AN EXAM QUESTION

The following is a final exam question I designed for RN 100: Introduction to Religion. The students enjoyed responding to it and it demonstrates a way to make the critical challenges of thinking about religion accessible to students.

A Parable

In 2011, President Obama, along with other leaders around the world, announces that a fleet of extra-terrestrial craft has been detected in deep space on course for Earth. The United States immediately reinstitutes its SETI program. American scientists and linguists make first contact with the aliens via long-range radio. The aliens explain they are on “an exploratory mission.” Anthropologists are brought in to learn more about their culture.

At a press conference, Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches asks what religion the aliens are. “Our translation computer had a really hard time with the word ‘religion’,” explained James Mazur, an anthropologist, “However, the aliens eventually sent us a document called, ‘The Book of Big Truth.’ This is obviously the sacred text of the alien religion––Big Truth-ism.”

As Earth anxiously awaits the arrival of the alien fleet, an English translation of The Book of Big Truth appears on Wikileaks and is immediately reposted in multiple languages across the Internet.

Lief Doberman, a former commentator for MSNBC remarked, “It isn’t clear whether the aliens believe in a deity. This means the aliens are an enlightened, spiritual people and that Big Truth-ism is more of a philosophy than a religion. Furthermore, it is a philosophy of peace. Many passages of this book describe the value of sharing resources and the virtues of using diplomacy rather than warfare. We can rest assured that the aliens have come in peace. If they are hostile, it is only because some flaw––possibly mental illness––is keeping them from following the moral precepts clearly described in the Book of Big Truth.”

“Big Truth-ism is not a religion,” countered Sven Wreck of Fox News, “It is a cult used to justify imperial expansion and murder. My people have gone over this book and it describes how their planet––somewhere in the Pleiades––is the center of the cosmos. We’re just barbarian infidels to them! It also describes the history of their culture, during which several brutal wars were fought over ‘Big Truth.’ Make no mistake: the aliens are coming to wage holy war against us.”

Assignment

The previous scenario involves three sets of assumptions regarding “The Book of Big Truth.” In the first part of your essay, explain how James Mazur, Lief Doberman, and Sven Wreck each make unfounded assumptions and assign categories without sufficient evidence.

In the second part of your essay compare the scenario above with at least one other moment in the history of Western civilization. Explain how the categories used by Mazur, Doberman, and Wreck have been shaped by previous encounters between the West and other cultures. Use your answer to demonstrate your mastery over the theorists and texts covered in this course.

COURSES TAUGHT

Vampires in Civilization

Tufts University Experimental College EX006F

The media hailed 2009 as the "year of the vampire," but stories of vampires and vampiric creatures have existed since the dawn of civilization. How can the human obsession with vampires be explained? This course will examine the vampire from its earliest antecedents in the Bronze Age, to Gothic literature, to Victorian occultism, to contemporary pop culture and the modern phenomenon of self-identified "vampires." The undead will be explored using an interdisciplinary "tool kit" that includes the perspectives of anthropology, psychology, comparative literature, religious studies, and even criminology.

This class has been approved by the History Department to count toward the Humanities distribution requirement.

Sample Student Work for Vampires in Civilization

Praise for Vampires in Civilization

“Hi Joe,

“I thought I would take this opportunity to say thank you for a class well taught last semester. Experimental College courses are most often reviewed well by our students but a few courses/instructors stand out from the rest and you are in that special category.”

-Robyn Gittleman

Director of the Experimental College

Press for Vampires in Civilization

“Vampires 101,” Tufts Journal, 18 October 2010

“2010’s Hottest College Courses 2010,” The Daily Beast, 6 September 2010”

Religion and Culture

Boston University RN 100

An introduction to the religious dimension of human experience and culture. We will investigate geographically diverse religions of the world, exploring the experiences, texts, and traditions that give a sacred quality to the lives of their adherents. The class will be interactive, involving close textual readings and interpretation.

Death and Immortality

Boston University RN 106

Examines death as religious traditions have attempted to accept, defeat, deny, or transcend it. Do we have souls? Do they reincarnate? Other topics include cremation, ancestor worship, apocalypse, alchemy, AIDS, near-death experiences, otherworld cosmologies.

Buddhism

Boston University RN 210

A historical introduction to the major themes of Indian Buddhist thought and practice with special attention to the development of Buddhism in Tibet.

Introduction to Religion

Boston University RN 100

Religion matters. It makes meaning and provides structure to life, addressing fundamental questions about body, spirit, community, and time. But what is it? How does it work in our world? This course explores religion in ritual, philosophical, experiential, and ethical dimensions.

Sacred Texts of World Religions

Boston University RN 206

Introduction to world religious texts, investigating the way sacred texts express, interpret, and make possible religious experience, individual and communal. Sources may include Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Interactive class, involving close textual reading and interpretation.