Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • D Wiebe - The Politics of Religious Studies

    Uploaded by

    Gustavo Martins
    46 views90 pages
    The Politics of Religious Studies

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    The Politics of Religious Studies

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    46 views90 pages

    D Wiebe - The Politics of Religious Studies

    Uploaded by

    Gustavo Martins
    The Politics of Religious Studies

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 90
    The Politics of Religious Studies The Continuing Conflict with Theology in the Academy Donald Wiebe palgrave Copyright © Donald Wiebe, 1999. Alright seserved. No part of this ook may be used or reproduced in ay ‘manner whatoeer without witen permission exept inthe cate of brief ‘quotations embodied in cital ails of reviews int published in hardcover in 1999 by St Maris Press Fiat PALGRAVE™ edition: December 2000 175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, N'Y. 10010 and Houndmills Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS (Companies and representatives thoughout the word PALGRAVE" the new global publshingimprin of Se. Martins Press LLC Scholly and Reference Divison and Palgrave Publisher Led (formedy Macmillan Pes Ld). ISBN: 978-0-312-23888-9 ISBN: 0-312-23888-6 Library on Congress Cataloging in-Pubicaton Data Wiebe, Donald, 1943- “The pois of teligious sue: the continuing confi with, ‘heology in the academy ! by Donald Wiebe Poem ‘These ey were fre published a journal ails and appeared as contribution ofeach and conferences proceedings Includes bibliographical references and index 1. Religion—Seudy reaching. I. Tie BLAL.WAT 1998, 200'71—eat 9841099 cr lnceral design and sypesering by Leta Libre Fins dion: December 2000 w9e7654321 ‘Transferred to Digital Printing 2010 For Luther H. Martin and E. Thomas Lawson | Contents Price x Acknowledgments vic | Part 1 | From Theology to Religious Studies: | On the Emergence of a New Science | 1. Explaining Religion: The Incllectual Ethos 3 | 2, Religion and the Scientific Impulse in the Nineteenth Century: Friedrich Max Maller and the Birch of the Science of Religion ? | 3. Toward the Founding of a Science of Religion: | ‘The Contribution of C. P.Tiele 31 Pare Il A Return to Theology: On the Resistance to Scientific Method 4, A“New Era of Promise” for Religious Studies? 33 5. Theology and the Academic Study of Religion in Protestant America 6 6. Promise and Disappointment: Recent Developments in the ‘Academic Study of Religion in the United States 1 7. Religious Studies as a Saving Grace? From Goodenough 10 South Africa 123 8, ‘The Failure of Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion Mi ‘The “Academie Naturalization” of Religious Studs: Intent of Preense? 163 Pare IIL Cate Seudies in the Failure of Nerve 10. Phenomenology of Religion as Reigio-Cultural Quest: GGerardus van der Lecuw and the Subversion of the Scientific Study of Religion 11. On the Value of the World’ Parliament of Religions for the Study of Religion 12, The Study of Religion: On the New Encyclopedia of Religion 13 Alive, But Just Barely: Graduate Studies in Religion at the University of Toronto 14, Against Science in the Academic Study of Religion: ‘On the Emergence and Development of the AAR 15. A Religious Agenda Continued: A Review of the Presidential Addresses of the AAR Part IV Epilogue 16. Appropriating Religion: Understanding Religion as an Object of Science References Index 173 191 197 205 235 255 279 297 322 Preface ticles or appeared as contributions to festschrifts and conference proceedings, they are intimately connected and share a common purpose. Each essay, in one sense of another, defends the academic study of religion as a discipline that is genuinely scientific. By “discipline” 1 mean a recognized subject publicly available to all students in the ield— in this instance, a particular kind of bchavior isolated from the whole of human activity—and by “scientific” { mean the attempt only to under- stand and explain that activity rather chan to be involved in it ‘The notion of such a study of religion—one free from religious and the- ological determination—emerged in the last quarter ofthe nineteenth cen- tury, and came to be established in departments of Religious Studies in a number of universities in Europe and North America although it has never fully transcended the tendency to participate in the reality described and ex- plained; that i, ie has not adapted itself fully co its new academic-scientific environment. Moreover, much recent and contemporary discussion of the role of such a discipline in the modern university curriculum and of its value to society is determined to rescue it from secularization. The essays in this volume, therefore, ae directed to critical analysis of one aspect or another of thac rescuc effort, from the revisionist histories of the establishment of the discipline of religious studies in the curriculum of the modern Western uni- versity co the atempts to reintegrate the academic study of religion with, if not subordinate it t0, a religio-theological agenda. Taken together, therefor, these essays constitute what I think is a much-needed book that advocates, recovery of the scientific agenda in the academic study of religion, on which basis it achieved cognitive egitimation. I say “much-needed” because with- cout some concerted response to these developments, the study of religion is likely to be reappropriated by religious forces, becoming the avenue through which a religious agenda willbe re-established in the university curriculum, “The title I have provided for this collection points to the complex argu- iment presented inthe essays: that academic students of religion must eschew politco-ideological interference of any kind, even though the field of rel gious studies as a whole possesses an inevitably political quality. In essence, A Ithough che essays collected here were first published as journal ar- x The Poitis of Religious Sodies this argument deplores the importation of cultural, political, racial, ethnic, ‘or other noncognitive criteria (especially religious criteria, as the subtitle of the volume clearly indicates) in the adjudication of research in Religious ‘Scudies or in the assessment of competence for teaching in the field. The lat- ter approach to the study of religion consticutes a betrayal ofthe discipline as an academic undertaking, because it undermines all hope of achieving 2 scientifically acceptable understanding of the religious phenomenon, open- ing the field to the articulation of whatever is valuable to the individual scholar involved or to the community he or she represents, even ifthe over- all resule is a set of contradictory propositions and unsubstantiated claims about religions and the natute of religion. ‘A recurrent cheme in these essays is the theological involvement in this discipline. (*Theology” in these essays refers not simply to a particular in- tellectual activity or discipline, but more generally it denotes any kind of confessional or religious orientation.) This religious involvement stems from the historic nature ofthe relationship of the