Academic Study of Religion: The Contribution to the American Society

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Academic Study of Religion: The Contribution to the American Society
Background
For most people in the United States of America, studying religion has meant studying part Christian theology and Christian history, largely in Christian-ethos educational institutions ranging from elementary school to third-level college and university. And the so-called ‘other religions’, that for a long time meant only or Catholicism or Protestantism depending on an ideological standpoint, nit only depends on one, but now extends to Islam, and may be included through ‘Ecumenics’ or ‘Inter-Faith Dialogue’, but only in relation to a theological perspective of Christianity (Smidt, 35).
With reference to Christianity, this type of “confessional” approach has been embedded in many American institutions and even adopted by various other religions such as Jewish and Islam in various institutions that have religious basing on their studies and is often inculcated in both the staff and students alike. A vast majority of American schools have explicit affiliations to some sort of religion or religious institution and this makes it almost impossible to have a scientific study of religion taking place.
Introduction
The academic study of religion takes a different approach from that of confessional theology, whether it is that of Protestants, Shia, Catholics, Thervada, Buddhist etc, and is widely studied in universities and colleges around the globe. The Academic study of religion has helped shape open-mindedness in the manner of inquiry of subject matter, and the implementation of egalitarian standards in selection of staff and students are often applied in the other academic disciplines that are reputable. (Jensen & Rothstein, 2008) A department that that fosters academic study of religions would never apply a religious, not gender etc, exam to any member of any appointed staff, or admitted student. On the other hand, the academic study of religion would be irrelevant to academic experts and only encourages the academically sound contributions to scholarships from those that belong to all religions and none in specific. Due to this, the many scholars spread across the international sphere are quite able to engage internationally and on an equal platform with their other colleagues around the world. This, indeed, has led to training of a umber of scholars in a wide range of disciplines from history to philology to folklore.
The Academic Study of Religions has fostered a critical and analytical that is at the same time cross-cultural, study of religions, in the past and in the present. As the an orientalist, Max Müller once observed of languages, “He who knows only one, knows none”, (Singh 206) this same principle applies to religion as a study. ASR has its special focus of study within the human and social sciences too and this special focus mainly emphasizes on religions as they continue to exist and as they have existed in the world now and before. The study is focused on programmatically having a broader view of what actually constitutes of religions and not necessarily construing religion as a separate, unique and transcendent category as it were.
Tolerance
As a result of studying and gaining more knowledge on ASR, many Americans have come to develop a considerable level of tolerance of opposing views from fellow Americans in the US and beyond. This can be attributed to the fact that the ASR has managed to draw a distinct difference between the promoting of religion and the studying of religion empirically, or conversely attacking a religion altogether. Hence, at all times it does not take part in confessional, apologetic or theological practices that are often associated with any particular religions (Swatos & Wellman, 68). Even then, ASR has placed no limits on the questions that may be raised on a particular religion. It seeks to study the theologies and ecumenical as well as the inter-faith encounters at the point which they occur because their primary role is to study and critique as well as...