suggests. It was, as one of my colleagues said, "religion that's not in books." On the other hand, I knew scholars were at work on it, so surely some fencing would demarcate at least a couple of very large intellectual ranches. I just had to find a few major reviews mapping the field and the field's contours would readily appear. Well, yes and no.