Q: How did you first become interested in the study and teaching of religion, and what attracted you to the College of Arts and Sciences?

A: I began studying religion during my undergraduate years. I was raised in the Episcopal Church, but as a young person I had more questions than answers about spiritual matters. I was delighted to go to college and study with professors who were engaging rigorously with big questions about life and death. As for Boston University, I grew up on Cape Cod, so my arrival at the College of Arts and Sciences was a homecoming of sorts. I also found Boston to be a wonderful laboratory for studying Asian religions in the United States (my own specialization). In addition to the area’s many churches and synagogues, there are many mosques and Zen centers here, and a beautiful Hindu temple not too far away in Ashland, Massachusetts.

Q: In one of your articles for Salon, you wrote, “I teach religious studies because I believe that studying religion is a truly liberal art.” Can you elaborate on this? Why is the study of religion important and rewarding for students?

A: The liberal arts are (or should be) about questioning your own assumptions about things, learning to think critically and to ponder with careful attention the thoughts of others. The study of religion fosters all that because it engages us at the level of our deepest commitments.

Q: Tell me about some of the undergraduate classes you teach. What theme or lesson do you find most interesting, or the most rewarding to share with students?

A: My favorite course right now is “Death and Immortality.” It’s a cross-cultural course that looks at how human beings have grappled with the prospect of dying (and, in some cases, living again) across time and space. Students seem drawn to the course because of their own intimations of mortality. When you are young, you think you’re immortal, but as you grow up you gradually realize you aren’t. I learn a lot in the course about how students grieve, how they put dead relatives to rest, and how they imagine the afterlife. And I think they clarify their own views about living and dying as well.

Q: What is your current research focusing on?

A: My latest book, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, explores how Americans of all religious faiths (and none) have appropriated Jesus as one of their own. The book began when I kept coming across testimonies to Jesus by U.S. Hindus and Buddhists. I started a file of images about Jesus by Christians and non-Christians alike, and eventually the file grew so big I realized I had a book.