Jonathan Y. Tan, Australian Catholic University

Jonathan Y. Tan joined the Australian Catholic University School of Theology as senior lecturer in theology in July 2011. Previously, he taught at Xavier University from 2002–2011. He is the author of Introducing Asian American Theologies (Orbis Books, 2008) and fifty articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia/dictionary entries on a broad range of intersecting topics in the study of religion and theology. Tan is especially interested in integrating technology, web 2.0, and social media tools in teaching and learning in higher education. A continuously updated listing of links is available here.

Teaching in a Globalized — and Digitized — World

In a world that is rapidly becoming global, intercultural, and interconnected, the impact and implications of migration, globalization, transnationalism, and the World Wide Web on religious and theological education can no longer be ignored. Specifically, these transformational shifts necessitate a rethinking of how the teaching and learning of religion and theology can be broadened beyond the printed page to include online resources that encompass global, intercultural, interreligious, and transnational perspectives. At the same time, today’s instructors often marvel at how the Generation Y or “Millennial” students that populate today’s classrooms are highly adept at navigating online and digital resources, while at the same time bemoaning the reality that these students often lack the skills to differentiate between the wheat and the chaff among the bewildering range of online resources on religion and theology. Hence, there is also the need to guide these students to use online resources critically and judiciously.

What follows in this article is an exploration of the variety of intercultural and transnational resources that are available online for both classroom use and student research. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather offers a snapshot of the variety of online resources I have discovered and used in a variety of ways in my own classroom teaching (see www.jonathantan.org/classes.html). Moreover, online resources are often evolving, with new perspectives and approaches supplanting earlier discussions and presentations. Hence, the online resources cited below should be seen not merely as examples of resources that could work in your classroom, but also as an encouragement and invitation to seek out similar or related online resources that could also work for you.

One problematic area in the teaching and learning of religion and theology is the quality of statistics and other data that students use in their assignments and reports. Students often rely on Google for statistics, grabbing the information from the first page of search results without asking critical questions about the quality of the data. For students who are looking for statistical and other primary research data on intercultural, global, and transnational trends and their implications, I always encourage them to visit the Pew Research Center as a starting point. The Pew Research Center tracks public opinion, as well as national and global trends, on various issues including religion. Specific examples of Pew Research Center’s projects that focus on religion include the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life; the Pew Forum’s United States Religious Landscape Survey; and the Pew Forum’s United States Religious Knowledge Survey. Another useful source of data on religion and its social, cultural, and political implications for students is the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA).

Without a doubt the days of students consulting print encyclopedias in the library are long gone. Today Wikipedia has become the default initial reference resource for most students. To break the cycle of overdependence on Wikipedia, I suggest that students visit online peer-reviewed encyclopedias such as the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, since there are often areas of overlap between philosophy, religion, and theology. While it is true that their range of articles is limited in comparison to Wikipedia, the quality of the writing is significantly better because these are articles that are written by experts in their field.

For historical, cultural, and artistic projects on religion and theology, students are often captivated by the rich visual presentation of religious art, manuscripts and codices, rare books, photographs, film, and objects. In situations where it is not feasible to visit a museum or gallery, I often use the World Digital Library, a joint project of UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress. The images and digital resources in the World Digital Library, many of which pertain to Christianity and other religions from across the world, are very useful for both classroom use and personal viewing by students outside the classroom.

As for students who are in the habit of “Googling” websites and uncritically taking the first ten links as authoritative, I often recommend that they begin their research by visiting general sites such as the Lilly Endowment’s Insights into Religion, CNN’s BeliefNet, Patheos, and the BBC’s Religion Section. In particular, the BBC’s Religion Section is often a good way for students to get a bird’s eye view of global and transnational developments in religion. It collects links to BBC’s news and analysis on religion in one convenient starting page, for comprehensive and objective coverage of religion throughout the world.

For more focused research on news about religion and theology in North America, I often recommend that students consult the New York Times’s topic sections, the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section, and the Huffington Post’s religion section. In particular, the New York Times’s topics section is often a useful starting point for research on a dizzying array of news articles. For example, students looking for news articles on religion and society might want to begin with “Religion and Belief”. For news articles on religion, migration and immigration, students could visit the topic sections entitled “Immigration and Emigration” and “Immigration, Religion, and Churches”. While the New York Times’s topics sections focus on reported news and analysis by columnists and commentators, both the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section and Huffington Post’s religion section go one step further to offer blog posts by scholars, pundits, and other commentators, as well as active discussion boards on a variety of contemporary issues on religion and society in the North American context. While it is true that the blog posts and commentaries vary in terms of depth and quality, they are often thought-provoking in their willingness to take on major political, social, global, intercultural, and religious issues.

