Religious Studies Department

   Inviting, and expecting, students to begin to look at

issues from a new perspective

"It is the duty of every 
cultured man and woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world. If we are to respect others' religions as we would have them respect our own, a friendly study of the world's religions is a sacred duty."
Mohandas Gandhi

Virginia Wesleyan College

1584 Wesleyan Dr.

Norfolk/Virginia Beach, VA.23502

(757)455-3200

The subject matter we teach is religious studies, and there are certain minimum facts which we hope  students will learn. Students should be familiar with some places, some events, some dates, and some names. Without a knowledge of facts, students are unable to see strengths or weaknesses, they are unable to see trends, analogies, causes, or effects, they cannot begin to place their owns lives within a broader perspective. 

But when we teach, we are not only teaching facts. We teach a process of thinking; inviting and expecting students to begin to look at issues from a new perspective. We want students, for instance, to know why and how certain concepts, movements, or issues developed. We want them to come to some sort of conclusions about how Jesus and the Pharisees really were opponents, about how Christians and Muslims are truly different, about how the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew disagree. We want students to learn to be fair about intellectual issues. In terms of Jesus and the Pharisees, what would Jesus see as the similarities and differences between him and them? What would the Pharisees emphasize? What would they agree on? In what activities could Christians and Muslims not participate together? How would the authors of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew disagree? How are we to understand their similarities? How do contexts shape rhetoric, actions, and thought?

Without a knowledge of religion, it is difficult to understand daily newspapers, modern history, and many of the behavior patterns in which we ourselves regularly are engaged. Religion and religious beliefs actively shape not only individuals, but also culture, the social order, and world affairs. If students, for instance, do not know anything about World War II and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70CE, they cannot begin to  understand the development of modern Buddhism and modern Judaism. Students need to be conscious of the role of religion in the world and in their own everyday lives. At the very least, they need to be "religiously literate" and recognize that if they offer a Burger King Whopper to a Hindu, a Wendy's Bacon Deluxe to an orthodox Jew, or a swig of Jack Daniels to a Muslim, the responses might not be all that warm.

A liberal arts education is not a collection of courses that students take; it is an orientation towards life that students come to develop. A liberal arts education emphasizes wholeness, not fragmentation. A discipline like Religious Studies is particularly helpful in showing students how so much of life is related. Nurturing this ability, to think in an integrated manner, is important to our mission and orientation. The mission of the Department of Religious Studies is related fundamentally to the mission of Virginia Wesleyan College. Because so many disciplines are involved in the academic study of religion, and because one cannot study religion without a knowledge of such fields as history, literature, art, sociology, and psychology, the Department seeks to provide a fundamental grounding in the liberal arts education. If we can encourage students to integrate thought, to see how various academic disciplines are broad, deep, and infinite, not narrow, shallow, and limited, if we can show students how they can begin to integrate fragmented intellectual, social, or spiritual lives, then we have begun to accomplish our departmental mission; we have begun to show them the strengths of a liberal arts education.