study of religion

Introduction
Nature and significance
- The essence of religion and the context of religious beliefs, practices, and institutions
- Neutrality and subjectivity in the study of religion
  - Subjectivity in the study of religion
  - Neutrality in the study of religion
History of the study of religion
- The Greco-Roman period
  - Early attempts to study religion
  - Later attempts to study religion
- The Middle Ages to the Reformation
  - Theories of the Middle Ages
  - Theories of the Renaissance and Reformation
- The beginnings of the modern period
  - The late 17th and 18th centuries
  - The early 19th century
Basic aims and methods
- Historical, archaeological, and literary studies
  - Historical and literary studies
  - Archaeological studies
- Anthropological approaches to the study of religion
  - Theories concerning the origins of religion
  - Functional and structural studies of religion
  - Specialized studies
- Sociological studies of religion
  - Theories of stages
  - Comparative studies
  - Other sociological studies
- The psychology of religion
  - Psychological studies
  - Psychoanalytical studies
  - Other studies
- Philosophy of religion
  - The concerns of the philosophy of religion
  - Theories of Schleiermacher and Hegel
  - Empiricism and pragmatism
  - Modern existentialist and phenomenological studies
  - Relationship between Western and non-Western philosophy in regard to religion
- Theological studies
  - Historical-critical studies
  - Neo-orthodoxy and demythologization
  - The relationship of Western Christianity to other religions
- History and phenomenology of religion
  - Modern origin and development of the history and phenomenology of religion
  - The Chicago school
  - Other studies and emphases
Problems and directions
- Interdisciplinary perspective
- Cross-cultural perspective

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion

Portrait of Karl Barth, Swiss theologian, wearing round glasses, a suit, and tie, photographed in 1957 with a slight smile.

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, shown in dark robes and cap, writing with a quill at a desk, after Quinten Massijs, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Claude Levi-Strauss wearing large glasses, a dark suit, and a red tie, standing indoors at his office in the College de France, Paris.

Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion — Charles Sprague Pearce: Religion Detail of Religion, mural in lunette from the Family and Education series by Charles Sprague Pearce, 1897; in the Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.

study of religion

academic discipline

Written by

Ninian SmartAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

study of religion, attempt to understand the various aspects of religion, especially through the use of other intellectual disciplines. The study of religion emerged as a formal discipline during the 19th century, when the methods and approaches of history, philology, literary criticism, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and other fields were brought to bear on the task of determining the history, origins, and functions of religion. No consensus among scholars concerning the best way to study...

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