Panel Conversation looks at Religion in Multiple Settings
Biblical scholar Margaret Barker and Norman Jones, USU professor of history known for his work on the history of religion and Christianity, are featured in a panel conversation that takes up the question of where the idea of secular study of religious intersects with the living of religion.
A panel conversation with two historians of religion will take up the question of where the idea of secular study of religious intersects with the living of religion.
The presentation, “Teaching Religion, Living Religion: Experiencing Religion in the Academy in a Secular Age,” will be 10:30 a.m. to noon Thursday, Nov. 10, in room 101 of the Merrill-Cazier Library.
Speaking and answering questions will be renowned biblical scholar Margaret Barker and Norman Jones, USU professor of history and known for his work on the history of religion and Christianity.
According to Philip Barlow, USU religious studies professor, the two scholars will discuss “the intersections between ‘being religious’ and ‘teaching and learning about religion’ in a secular setting — the university — as well as a secular time — the modern era in the United States and other western democracies where religion and God are options, rather than taken for granted.”
The “academy” in the presentation’s title represents a secular institution, he said.
The event will be interesting, added Barlow, for those who are interested in “what it means to be religious in a secular setting and secular culture, and those who wish to think carefully about learning — and teaching — about religion at the university.
The presenters, said Barlow, will address current issues, providing “historical and international context and perspective.”
Barker is a British scholar well known for her numerous books and articles on temple theology. Her most recent book is King of the Jews: Temple Theology in John’s Gospel.
Jones is a respected historian of Elizabethan England and Christianity. Barlow added that Jones is “noted nationally and internationally for his expertise on the British Reformation.”
The presentation is sponsored by the religious studies program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Academy for Temple Studies, a group of American scholars interested in advancing in North America the discipline of temple studies — whether Jewish, Hindu or LDS temples or temples in ancient Greece.
“There’s always a tensions between those who are practitioners and studiers and those who are just studiers,” Jones said. “If you study religion, you often come at it from a sociological or historical POV, but here’s a lot of discussion back and forth about, do these things work if you don’t practice. Is there something else going on in the experience of religion that you miss if you don’t actually experience religion.”
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USU College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Writer and contact: Janelle Hyatt, 435-797-0289, Janelle.hyatt@usu.edu
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