These resources outline the fluidity of religious identity. In Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture ‘Creed’ explains religious identity has multiple aspects, including a sense of belonging to a community and a culture, especially people of diaspora background. Individuals can be part of the religion without believing in God or the scriptures, in other words not following the belief correctly but practising the actions correctly. I was brought up in a Pakistani Muslim tradition and I identify as a Muslim heritage. Kwame explains traditions and cultures are not static, we are changing and adapting them, and today we are making new traditions.
“Every religion has three dimensions: there’s what you do—call that practice. There’s who you do it with—call that community or fellowship. And, yes, there’s a body of beliefs. The trouble is that we tend to emphasize the details of belief over the shared practices and the communities that buttress religious life”. (Appiah, Creed Lecture).
My personal experience is as a Muslim brought up in British (Western) education institutions. I have been taught faith is culture and culture is faith, I do not share this view, I am comfortable creating culture which goes beyond the parameters of religion. I found Appiah’s explanation about the relationship between state and religion interesting, the close intersection of Church and public life in Britain. And a divide between private and public life in France.
In my professional practice where I teach Fine Art students, students often make autobiographical work, exploring their identity in art making. Each year some students centre their work around religion, sometimes celebratory and often traumatic experiences. As teachers, it is useful for us to know about different religions so we can critically support the work and provide meaningful feedback. The example in The Little Book of Big Case Studies’ on Faith by SoN is a good one, “Aalimah believes the presentation was not facilitated well by the tutor as a result she felt under attack by a minority of classmates. Who were posing all sorts of difficult questions that Aalimah felt she was not able to answer”. This scenario was clearly not a supportive or in a safe environment.
I found the paper Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain interesting and insightful. “It would be helpful for academics across many fields and other crucial staff such as counsellors and librarians and managers of residences and administrators supporting courses to have better knowledge of religion in Britain (and in the world) today”. We would support and engage our students better and build trust.
Reading
Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education’. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Available at:
http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf (Accessed: 1 March 2022)
‘Creed’ (2016) Kwame Anthony Appiah Reith Lecture, BBC, Radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 1 March 2022)
Shades of Noir (2017) ‘The Little Book of Big Case Studies’ on Faith
Shades of Noir (2023) ‘Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief’. Available at https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people (Accessed: 26 May 2023)
BBC News. (2017). How a Muslim’s suitcase became art. [online] Available
at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-41391091/how-abirmingham-
muslim-s-suitcase-became-art [Accessed 16 Oct. 2017]
Asuf, thanks for this thoughtful post. I too have encountered moments within the last year where students from different faiths (one Christian, one Muslim) approached me with feeling uncomfortable by the way religious issues were being handled on the course, sometimes by the tutor and sometimes by fellow students. As a tutor I’ve been thinking a lot this year about what kind of conversations to put in place before conflicts arise, to lay the ground work in advance so that constructive dialogue can take place when often emotionally heightened situations arise.
Thanks Asuf for your interesting post. I feel similarly that it’s ok for culture to fall outside the parameters of religion, but maybe that’s because I was brought up without a religion so to deny the cultural aspects of various religions would be to cut a great chunk out of my life. I think it’s tricky to deal with religious disagreement in class, but a lot of my experience of this is with teenagers, many (but not all) of whom had had limited access to education. Many had also been brought up in countries where religious freedom was not a given. As a result, and also due to some language barriers, these were often quite fraught conversations. When I sought out support and training to help with this, there was little available. I suspect this might be true in HE too, where I guess it’s down to the experience of the individual tutor which determines how safe the environment is. I think Andrew’s suggestion about considering and having these conversations in advance of issues arising is a good one.