Today’s class was again a head spinner in which we covered a lot of information on religion, culture and ‘unchurched’ spirituality.  Before attending today’s class I knew very little about what ‘unchurched’ spirituality is, now however I know a lot more about what ‘unchurched’ spirituality is.  We learned what ‘unchurched’ spirituality is, some definitions, how and why it came about, the characteristics and some of the criticisms of this concept.  As well as learning about ‘unchurched’ spirituality, we also learned about religion and culture and where the two meet.  We looked at a few of the theorists who wrote about religion and culture, these theorists include: Max Weber (1864-1920), Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Bruce Lincoln (1948-present).  I am still a little fuzzy on what the clear definition of ‘unchurched’ spirituality is, but to remedy this I will look into it in more detail so as to clarify the meaning in my mind.  I think that having attended the previous classes on religion has allowed me to broaden my mind on religion, and I think this open mind will be very useful in the classroom.  It will allow me to teach children about religion with an unbiased opinion of my own and hopefully my open mind will rub off onto the children, thus making them more open the concept of religion and how the various religions differ from each other.  This in turn should hopefully make them more accepting of people’s opinions and their beliefs.

Today’s class was certainly a head spinner, there was a lot of information thrown at us and a lot of (mental) questions asked.  One thing the class wasn’t however was boring, we covered the meaning and function of religion, the different types of religion, religious diversity and some of the theorists who covered the aspects of religion in their work.  I looked at one of these theorists, Bronislaw Malinowski, and his work on religion in more detail.  He was known as the founder of social anthropology and for many years he lived alongside and studied the Trobriand islanders.  Malinowski believed that religion serves particular needs of society and that it fulfils the biological and psychological needs of the human race.  After today’s classes I can see the relationship between religion and culture is much stronger than I first thought, it can bring people together in times of need and it can also give strength and individuality to a person.  I also now know that there are three types of religion, established religion, sect and cult.  Before today I was only aware of two of these types of religion, established and cult, so sect is a new concept for me and I think I will research more into it and cult as I am interested by what they mean.  Today’s class has given me more inspiration of how religion can be taught to children, there are so many ways in which you can explain to them the different types of religion and even how on a basic level they are a little similar.  I can understand that some parents/educators don’t like the idea of teaching children about religion as it is a choice for them to make whether they follow or believe in a religion.  However, I do think that teaching children about the different types of religion in the world they live in can have a very positive effect on them as it can open their minds and allow them to respect other people’s beliefs and views.  After all they do say that the greatest cause for conflict between religions is a lack of understanding of each other’s beliefs.