study of religion to the religious and theological concerns of the society in which the enterprise frst ap- peared, as well as from similar concerns in modem Western societies in which the study of religion has been granted academic legitimation. And such involvement, I argue, is an unwarranted interference in that scientific undertaking and therefore fuels the conflce between religion and science ‘that has characterized the development and growth ofthe natural and social sciences in the West—hence the subtitle, “The Continuing Conflict with ‘Theology in the Academy.” This conflicts essentially political and ideolog- ical rather than scientific, for it involves the attempt to subordinate the com- ‘mitments of one insticution o those of another. Whether or not this conflic alone constitutes a ‘politics of religious studies” | admit might well be chal- lenged, for there isan obvious sense in which the founding ofthe science, including the “science of religion,” constitutes a political ac chat produces a “politics of science” in general and, more specifically a “politics of Religious Studies.” ‘Although I find this kind of argument persuasive on one level, i is not relevant to my primary concern about the unacceptable interference of politco-ideotogical concerns in the academic study of religions in the mod- xn university context. I mention it here, however, because scholars in this discipline often fil to distinguish a more general notion of what is political fom what might be called the politics of local concern—a narrower sense of the term that includes not only the notion of party politics but also that of ideological commitment. And in finding a rationale for a “politics of Reli- gious Seudies’ in the general sense of that phrase, itis often assumed that vir- ‘ually any kind of political engagement within the field is similarly justified. But that assumption is simply not credible. Price xi Ieis true that founders ae, generally speaking, political actors, because they create the framework within which a particular form of collective life is carried ‘out. On the other hand, the discourse about the framework is different from the discourse within the framework. That is I can agree with those scholars who find an analogy between the founders of political discourse and the founders of academic disciplines, for in both cases the founders dictate acceptable presup- positions, assumptions, and criteria fr their respective discourses In both cases institutions are ceated that require a certain kind of behavior, and it can be ar- sued that this very act of enforcement is itself political. This obviously applies as much to the founding ofthe science of religion (that is, che scientific study of religion) asi does to the founding ofthe other socialsciences. But this kind of politcal activity is stil afar cry from the politico-ideologcal interference in academic matters to which I refer above. The discourse that establishes a science is nota scientific discourse, but chat does not imply that ic must be politcal in the narrow sense ofthe words isa discourse about methods forthe attainment ofa particular kind of conversation rather than a substantive discourse on be- half ofa particular se of values. Such a discourse does no, either explicily ot impli, sanction the promulgation of a culeually specific worldview or ide- logy. And the suggestion that founding a scence is itself a politico-ideological activity, itis obvious, involves a confusion of the ewo notions of political and is as litle persuasive asthe claim that formal logic is political because it too is based on ideological commitments. The argument is not an impossible one, as Peccr Munz as pointed out, bu itis not compelling: the German Marsst philosopher Ernst Bloch even described formal logic as an ideology when he old his students (I was an eye-witness) that che sllo- ‘ism was an instrument devised by conservatives in chat i limited inference to bringing out in the conclusion what was implici inthe premises. Logic, he taught, was an ideology to preven the discovery ofthe new in general and of revolutions in particular, Deductve reasoning, he explained, war not eternally valid: bt only propagandized co be valid ina society dominated by conserva- tives who enjoyed its benefits at che expense ofthe lower orders and wanted to prevent change—for any change would be to their disadvancage. (1988: 333) ‘What needs bearing in mind here, however, is that the politics of the founding of the sciences implies the political act of consciously attempting to exclude al values from scientific deliberation except the value called “ob- jective knowledge.” The sciences, that is, espouse a search for objective knowledge of the world and involve a conscious attempt to avoid (o at east, minimize) idiosyncrasy and bias in that search. Their founding is an act of, politics in both wide and narrow senses of that term. [tis important, more- over, that the modern Western university has developed as an institution dedicated to reflect apolitical rather than politcal research, This holds even sii The Politic of Religious Srudier forthe study of politics itself within the context of the modern university, which provides us with an excellent analogy for Religious Studies. In The Nature and Limits of Political Science Maurice Cowling points to the prob- Jem in a noteworthy manner: Profesots of Political Science who want to engage in political practice (by standing for Parliament, writing in newspapers, advising governments ot join- ing the City Council) ae free to do so, But they ate, s0 far as they do th abandoning theie academic function for a practical political one. To do so may, if chey are lucky, help them to illuminate the academic subject-mattet, Bu the only rational action to which scholars are commited, the only moral action to which they are commanded and the only “social responsibilty” ro which their profesional postion compels them, isco use thei energies in ‘order to explain in its fll diversity as much as they can ofthe nature of the world in which they live. (1963: 209-210) “To fil or refuse o demarcate the study of political behavior from politi- cal behavior itself, therefore, is to preclude all possibilty of a “politcal sci- ence.” Moreover, it makes all so-alled political science simply another form of political behavior and makes of the university a party in the system of party politics of which ic presumes to provide us some objective knowledge. Jn such a cas, ic seems to me, those within the university would be lefe with one option: to defend their form of polities from imperialistic takeover by the politics of their various critics. There is no doubt that explaining aspects, of the world isa form of action and is therefore comparable in some broad sense of the word to forms of political action, but it has, as Cowling puts it, its “own conventions, rules, and insticutions” (210). Thus Cowling writs: itis desirable to rid university faculties of the pretension to be schools of political practice, not because of the confusions this induces in the con- duct of politics, bur because of the damage it does to universities themselves” (120). 