Contemporary American Religion

Catalog description

This course explores the diversity of American religious life from numerous perspectives, thereby providing students with the practical vocabulary to both understand and interact with the diversity of contemporary religious life. Students survey American religious communities (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) and examine specific beliefs, rituals, and liturgical practices and their application in crisis and transition situations that span the human life cycle, such as birth, marriage, illness, and death. The class also provides hands-on opportunities for students to both visit local religious communities and learn from practitioners in these communities. This is an online-only summer course offered in even-numbered years that can be taken with REL804e.