2024-2025 Undergraduate & Graduate Catalog
Religious Studies Minor
The REL program is part of the Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural Studies Department (IRIS), located in the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies. With a curriculum grounded in the liberal arts, the religious studies curriculum offers a broad spectrum of courses that foster an understanding of religious issues, encourage critical thinking and exploration of religion, and address religion in relation to broad historical, political, cultural, and philosophical themes.
Religion is arguably one of the most significant forces in human life. Whether you are pursuing a career in a professional field like business, nursing, allied health sciences, education, or engineering, or if you are thinking about pursuing graduate study in the humanities or social sciences, religious studies provides transferrable skills and deepens understanding of the human experience, culture, and traditions both past and present. Students who are already majoring in another field may choose to complement their studies and bolster their dossiers by pursuing a minor in religious studies.
Website: gvsu.edu/rel
Requirements for a Minor (19 credit hours)
Core Courses (10 credits)
Students must complete the following courses (nine credits):
- REL 100 - Religions of the World (3 credits)
- REL 200 - Understanding Religions in Human Experience (3 credits)
- REL 300 - Religions in the World Today: Theories, Methods, and Issues (3 credits)
- REL 482 - Integrative Statement (1 credit)
Elective Course Options (9 credits)
- AHS 352 - Introduction to Holistic Health Care (3 credits)
- ANT 315 - Comparative Religions (3 credits)
- ANT 421 - Anthropology of Social Movements (3 credits)
- CJ 405 - Terrorism (3 credits)
- CLA 315 - Ancient Religion (3 credits)
- ENG 386 - Literary Responses to Death and Dying (3 credits)
- HRT 335 - Theory of Human Rights (3 credits)
- HST 311 - History of Religion in the United States (3 credits)
- HST 337 - The Age of Islamic Empire (3 credits)
- HST 342 - History of Buddhism and East Asian Religions (3 credits)
- HST 376 - History of Witch Hunts (3 credits)
- HTM 368 - Geotourism (3 credits)
- INT 314 - Life Journeys (3 credits)
- INT 330 - The Idea of Nature (3 credits)
- INT 400 - Global Visionary Leadership (3 credits)/INT 401 - American Visionary Leadership (3 credits)
- IDS 350 - Building Bridges Through Conversation (3 credits)
- MES 350 - Islam: Scripture and Ritual (3 credits)
- PNH 360 - Voluntarism and the Nonprofit Sector (3 credits)
- PHI 312 - Divine Revelation meets Greek Rationality: Medieval Philosophy (3 credits)
- PHI 341 - Philosophy of Death and Dying (3 credits)
- PHI 343 - God, Faith, and Reason: Philosophy of Religion (3 credits)
- PHI 400 - Wisdom of the East: Advanced Topics in Asian Philosophy (3 credits)
- PLS 330 - Religion and Politics in America (3 credits)
- REL 305 - Christianity: Scriptures and Tradition (3 credits)
- REL 306 - Hinduism and South Asian Religions (3 credits)
- REL 310 - Jewish Scriptures and Traditions (3 credits)
- REL 335 - Sacred Words, Global Understanding (3 credits)
- REL 340 - Religion and Popular Culture in the United States (3 credits)
- REL 380 - Special Topics in Religious Studies (1 to 9 credits)
- REL 399 - Independent Readings in Religious Studies (1 to 4 credits)
- REL 499 - Independent Research in Religious Studies (1 to 4 credits)
Students can also use courses in the Alliance and Conflict sequence from the Meijer Honors College (which includes HNR 151, HNR 152, HNR 153, and HNR 154) or one of the following upper-division honors courses to meet the elective requirement within the REL minor. Those upper-division courses include:
- HNR 350 - Textual Tease (3 credits)
- HNR 350 - Prophetic Critique in the Modern World (3 credits)
- HNR 350 - The Terror of Monotheism (3 credits)