Talking About Religion and Culture
Talking about Religion and Culture
By Tricia Brick
What do we talk about when we talk about religion? International relations, public education, the next presidential campaign—it's almost impossible to talk about current events without touching on religious issues. And yet, precisely because religion is so important to so many people in so many different ways, dialogue on the subject can be difficult. “Richard Rorty famously argued that religion is a 'conversation stopper'—that because religion appeals to God or the transcendent, you just can't argue with it,” says Department of Religion Chair Stephen Prothero. “I disagree with that view.”
He's not alone. In disciplines as diverse as sociology, economics, theology, classics, and law, Boston University researchers are studying, teaching, and talking about religion. And in doing so, they're exploring how our beliefs shape our ideas, our worldviews, our societies, and our daily lives.
- Teaching Americans about ReligionAmericans are among the most religious people in the world, but in terms of knowledge about religion we have lost our way, Prothero says. “Religion is a conversation stopper of sorts, because when politicians appeal to religion in making an argument against abortion or for environmentalism, way too many of us go mum because we don't know enough about religion to engage the debate,” he says. What we don't know about religion—both other people's and our own—can hurt us as a society: we don't ask hard questions of our politicians and pundits because we don't feel we know enough to do so.
- Traveling the Middle GroundReligion's place in education, politics, and law is a contentious subject, but, luckily, First Amendment scholar Jay Wexler has little fear of engaging with controversial issues.
- A Divine ModelEducating ourselves about religion is an important step toward achieving civil peace in a theologically diverse world. But do religious texts themselves provide a model for a harmonious society? In his current research, Stephen Scully, an associate professor in the Department of Classical Studies, finds just such a paradigm in the Theogony of the ancient Greek poet Hesiod.
- The Economics of FaithThe influence of religious doctrine on societies and cultures is also a focal point for the work of Maristella Botticini, an associate professor in the Department of Economics. In a series of journal articles and a forthcoming book, Farmers to Merchants: Human Capital and Jewish History, 70-1492 c.e., Botticini and her coauthor, Zvi Eckstein, an economist at the University of Tel Aviv and a past visiting professor at BU, have examined how Judaism's emphasis on universal education (among males) in the early centuries of the first millennium shaped Jewish social and economic history. In doing so, they explore a broader question: In what ways can religion shape such non-theological matters as demographics and economics?
- The Stories We TellNancy Ammerman understands that a religion's influence on its followers' lives is not limited to certain spheres. But Ammerman, a professor and the director of graduate programs for the Department of Sociology, as well as a professor of the sociology of religion at the School of Theology, says that her field has lost sight of the degree to which religion is intertwined with family, work, and other areas of our lives.
