Episode 401: World Religions, But Better
Transcript!
PDF transcript. Also available via our Buzzsprout page.
Shownotes
(because citations are political)
We are back, chilibabies! And this season is a long one. We’re riffing, we’re building, we’re doing new stuff. This season is a long one—any episode that comes out in 2021-2022 we’re calling MEGA SEASON 4—and it’s a doozy: THE HISTORY OF WORLD (RELIGIONS), PART I!
The 101:
(where we did the professor-work)
The whole, long season is is dedicated to thinking through, and doing better with, the world religions paradigm we’re all stuck with and in.
We may know that the idea of “world religions” is rooted in some white Christian imperialist nonsense, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t operating in our various institutions. So, we’re not here to say: ignore the critique! Don’t listen to seasons 1-3! We are here, in HISTORY OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS PART I to say: we have to confront this system every single day because we live in the world and some of us have to teach within this paradigm (because jobs) and most of us who want to learn about religion (that’s you, nerds) are learning it in this model with or without your knowledge or consent. So how can we do it *better*, how can we show what’s behind the curtain and also make sense of how people do religion?
It’s going to be a season of deep track Mel Brooks references. Ilyse isn’t even a little bit sorry. (Stick around for the post-theme song stinger and find out.)
The idea of “world religions” is a problem because:
That FRAMEWORK—why we call things “religions” and assume all folks have one—was an idea formulated and popularized during the height of European and (later) American imperialism. It also operates from the starting point that Christianity (and especially Protestantism) is not only an inherent good—it is inherently above all else.
World religions are world in relationship to Christians, and especially Protestant, Western European & white American Christians. Even though those guys live in the world somehow the “world” means “everyone else” and not them. You hear why that might make us a little grumpy, very suspicious right?
How a religion relates to Christianity matters for how that religion “ranks” in a world religions model.
We’ll spend the whole year—this long season 4—on unpacking the world religions problems by showing how they play out across religions, the ones you think you know about, the ones you definitely don’t, the ones you want to know more about, and in settings where you may not be thinking about religion at all.
Little Bit, Leave It
(the segment where we leave you with a little bit to remember)
We’re stealing from our UK friends and colleagues and, frankly, very trashy tv with this new segment in which we leave you with the littlest bit, a small way to remember the why the stuff of the episode matters. (The joke, nerds, is this buddy video.)
In this episode’s LBLI, Megan talked about remembering that no one religion can ever, ever allow for the sentence “RELIGION X does Y,” because all religions are internally pluralistic.
Ilyse said that for her, thinking about “world religions” as a problem is related to how “world” anything is a problem! Why is “world music” a category but, like, pop music is different from country which isn’t the same as new age or American roots (see the Grammys categories image)? Why does the whole globe exist as one category—homogenized—when we afford ourselves (our music, our food, our religions) limitless specificity.
Homework!
(that’s right, nerds, there’s always more to learn)
Megan assigns:
A classic we’ve spent time on before is JZ Smith’s “Religion, Religions, Religious”
Jonathan Z. (JZ) Smith’s incredibly well-read, well-cited, important piece for religion nerds, “Religions, Religions, Religious” (1998). It can be found here as a pdf.
Religion: The Basics, an accessibly written book introducing the study of religion that, fellow academics, teaches beautifully in introductory-level courses
Ilyse suggests:
Tomoko Masuzawa’s fantastic, mandatory book about world religions, The Invention of World Religions.
My own stuff on the category or religion:
Here’s a piece she wrote for Maydan about the category of religion beyond Euro-American sources.
Here’s another she wrote which gets at the problems of how a major religion—Islam—came to be understood as one thing (that is, violent).
Alexander Rocklin, on constructions of religion vis-a-vis Hinduism in Trinidad: The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad.
Nerds of the Week!
Thanks for listening, rating and reviewing. This week’s nerds are: Splashpot, NotThatDrJ, Clutterbrooke, CandyCorn600, and Einstein841. You make our whole day.