A religion course for the Internet age

Last edited Sat Feb 13, 2016, 02:19 PM - Edit history (1)

HarvardX MOOC explains world religions through their scripture

February 12, 2016
By Brett Milano, Harvard Correspondent

Harvard Divinity School senior lecturer Diane Moore has modest goals for her upcoming online course, “World Religions Through Their Scripture.” She merely wants to increase religious understanding, open up crucial dialogues, and change the world — or at least to create a MOOC that will examine religion in a uniquely enlightening way.

The course, which launches this spring, will bring together Harvard’s leading scholars in the world’s major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. As a HarvardX MOOC (massive open online course), it was designed to attract an international, multicultural audience.

Moore, a senior lecturer on religious studies and education, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, and director of the Religious Literacy Project, has long been an advocate of “religious literacy,” meaning an understanding of how religion works in its cultural and political contexts. Thus her goal is not to champion one religion over another, but to heighten the study of religion itself. And it’s not often that scholars of each leading religion interact in the real world, much less online.

“The premise is that lack of understanding about religion — or in the term I use, religious illiteracy — is both widespread and dangerous,” she said. “It fuels bigotry and prejudice and hinders cooperative endeavors in local and global arenas. Though a better understanding of religion is not itself going to cure the world’s ills, it can certainly help create bridges and better understanding of our fellow humans. An approach like this isn’t radical within the study of religion. But unfortunately, very few citizens of the world have been exposed to the study of religion as part of their schooling or intellectual life.”

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/a-religion-course-for-the-internet-age/