Teaching a course on religions of the world is challenging, especially considering the cogent critiques of that paradigm and the history of its construction. In our courses and text, we have employed a strategy comparing different representations of a single religion to help students develop analytical and critical thinking skills. Within this…

In this article, the authors explore their motivations for conceiving of and assembling the current issue on comparative religious studies as a viable pedagogical orientation for our troubled times. Situated in both the history of comparison as a method and scholarship on effective pedagogy, it argues that disciplined, scholarly, sound comparative…

This article reflects on the difficulty that many students have in appreciating that religions change over time. It describes an assignment that can be used to teach this important religious literacy skill. The assignment focuses on changing norms on courtship, marriage, and family formation in Jewish communities at two different times and two…

This article details the author's reimagining of the undergraduate theory and method course, in which intentional, disciplined comparison is employed to challenge and problematize traditional narratives about Religious Studies as an academic discipline. Doing so helps to answer calls to decolonize our curricula, not only by critiquing historical…

The article acknowledges the limits of the categories of similarity and difference in undergraduate comparative religion courses. To challenge these limitations, including the potential for dualistic or "us/them" thinking, several pedagogical attempts to increase relationality in Christian-Muslim courses are explored. Relational methods…

This essay shows how one professor teaching "Introduction to Buddhism" sought to counteract his students' view that Chinese and Tibetan forms of Buddhism represented a deviation from a "pure" Indian Buddhism rather than worthwhile forms of creativity and religiosity in themselves. A simple comparative assignment that asked a…

Contingent teaching has become the norm in most institutions. While the use of adjuncts and other non-tenure track professors shows no sign of slowing down, the nature of contingent teaching is less known. This article examines how contingent teaching directly impacts the professor's teaching. My experience teaching religious studies courses from…

This article focuses on Reflective Structured Dialogue as a set of practices developed in the context of conflict resolution that are well suited to handling quotidian uneasiness and extraordinary moments of disruption in religious studies classrooms. After introducing Reflective Structured Dialogue's history, goals, and general practices, the…

This article evaluates the design, delivery, and main outcomes of Cardiff University's first "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC) entitled "Muslims in Britain: Changes and Challenges," delivered to over 20,899 international learners between 2014 and 2019. I explore the design principles underpinning the course and offer a…

Students increasingly appear anxious, risk-averse, and worried about getting things "wrong." They may appear to lack intellectual curiosity, and be unwilling to engage in independent study. This essay explores how teaching and assessment in theology and religious studies might help students learn to take intellectual risks, and increase…

Building on various models for "intercultural and interreligious competence" (IC/IR competence), this essay argues that classroom learning about religious and cultural diversity will engage students' "sociological imaginations" and lead to increased IC/IR competence. The current strategy for increasing intercultural competence…

This article describes a pedagogical response to teaching world religions courses in a post-truth age. The course assignment and its application, utilized in both online and in-person formats, bridge student academic pursuits with religious traditions, require students to engage with source-based journalism, and extend beyond the classroom into…

One of the most illuminating finds in Barbara E. Walvoord's "Teaching and Learning in College Introductory Religion Courses" (2008) is what she calls "the great divide," a mismatch between instructors' goals for their courses, which are academic, and the students' reasons for taking them, which relate to their personal…

Site visits provide an irreplaceable learning experience to students in both religious studies and the emerging field of interfaith studies. The conceptual core of this thesis is the claim, drawn from feminist epistemology, that an embodied pedagogy--a pedagogy which engages students not only intellectually, but as embodied beings who inhabit a…

Sexuality, more so than other subject areas, magnifies the embodied nature of teaching and learning as well as conspicuously silences open dialogue given its taboo status in many religious and theological contexts. Yet, student learning about sexuality that incorporates knowledge of and about religion, in particular, may greatly improve the public…