A Christian studying Anthropology objectively.
- Maia Vashti
- Apr 16
- 4 min read
Updated: May 8
My Prompt Question: Describe your understanding of religion. During this course, how might you challenge yourself to expand your understanding of religion?
My understanding of religion is very much based on my personal and limited academic experiences. I have always viewed religion as something someone believes and practices, and when I was younger, I thought that everyone believed in some sort of God or gods.
It wasn’t until middle school that I learned more in-depth about the different types of belief systems and some of the main religions around the world. While I always understood that there were others with different beliefs, many of my experiences growing up were around differences in Christianity as opposed to other religions.
My family is a mix of Christian denominations with some who choose not to practice any religion. Growing up with a single mother made it difficult for us to be accepted in certain churches, so for most of my life, I wasn’t involved in a church or even went to one.
Despite this, my mom raised me as a Christian who read the Bible often and I learned to search for the answers to questions myself.
Sometimes, I still find it hard to relate to other Christians who don’t do this, who don’t study the Bible’s original texts, compare translations, research the culture and history of the time period, or simply ask God to lead you to answers and understanding.
My belief is solely based on Biblical texts, and I don’t put myself into a label of Christian; I feel that this divides us and prevents us from completing God’s calling effectively.
Because of all of this, I know my understanding of religion is even different from someone else who practices Christianity, and I know my faith drives my perspective of other religions. As a Christian, I believe that God is the one true god, that we are not to worship other gods or have idols, and we are to minister and tell people the Good News about Jesus so they can turn to God and be saved.
This leads to the point of view that I hold that other religions are people’s attempt to distance themself from God and the commands He has given us and as a way to justify their continuation of sinful behavior; people throughout history have used their imaginations, satan’s deception, spiritual experiences not from God, bits and pieces of the Bible, the strive for control and power, and many other things to create religious, or similar, beliefs to follow and practice.
Some of these came as a way to explain the world around them while others were used to justify the position and power of rulers, such as with Egyptian pharaohs who were at first gods on Earth and then later the offspring of gods such as Amon, making them the son of the sun ruling over the affairs of Earth (Bentley et al., 2021, p. 50).
Even Christianity has been used and changed to justify divine rule. With this said, I firmly believe in respecting others, honoring them, and not discriminating against them or treating them horribly because they believe in something different and act accordingly (Holy Bible, New International Version, 1973/2011, 1 Pet. 2:17, Rom. 12:10, Rom. 13:7, Matt. 7:12, Matt. 5:43–48, Phil. 2:3–4).
I imagine that this perspective is what will challenge me the most in terms of expanding my understanding of religion, as it is not the most conducive for approaching religion as an academic study.
Similar to the struggles of early scholars, holding the Christian religion as the singular, “right” model is limiting and inaccurate of the world we live in (Brodd et al., 2021, pp. 4–5).
That is not to say you can’t hold onto your own beliefs and religious practices in order to effectively study other world religions, but that it is something to be aware of to ensure a scholarly, sound approach to studying and understanding the religions being discussed.
While being objective is something I can excel at, it is also sometimes hard, especially when it comes to something I feel strongly about. I know there are going to be topics discussed throughout this course that will challenge my ability to remain objective and empathetic, and I know some topics are going to be hard to understand on a personal level, however, I hope my hunger for knowledge as a whole will prevent me from letting this stop me from expanding my understanding as a whole.
I already plan to challenge myself by not picking Christianity as one of the two religions to study for this course’s main project. Depending on the topic I decide to pursue, I may even decide to exclude Catholicism as well.
My mother taught me that in order to defend your beliefs, you should one, know why it is you believe something and be able to give Biblical evidence for it, and two, know what the other arguments/beliefs are.
I studied both evolution and creationism in high school, and while I admit to not enjoying evolution, it has helped me defend my own beliefs to others better.
Understanding another perspective has, in turn, helped my own faith grow, and I look forward to learning more about other perspectives I know little about.
References:
Bentley, J. H., Ziegler, H. F., Streets-Salter, H. E., & Benjamin, C. (2021). Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past (7th ed., p. 50). McGraw Hill Education.
Brodd, J., Little, L., Nystrom, B., Platzner, R., Shek, R., & Stiles, E. (2021). Invitation to World Religions (4th ed., pp. 4–5). Oxford University Press Academic US.
Holy Bible, New International Version. (2011). Biblica, Inc. (Original Work Published 1973). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/
Comments