1 maincain a similar confusion exists between religion and the study of religion. And i is equally damaging to the university because it involves the subordination of the academy to the church. Talk of a “hostile takeover” of the university in this way may be considered hyperbolic by many, but it is nonetheless appropriate, as can be inferred from recent remarks by ‘William Dean in his The Religious Critic in American Culture, Dean advises “public intellectuals” who currently work in the university—which includes the religious criti, whose primary concern is forthe well-being of religion— “to adopt some third sector organization as their psychological home” (160) because the university context will make it “virually impossible... , with its ideology of professionalism,” to continue with the work of “conve criticism and convention-making” (xi). Despite tis advice, however, he ex- poses the quandary: “[iJf voluntary organizations of the third sector do not Prfice xii offer the best venue and vehicle forthe religious critic, and they may not, then what does? Should more hope be placed in the prospect of a deprofes- sionalzed university? Should greater energy be lodged, afer all, in reform ing che university, in the effort to make it 2 viable psychological home and vehicle for the religious criti?” (172) Just how serious the damage can be, if ‘one opens the university to this kind of activity is evident to some extent in James R. Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld’s The Nazification of an Academic Dis cipline: Folklore in the Third Reich, in which they show how the connection between German Volkrkunde and National Socialism so politicized the dis- cipline that it in effect abandoned the path of scholarship and science. [My argumene in the essays presented here is ifthe academic study of re- ligion wishes to be taken seriously as a contributor to knowledge about our world, it will have to concede the boundaries set by the ideal of scientific knowledge that characterizes the university. It will have to recognize the lim- its of explanation and theory and be content to explain the subject-matter— and nothing more—rather than show itself a form of politcal or religious behavior (or an injunction to such action). A study of religion directed to- ward spiritual liberation of the individual or of the human race as a whole, toward the moral welfare of the human race, or toward any ulterior end than that of knowledge itself, should not find a home in the university; for if al lowed in, its sectarian concerns will only contaminate the quest for a scien tific knowledge of religions and eventually undermine the very institution from which it originally sought legitimation. To counter that the university's adoption of the ideal of seeking scientific knowledge of the world is itself a political and ideological stance similar to that found in the commitments ‘voiced by the worlds religious traditions is nota request for academic lgi mation but a political takeover. It is an attempt to replace the methodoloy ‘al founding of the academic study of religion with an ideological founding, and itis supported by arguments resting on the confused notion of what con- stitutes a political 2ct. The meaning of academic leitimation to those in Re- ligious Studies under these conditions is difficult to perceive, for it would in fact be indistinguishable from ideological or political leitimation; and with this ack of precision we se disappear as well te peculiar contributions of the modern Western university to our general understanding ofthe world around us and, specifically, to our understanding of religions and religion. Thus | am in full agreement with Cowling when, in drawing an analogy between polit- ical science and the study of religion, he insists that “those who propagate re- ligions have renounced the academic task of explaining everything and enjoining nothing” (1963: 161), and I have consequently set out to make the ‘ase fora clear demarcation, within the university context, between religion and the scientific study of religion. This is the essential burden of the essays ‘assembled in this volume. There is no argument here that scholars inthe Feld xiv The Politics of Religious Studies of religious studies ought not o engage in private religious practice, but only that they ought to recognize, as Cowling puts ie with respect to the study of politics, chat in doing so in a professional context they are abandoning their academic function for a religious one, and that there are institutions other than the university in which the latter function is appropriately cartied out. ‘The arguments ofthese essays attempt variously to show, recalling Cowling, thatthe only reasonable action to which scholars of religion, “as scholars, are ‘committed, the only moral action to which they are commanded and the only ‘social responsibility’ to which thei professional position compels them, is to use their energies in order to explain” (210) religion, “To asist the reader to se the various elements of the argument against the reintegration of religion and theology with the study of religion in the ‘modern university, I have divided the book into four parts Par I Focuses at- tention on the emergence of the study of religion as a science. Chapter 1, “Explaining Religion: The Intellectual Ethos,” is 2 response co Samuel Preuss Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud and provides a bref review of the history of the development of Western thought that made possible an ethas in which such a science could be formed. The ‘other two essays in this section, “Religion and the Scientific Impulse in the Nineteenth Century: Friedrich Max Miller and the Birth of the Science of Religion” and “Toward the Founding of a Science of Religion: The Contri- bution of C. B Tiel,” provide evidence of the commitments to scientific ob- jectivity on the part of the founders of the scientific study of religion. With such arguments as these to separate clearly the study of religion from reli- gious and theological concerns, I maintain, the new discipline achieved aca- demic legitimation as a scientific undertaking, “The essays in pare II document a failure on the part ofthe successors to the founders of the new science to adhere to the principles upon which it had been founded. In chapter 4. “A ‘New Era of Promise’ for Religious Stud- ies,” [look critically at proposals by Ninian Smart for a study of religion that can be scientific without being insensitive to religion, and I point ro the development of a tactic which will ultimately draw the study back into a teligio-theological frame. Chapter 5, “Theology and the Academic Study of Religion in Protestant America,” provides a brief historical overview of the development ofthe study of region in country from which, given the for- ‘mal constitutional separation of Church and State, one might have expected less theological interference than has in fact occurred. Chapter 6, “Promise and Disappointment: Recent Development in the Academic Study of Reli- gion in the United States,” more specifically focuses attention on that study since the Second World War. In chapter 7, “Religious Studies as a Saving Grace? From Goodenough to South Aftica.” I