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The Spread of Universal Religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam
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by Donald Johnson
World History Center, Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
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Buy This Teaching Unit ($8.00)
In this unit, students define the characteristics of universal religions and explore the spread of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam through elements of society and from one region to another. The unit addresses the era from the foundation of each religion to 1000 C.E., and addresses substantial portions of the Asian, African, and European continents. It emphasizes the changes in religious traditions as they spread to new regions and new social groups.
Lessons identify common characteristics of universal religions, trace their appeal to women, explore the process by which they gained recognition from political powers, show the modifications in religions as they spread from one region to another, and contrast the distinctive characteristics of the universal religions against their commonalities.
Student activities include class discussion of readings, group work in "jigsaw" format, comparing documents to identify religious principles, analysis of visual evidence, and identifying the religions that have produced selected texts.
Main Points of the Unit
Big Questions
Best Practices
Lesson Summary
Assessment Overview
AP World History Course Description Connections
Objectives
Materials
Big Questions
- What makes a faith attractive to various groups of people?
- How are religions modified and changed as they are lived out in real social life and how do they adapt to changing circumstances?
- How do religions change as they adapt to new cultural settings?
- How do messages of non-violence and compassion change when universal religions become state sponsored faiths?
- How do religions borrow from one another and integrate the new forms into their own faiths
Best Practices
Best Practices are teaching strategies that are interactive and involve high-level thinking skills (see AP World History Best Practices Guide, eds. P. Manning and D.S. Johnston). The appropriate Best Practices vary widely with teacher strengths, school environment, student population, and experience. But all student populations will benefit from experience with strategies showing that world history is much more than lectures and more than a survey of facts and dates. This unit, within its individual lessons, includes the following examples of Best Practice teaching strategies:
- Comparing primary and secondary documents
- Creating an interpretive matrix of social and religious change
- Reading images of Buddhist iconography
Lesson Summary
Lesson 1. What Are the Characteristics of Universal Religions?
Based on introductory readings, students discuss the general characteristics of three universal religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
Lesson 2. Appeal of Universal Religions: Examples of Women
Student groups discuss documents on women's activity in Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; in a "jigsaw" activity, a second set of groups compare the appeal of these three religions for women.
Lesson 3. Political Powers Accept the Universal Religions
Students read documents on the response of political powers to universal religion. Led by the teacher, the students fill in a matrix with brief descriptions for the three religions and of the stages of political adoption of the religions.
Lesson 4. How Universal Religions Changed as They Traveled
Students view and discuss images of three types of Buddhist iconography -- stupas, images of the Buddha, and cave sanctuaries -- and observe the changes in style and meaning as one moves from India through Central Asia to China, Korea, and Japan.
Lesson 5. Assessing Universal Religious Tradition
Students read an unlabeled document and write an essay identifying the religious tradition from which it comes.
Assessment Overview
In the course of the unit, students will be assessed in a variety of ways. Detailed assessments are contained within some of the lessons, and include a discussion session, creation of an interpretive matrix, and essay topics.
AP World History Course Description Connections
Themes
- Cultural and intellectual developments
- Change and continuity
- Social and gender structure
Habits of Mind
- Using documents and other primary documents
- Assess change and continuity
- Handle diverse interpretations
Content
AP World History Course Description Foundations, Major Developments, 4 - Key cultural and social systems; 5 - Principal international connections that had developed between 700 and 1000 B.C.E.; 6 - Diverse interpretations
Objectives
Content Objectives
- To gain an understanding of how universal religions build upon and adapt their own and other beliefs and practices
- To understand similarities and differences among the three religions
- To be able to apply the concepts of "social conversion," "syncretism," and "synthesis" to specific times and historical contexts
- To examine the differences between the prescribed values of a religion and its historically lived experiences
- To understand the changes that result in a religion when those with great power and economic influence support it
- To understand the attractions of a particular religion to various classes, ethnic groups, and genders
Skill Objectives
- See "Habits of Mind" listed above. These emphasize important skills for students to work on in this unit.
Materials
- Copies of at least one of the following: Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters, chapter 3;
"The Spread of Universal Religions," in Farmer, et al, A History of Asia; or Richard Bulliet, et al, The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History, pp. 242 to 246, 257 to 263.
- Handouts 1A, 2A to 2E, 3A to 3E, 4A to 4D (including images of stupas, images of the Buddha, and Buddhist cave sanctuaries), and Handout 5A.
General Editors: Patrick Manning and Deborah Smith Johnston; World History Center, Northeastern University
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