Overview   

Religious Studies focuses on forms of religious life and religious expression, even as it asks what religion is and explores the history of thinking about what is included in the category of religion. Religious Studies investigates basic issues about human experience, surveying and analyzing how people have understood, shaped, and expressed what it means to be human. Religious Studies challenges students' abilities to understand and interpret texts and practices from a variety of cultural sources and historical settings. 

Religious Studies focuses on religion as a powerful influence in human life and history, shaping global cultures, national identities, and the values of societies and individuals. Religious Studies majors explore the roles religion plays in societies, the ways that religious institutions grow and change, the meanings of scriptures from around the world, the extraordinary experiences of religious specialists, and much more.