show how religion and poi iectly affect the field of Religious Studies—not in the sense ofthe pol- Prefice xv itics of founding the field, but rather in terms of religious and political agen- das that transcend the pursuit of knowledge. In chapter 8, “The Failure of Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion,” I offera survey of recent method- logical proposals inthe field of Religious Studies that provides a clear ini- cation that a large proportion of current students’ work in the field rejects the scientific basis upon which ic was established. These essays make it clear that not only is there failure to adhere to the founders’ agenda, but there isboth ltde evidence ofa clearly objective approach and a marked tendency toward rcintegrating the discipline with theology. In che final chapter of part II, “The ‘Academie Naturalization’ of Religious Studies,” I respond to criti- cism of the “Failure of Nerve" essay and provide argument for the reaffir- ‘mation of an academic-scientfic agenda for the study of religion. Pare III furnishes a series of illustrations to corroborate the claims made in part I: chat the academic study of religion has filed to carry out its original scientific agenda. Chapter 10 is of particular importance because of the widely held view that the phenomenology of religion is a science even though sympathetic to religion. In “Phenomenology of Religion as Religio-Culeural Quest: Gerardus van der Leeuw and the Subversion of the Scientific Study of Religion,” I show that the most widely accepted version of the phenomenology of religion is not a genuinely scientific undertaking in chat it deliberately subordinates science to a religious agenda. In chap- ter 11, “On the Value of the World’s Parliament of Religions for the Study of Religion,” it becomes clear how problematic for academic-scientific study is the confessional concern for religions and interfaith dialogue, given the mixed motives propelling these exercises. In chapter 12, “The Study of Religion: On the New Encyclopedia of Religion,” I attempt to show that even in such a broad scholarly undertaking as the creation of an encyclopedia, we have a clear indication of an agenda that cannot help but undermine the scientific credibility of the entre exercise. This must not be understood asa claim chat nothing of scientific value is to be found in the Encyclopedia, but rather that che framework within which the ask was ex ‘cuted essentially promoted the attempt to “understand” religion rather than to explain it. The las chree essays in part III concern specific institu- tions. In chapter 13, “Alive, But Just Barely: Graduate Studies in Religion at the University of Toronto,” I examine closely how within the develop- rent of a major Canadian institution the study of religion has been dom- inated y eligous and theolgia agendas and in chapter 14, “Against Science in the Academic Study of Religion: On the Emergence and De- velopment of the American Academy of Religion,” and chapter 15, A Re- ligious Agenda Continued: A Review of the Presidential Addresses of the ‘AAR," I show that the world’s largest professional organization for stu- dents of religion is also heavily dominated by eligio-theological rather Studies avi The Polite of Relig than scientific concerns. The epilogue, “Appropriating Religion: Under- standing Religion as an Object of Science,” summarizes the expectations ‘of those who hope to make the field of Religious Studies a respected aca- demic, scientific enterprise. “To repeat, in these essays I artempr to recover for the university a study of religion governed by principles of scientific investigation and I decry the current governance of such study by religious goals. I am aware that in this axcempt I might well be accused of following a political agenda. But if s0, the agenda does not activate concerns foreign to the university's aims and in- tentions. Ic is a “political” ace in that it is an attempt to re-establish or re- found the discipline as ic first emerged in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and in terms of which it frst received legitimation as a university discipline. Ie is also politcal in the narrower sense—but not in a way that distort che scientific agenda of che study of religion. I hope, that i, that the arguments here will persuade various university authorities to scrutinize ‘more carefully cher lgitimation of departments of Religious Studies as well, as encourage national funding agencies to examine more closely the profes- sional societies and associations they support, in order to be sure that they ate not unwittingly legitimating one or another religious ideology. Once again, this ea political act that does nor introduce an the politics of founding a discipline inconsistent with the search for scien- tific knowledge of the world (which is the aim of founding the discipline in the first place); cherefore it does not implicate me in the very offense against which I have taken up cudgels here. My hope is that, when the arguments ‘contained in these essays become more widely availabe for discussion in the academic community at large, sufficient pressure will be exerted both from ‘within the field and from the other sciences concerned with the study of cul- tures and societies so a5 to require of Religious Studies tha it show grounds for legitimation as a part of the curriculum of the modern university. ‘What distinguishes this collection of essays from their status as individual picces is, first of all, the added effect to be gained by a concerted, repeated stress on the need fora disinterested approach to the discipline; and second— and more important—that they serve a5 a response to the unspoken argu- ‘ment that, despite the articles having received some attention in the academic ‘community through the decade from 1986 to 1997), there has been, as yet, litle responsible reaction from the university o the scholarly—let alone fi- nancial—implications of the problem enunciated. In fact, in the United States as well a in Canada, there has been an aggravation of confessionalism outlined in these studies, despite an avowed shortage, and consequently more selective deployment of postsecondary academic funding in general There need to be tools at hand to faciltae the commandeering of argu- ‘ment and case study, illustrating the motivation behind Religious Studies on Profce wit this continent. Ie is my aim that these chapters, amply annotated and sup- plied with an unseen, detailed index of names and themes, will promote pointed discussion from which a more honest statement will have to emerge about the discipline. Although no substantive changes have been made to the essays repub- lished here, they have been thoroughly revised with respect to style, On ex amination of the arguments put forward in these essays—and of the evidence adduced in their support—I found chem to be as persuasive now as when they were frst published. The presentation of those arguments, however, left something to be desired with respect to clarity and precision— due, [Tike co chink, to the haste in which they were written because of the pressures of teaching and administrative duties. I wish to thank the editors and publishers ofthe various journals and books in which these essays first appeared for permission to reprint them here (see Acknowledgments), and to recognize my deep indebtedness to Martha Cunningham for her asi tance in ther revision (though holding her faultless for whatever infelicites and ambiguities that remain). 