I've built up several cheesy but memorable “mottos” for the academic study of religion, to use in teaching. The focus today is “this class is not a paint-by-number kit, but a workshop for critical thought.”
The goal is to break students out of a assumption that they can simply memorize names/dates--whether for a noble goal of understanding religion or a lesser one of passing my class-- as opposed to thinking actively and critically and actively about many kinds of religion, each of them moving target involving dynamic internal debates and changes.
This soon leads toward another motto: religion is "R.E.A.L.L.Y B.A.D," short for "religion exists as a language letting you begin a debate." That is, it has no cut and dried meaning to memorize in the first place. Rather we need to grasp the dynamics of its debates--including power dynamics--often leading toward places where people in my classroom have dogs in the fights. That's true even if they are outsiders looking in, worried about how the internal debates come out.
Here I am laying groundwork-- dramatizing what is at stake in the many ways to sort out kinds of religion, and how we need to juggle more than one comparative/analytical frame do this. Later this leads toward the more concrete "sorting" or "mapping" that I discuss here.
I wrote up a short and sweet description of the classroom schtick I use to introduce this motto-- and more importantly to frame my larger course. Teaching Theology and Religion published it in this open access form if you simply want to read.
More entertaining, perhaps--with useful illustrations-- would be to click below for a video version I've just I recorded for a class that I’m moving online.
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