Author: smallaxe

I’m sure we’re all very familiar with the advice that Pres. Hinkley’s father gave to him shortly after Pres. Hinkley arrived in England on his mission and was feeling a little down and out: “Forget yourself and get to work!”. 

The notion of “forgetting” is rarely used in a positive sense in LDS discourse (and probably in Christian or even Western discourse in general). Indeed we are admonished to “remember” certain things such as the covenants we made when we were baptized, and to pay particular attention to versus of scripture that doubly exhort us to “remember, remember….” (for instance Helaman 5:9, and this from Spencer W. Kimball, quoted in the SS Manual: “When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be ‘remember.’ Because all of [us] have made covenants … our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day—to take the sacrament and listen to the priests pray that [we] ‘… may always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given [us].’ … ‘Remember’ is the word” (Circles of Exaltation [address to religious educators, Brigham Young University, 28 June 1968], 8)). Continue reading “Forgetting Morality”

A little while ago TT wrote about a debate in the field of Religious Studies concerning the role of personal judgment in scholarship. “Bracketing” one’s judgment, meant withholding a pronouncement of “superstitious”, “backward”, or even “good or bad” on the people or objects one studies. The scholar’s role in this regard is to provide an accurate and sympathetic account of religious attitudes and actions. S/he attempts to see the world from the place of an other, and understand them in their own terms. This is sometimes described as a methodological “agnosticism”, that at least leaves the door open for the real possibility of religious experience by not ruling it out from the get-go. Thus for LDS scholars, there is a strong benefit to this position in that it provides an opportunity to study and produce scholarship about religious claims without having to “come out of the closet” so to speak in regards to their personal beliefs which may not be widely shared (or accepted). Some form of bracketing in this general sense is the dominant position in the field. Continue reading “Compartmentalizing the Bracket and the Problem of Creep”

In our two previous posts we discussed the curriculum as well as what to cover in the theory and introductory courses for our new major. In this post I’d like to raise the issue of how the “areas of emphasis” should be structured and who/where we could draw from in creating classes from these areas. 

Areas of emphasis (or areas of study–AoS) are organized differently depending on the organizing committee’s perception of “religious studies” as well as the school’s strengths. Below are three options of organization, although often times more than one is adopted to meet the diverse opinions of what constitutes religious studies, as well as the fact that they often overlap (how can one do sociology of religion for instance without focusing on an area or tradition?):

• By Area:

            Religion in America, Europe, Africa, etc.

            A strength of this approach is that it allows one to do more inter-disciplinary and inter-traditional work. A weakness is that if strictly interpreted one could end up knowing very little about any particular tradition outside of one geographical location. It’s also possible to end up ill-trained in many disciplines, but proficient in none.

• By Tradition:

            Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc., and at BYU, I would imagine, Mormonism.

            A strength of this approach is that it allows one’s work to extend beyond a geographic location. Islam, as we know, is a major religion of SE Asia for instance. A weakness is that in some cases the category of a religious ‘tradition’ is a construction of Western attempts to assert a universality of ‘religion’ (see for instance Oddie’s Imagined Hinduism). Working according to ‘traditions’ therefore could play into this bias.

• By Discipline:

            History, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, etc. 

            A strength of this approach is that it gives the student a firm grounding in a particular discipline. A weakness is that these approaches sometimes lack the depth into a particular tradition. A philosopher of religion, for instance, might not be well informed about the history of Christianity.

So, here are the questions:

Given BYU’s current scenario, how should the “areas of emphasis” be structured? What kinds of areas of emphasis could be offered?

Which faculty members should be drawn from in teaching classes in these areas? Related to this question are the more sensitive issues of: Should current classes in Religious Education count? Will faculty from RE be allowed to teach classes in RS? On what basis will this be determined?

In responding to these latter questions, let’s try to keep comments from becoming too personal.

I think most of the people that frequent the Bloggernacle believe that classes such as Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society fall short as far as how engaging they could be. This has been discussed in numerous places. Most recently at BCC; and earlier here at FPR under the rubric of “Consequentialism”. “Engaging” of course means different things to different people, but it often is expressed along with the idiom of “milk before meat”. I want to argue in this thread that employing the “milk before meat” rhetoric will not solve the problems people are trying to articulate.

As far as I see it, the paradigm of milk before meat is heavily attached to the following ideas:

Continue reading “Toss the Milk and Lose the Meat”

For a long time I’ve felt a disconnect between the concept of “education” employed by programs such as the Church Educational System, and “education” in the context school learning (be it post-high or not). I think I recently have been able to put more of a finger on why I’ve felt this way. Before going further I should probably admit that this may reflect more of my own attitudes and experience with “education” both within and without the church, than an “objective” description of the situation, but I believe it will resonant with some. I’m also going to (over?) generalize, but hey, it’s a blog post and I’m happy to modify or defend my argument as needed Continue reading “Church Education as Consequentialism”