Syllabus Showcase: Religions of the World, Barbara Brown Taylor

Piedmont College is a private, four-year, church-related, liberal arts college in rural northeast Georgia that will become Piedmont University in 2021, almost 125 years after its founding in 1897.  When I arrived in 1998 at the start of the spring semester, I became the second professor of philosophy and religion on the faculty.  Though the college granted an undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion, there was no department by that name.  Dr. Timothy Lytle and I both belonged to the department of humanities, a small cohort that included professors of English, creative writing, and foreign languages.  My doctorate was honorary, one of many reasons why I deferred to Dr. Lytle in all things academic.  He was a full-fledged philosopher who could teach any of the religion courses in the college catalog, while I was a repurposed Episcopal priest who stayed on my side of the “and” in “philosophy and religion.” 

At the same time, it was clear how much our disciplines intertwined—not only because we taught the same majors and minors, who took courses from both of us, but also because every student at Piedmont was required to take one course in philosophy or religion in order to graduate.  Though many chose the introductory offering in the field of study that sounded more interesting, those who were drawn to higher level courses could register for them as well with the professor’s permission.  In this way, a surprising and significant number of students became philosophy and religion majors over the years, when all they had meant to do was satisfy a single graduation requirement. 

The introductory course on my side of the “and” was Religions of the World, a popular course that often had a waiting list.  It was a huge responsibility for a Christian minister, especially since a large majority of the students came from Christian backgrounds as well.  How was I supposed to do justice to five major world religions, including my own, in a span of fifteen weeks?  How might I design the sorts of experiences that would allow students to form first-hand points of view instead of accepting the second-hand viewpoints of their textbooks, parents, and social media accounts? 

Every time I came up with a syllabus that seemed adequate to the task, the world changed, along with the students who signed up for the class and the religions we were set to study.  Atlanta was becoming home to people from all over the world, who were building multi-million dollar masjids, mandirs, and dharma centers.  Students were arriving from public high schools where they played on teams with athletes who fasted during Ramadan, or celebrated Diwali.  Religious diversity spilled over the old boundaries between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to embrace new communities of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Muslims.  At the same time, the United States waged sustained wars in predominantly Muslim countries, Christians divided over support of Israel or Palestine, and Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka fueled violence against the country’s Muslim minority. 

What does this have to do with philosophy?  Since I’m not a philosopher, please bear with me here.  What I noticed in the classroom is that students who came into mine after a course with Dr. Lytle were better equipped to think critically about the complicated intersection of religion, culture, and politics; or to compare the truth claims of very different religions.  At the same time, I like to think that when students from my class arrived in one of Dr. Lytle’s, they were ripe to learn new vocabulary words such as “epistemology,” “phenomenology,” and “metaphysics,” based on the case studies and site visits they experienced in Religions of the World.  Last but not least, I believe that students who took classes in both philosophy and religion (which majors had to do since it was a combined degree program), recognized the shared ideals of inclusion and broad-mindedness, not only in their coursework but also in one another and in their teachers. 

The syllabus that follows is at least the twentieth iteration of the one I started out with in 1998.  It has not only tripled in length from the addition of new online sources, many more choices between assignments based on different kinds of intelligence, and fruitless warnings about the consequences of using cell phones in class; it also follows institutional prompts to include measurable learning outcomes, grading rubrics, clear attendance policies, guidelines for written work, and instructions on how to access accommodations for learning disabilities.

As much as I initially resisted these seemingly endless intrusions into my educational design, I now recognize them as improvements.  They rescued students from trying to read my mind.  They forced me to be more intentional about what I wanted students to learn and how I would lead them to learn it.  They provided objective standards for grading that made that hard work easier and prevented a single grade dispute from ever happening. 

Now someone else is teaching Religions of the World and I am growing English roses.  The beauty of sharing this syllabus with you is that it gives me a chance to revisit what a good time I had teaching that class for all those years, with students who taught me how to teach every time they raised a hand, turned in a paper, flunked a quiz, or wrote final exams so radiant they made me cry.  Since you are teachers too, you know exactly what I am talking about.  May your tribe prosper, and may all your students remember your name.

The Syllabus Showcase of the APA Blog is designed to share insights into the syllabi of philosophy educators. We include syllabi that showcase a wide variety of philosophy classes.  We would love for you to be a part of this project. Please email sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org to nominate yourself or a colleague.

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Barbara Brown Taylor is a best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest.  Her first memoir, Leaving Church, won an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association in 2006.  Her next two books, An Altar in the World (2010) and Learning to Walk in the Dark (2015), earned places on the New York Times bestseller list.  She has served on the faculties of Piedmont College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia.  In 2014 TIME included her on its annual list of Most Influential People; in 2015 she was named Georgia Woman of the Year; in 2016 she received the President’s Medal at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.  Her fourteenth book, Holy Envy, was released by HarperOne in March 2019.