The Politics of Religious Studies: The Continuing Conflict with Theology in the Academy

Donald Wiebe

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. xx + 332 p.

This book most effectively represents Don Wiebe's perspective on the academic study of

religion. It is a judiciously-chosen collection of some of his published and soon-to-be-published

articles written between 1984 and 1998. A few are known only to those of us who have closely

followed his work over the years; others, like "The Failure of Nerve in the Academic Study of

Religion" (SR 13 [1984]: 401-22), are classics. The articles have all been revised with respectto

style, increasing their clarity and accessibility. The argument has not changed. Wiebe, Dean of

the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity College in Toronto, distinguishes what he considers to be the

scientific, disinterested study of religion from any kind of confessional or religious orientation,

grounds that distinction in the late nineteenth-century origins of the discipline, and insists on the

need to cleanseReligious Studies of "theology." In fact, the Preface encouragesuniversity

authorities and funding agenciesto penalize Religious Studies departments that legitimate any

form of religious ideology. We have here the clearest modem expression of the "Theology vs.

Religious Studies" debate that dominated the early years of the discipline in North America.

Parts of The Politics of Religious Studies at least should be required reading in all of our Method

and Theory courses.

The articles are grouped in four parts. The first three articles (pp. 3-50) addressthe

emergenceof the academic study of religion in the late nineteenth century: "Explaining Religion:

The Intellectual Ethos"; "Religion and the Scientific Impulse in the Nineteenth Century:

Page 1 of 3
U Friedrich Max Muller and the Birth of the Science of Religion"; "Toward the Founding of a

Science of Religion: The Contribution of C. P. Tiele." The next six (53-170) explore the

perceived failure of the successorsto live up to the scientific ideals of Muller and Tiele: "A 'New

Era of Promise' for Religious Studies?"; "Theology and the Academic Study of Religion in

Protestant America"; "Promise and Disappointment: Recent Developments in the Academic

Study of Religion in the United States"; "Religious Studies as a Saving Grace? From

Goodenough to South Africa"; "The Failure of Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion"; "The

'Academic Naturalization' of Religious Studies: Intent or Pretense?" Six more articles (173-275)

add case studies to the discussion: "Phenomenology of Religion as Religio-Cultural Quest:

Gerardus van der Leeuw and the Subversion of the Scientific Study of Religion"; "On the Value

of the World's Parliament of Religions for the Study of Religion"; "The Study of Religion: On

C the New Encyclopedia of Religion"; "Alive, But JustBarely: Graduate Studies in Religion at the

University of Toronto"; "Against Science in the Academic Study of Religion: On the Emergence

and Development of the AAR"; "A Religious Agenda Continued: A Review of the Presidential

Addresses of the AAR." The last article (279-95) servesas an Epilogue: "Appropriating

Religion: Understanding Religion as an Object of Science."

~ Wiebe's approach is reminiscent of reformers who believe that Christianity has never

remained true to its source. In this case, Muller and Tiele replace Jesusas representativesof the

golden age. Their insistence on studying religion scientifically is what generatedthe discipline,

Wiebe argues, adding that their insight was immediately subverted by scholars intent on

legitimating religion rather than describing and explaining it. The result has been an academic

discipline that has claimed to conduct researchobjectively, but in fact has been "infected" all

Page 2 of 3
I !
t ( along by a religio-theological paradigm that also happensto run counter to the goals of publicly-,
~
\
'~/ , )

:~ funded universities in North America. Religious Studies, he insists, must recover its original,;
(

purity, and scholars must remain vigilant becausestrong forces are at work to keep theology

within the discipline -particularly the American Academy of Religion, which he portrays as

gaining dominance over more scientifically-rigorous groups such as the International Association

for the History of Religions and the North American Association for the Study of Religion.

Wiebe's rhetoric is philosophical in form, but zealously prophetic in spirit. He looks for

inspiration to a reconstructed past rather than an actual present (e.g., the scientific paradigm to

which Wiebe aspires is an imagined, amorphous ideal that shows almost no concern with the way

science is practised today), he has little patience for much of what has been considered

"Religious Studies" (e.g., few twentieth-century scholars in this book are absent from his "sic"

list) or for pedagogical and other practical matters that are currently transforming the discipline

(e.g., the polymethodism of programs of Religious Studies that he decries has, for others, become

a positive challenge), and he is uncompromising in his belief that his position is salvific, and that

it is unerringly, absolutely correct. This book is certain to inflame, infuriate and inform. Let us

hope that it will enrich discussions in university departmentsand faculties set to undergo

significant staffing and structural changes over the next decade.

Michel Desjardins

Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University

[to appear in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses]

Page 3 of 3