Course Examines Religions

Students in Religion 1007: "Religion in Multicultural America," learn that the large number of religious communities out of the mainstream in the United States is growing so fast that it seems anyone with a bulldozer, some money and a religious vision can build his or her own institution of worship.

Though the course also looks at Native American, Christian and Jewish traditions, it emphasizes more the religious life of Asian-Americans--Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and Jain--and the African-American and immigrant tradition of Islam.

"This is a history still in the making," says the course instructor, Diana L. Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies. "We're now looking at basically second-generation immigrant communities that began in the late 60s, early 70s, as well as a continuing replenishment of first-generation immigrants."

Not only is its subject matter relatively new, but the main text of Religion 1007 has also taken on an innovative format--a multimedia CD Rom titled On Common Ground: World Religions in America, a product of the Pluralism Project, which was developed by Eck starting in 1991 to document the growing religious diversity of the U.S.

"The [CD Rom] textbook is enormous," says Josh Edelman '00, a student in the class. "I don't think anyone could possibly read all that, but it's a very nice reference."

According to Eck, the advantage of multimedia is that it incorporates a variety of voices.

"Rather than attempt to represent each tradition from the outside," she says, "by using the CD Rom, we're enabling people to gain some sympathetic understanding of religious tradition from the inside, not by listening to me necessarily, but by listening to the voices of people who are part of that tradition and who speak through the CD Rom."

But Eck says that the CD Rom does not just have information about religion in America. It also contains issues that different religious communities debate.

Eck says that there is a competitiveness among American religious communities for members as well as an infusion of democracy into their framework.

"In order to raise money for a mosque or a temple they have to register with the IRS, elect a board of directors, have officers and conform to what a nonprofit organization looks like, so there is a kind of democracy built into the religious structure that reshapes every religious community," she says.

Eck says that there is also "a spirit of volunteerism" in American religious communities.

"It's because people are voluntarily committed to a religious community that it exists here, and many people in diverse religious communities say they've become more religious after coming to America," she says.

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, a teaching fellow for the class who immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, agrees.

"Sometimes, when I pray it's not just because it's a ritual that I have to perform. It is also a way of connecting with my heritage," he says. "It reminds me of the times I used to stand next to my grandfather in Iran as a child imitating his prostrations and trying to repeat what he was saying in Arabic. You don't realize how much religion is part of your identity. At times, it's a way of remembering and dealing with your homesickness."

In 1991 Eck taught the first version of this course in the form of a research seminar called World Religion in New England.

"We went out every week and visited mosques and Islamic centers and Hindu temples in the New England area and discussed our fieldwork at the seminar," she says. "As a result of that work we began to draw a portrait of the religious life in New England."

Accumulation from these research projects, as well as from summer "hometown" research done by many of the same students, made available an enormous amount of resources that has become essential to the study of the American religious landscape today.

Site visits continue to be an integral part of Eck's class--students are required to go on field trips to at least two religious centers and many of them seem to welcome the idea.

"It's fun and exciting to be studying something you can go out and visit, to see historical phenomena unfolding around you," Edelman says.