The World religions paradigm time for a change

Abstract

The teaching of religions has long relied on the World Religions paradigm to guide curricula throughout education, which has led to a widening gap, on the one hand, between what is taught in schools and in universities and, on the other, between research and teaching. While the World Religions paradigm has allowed the inclusion of non-Christian religions in education, it has also remodelled them according to liberal Western Christian values, influencing the conception of 'religion' beyond educational contexts. This article argues that it is time to discard the World Religions paradigm altogether in favour of a more critical approach to the study of religion, as a constructed category, as well as a study of religions in their contexts. © THE AUTHOR(S) 2011.