1 am, of course, also indebted to many col- leagues who have provided me with advice and criticism over the years in which these essays were produced; their asistance is gratefully acknowledged in the notes. Several colleagues, however, have been conversation partners over many years and have deeply affected my views on Religious Studies, and wish to chank chem here for that extended critical contribution co my thinking through the methodological problems of the field: Gary Lease, ‘Armin Geertz, Jeppe Sinding Jensen, Ivan Strenski, Michael Pye, Ninian Smart, Robert Segal, Abrahim Khan, Russell McCutcheon, Bruce Alton, Neil McMullin, and Peter Richardson. Naturally none of them isto be held responsible for the views presented, but more than one or two of them, I think, would acknowledge some complicity. Luther H. Martin and E. ‘Thomas Lawson require special mention here. They have been more than critical conversation partners; they have been joint advocates, if not comrades-in-arms, in a project to secure a scientific basis forthe study ofre~ ligion in the academy. Working with them to found the North American As- sociation for the Study of Religion (1985) and to have it subsequently affiliated with the International Association for the History of Religions (1990) added an important, constructive element to our cttical concerns about the religious entanglements of Religious Studies in our universities on this continent. I have therefore dedicated this book to them. Finally, I wish to thank Michael Flamini of St. Martins Press for many helpful conversa- tions over the years on a variety of matters related to the scientific study of religion; | am grateful to him for his advice and assistance on bringing this project to completion. Acknowledgments am most grateful tothe editors and publishers listed below for per- ‘mission to include them in this collection. T: essays presented here originally appeared in ealier publications I “Explaining Religion: The Intellectual Ethos.” Religion 19 (1989): 305-308. “Religion and the Scientific Impulse in the Nineteenth Century: Friedrich Max Miller and the Birth of the Science of Religion.” International Jour- nal for Comparative Religions \ (1995): 75-96. “Toward the Founding of a Science of Religion: The Contribution of CR Tiele,” in Arvind Sharma, ed, The Sum of Our Choices: Esays in Honor af Eric J. Sharpe (Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1996): 26-49. “A New Era of Promise for Religious Studies?” in Peter Masefield and Don: ald Wiebe, eds., Aypects of Religion: Essays in Honour of Ninian Smart (New York: Peter Lang Press, 1994): 93-112. “Theology and the Academie Study of Religion in Protestant America,” in Dick van der Mei ed, India and Beyond: Aspects of Literature, Meaning, Ritual and Thought, Esays in Honour of Frits Staal (Leiden: Kegan Paul International, 1997): 651-675, “Promise and Disappointment: Recent Developments in the Academic Smudy of Religion in the U.S.A.” 0 be published in a volume of papers, edited by J. Plorvoct, emerging from the conference on "Modern Society and the Study of Religion.” “Religious Studies as a Saving Grace? From Goodenough to South Africa,” in Luther Martin, ed, Religious Transformation and Soci-Political Change (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993): 411-438. “The ‘Academie Naturalization’ of Religious Studies: Intent or Pretence? Seudies in Religion 15 (1986): 197-203. ‘Phenomenology of Religion as Religio-Cultural Quest: Gerardus van der Leeuw and the Subversion of the Scientific Study of Religion,” in Hans G. Kippenberg and Brigitte Luchesi, eds, Rligionswissenschaft und Kul- surkritik, Beitrage zur Konferenz “The History of Religions and Critique of Culture in the Days of Gerardus van der Lecuw” (Marburg: Diagonal- verlag, 1990): 62-86, sx Acknowledgments On the Value of the World’ Parliament of Religions for the Study of Reli- gion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 7 (1995): 197-202. “The Study of Religion: On the New Encyclopedia of Religion.” Annalt of Scholarship 5 (1988): 260-268, “Alive, But Just Barely: Graduate Studies in Religion at the University of “Toronto.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 7 (1995): 357-387. “Agnse Science in the Academic Study of Religion: On the Emergence and Development of the American Academy of Religion,” in George Bond and Thomas Ryba, eds., The Comity and Grace of Method: Religious Stud- ies for Edmund Perry forthcoming, (Evanston: Northwestern University Press). “A Religious Agenda Continued: A Review of the Presidential Addresses of the AAR” Method and Theory in the Soudy of Religion 9 (1997): 353-375. “Appropriating Religion: Understanding Religion as an Object of Science,” to be published in a volume of papers emerging from the Donner Insti- tute conference on “Methodology of the Study of Religion” held at ‘Turku, Finland (1997). Part I From Theology to Religious Studies: On the Emergence of a New Science Chapter One Explaining Religion: The Intellectual Ethos Cally tligio-theological undertaking for the majority of those in- volved in the enterprise. It is and has always been predominantly informed, that is, by theological assumptions and religious commitments. But that approach to the study of region has not been without rivals. There cexiss, for example, a mode of inquiry concerned with finding explanations of all religious phenomena from within a naturalistic Framework alone. Such an approach treats religion as an element of culture like any other and does s0 by rejecting the assumption that in order to understand it is necessary to believe, n some sense or other, what the devoree believes. And it is the his- tory of the development of this naturalistic framework that Samuel Preus pursues in his Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud. Preus correctly points out that the new paradigm for studying religion emerged out of criticism of religion, and that its later development rested on the Enlightenment critique of religion. But, he maintains, an historical in- vestigation of early modern European theories of the origin of religion clearly reveals the development of a radically different research tradition. Making heuristic use of Thomas Kuhn's notion of paradigm as both “disci- plinary matrix” and “exemplar,” Preus identifies a series of minor revolutions in thought about religion over a period of three centuries, the cumulative f= fect of which, he claims, constitutes the naturalistic paradigm. The history of these minor revolutions he then divides into two periods, the earlier in- volving a gradually expanding criticism of religion and an increasing degree of detachment from religious presuppositions and commitments, and the later, involving an increasing awareness ofthe social nature of religion un- derscoring the curious state of affairs in which we experience both the