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Welcome to History of World Religions
Welcome to History of World Religions.
Human beings have been praying, burying their dead with care, and gathering at sacred places for tens of thousands of years. Out of that long story came the religions practiced today by billions of people, along with countless traditions that live on in families, villages, and nations that rarely appear in textbooks.
This course is a map of that story. You will travel from the earliest sacred sites to the ancient civilizations, through the remarkable centuries when Confucius, the Buddha, and the Hebrew prophets taught, across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and the islands of the Pacific, and into the modern world of colonization, revival, new religions, and growing numbers of people with no religion at all.
Each tradition is described as its own followers understand it. Many of the traditions you will meet here have their own full course at Confluence, so this course gives you the big picture and shows you where to go deeper.
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
- Invitation to World Religions, Jeffrey Brodd, Layne Little, Bradley Nystrom, Robert Platzner, Richard Shek, and Erin Stiles
- God Is Not One, Stephen Prothero
- The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong
Many of these books are available from public libraries, used bookstores, and as ebooks.
What you will study
Module 1: Beginnings: The Earliest Sacred Life Module 2: Gods of the First Civilizations Module 3: The Axial Age: A Time of Great Teachers Module 4: The Traditions of South and East Asia Module 5: The Abrahamic Family Module 6: Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Module 7: Contact, Conquest, and Survival Module 8: Religion in the Modern World
Book report choices
The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong; God Is Not One, Stephen Prothero
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.