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The field of religious studies focuses on the attempt to understand the world’s religions as expressive of what various peoples have come to regard as sacred.
This major is interdisciplinary, pluralistic, critical and global in its outreach and aspirations.
While the department’s concern for the sacred has been shaped by the cultural traditions of Christianity, religious studies assumes that the study of Christianity, like the study of any other religious tradition, is best undertaken on the basis of a broad and comparative understating of all the world’s major religions. Thus, in addition to courses focused on Christianity and critical studies of the Bible, the department offers opportunities to investigate the distinctive beliefs, practices, sacred literatures and cultural expressions of Judaism and Islam, the religions of Asia and Native American religions.
Students majoring in religious studies typically acquire a broad and comparative understanding of the world’s religions by taking courses in all four major areas of the curriculum: Sacred Texts and Traditions, World Religions, Religious Thought and Social Context and Special Studies in Religion. You'll learn:
Atlanta is a tremendous teaching and learning resource for religious studies students. Because of its own recent dramatic development at the cutting edge of the processes of globalization, the metropolitan area has become a working laboratory for studying the diversity of religious communities, beliefs and practices. Courses in this department typically include opportunities for fieldwork where students gain firsthand experien