A useful starting point for teaching Christianity at the undergraduate level is PBS documentaries, especially for the Generation Y or Millennial students who are visual learners. While many of these documentaries remain restricted to the DVD/VHS format, two very useful PBS documentaries for theological and religious education — From Jesus to Christ and God in America — are also available online as unabridged streaming videos, which I use extensively in my introductory courses in Christianity. Student feedback indicates that they appreciate the ability to view the streaming videos for these two documentaries at their own pace in conjunction with the transcript and other resources; e.g., interviews, historical timelines, etc., which are available at the companion websites. The companion websites also have lesson plans and video transcripts that are very useful for instructors.

To address students’ limited perspectives on Christianity and expose them to the diversity and pluralism of American Christianity, I often encourage them to visit the New York Times’s “Christians and Christianity” topic section. For students who are exploring the intersections of Christianity, politics, society, culture, and identity issues in the United States, the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section and Huffington Post’s religion section are often relevant. I also recommend that they visit the Sojourners website for progressive Evangelical perspectives on these issues. The Sojourners’ website focuses on the intersections of United States Christianity, politics, society, and social justice from a progressive Evangelical perspective. Students are often surprised to discover that American Evangelicals are not monolithic and there are Evangelicals who are socially progressive and care about social justice issues.

When it comes to resources for all things Catholic, nothing beats Jesuit Fr. Felix Just’s Catholic Resources for Bible, Liturgy, Art, and Theology, which contains a dizzying array of Catholic resources in North America and beyond that are useful starting points for student research. Fr. Just has created a fascinating site for students to visit and explore Catholicism in all its rich diversity. Students who are doing research on the history of the United States Catholic Church or issues of migration and transnationalism in the history of the United States Catholic Church would find the full-text historical documents at the Catholic University of America Libraries’ American Catholic History Classroom very useful for their research. Here, students come face to face with United States Catholicism as it intersects with immigration, ethnic pride, cultural and transnational diversity, racism, growth, and social and political challenges in the digitized full-text documents. As for statistics and dates on Catholics in the United States, Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate regularly reports on studies and analyses of its research studies and surveys on American Catholics on its blog Nineteen Sixty-Four, which provides free summaries and synopses of its paid reports and publications. The Paulist Fathers’ Busted Halo site is another useful link for anyone who wants to keep abreast of American Catholic teen and young adult culture within the complex mix of faith, culture, society, and identity.

Instructors and students who are interested in Latino/a Catholicism would find the online resources of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS) very valuable. Specifically, ACHTUS sponsors two important online resources on the study of Latino/a Christianity: the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology and Latino/a Bibliography, both of which are filled with articles and resources that deal with the intersections (en conjuncto) of religion and intercultural and transnational identities of Latino/as as they struggle with issues of migration, citizenship, politics, religion, and institutional faith. One comprehensive site for research on Hispanic Latino/a peoples, cultures, and religiosity is the Hispanic Latino/a Online Resources site that is maintained by Martín de Jesús Martínez at the Mexican American Catholic College, San Antonio, for his online classroom use. It offers teachers and students a broad range of interdisciplinary resources on the study of Hispanic communities and their history, identity movements, cultures, societies, and religiosity. Students who are more interested in theological issues should visit Orlando Espin’s En Conjuncto: A Site on U.S. Latino/a (“Catholic”) Theology, which provides a useful introduction to the state of Latino/a Catholic theology today.

Asian Americans represent another group that has to grapple with issues of intercultural and transnational identities and faith. The untimely demise of the PANA Institute has left a gaping hole in the study of Asian-American mainline Protestant Christians. To fill the gap, I often direct students who are looking for detailed statistical and other data on Asian-American religions to visit Asian Nation’s Asian-American religion, spirituality, and faith section. As for in-depth discussion on and by Asian-American Christian women, I would encourage them to visit the Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry for resources on mainline Protestantism and Catholicism and the Asian American Women on Leadership for Evangelical traditions. Students looking for materials on Asian-American Evangelicalism could also visit the Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity, as well as Inheritance Magazine, which has articles, news analysis, and news features by and on Asian-American Evangelical teens and young adults.

