What I Do

I am a student of Comparative Religion. When I tell people that, they usually don't know what that means. Often times people think I am trying to become a pastor/priest/holy man/televangelist. I am attempting no such vocation. Others are at the other end of this spectrum, and believe I am practicing many religions at once, which they find offensive, usually because they are Christians who feel that liberals are trying to make every religion the same path to God. I am indeed not practicing the religions I study simultaneously, nor am under the mindset that every religion is really about the Christian god. So what DO I do? Simply put, I study religion for the sake of studying religion. In the realm of my studies, I do not practice any religion. This isn't to say I don't hold my own beliefs, or I don't attend church now and then. I do. But these things are independent of my studies. There are three methods that I use to study religion. These methods are: Comparative, Historical, and Anthropological.

Comparative

It is pretty much what you would think it is. I compare different religious traditions to understand similarities and differences between them. Similarities help me understand what "religion" as a category is, and differences help me understand the distinctness of religious traditions. But this is why I compare them: for understanding. My comparisons are NOT to show the superiority or truthfulness of a single tradition. I do not compare Christian myths with Muslim myths to show how "corrupted" one is in relation to the other. I do not privilege one religious tradition over another in my studies, even if I do in my everyday life. I do not intentionally compare traditions to attack one, although sometimes it may be perceived that way if I say something that happens to contradict a particular religion's doctrine, which does happen at times.

Historical

When most think about what "historical" means, they think it means something that actually happened. But history as an academic method does not mean this necessarily. Historians try to understand what actually happened through tangible evidence. But history changes as soon as new evidence is introduced. It is worth noting that this leaves little room for the supernatural, such as miracles. For instance, when scholars study the historical Jesus, they fail to mention that he rose from the dead. Why? Because there is not a single piece of convincing evidence to suggest this happened. Does that mean it didn't happen? Not at all. Maybe it did, but who knows? No one today has experienced or witnessed anything like a man being crucified and then coming back to life in three days. So there is no evidence to suggest that such a thing is even possible scientifically. It's not just Christian doctrine that is treated with such skepticism. If we are to take Muslim doctrine at face value, we would take it as historical that Jesus was not actually crucified by Rome, but rather a look-alike was in his stead. Historians certainly do not take this view! Our earliest sources of Jesus of Nazareth, the epistles of Paul, are completely centered on interpreting Jesus's crucifixion. Critical history does not favor one tradition over another; it reconstructs the past based on tangible evidence and critical thinking rather than religious doctrine or revelation.

Anthropological

When I say this, I do not mean the methods found in an anthropology department of a university, although sometimes I rely on those, too. What I mean is anthropology as opposed to theology; that is, the study of man rather than the study of gods. This is very much tied to the previous paragraph. I do not study the impact gods have had on religion, but the impact humans have had on religion. As such, I am uninterested in defending divine inspiration, arguing for or against the existence of gods, or convincing others that my religion is right. These things only interest me as they relate to humans. So, I do not ask questions like: is the Protestant Bible inspired by God? I ask questions like: why do Christians believe the bible is inspired by God? Why does the Catholic Bible have more "inspired" books in it than the Protestant Bible? What do Christians mean by "divine inspiration"? Does it mean "inerrant," or does it simply mean that the doctrines within the texts were set apart by God from all others?

Unlike a pastor/priest/holy man/televangelist, I do not speak for or about God; I do not claim he did this or didn't do that, or that he likes this and not that. I rather describe what humans have claimed about God, what they believe he did/didn't do, and what they think he likes/dislikes. To me, people are much more interesting to study than gods.