TEST BANK INVITATION
TO WORLD RELIGIONS 3RD EDITION BY JEFFREY BRODD
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter explores the nature of religion and how to study it from an academic perspective.
The main objective is to prepare for the study that follows, but the relatively theoretical and methodological content of this introductory chapter is relevant and challenging in its own right.
Approaching the Study of World Religions
To learn about the subject matter of world religions is to increase one’s cultural literacy—the
objective that lies at the heart of this study. Religion plays a crucial role in molding, transforming,
and transmitting cultures, and interacts and intermeshes with other cultural aspects, such as
politics, economics, and aesthetics.
The academic study of religion is a relatively recent phenomenon, having been propelled by the
European Enlightenment. The study of “world religions” has been prominent for about a century.
One of the concerns of scholars has been to define the term “religion.” Even though no single definition that pleases everyone has been produced, it is important when approaching the study of world religions to clarify to some extent the nature of the subject matter. Definitions have been set forth by notable theorists in several different fields, among them sociologist mile
Durkheim, psychologist William James, and theologian Paul Tillich. A popular definition, from
the HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, and a highly regarded definition from a significant
theorist, Bruce Lincoln, illustrate various aspects of the definitional challenge. Lincoln’s definition bases religion on the concept of the transcendent, examples of which can be cited from
a wide-ranging set of religions.
What Religions Do
In analyzing various functions of religion, we concentrate especially on the fundamental
questions to which religious traditions provide answers. Functionalist explanations of religion have tended to be limited in scope, sometimes reducing religion to the status of being the effect
of some other phenomenon or phenomena. Durkheim’s theory, for example, reduces religion to
being the effect of societal forces. Sigmund Freud set forth a psychological explanation of religion, calling it the “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity,” thus reducing religion to being the effect of psychological malady. Political philosopher Karl Marx, like Freud an atheist,
offered a similarly reductionist and antagonistic explanation, famously labeling religion “the
opium of the people.”
We can widen our vantage point on the functions of religion and produce a fairer and more accurate depiction by considering the variety of life’s challenges that these traditions help people
to face and to overcome. To this end, we explore three prominent questions that recur in some
form in nearly every religion: 1. What Is Ultimate Reality?
