The Study of Religion in British Columbia

The Study of Religion in British Columbia PDF Author: Brian J. Fraser
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889207992
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
The Study of Religion in British Columbia is a story of enterprise, innovation and isolation. In this unique survey Brian J. Fraser examines the history and development of the institutions of higher education where religion is taught and describes the methods used to understand the religious dimension of human endeavour in Canada’s westernmost province. Fraser analyzes the sources, development and persistence of two distinct approaches to the study of religion in British Columbia: theological studies and religious studies. He traces the early strength and recent expansion of theological studies, especially among conservative evangelical Christians, and sets the creation of British Columbia’s only department of religious studies at the University of British Columbia in this context. He also describes the innovative curricula designed by several of the institutions for the study of religion in the province. Finally, he contends that the differing views on the nature of religion held by these institutions and their constituencies have led to a continuing isolation from each other. The Study of Religion in British Columbia is the latest volume in the Canadian Corporation for the Study of Religion’s series on the study of religion in Canada. Readers interested in the rich diversity of personalities and perspectives that have shaped religious studies in British Columbia will find here a concise description of its evolution and a thought-provoking examination of its significance.

The Study of Religion in British Columbia

The Study of Religion in British Columbia PDF Author: Brian J. Fraser
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889207992
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Study of Religion in British Columbia is a story of enterprise, innovation and isolation. In this unique survey Brian J. Fraser examines the history and development of the institutions of higher education where religion is taught and describes the methods used to understand the religious dimension of human endeavour in Canada’s westernmost province. Fraser analyzes the sources, development and persistence of two distinct approaches to the study of religion in British Columbia: theological studies and religious studies. He traces the early strength and recent expansion of theological studies, especially among conservative evangelical Christians, and sets the creation of British Columbia’s only department of religious studies at the University of British Columbia in this context. He also describes the innovative curricula designed by several of the institutions for the study of religion in the province. Finally, he contends that the differing views on the nature of religion held by these institutions and their constituencies have led to a continuing isolation from each other. The Study of Religion in British Columbia is the latest volume in the Canadian Corporation for the Study of Religion’s series on the study of religion in Canada. Readers interested in the rich diversity of personalities and perspectives that have shaped religious studies in British Columbia will find here a concise description of its evolution and a thought-provoking examination of its significance.

Asian Religions in British Columbia

Asian Religions in British Columbia PDF Author: Larry DeVries
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774859423
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
British Columbia is Canada’s most ethnically diverse province. Yet in general we need to know more about the diversity of religions that accompanied immigrants to the province and how they are practised today. This book offers intimate portraits of local religious groups, including Hindus and Sikhs from South Asia; Buddhist organizations from Southeast Asia; and Tibetan, Japanese, and Chinese religions from East and Central Asia. The first comprehensive, comparative examination of Asian religions in British Columbia, this book is mandatory reading for teachers, policy makers, scholars of local history and culture and of Asian Canadian studies.

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion PDF Author: John R. Hinnells
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415333113
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religioncontains everything a student needs for a full understanding of theory and methods in religious studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues. Written entirely by renowned international specialists and using clear and accessible language throughout, it is the perfect guide to the problems and questions found in courses and exams.

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion PDF Author: John Hinnells
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135252858
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1370

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion is a major resource for courses in Religious Studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues, such as gender, science, fundamentalism, ritual, and new religious movements. Written by renowned international specialists, this new edition: includes eight new chapters, including post-structuralism, religion and economics, religion and the environment, religion and popular culture, and sacred space surveys the history of religious studies and the key disciplinary approaches explains why the study of religion is relevant in today’s world highlights contemporary issues such as globalization, diaspora and politics includes annotated reading lists, a glossary and summaries of key points to assist student learning.

Religious Studies in Ontario

Religious Studies in Ontario PDF Author: Harold Remus
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889206368
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
Most Ontario universities were established by Christian denominations; a Christian ethos was assumed and pervasive, and students were required to take courses designed to teach and inculcate religion. This insightful and comprehensive study demonstrates how, as Ontario society became secularized and pluralistic, so too did universities. Today, religion is again studies in university classrooms but as “religious studies,” a relatively new field that reflects the religiously pluralistic nature of Ontario and the world-wide explosion of knowledge. This authoritative volume will be of interest to students of religion in and outside academic circles, to adminstratots of academic institutions and granting agencies and to persons wanting to know more about the social and cultural changes that have transformed Ontario and Canadian society.

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University PDF Author: Donald Wiebe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350103446
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.

Leaving Christianity

Leaving Christianity PDF Author: Stuart Macdonald
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773551948
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Canadians were once church-goers. During the post-war boom of the 1950s, Canadian churches were vibrant institutions, with attendance rates even higher than in the United States, but the following decade witnessed emptying pews. What happened? In Leaving Christianity Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald quantitatively map the nature and extent of Canadians’ disengagement with organized religion and assess the implications for Canadian society and its religious institutions. Drawing on a wide array of national and denominational statistics, they illustrate how the exodus that began with disaffected baby boomers and their parents has become so widespread that religiously unaffiliated Canadians are now the new majority. While the old mainstream Protestant churches have been the hardest hit, the Roman Catholic Church has also experienced a significant decline in numbers, especially in Quebec. Canada’s civil society has historically depended on church members for support, and a massive drift away from churches has profound implications for its future. Leaving Christianity documents the true extent of the decline, the timing of it, and the reasons for this major cultural shift.

Fifty Years of Religious Studies in Canada

Fifty Years of Religious Studies in Canada PDF Author: Harold Coward
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1771121033
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In Canadian universities in the early 1960s, no courses were offered on Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam. Only the study of Christianity was available, usually in a theology program in a church college or seminary. Today almost every university in North America has a religious studies department that offers courses on Western and Eastern religions as well as religion in general. Harold Coward addresses this change in this memoir of his forty-five-year career in the development of religious studies as a new academic field in Canada. He also addresses the shift from theology classes in seminaries to non-sectarian religious studies faculties of arts and humanities; the birth and growth of departments across Canada from the 1960s to the present; the contribution of McMaster University to religious studies in Canada and Coward’s Ph.D. experience there; the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria; and the future of religious studies as a truly interdisciplinary enterprise. Coward’s retrospective, while not a history as such, documents information from his varied experience and wide network of colleagues that is essential for a future formal history of the discipline. His story is both personally engaging and richly informative about the development of the field.

From Seminary to University

From Seminary to University PDF Author: Aaron W. Hughes
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487504977
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
From Seminary to University is the first historical, social, political, and institutional examination of how religion is taught in Canada.

Religion in the Public Sphere

Religion in the Public Sphere PDF Author: Solange Lefebvre
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442626305
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
The place of religion in the public realm is the subject of frequent and lively debate in the media, among academics and policymakers, and within communities. With this edited collection, Solange Lefebvre and Lori G. Beaman bring together a series of case studies of religious groups and practices from all across Canada that re-examine and question the classic distinction between the public and private spheres. Religion in the Public Sphere explores the public image of religious groups, legal issues relating to “reasonable accommodations,” and the role of religion in public services and institutions like health care and education. Offering a wide range of contributions from religious studies, political science, theology, and law, Religion in the Public Sphere presents emerging new models to explain contemporary relations between religion, civil society, the private sector, family, and the state.