Why Religious Literacy Requires Emotional Literacy

Abstract

The experience of faith in its affective and aesthetic brilliance and profundity captures and moves people to care and serve. Religious literacy must go beyond the knowledge collected in books and must discover why people love and treasure their faith. It not only involves beliefs and acts of piety, but also how one is transformed in one's heart, mind, and body. We use the embodied choice theory of religion to explain that humans combine emotion and choice in their religious lives. We combine this with Randall Collins' work on interaction ritual chains to describe how emotional interactive ritual chains tie humans to each other and to God.

Keywords:

• religious affectivity
• holy
• visceral
• aesthetic
• emotion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James K. Wellman

James K. Wellman, Jr. is Professor and Chair of the Comparative Religion program and founder of the Global Christian Studies program at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. His books include Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence Across Time and Tradition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), Religion and Human Security: A Global Perspective (Oxford, 2012), Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford, 2008), Rob Bell and the New American Christianity, (Abingdon, 2012), and, High on God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of America (Oxford, 2020).

Mitu Choksi

Mitu Choksi completed her M.T.S. at Harvard Divinity School and an M.A. at Brown University. Her research interests lie in ancient Near Eastern religions and the phenomenology of religion. She is currently working with the Comparative Religion Department at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington.