Methods of Religious Studies

Similar to other scientific disciplines, Religious Studies has its own research methods. Below we briefly introduce the primary ones:

  1. Causal analysis or the method of causal analysis is a method displaying mutual relations among different processes and phenomena of religion. The method provides an opportunity to reveal the origin and development of religion through its various manifestations.
  2. Historical method seeks to reveal the origin and development of religion(s), to understand the contemporary state of religion as well as to analyze the previous experiments in the field. It has its sub-methods such as genetic and historical-comparative methods.
  3. Typological method sorts the research materials of religion based on their certain characteristics that provides an opportunity for drawing proper and necessary conclusions.
  4. Phenomenological method involves the study of spiritual experience of people, the research of spiritual significance of religion and the discovery of motives, ideas, religious and non-religious objectives.
  5. Hermeneutical method inherits the approaches of the Christian exegesis or Biblical interpretation tradition. Additionally, the tools of interpretation of the sacred texts and the objectified phenomena of religious culture are used in this method.

The team of “TheoLab” Center for Science and Analysis intends to develop the above-mentioned methods/approaches of Religious Studies and simultaneously seeks to adopt other methodological tools in order to create interdisciplinary platforms.

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