(WR) The Practice of Religion as Applied Literature

Many people assume that belief, in the sense of subscribing to certain propositional claims about ultimate matters, is at the heart of religion. This course, on the other hand, has treated most such religious claims as importantly literary or mythic rather than literal. There are several reasons for treating religious beliefs in this way: taken literally most such claims are epistemically dubious, and dogmatic insistence on them thus tends to be divisive. Apparent contradictions soften when we view such statements as dramatic elements in culturally informative stories rather than descriptions of ultimate reality.

In contrast to doctrinal beliefs, then, we have emphasized faith – not as blind adherence to dogma, which again tends to divisiveness, but rather in its etymological sense of trust. Trusting in something does expose us to an element of risk, but at the same time a healthy trust roots itself in some ground of trustworthiness, so experience and evidence are always relevant. Faith in this sense keeps its feet on the ground; far from slavish belief, it is an informed and willing suspension of disbelief, leveraged to a practical end.

Our greatest emphasis in this course has therefore been on the social practice of religion, viewing the enactment of faith through a lens of social engagement, as expressed in textual and historical interpretation, moral ideology and practice, and the divine possibility of human justice. I am aware that this approach has cut across the grain of most of your expectations, but I trust that you will at some point come to see its usefulness.