A New Beginning

After four exceedingly enjoyable and enlightening years pursuing my bachelors degree at Redeemer, I am now setting out into new territory again. I have recently begun what should be a two-year stint in the Religious Studies Department at McMaster University, after which I will hopefully have my Masters degree. My major is early Christianity, and I will be focusing on patristics with Dr. Peter Widdicombe as my advisor. This will certainly be a challenging two years, both intellectually and spiritually (and physically, actually: McMaster is not the easiest place to get around in a wheelchair), but one can only grow if one is challenged. So, good times ahead...


One of my first assigned readings, an article on the scholarly debate concerning the connection between religion and violence, raised an interesting foundational question for me as I begin my time as a student of religious studies. What, exactly, is a religion? Not an easy problem to solve. If religion is defined in terms of theism, worship of some sort of deity, what about atheistic forms of Buddhism and Hindu? If religion is defined in terms of that which gives meaning to life and history, in terms of a commitment to something greater than oneself, then do Nazism, Marxism and sports fanaticism qualify as religions? Beats me.