social persistence and the intellectual obsolescence of religion. The watershed T: scholarly study of religion is now and has always been an essen- 4. The Politic of Religious Studies bbecween these ewo periods is represented by David Hume, his work placing the study of religion for the fist rime within the context ofa scientific study of humanity. In Preus’ view, therefore, Hume completes the “paradigm shife” introduced by Bodin, for in Hume we see the conscious substitution of a scientific for a theological framework for the study of religion. “With him,” writes Preus, “a line of criticism definitely ends and construction of a- ternative theory begins...” (84), In the case of Jean Bodin, claims Preus, we have the first extended debate ‘on the problem of the plurality of religions in the world. Bodin was a reli- gious person and worked within a normative framework, but in seeing reli- gion as problematic he was making an intellectual break from Christianity. Although he did not reject Revelation, he put reason above Revelation, chus undermining the generally accepted biblical model for the organization of reality as a whole. Herbert of Cherbury goes even further than Bodin in the rejection of Revelation: He adopts global perspective transcending confessional norms. Preus admits that Herbert has a theological agenda but claims the latter's concern to draw general conclusions about religion based on data from all the religions ofthe world constirured a disregard of the biblical framework. Bernard Fontenelle’ work leaves Deistic theology behind and expands on Herbert’s attempt to account forthe rise and fall of religious belief without appeal to supernatural causes of any kind. Indeed, according to Preus we see in Fontenelles search for psycho-historical cause of religious belief the be- ginnings of a developmental paradigm for studying religion. We have here, that is, “an evolutionary framework. as] a clear alternative to traditional theology, both of revelation and of the innatist,deistic rype" (54). Giambar- tista Vico develops Fontenelle’s approach. While not rejecting a Catholic worldview, he nevertheless presents a thoroughly naturalistic account of all human institutions including religion. By exempting Christianity from his analyses, Vico was able to thwart its authority and co give fre rein to crtical- historical reason. Hume, as I have already pointed out, completes the development of this stream of critical thought. By rejecting religious explanations of reli gion, Hume places the study of religion within the realm of human stud- ies; he makes humanity the object of study by extending the experimental method to human motivation and behavior. And his hypotheses in this re- gard, claims Preus, had a direct documentable impact on later students of religion in Britain, France, and Germany. No longer was the concern in this field focused on the problem of the legitimation of religion, but rather con its explanation. Thus, writes Preus, "Hume's thoroughgoing natural- jsm, his clear vision of religion as part ofa science of humankind, and his development of alternatives to all the contemporary theological explana- Explaining Religion 5 tions of religion together warrant the paradigmatic role he is accorded here. He in effect closes an era of criticism and opens the paths of Future research” (100) Although Hume, in annulling the necessity of accounting for religion in religious terms, brings to conclusion the paradigm shift in the study oF religion begun by Bodin, he does not provide a wholly adequate frame- work for that study. As Preus points out, for example, there is an obvious absence of attention to the social component of religion in Hume's recon- struction of its origin. Hume failed co consider both the possible connec- tion between human sociability and the origin of religion, and the fact that this connection contributed to the establishment and maintenance of a s0- cial order. In disposing of the last remaining religious explanations and le gitimations of religion, however, he made possible a concern with social dynamics of this kind. ‘Auguste Comte, Preus then proceeds to argue, moves well beyond Hume's concern with critique; for he recognizes that religion is an ideo: logical complex performing functions indispensable to society. Unlike Hume, cherefore, Comte is able to handle the above-mentioned phenom- enon of religion's persistence in the face of intellectual obsolescence. Comte, that is, appears able to explain religion without “explaining it away.” In terms of his theory of the evolution of human thought, Comte can relegate cheology to oblivion while still recognizing its Function as a tunifying element in society. If religion s explanation cannot hold its own in the modern world and does not provide knowledge about the world as ic once did, it can still function beneficially on a social level. Preus points out that there are «wo theories of religion implicit in Comte's work: one connected to his view of the evolution of the human mind involving a pro- gressive mastery of humanity over its destiny: and the other connected (0 anxieties created by social rises. These theories, Preus maintains, anti pate che distinction between early British anthropological theorists of reli gion and French sociologists E. B. Tylor’ evolutionary anthropology clearly follows the Hume-Comte line in eschewing all possiblity of supernacural explanations of religion and in approaching ch historical study of humanity as part and parce ofthe his- tory of nature in general. Like Comte, Tylor sought an explanation of human behavior, including religious behavior, in empirically based scientific generalizations ‘Whereas the line of approach to understanding religion traced from Hume through Tylor is intllectualistic and developmental—it sees the tse of religion in connection with the individual’ struggle to explain experience— another line of development, as Preus points out, is evident in the Vico- ‘Comte tradition. In the latter religion is explained by reference not to 6 The Politics of Religious Sudies individuals but rather to social necessity. hough religions cognitive import has been surpassed by scientific knowledge, its other functions may stil be usefully caried out. Religion is thus “true,” notin the literal sense of making correct (Scceprabe) claims about the world—physical or metaphysical—but rather in the sense that it continues to be socially necessary. Durkheim and Freud, for example, though accepting the Enlightenment critique of religion, «do not find i co account sufficiently for the persistence of religion. If religion were merely “a fabric of errors,” they maintain, there would be no reason for its persistence. Both recognize that religion, although illogical, is atthe same time independent of logic. And both, therefor, like Comte, offer theories to account for the emergence of religion and for its persistence in the face of ra- tional criticism. Their theories refer to forces “deeper than those recognized consciously by the ancient actors themselves, and deeper than the mere cu- riosity atsibuted to them by the British anthropologists” (197). For Preus, then, Durkheim and Freud bring to completion