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Molloy’s text introduces students to different ways of experiencing the world’s religions through
its cultural contexts. The discussions within categories such as sacred arts, symbolism,
relationship to nature, and gender issues show particularly powerful human experiences. Using
personal encounters, Molloy introduces students to the different religions in the world with its
personalized stories on travel and cultural diversity that will help students imagine themselves in
the story. This chapter begins with a discussion on what religion is. Students can begin to
appreciate the role of human sensory systems in sensing the sacred when performing religious
practices. The orientation to nature through natural landscape settings or sacred sites is a very
down-to-earth way of introducing students to diverse religions.
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3
Molloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions, 8e
In his paper titled “Meditation and Masks, Drums and Dramas Experiential and Participatory
Exercises in the Comparative Religions Classroom” (Teaching Theology and Religion, no. 3
[2002]: 169–172), G. William Barnard discusses a number of experiential pedagogical
techniques that will help instructors engage their students in religious studies. He discusses the
difficulties of teaching students who hold specific or narrow religious views, and how to
overcome some of the barriers that these students might face while learning about world
religions. Many of his suggestions are very practical and applicable to classes with short time
periods and a large number of students.
The use of experiments in learning by multisensory methods (whether visual, sonic, olfactory, or
other sensory approaches) adds a dimension that enhances the cultural approach and examples
discussed in Molloy’s text. On a more theoretical level, the essays in the book A Magic Still
Dwells: Comparative Religion in the Postmodern Age, edited by Kimberley Patton and Benjamin
Ray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), chart a course toward a broader vision of
comparative religion’s methodologies, assessing the current critical approaches with a view to
address the problems raised by structuralism and deconstruction, cultural anthropology, and
phenomenology and questioning whether comparisons are justified. It represents many views,
ranging from Huston Smith to Jonathan Z. Smith to the most recent assessments within the
disciplines of teaching Judaism, Buddhism, African, pluralistic American, and ancient culture
and religious studies. While this text is not meant to be a guide for teachers, the scholars of
religion who are using Molloy’s text will be stimulated by the critical assessment of religion as a
discipline.
The following resources are useful for scholars who want a conceptual orientation to the study of
religion through comparative, culturally oriented methods, including Molloy’s emphasis on the
arts and on nature. None of these texts are of particular use to introductory students, yet they will
be quite helpful for instructors who want to provide a methodological background to these
issues. Russell McCutcheon, the author of the book The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of
Religion: A Reader (Controversies in the Study of Religion) (New York and London: Cassell,
1999), offers the first explanation in a new series of books that are confronting the people who
are studying religion and facing questions such as “How can a nonparticipant describe or
understand the causes of religious beliefs, social structures, and behaviors of ‘other’ people?”
This anthology uses anthropological methodologies, linguistics, and philosophy to confront the
questions that arise when people study religion. The book Guide to the Study of Religion, edited
by Willi Braun and Russell McCutcheon (New York and London: Cassell, 2000) and published
by Cassell and Co, is a substantial (560 pages), excellent volume and a modern guide to studying
religion with contemporary methodologies. It explains various approaches such as cognition,
gender, ritual studies, sociocultural studies, postmodernism, postcolonialism, ideological studies,
ethnic cultural issues, and so on.
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Education
4
Molloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions, 8e
A. Key questions: What is religion? What is the sacred? How is religion studied?
Students may often have preconceived text-oriented definitions of religion. One way to
begin the initial classes is by asking students questions on defining religion and the sacred
with various methodological approaches. The following two books may provide a
background to these comparative approaches. Eric J. Sharpe, in his book titled
Comparative Religion: A History, 2nd ed. (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986), provides a
historical context for the development of the field. The book also provides sketches of
many of the important religious thinkers in a chronological order.
John Lyden, in his book titled Enduring Issues in Religion (San Diego: Greenhaven Press,
1995), brings together a survey of several short excerpts from theologians and religious
insiders. The book includes short excerpts of skeptics and scholars’ comments on other
religions. Chapter 1 includes definitions of religion by Otto, Freud, Marx, and Tillich (as
well as others). Feelings of total dependence, awe and mystery, and ultimate concern are
contrasted with reductionist theories such as religion as the opium of the people or as a
psychological projection. Definitions of the sacred include the perspectives of monotheistic
traditions, stressing God’s revelation, the triune God revealed through Christ, and Allah as
the one God. The true reality of Brahman is presented from Vedantic Hinduism. Emptiness
and the Tao are discussed from Buddhist and Taoist positions. The way of heaven as the
basis for moral harmony is emphasized for Confucianism. The Native American position
(from the Sioux perspective) finds the sacred as present throughout the world. With each
selection spanning fewer than 10 pages, Lyden’s book provides a useful introduction for
students who want to expand their knowledge on a variety of world religion topics and
their methodological perspectives. Likewise, it provides the instructors with brief historical
notes and thumb-note summaries of each of the theoretical perspectives. Each selection
includes questions that could work for either class discussions or as short writing
assignments.
