World Religions: General Texts

Alexander Street Video (series)
After all, who is God? is a documentary series that aims to explore children's views on spirituality. Moving away from a didactic narrative about rites and liturgies, the aim of the series is to build understandings through the playful and spontaneous thinking of the children's universe. The series presents 11 religious cultures: indigenous Mbya-Guarani's pipe, African batuque's drums, evangelical praise, the ayahuasca Vegetal Union, Buddhist meditation, the evolutionist belief of atheists, among others.

Alexander Street Video (series)
A series of videos exploring some of the sacred places of various religions around the world.

Alexander Street Video: 4:00
A video describing Native American religion in the different culture areas.

ProQuest Video: 1:11:12
This is a film about Mama Irene, a remarkable 86-year-old woman Shaman (healer) from Peru who draws upon indigenous knowledge and traditions in danger of being lost forever. Yet her craft is based primarily on her own intuition: “Spirits have told me in my dreams how to proceed.” The documentary follows Mama Irene in her everyday life, highlighting her healing methods and passion to serve each patient who knocks on her door: from local women who travel hours or days by foot through the Andes, to a medical doctor from India seeking a cure for illness that Western medicine had failed to help.

ProQuest Video: 10:04
Today we're turning our sociological eye to another major social institution: religion. We'll use symbolic interactionism to help us understand the dichotomy of the Sacred vs. the Profane. We'll compare the perspectives of structural functionalists and conflict theorists on whether religion improves social cohesiveness or increases social stratification. We'll also explore how religious practice in the US differs across race and class lines.

ProQuest Video: 5:22
This film, with Professor Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics, explains an illustrates the two dominant sociological approaches to religion: substantive (or exclusive) and functional (or exclusive). A great introduction for students new to the topic.

Alexander Street Video (series)
A series of videos exploring various rituals from different cultures around the world.

ProQuest Video: 8:27
With contributions from leading experts on the study of religion, this film gives students a new take on secularisation theory. While secularisation theory assumes that in pre-modernity religion was everywhere whereas in modernity it’s almost nowhere, more recent research suggests that rather than disappearing, religion is undergoing a process of diversification, with the emergence of new and different forms of spirituality.

Alexander Street Video (series)
In this series of videos, Werner Weick and Adrea Andriotto undertake the colossal task of telling the story of the Apocalypse from the perspectives of the East and the West; they inquire about the past and the future, between memory and prophecy, about the struggle between light and darkness, and the great questions of contemporary mankind.

(AAR) The AAR is the largest scholarly society dedicated to the academic study of religion, with more than 8,000 members around the world. The AAR's mission is to foster excellence in the academic study of religion and enhance the public understanding of religion.

(Yale University) To read more about how each of the major world religions are addressing [the environmental crisis], select a tradition from the sidebar on the right.
Each listing includes an essay that provides an overview of that tradition's engagement with the environmental issue; official statements from religious leaders; engaged projects within that tradition doing hands-on work; and a bibliography for further reading.

(Interfaith Alliance) Interfaith Alliance was created in 1994 to celebrate religious freedom and to challenge the bigotry and hatred arising from religious and political extremism infiltrating American politics. Today, Interfaith Alliance has 185,000 members across the country made up of 75 faith traditions as well as those of no faith tradition.

(Library of Congress) Human beings have sought to connect with higher powers throughout history. Their contemplations on the divine forces evolved into belief systems with distinct doctrines and rites. These belief systems have undergone many transformations over millennia, evolving to suit times and circumstances. Animists, shamanists, polytheists, dualists, and monotheists have all meditated on the belief in a supreme force that shapes the course of events in the universe it created. Today, these forms of contemplation and meditation are commonly understood as Prayer.

(AP News) The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.

(Pew Research Center) Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

(PBS) Religious news/articles from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

(Harvard Divinity School) The resources in this section offer opportunities to study religion in specific contexts. Profiles of major religions offer foundational information about the tradition and its variations across time and place. Thematic case studies on these religions highlight key themes of climate change, gender, technology, violence and peace, and minority life in the United States. Profiles of select countries illustrate how religions have interacted with communities and governments over time. We also offer a glossary of key terms in the study of these religions.

(Princeton Theological Seminary) The Theological Commons is a digital library of over 150,000 resources on theology and religion. Developed in partnership with the Internet Archive, it contains books, journals, audio recordings, photographs, manuscripts, and other formats dating from 975 C.E. to the present.

(Vatican Library) The Vatican Library preserves over 180,000 manuscripts (including archival units), 1,600,000 printed books, about 9,000 incunabula, over 300,000 coins and medals, more than 150,000 prints, thousands of drawings and engravings and over 200,000 photographs.