Applying James Leland Cox’s Methodology of Phenomenology to Study Selected Rituals in the United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe

James Leland Cox is credited for developing and promoting the phenomenology of religion as a methodology or approach to the study of religion in Zimbabwe. A number of Cox’s students in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa as a whole appreciated his efforts and have conducted research claiming to use Cox’s phenomenology as their chosen methodology to gather and analyse data from fieldwork. However, in a number of these pieces of research it has been very difficult to isolate and indeed clearly apply specific phenomenological guidelines for conducting human science research involving fieldwork. As a result, some critics of phenomenology as a methodology, have cast some doubt on, inter alia, its applicability to the study of religious phenomena. This study sought to assess the extent to which Cox’s methodology of phenomenology can be applicable to the study of selected rituals in the United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe. The study found out that the methodology of phenomenology has a long and complicated historical origin and therefore, when applying it there is need to specify the preferred type of phenomenology intended for use in the study of religious phenomena. This study applied an amplified form of Cox’s methodology of phenomenology called historical-typological phenomenology on selected United Methodist Church rituals. The study concluded that this methodology is quite applicable and does yield trustworthy results in the study of religious phenomena.