Ninian Smart, in her book titled Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s
Beliefs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), offers a contemporary attempt to
present a phenomenological discussion of trends, dimensions, and types of religious
expression. The book provides an extensive glossary of important scholarly and traditional
religious terms across several religions. Although the organization of content in the book is
not likely to be easily understood by beginners, lecturers should find it straightforward. It
is particularly useful for considering the categories across several traditions. For example,
the ritual dimension is discussed in terms of several different religions. Other dimensions
include doctrine, myth, ethics, politics, and society. It provides several clues that facilitate
class discussion; for example, how ethical categories compare across traditions in religions
such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
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Molloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions, 8e
For an assessment of the religious studies discipline, an article in a special issue of the
Journal of the American Academy of Religion titled “Settled Issues and Neglected
Questions in the Study of Religion,” (62, no. 4 [Winter, 1994]), may assist teachers who
seek a scholarly overview of specific key issues in particular religions. This issue offers
scholarly questions, significant figures in the profession, and bibliographies on religions,
although there have been rapid new developments within these religions since its
publication. The book titled A Magic Still Dwells complements this collection of essays.
B. Key words: Tylor, Frazer, Freud, Durkheim, Eliade, Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Derrida,
structuralism, post-structuralism, theories of religions, evolutionism
One very useful book for sorting out methodologies for students by introducing pivotal
thinkers is Daniel L. Pals’s Seven Theories of Religion (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996). Although this book does not offer a general overview of the dozens of
theorists of religion, it thoroughly considers a select few. Its short introduction provides a
summary of the history of the study of religion and an annotated bibliography. Pals’s book
begins with E. B. Tylor and James Frazer’s intellectualist theories on the source of religion.
Tylor’s introductory point was that religion is a belief in spiritual beings, for which he used
the term animism. Tylor argued that beliefs are based on reasoning and observation but are
simplistic because they arise at a low level of cultural development. According to his
theory, cultural and religious beliefs evolve into more developed states. Animistic ideas
initially develop into the ideas of multiple gods. Then, they develop into the ideas of one
god. This idea eventually develops into the idea of a scientific worldview that replaces
one’s belief in spirits and gods.
Tylor and Frazer wanted a scientific view of religion. They found this by borrowing
evolutionist theories from natural sciences. Their theories are intellectualist theories on
religion because they focus on religion as a matter of belief and intellectual orientation to
the world. Modern theorists have rejected most aspects of these two theories, yet they are
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figures any evidence that capital has been attracted to Ohio by a
higher rate of interest, or repelled from our State by a lower one?
Assuredly not!
What in this direction is proposed to be done among ourselves is
shown in the section now presented for our consideration. By it the
legal rate in the absence of “special contracts” is to be raised to seven
per cent., such “contracts,” however ruinous in their character, and
whatsoever the nature of the security, are to be legalized; the only
exception to these sweeping changes being that national banks,
issuing circulating notes are to be limited to seven per cent. Shylock
asked only “the due and forfeit of his bond.” Let this section be
adopted, let him then present himself in any of our courts, can its
judge do other than decide that “the law allows it and the court
awards it,” monstrous as may have been the usury, and discreditable
as may have been the arts by means of which the unfortunate debtor
may have been entrapped? Assuredly not. Shylock, happily, was
outwitted, the bond having made no provision for taking even “one
jot of blood.” Here, the unfortunate debtor, forced by his flinty-
hearted creditor into a “special contract” utterly ruinous, may, in
view of the destruction of all hope for the future of his wife and
children, shed almost tears of blood, but they will be of no avail; yet
do we claim to live under a system whose foundation-stone exhibits
itself in the great precept from which we learn that duty requires of
us to do to others as we would that others should do unto ourselves.
By the English law the little landowner, the mechanic who owns
the house in which he lives, is protected against his wealthy
mortgagee. Here, on the contrary, the farmer, suffering under the
effects of blight or drought, and thus deprived of power to meet with
punctuality the demands of his mortgagee, is to have no protection
whatsoever. So, too, with the poor mechanic suffering temporarily by
reason of accidental incapacity for work, and, with the sheriff full in
view before him, compelled to enter into a “special contract”
doubling if not trebling, the previous rate of interest. Infamous as
may be its extortion the court may not deny the aid required for its
enforcement.
