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Welcome to History of Religious Thought
Welcome to History of Religious Thought.
History of World Religions tells the story of the religions themselves: their founders, communities, and spread. This course tells a different story: the history of ideas about the sacred. How did early humans first think about death and the unseen? Why did great teachers appear across Asia and the Mediterranean in the same few centuries? How did faith and reason learn to talk to each other, and when did they quarrel? Why did some thinkers decide religion was a human invention, and how did believers answer them?
You will meet thinkers from every inhabited continent, including many women whose ideas were ignored, silenced, or, in some cases, punished. You will also meet religion’s sharpest critics, presented as fairly as its defenders. The goal is not to tell you what to believe, but to show you how people have reasoned about belief, so that you can understand the people you serve and the questions they carry.
How This Course Works
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Prerequisite | None. Titles and degrees begin with ordination through the Ordination Orientation. |
| Pace | Self-paced. Most students finish in four to six weeks, studying about four to five hours a week. There are no deadlines. |
| Structure | Eight modules. Each module has a lesson, a reading assignment, and a ten-question quiz. |
| Book report | Read one of the books offered, pass its ten-question quiz, and write a one-paragraph summary, after Module 8. |
| Final exam | Fifteen multiple-choice questions and one essay of 1,500 to 2,000 words, taken after Module 8. |
| Credit | 3 credit hours toward further titles and degrees. |
Grading
| Part | To pass |
|---|---|
| Module quizzes (8) | Pass each with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Book report quiz (10 questions) | Pass with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Book report summary (one paragraph) | Approved by the school |
| Final exam, Part 1 (multiple choice) | Pass with 70% or higher. Retakes allowed. |
| Final exam, Part 2 (one essay, 1,500 to 2,000 words) | Approved by the school |
Required texts
- The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, Karen Armstrong
- The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James (free online)
- The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois (free online)
- A History of God, Karen Armstrong
Many of these books are available from public libraries, used bookstores, and as ebooks.
What you will study
Module 1: The Earliest Religious Thought Module 2: Gods, Kings, and Priestesses: The First Civilizations Module 3: The Axial Age Module 4: Faith, Philosophy, and Power Module 5: Corruption, Reform, and Devotion Module 6: Enlightenment, Awakening, and Reform Module 7: The Critics and the Study of Religion Module 8: Religious Thought Today
Book report choices
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois; A History of God, Karen Armstrong
Academic honesty
All written work must be your own. You may quote and discuss the course readings and other sources, but you must say where the words and ideas came from. Submitting work written by someone else, including work generated entirely by AI tools, is not permitted.