subject: Comparative Religion Course Review [print this page] While Ive done some study on comparative religion, I found this course very instructive and Rev. Kythera Anns approach quite good, especially in the details. A good grasp of other faiths and religious systems is crucial for an interfaiith minister, and this course does a great job
I took this course at the same time that I took Philosophy of religion, and found that the two dovetail together nicely. Rev. Kythera gets into aspects of theology, philosophy, comparing and constrasting, and religious theory that make this course very instructive in the basic philosophy of religion, as well as different practices and beliefs in various faiths.
I found several topics of particular interest. She makes an excellent case for the similarities of religions, regardless of cultural origin, based on statements from various sacred texts, and the resulting validity of interfaith practice and ministry. Her suggestions of ritual and ceremony are interesting as well.
I enjoyed her discussion of esoterica, and was pleased to see the inclusion of Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, which rarely get a mention in courses of this type, which often speak to the mystical side of Eastern religions, but rarely to Western esoteric aspects.
Her coverage of Divine messengers, across all religious traditions, was particularly enlightening, and of obvious value in ministry- many traditions call on these messengers for aid in hard times, and its good to have some education on the tradition of various people we might be ministering to.
And, what helped me a lot was that while I have had some education in both Eastern and Western religions, I knew almost nothing about shamanistic faiths, and this course was quite helpful in coming to a basic understanding of that.
The only issue I had with this course is something Ive remarked on in the Mystical Christianity coursework (and Ill probably remark on it again in the final essay for that course, which I also enjoy): the stating as historical fact of ideas taken from Riane Eislers The Chalice and the Blade, on female, Goddess- oriented societies being overrun and taken over by male, God- oriented dominator societies. This is not only counter-intuitive (to me, at least), but there is a sufficient amount of scholarly argument with the theory, primarily by Laurence Keeley and Steven LeBlanc. http://inhumandecency.org/christine/eisler.html is a good place to take a look at the basic premise for objection. Not to be argumentative, and I dont at all mind this being presented as a theory, but its stated as an assumed fact in the last lesson of this course, which is my only objection.
Other than the one issue I mentioned, I truly enjoyed the course from the ULC, learned a lot from it, and would not hesitate to take another course by Rev. Kythera Ann. All in all, Id recommend it to anybody interested in interfaith ministry. --Rev. David Mavity