The amount now loaned on mortgage security in this State at six
per cent. is certainly not less than $400,000,000, and probably
extends to $500,000,000, a large portion of which is liable to be
called for at any moment. Let this section be adopted and we shall
almost at once witness a combined movement among mortgagees for
raising the rate of interest. Notices demanding payment will fly thick
as hail throughout the State, every holder of such security knowing
well that the greater the alarm that can be produced and the more
utter the impossibility of obtaining other moneys the larger may be
made the future rate of interest. The unfortunate mortgagor must
then accept the terms, hard as they may be, dictated to him, be they
8, 10, 12, or 20 per cent. Such, as I am assured has been the course of
things in Connecticut, where distress the most severe has been
produced by a recent abandonment by the State of the policy under
which it has in the past so greatly prospered. At this moment her
savings’ banks are engaged in compelling mortgagers to accept eight
per cent. as the present rate. How long it will be before they will carry
it up to ten or twelve, or what will be the effect, remains to be seen.
Already among ourselves the effects of the sad blunders of our great
financiers exhibit themselves in the very unpleasant fact that sheriffs’
sales are six times more numerous than they were in the period from
1861 to 1867, when the country was so severely suffering under the
waste of property, labor, and life, which had but then occurred. Let
this section be adopted, giving perfect freedom to the Shylocks of the
day, and the next half dozen years will witness the transfer, under the
sheriff’s hammer, of the larger portion of the real property of both
the city and the State. Of all the devices yet invented for the
subjugation of labor by capital, there is none that can claim to be
entitled to take precedence of that which has been now proposed for
our consideration.
Rightly styled the Keystone of the Union, one duty yet remains to
her to be performed, to wit: that of bringing about equality in the
distribution of power over that machinery for whose use men pay
interest, which is known as money. New England, being rich and
having her people concentrated within very narrow limits, has been
allowed to absorb a portion of that power fully equal to her needs,
while this State, richer still, has been so “cabined, cribbed, confined,”
that her mine and furnace operators find it difficult to obtain that
circulating medium by whose aid alone can they distribute among
their workmen their shares of the things produced.—New York,
already rich, has been allowed to absorb a fourth of the permitted
circulation, to the almost entire exclusion of the States south of
Pennsylvania and west of the Mississippi; and hence it is that her
people are enabled to levy upon those of all these latter such
enormous taxes. To the work of correcting this enormous evil
Pennsylvania should now address herself. Instead of following in the
wake of New Jersey and Connecticut, thereby giving to the monopoly
an increase of strength, let her place herself side by side with the
suffering States of the West, the South, and the Southwest,
demanding that what has been made free to New York and New
England shall be made equally free to her and them. Let her do this,
and the remedy will be secured, with such increase in the general
power for developing the wonderful resources of the Union as will
speedily make of it an iron and cloth exporting State, with such
power for retaining and controlling the precious metals as will place
it on a surer footing in that respect than any of the powers of the
Eastern world. The more rapid the societary circulation, and the
greater the facility of making exchanges from hand to hand, and
from place to place, the greater is the tendency toward reduction in
the rate of interest, toward equality in the condition of laborer and
employer, and toward growth and power to command the services of
all the metals, gold and silver included.
It will be said, however, that adoption of such measures as have
been indicated would tend to produce a general rise of prices; or, in
the words of our self-styled economists, would cause “inflation.” The
vulgar error here involved was examined some thirty years since by
an eminent British economist, and with a thoroughness never before
exhibited in reference to any other economic question whatsoever,
the result exhibiting itself in the following brief words of a highly
distinguished American one, published some twelve or fifteen years
since, to wit:
“Among the innumerable influences which go to determine the general rate of
prices, the quantity of money, or currency, is one of the least effective.”
Since then we have had a great war, in the course of which there
have been numerous and extensive changes in the price of
commodities, every one of which is clearly traceable to causes widely
different from those to which they so generally are attributed. Be
that, however, as it may, the question now before us is one of right
and justice, and not of mere expediency. North and east of
Pennsylvania eight millions of people have been allowed a greater
share of the most important of all powers, the money one, than has
been allotted to the thirty-two millions south and west of New York,
and have thus been granted a power of taxation that should be no
longer tolerated. The basis of our whole system is to be found in
equality before the law, each and every man, each and every State,
being entitled to exercise the same powers that are permitted to our
people, or other States. If the Union is to be maintained, it can be so
on no terms other than those of recognition of the existence of the
equality that has here been indicated. To the work of compelling that
recognition Pennsylvania should give herself, inscribing on her
shield the brief words fiat justitia, ruat cœlum—let justice be done
though the heavens fall!
Speech of Gen. Simon Cameron.
2×6
This “2 × 6” was to show the length and width of the grave they
would have. Not only that, but the negroes that they could impose
upon and get to vote the democratic ticket received, after they had
voted, a card of safety; and here is that card issued to the colored
people whom they had induced to vote the democratic ticket, so that
they might present it if any white-leaguers should undertake to
plunder or murder them:
New Orleans, Nov. 28, 1874.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER,
President 1st Ward Col’d Democratic Club.
Attest:
J. H. HARDY, Ass’t Sec. Parish Committee.