Why we need to complicate things: The teaching and learning of religion beyond simplification

Much knowledge production, both academic and non-academic, is driven by a need to simplify the world in order to enable people to navigate the complexities of everyday life. Such simplifications not only risk offering less reliable representations of the world, they can also turn into disruptive and harmful images of the world. In this article, students and teachers in the field of religion and theology are encouraged to value scientific research as a form of knowledge production that complicates things. In an age in which scientific knowledge is constantly contested and in which it competes with other forms of knowledge production (including problematic ones such as fake news, conspiracy theories, stereotyped representations of religion and religious others, and poorly executed journalism), it is important for students to understand that complicating things is a key step in developing reliable knowledge on religion and the (ir)religious other. This article, written for students starting out in the field of theology and religion and for those who teach them, explains how complicating things takes shape in scientific research by discussing three basic elements: (1) not taking things at face value, (2) understanding science as knowledge production and reflecting on science as production, (3) and realizing that there is no absolute certainty.