the natural tic paradigm for the academic study of religion originating ultimately wit Hume. That paradigm is complete “because their allegation that psychoso- cial causes are at the root of religious experience was subject to testing through scientific methods of observation and correction—a process that ‘continues still. Despite the fact that no final scientific ‘proof” of their theses, ‘ean be imagined (a problem shared by the most comprehensive paradigms in the natural sciences as well), the theories were supported by argument and ‘evidence of sufficiene power and coherence to support a new generation of specialized studies” (162). Preus, a this summary of his argument indicates, clearly identifies the ‘emergence and development of a new and coherent intellectual tradition for the study of religion that breaks away from the previous teligi-theological paradigm. Ic is not Preus’ intention 0 provide an account of the institu- tionalization of the academic study of religion in the curriculum of the mod- cen Western university; rather, and more importantly, he analyzes the intellectual ethos in which an argument for such development could be for- mulated. His is hardly a whiggish history of che development of Religious Studies, however, for Preus is well aware that even though the study of reli- gion was included in the modern university curriculum it never really en- tered fully into the academic study of culture in that context. Indeed, even today, Preus quite correctly notes, the study of religion within the university context is still caried on quite comfortably in a quasi-theological or meta- physical mode with most of ie still presuming that the origins or causes of religion lie beyond scientific investigation. And his account here of the ‘emergence of a naturalistic framework for the study of religion functions— and is intended to function—as a critique of tha theological framework. As Preus puts i, his history Explaining Religion 7 challenges the popular notion thatthe only proper approach to «eligions is “from inside’ and the implicit corollary that the only proper comprehensive caplanation of religions is that they are ‘manifestations of the sacred” or re- sponses to ‘ranscendence’ ic argues that a clear distintion beeween & natu ralistic approach with is own explanatory apparatus and religious approaches i necessary to achieve a coherent conception of what the study of religion is about; and, negatively, that such a distintion is needed in order ro carify the diflerence between the study of rligion in the framework of the humanities and human sciences and often hidden apologetic intentions that inform much contemporary writing and teaching about eligon. (xxi) ‘The “insider” approach in Religious Studies is not acceptable to the acad- emy, for it isolates that study from the assumptions and presuppositions of the social sciences concerned with human affairs. Preus notes in the introduction to his book thatthe abundance of litera- cure in recent years on how the study of religion ought to be conceived amounts to conclusive evidence of an identity crisis in the field. And he con- cludes quite correctly hat the religious framework for that study is far less likely to provide the unifying paradigm che field seeks chan isthe nacuralis- tic framework. Consequently, Preus terminates his study with a proposal ro adopt the later: “The naturalistic approach is at once more modest and more ambitious than the religious one: mote modese because ei content to investigate che causes, motivations, meanings, and impact of religious phenomena without pro ‘nouncing on thei cosmic significance for human destiny; ambitious, in that the scudy of religion strives to explain religion and to integrate its under- standing ino the othe elements of culture to which ic is related. (211) Chapter Two Religion and the Scientific Impulse in the Nineteenth Century: Friedrich Max Miiller and the Birth of the Science of Religion ‘cwill come as no surprise to most students of religion that there are se- fious differences of opinion within the field with respect to the nature of the enterprise. Nor should ie surprise anyone that such conflict has char- acterized the field virtually from the beginning of is acceptance into the cur- riculum of the modern Western university. The situation is so serious, Eric Sharpe has recently suggested in his “Religious Studies, he Humanities, and the History of Ideas,” that we might well tlk of a “criss of identity” in reli- gious studies: a crisis created by the pressure to draw a clear line of demar- cation beeween religion and the study of region (1988: 256). Nevertheless, Sharpe ventures thatthe situation may not realy be as serious as it seems. For iis possible chat much ofthe current malaise over the demarcation issue is simply due co the files having gone through a period of unplanned, er- ratic expansion during which litle or nothing was done to justify the enter- prise, either to ourselves or to the larger academic community. If scholars were coset the record straight concerning the context out of which Religious Scudies emerged as a new clement in the university curriculum, he suggests, the malaise could be largely dispelled. He writes: [Above all we have reflected far to ltde on our own history. For although in a sense each one of us has to create his or her own identity, the question of heredity isnot therefore withour importance. The present uneasy relationship between the various members of the Religious Studies family could be greadly illuminated if we were to look up—and ins that our graduate students look ‘up-—various family tees, The history of ideas, with or without the sociology ‘of knowledge, will not solve all our problems, but might prove to be 2 useful 10 The Poitis of Religions Studies iagnostic rool, and might even help to provide che outlines ofthe discipli- nary macrx we ae looking for. (1988: 256) In commenting on his own review of the field in his Comparative Reli- gions: A History, Sharpe remarks that in many ways his chronicle turned Finco a record of the tug-of-war berween Religion and the Humanities for the right to dictate the terms on which religion might be studied” (1988: 245). That tug-of-war is between, on the one hand, those who believe in the necessity of “acquiescence” to the Transcendent asa condition for em- barking on the scientific study of religions and, on the other hand, those who believe in “che necessity of not submitting to transcendental authority as a condition of getting off the ground in the first place” (1988: 249). Sharpe, therefore, is lefe with no doubs about the existence of a fundamen- tal contrast of principle among students of religion that can distinguish re- ligious studies from religion. As he puts it: *[Olver against the way of submission which is the way of Religion, Religious Studies seems to stand for the way of control, at east to the extent to which the investigator exer- cises discretion, observes, measures, makes choices, and organizes into pat- terns” (1988: 248). And the story of the development of Religious Studies within the academy, he insist, “is very much a record of attempts to set the study of religion free from [the] submission