The Study of Religion at Centre

The Religion Program

Religious studies at Centre is an ideal major for the liberal arts student. Religion courses regularly involve or relate to anthropology, archaeology, history, language, literature, philosophy, and even science—religion courses are a veritable liberal arts curriculum. Students are encouraged to raise in a serious way the most basic questions of life and to seek the answers wherever they may be found, even across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Through a critical reading of religious texts and an exploration of history, beliefs, ethics, and rituals, the program offers an opportunity to deepen the understanding of one’s own religious tradition as well as to explore those of others. At the same time, it helps illuminate political, economic, social, and artistic behaviors that reflect those religious traditions.

The major requirements allow for much freedom in the choice of courses. Beyond the three introductory courses (Biblical History and Ideas, History of Christian Thought, and World Religions) and the senior seminar, the students are asked to take five upper-level courses of their choice. The courses offered range from studies of Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, to social ethics, early Christianity, science and religion, biblical archaeology and biblical Hebrew.