Religion

Department Chair - Schroeder

Professor - Belcastro, Burgdoff, Schroeder (Bergener Chairholder)

Assistant Professor - Bryant, Stamper

Adjunct Instructors - Ben Dor, Layne

Mission Statement

The mission of the Religion and Philosophy Department is to participate in the mission of Capital University by fostering the disciplined, critical study of the ways in which human individuals and cultures make meaning. Specifically, the Religion and Philosophy Department aims to develop in students the ability to engage in critical thinking, the ability to articulate and defend their ideas effectively, and the capacity for critical reflection on the goods of human existence, life, and work, in a manner that honors individual abilities and communal needs.

The specific mission of the religion program is to develop:

students’ understanding of the nature of religion, including sacred literature, belief, and practice, as those features are manifested in major world religions, and
students’ ability to carry on disciplined, critical dialogue concerning varied understandings of specific religions and the relationships and religious practice to everyday experience.

Learning Outcomes

The six learning goals for Religion state that students who major in Religion should:

Grapple with a broad range of questions and issues about themselves and their Worlds, including, but limited to: human connectedness to nature; rationality and justice; evil and the grounds for human hope; people as symbol users.
Be able to articulate their own views, express themselves well in speech and writing, and participate productively in a critical community of discourse.
Connect and apply their learning to other disciplines, to contemporary issues, and to areas of life and work.
Engage in critical and self-critical thinking. Students should practice the criticism not only of the works and views other but also their own thinking. Students should be able to think critically about cultures, ideas, values, ways of knowing and subjects studied. And they also should be able to think critically about claims encountered in the media and in the daily life.
Be practiced in the careful reading of texts in a variety of media. Students should demonstrate the skills and attitudes necessary for engaging, appreciating, interpreting, comparing, and evaluating texts.
Demonstrate a knowledge of important views, authors, and approaches essential to their discipline and area of focus.