Religion and the arts

Abstract

Religious studies courses commonly focus on texts and the social sciences as do the student text books written for them. Few undertake any substantial study of the arts. I want to argue that these should be a primary focus. Viewed across history and around the globe, the vast majority of religious people have been illiterate, so why study the texts that were cut off from the direct religious practice of most religious people? Even in the literate West, children in schools commonly learn about their religion through drawing, painting, dance or school plays. So the first contact most contemporary westerners have with a religion is through its arts. In historical terms, arts were primary – Paleolithic cave paintings long predated any texts. The reason for this traditional approach is that scholars and students who are themselves very literate prioritize in their subject what they value in the own lives – reading, statistics etc. But those issues, I argue, are not what are prominent in the daily life of most religious practitioners.