Students who are researching Asia-Pacific Christianity should be encouraged to begin with the official websites of the Christian Conference of Asia and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, which are replete with position statements, policy documents, and reports. The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) represents seventeen national councils with more than one hundred Protestant Churches in twenty-one countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) comprises fifteen Asian Catholic Bishops’ Conferences and ten associate members. Unfortunately, the FABC’s archival records are maintained separately from its current papers; archival materials of FABC papers, plenary workshop discussion guides, and plenary statements continue to be hosted on the UCA news site, which is no longer updated. More recent and updated FABC papers and plenary statements are now available directly on the FABC’s website. Other useful sites with important documentation and studies on Asian Christianity include the websites of Ecclesia of Women in Asia for interesting discussions on Asian Catholic women; UCA News for current news reports and analyses pertaining to Asian Catholics; and the East Asian Pastoral Review — the official publication of the East Asian Pastoral Institute, which has full texts of more recent articles and book reviews on its website, thereby making it easy for anyone to search and download articles.

The Asia-Pacific region exemplifies the diversity and complexity of a global, intercultural, and transnational religious marketplace. Buddhism is an example of a transnational and intercultural religion that has moved beyond its early Indian roots to embrace the diversity and pluralism of its adherents across the globe, from Tibet to Myanmar, and from China and Japan to the Americas. One convenient forum where instructors and students can access this rich diversity of transcultural and transnational Buddhism is the very comprehensive bilingual full-text and reference resources available at the National Taiwan University’s Digital Library and Museum of Buddhist Studies. The resources, which are available in Chinese and English, encompass sutra texts and commentaries, as well as reflections and analyses by noted Buddhist theologians, ethicists, and scholars that deal with all aspects of Buddhism in its various traditions, time periods, and socioreligious contexts. Students who are interested in contemporary news reports and discussions of Buddhism can turn to the New York Times’s topics section on “Buddhism”. For those who want to do research on Zen Buddhism, the website Zensite has a good range of resources on Zen Buddhism.

Moving on to Hinduism, the PBS documentary The Story of India is a good starting point for students interested in Indian culture and religion. (While the website itself has useful supplementary resources, the actual video is not available for online streaming, unlike other PBS videos; e.g., From Jesus to Christ and God in America.) Full-text editions of past and present issues of the Hinduism Today magazine are now available online. I often recommend Hinduism Today to students as an example of contemporary Hinduism’s borrowing ideas, methods, and evangelizing strategies from American Evangelicalism (think Christianity Today) to make Hinduism relevant and accessible to a transnational audience in North America. The New York Times’s topic section on “Hinduism” has a comprehensive collection of news articles about Hinduism in the United States.

Students looking for resources in global and transnational Judaism would find the New York Times’s topics section on “Jews and Judaism” a very useful starting point for research because it collects news articles and analysis not merely on American Judaism, but also articles on Israel and Judaism in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. Another useful list that I often send students to consult is Katja Vehlow’s Lists of Judaism/Jewish Studies Links. Students looking for more basic introductory information can visit the Jewish Virtual Library or the Judaism 101 website. The Holocaust is another area where students can explore the global intercultural and transnational dimensions of Judaism’s interactions with politics, bigotry, persecution, and reconciliation. On this topic, both teachers and students can find excellent resources at the University of South Florida’s Florida Center for Instructional Technology’s award-winning site, A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust. I also encourage students to visit the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for their range of online historical and contemporary resources.

Islam is yet another religion that has crossed cultural and transnational boundaries. To challenge students to move beyond the Islamophobia that affects many right-wing websites, I recommend students start with the New York Times’s topics page on “Islam”, as well as the Pew Forum’s project The Future of the Global Muslim Population. I often recommend the award-winning independent Muslim American magazine Illume, which conveniently reproduces many of their excellent articles and critical analyses on the daily life experiences of Asian-American Muslims on their online site. To further illustrate the complexity of American Muslims and the deep roots they have in the United States, notwithstanding their transnational faith and communal ties, I recommend the fascinating site 30 Mosques, 30 States, which documents the experiences and discoveries that two young Muslim American adults, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq, made when they embarked on a Ramadan road trip across the United States, encountering vastly different Muslim communities in different cities and regions. I often encourage students who are interested in contemporary social ethics to include Islam in their research projects. For example, students who are interested in environmental and ecological issues would be interested to know that there is an emergent Eco-Muslim and Green Muslim movement in North America and Europe. Students looking for information and resources could consult sites such as The Eco Muslim, A World of Green Muslims, and the resource page on Green Islam. Finally, to counteract the misperception that Muslims are uninterested in interreligious dialogue, I recommend the official website A Common Word Between Us and You, as well as its American Christian response, “Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a ‘Common Word Between Us and You’”, which is put together by Yale University’s Center for Faith and Culture.