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I find it enjoyable to engage my students in a conversation about the meaning of life on planet Earth according to pioneer scholars of religion in other cultures like Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) and James George Frazer (1854–1941). Tylor and Frazer are, according to Bron Taylor, pioneers of an animistic spirituality. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and Rudolph Otto (1869–1937), both responding to the Enlightenment with arguments for an experiential knowledge of the divine, provide us with different learning devices for transforming Christian teaching about “God-the-Creator” in a way that makes these teachings more attentive to what can be seen, heard, and felt. These theologians tell us something useful that connects students to worlds of meaning that help them develop nuanced definitions of both religion and ecology in their Western culture. What is left is to test these and other theories of religion in and outside the classroom.

Teaching religion and ecology in a pluralistic society led me to approach “religion” using a variety of definitions and/or concepts. For example, in my course on women and religion, I begin with a multidimensional definition of religion even though the main textbook that students use focuses on ideas of women in the history of Christianity. The multidimensional definition of religion prepares students to understand and identify the different aspects of religion including beliefs, practices, symbols, and the day-to-day activities that men and women do as social beings — all of which make it easy for students to see that it is possible to identify different elements of the natural world in a religion and ecology class.

In another course, “Introduction to Religion,” I now begin class with references to mass media and day-to-day experiences of life, both of which usually include an ecological component. Besides sharing facts about life with students like this, I also try to help students arrive at knowledge experientially. For instance, Bowling Green, Kentucky — where I teach — is not known for getting snow at Christmas. Since the winter of 2010 was different, I thought about student reactions to debates about climate change because the campus has had to close several times because of snow. I also learned about heavy snowstorms in Europe and received Christmas messages discussing floods in Australia. Had students been around, I would have been sure to have dealt with this news in the classroom — a place to examine the implications of climate change.

To end, I am honored by the invitation to submit this piece to Spotlight on Teaching. It is my hope that by teaching courses on religion and ecology, or by integrating questions about them into other subjects, we can improve our understanding of life today and make decisions to act in ways that honor our interconnectedness.

Resources

Eric-Bain Selbo. “From Pride to Cowardice: Obstacles to the Dialogical Classroom.” Teaching Theology and Religion 6/1/3 (2003): 8.

Kimberly Rae Connor. “Teaching in the Global Village: Notes towards a Religious Studies Rhetoric.” Teaching Theology and Religion 6/1/18 (2003): 23.



 

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