PBS will air on Tuesday, August 20, a new 3 hour documentary on the life of Muhammad. It was first produced for the BBC in 2011. According to this review in the Washington Post, Rageh Omaar, a Somali-born journalist, narrates the series.  The Post says that it portrays the Prophet in a  “respectful and positive light.” The first hour that  airs Tuesday  examines Muhammad’s early life and marriage.  The second part examines the Prophet’s “Night Journey to Jerusalem” and his... Read more

Aboriginal spirituality–the Dreaming–is part of our unit on indigenous religions.  The Dreaming is essentially a creation story. Over time, these stories set “out the structures of society, the rules for social behavior and the ceremonies performed in order to maintain the life of the land.” The Australian Museum has a great site about Aboriginal spiritual beliefs with a good overview of the Dreaming. The Australian government has another excellent site.  Both are great for a webquest. Here is a short clip... Read more

PBS correspondent, Fred De Sam Lazaro, suggests that a shortage of brides in India is fueling trafficking in young girls.  Wealthy men from northern farm states look to girls in the impoverished east and sometimes pay parents for their daughters. According to Kailash Satyarti, an anti-trafficking activist, “marriage is but one fate tens of thousands of young women face every year across India.”  He says that India women are stolen, sold and resold. PBS correspondent, Fred De Sam Lazaro, suggests... Read more

Here is Krista Tippett on Ted Talks discussing compassion. She thinks that we need a new definition of compassion that is synonymous with empathy and linked to practical virtues like generosity, kindness, and hospitality.She offers some examples in people that she has interviewed like Matthew Sanford who became a paraplegic at the age of thirteen in a car crash that killed his father and sister. Today, he works with wounded war veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan showing them how to... Read more

In my World Religions class, we study indigenous religions in Africa, America, and Australia. I show part of the video above, In the Light of Reverence, when we look at native American religion. The documentary, from PBS’s POV, looks at the significance of the land to native American religion and examines the native American struggle with whites over how the land should be used. The complete documentary features the Hopi in Arizona, the Wintu in California, and the Lakota in... Read more

Sam Horowitz’s video of his Bar Mitzvah celebration went viral this week.  In it, Las Vegas-like show girls perform a dance, almost seductively, until near the end, young Sam Horowitz emerges and joins the dance. Some find the video offensive. In an editorial in the Washington Post, David Wolpe suggests that the dance teaches a young child “sexualization of spirit.”  In addition, he says, “the Bar Mitzvah (which is a stage a child reaches, not the name of a ceremony)... Read more

Studying the role that myths play in religion? Big Myth has some great animated creation myths from the around the world. Just click on on area and the myth will load. Many are available free but you can order a disc for a nominal fee and get them all. You can even download the creation stories in a PDF. These work well for both younger and older students. My religion students, mostly juniors and seniors, loved them last year. In... Read more

What role does myth play in helping us to understand and define religion? That’s exactly what Bill Moyers set out to discover in 1988 when he interviewed a number of writers about their perspective on faith and sacred texts. I ask my students to explore the site and read and listen to audio clips of some the interviews and complete this chart for the different writers.  After they complete the chart, I ask the students to respond to a couple... Read more

I saw this cool inforgraphic on another blog. The page is in Russian but the infographic is in English. You can magnify the image and move it around.  Thanks to Seth Dixon for tweeting the link. Read more

Familiarize your religion students with the religious diversity in your area. Each year I ask the students to complete a scavenger hunt for the different faith traditions in their area. I give them a worksheet, and a list of links to help them identify the different faiths within their community.  Here is a list of those links: The Pluralism Project is one of the best. You simply input a keyword or use a pull down menu for religious tradition and... Read more