to transcendental authority” (1988: 248-249). Despite these claims, however, Sharpe goes on in the ‘essay to say that he has drawn this distinction between religion and Reli- gious Studies only “as a macter of principle” and that he is “far from being, convinced that it always works out in practice” (1988: 249), In part, he ‘means to draw attention to the fact, as he puts it, that “the (historical] record of Religious Studies is by no means as one-sidedly raionalistic s one might suppose” (1988: 250). Those who would assume that Religious Studies was ever de-theologized, he insists, would simply be wrong (1988: 251). And in support of this claim Sharpe draws the reader's attention to the work of a number of practitioners in the field, eatly and late, who have affirmed that the causes of “true religion” and “true science” are one and the same. He does not wholly deny, however, thatthe study of religion was sec- ularized historicized, and possibly even “de-transcendentalized,” as he puts it, but claims, and quiee rightly so, chat the study did not undergo a whole- sale revision in the process. Sharpe asserts that early students of religion were attempting to free the study of religions from the “ultimately author- itarian methods of religious confessionalism” in order to side with science “over against what was fet to be the dead hand of religious orthodoxy” (1988: 251). And with chi claim he is ultimately arguing that the impetus for the emergence of the scientific study of religion was a religious one: the scudy of religion was indistinguishable from religion because what that sc- Religion and ohe Scientific Impulie in the Nineteenth Century 1 cence did “was precisely what liberal religion was doing during the same period” (1988: 251; Sharpe’ emphasis). He writes: “(If we identify two of [liber- lism’) distinguishing features as an insistent moralism and a quest for human universal, coupled wich a belie in the infinite educability of the human race, chen perhaps we can begin co see how the line of Religion and the line of Religious Studies are (when viewed from this particular angle) not ewo lines, but one” (1988: 251). I think Sharpe’ assessment here essentially wrong and che argument given in support of it fundamentally misdirected. What particular practi- ‘ioners in the field ofthe study of religion did or did not think or do has no logical bearing upon what should constiute che appropriate relationship of that field, ether to other fields or disciplines within the academy, orto other institutions in sociery. Nori it the cas, as some might argue, that because the beginnings of the science of religion “are to be found among Chistian theologians or those who were strongly influenced by Christan faith and theology,” that those beginnings need furnish the pattern for further schol- arship; the scientific study of religion does not “owe a decisive and critical debe to Christianity and its theologians.”? Furthermore, even if motivations of the rligio-theologian and scientific student of religion converged with both ultimately seeking the justification of religion, itis not necessarily the case thae each would follow the same procedure in doing so. Nevertheless, I do think chat Sharpe's comments about the ambiguous delineation of the nacue ofthis field of study in the last quarter or so ofthe nineteenth century are essentially coreect; and I also think that a proper un- derstanding of the intention of the so-alled founders of the science can ‘make a significant contribution to our own attempts to outline “the disci- plinary matrix,” as Sharpe puts i, ofthe field of research in which we are en- gaged. Furthermore, a critical review of the contribution of F. Max Miller in this regard, I shall argue here. will undermine the conception of the dis- cipline that Sharpe presents in his article and elsewhere for adoption by today's seudents of religion (1987a: 257-269 and 1986: 294-319). Friedrich Max Milles, itis generally agreed, isthe founder of the modern scientific study of religion in the form in which it has achieved cognitive le- {timation in the modem Western university. A proper understanding of his achievements, therefore, should make a considerable contribution to u derstanding our “heredity” with respect to the identity question under de- bate. Although I do not chink Miller always expressed himself clearly on methodological isues, a careful reading reveals his proposed science of reli- gion to rest wholly upon a scientific rather than a religio-theological foun- dation, despite his being religiously committed.‘ I shall begin this analysis of his views by paying particular attention to his Introduction to the Science of 12 The Politi of Religious Seudies Religion since, with Sharpe (1986: xi and 35), I see this volume as “the foun- dation document of comparative religion [the science of religion] in the English-speaking world." Although Sharpe, in his Comparative Religion: A History refers to the Introduction to the Science of Religion—a series of four lectures delivered to the Royal Society in 1870—as the foundation docu- rent of Religious Studies, he does not provide a detailed analysis of that document. And in a brief discussion of its role in the formation of Religious Scucies he claims that these lectures do not provide an “absolutely new de- pparture” in che study of religious phenomena because scholars before Miller had already looked upon religion as an object to be studied (1986: xi)> However, even though Miller did not, according to Sharpe (1986: 45), sin- sgle-handedly found the science of religion, his lectures are foundational to the new science, he maintains, because in them Maller brings order and method to a body of data that until that time had remained relatively disor- ganized. “Before Max Miller,” writes Sharpe, “... the field of religious studies, though wide and full, was disorganized. After him, the field could be seen as a whole, subjected ro a method, and, in short, treated scientifi- cally” (1986: 46). And this holds true despite Miller’ own later claim, in his Lectures on he Origin and Growth of Religion: As Illustrated by the Religions of India, that the science of religion is not “a science of today or of yesterday” since its beginnings are as old as the religions to which it gives its attention (1878: 6). Additionally, Sharpe maintains, Miller had popularized the phrase “the science of religion” and in the process “had given the compara- tive study of religion an impulse, a shape, 2 terminology and a set of ideals” (1986: 45). ‘Sharpe has litte to say about the content of Mille’ lectures on the Sci- ence of Religion and the nature of the argument presented. He notes that Miller divided the study of religion into two pars, that he designated with hnames compounded with the word “theology’—"Comparative Theology,” being that part of the Science of Religion dealing with the historical forms of religion (and which constitutes the primary focus of Miller's atention), and “Theoretical Theology,” the philosophical element of the Science that explains the conditions under which any form of religion is possible (1986: 43). Sharpe goes on to suggest as well that Miller may have used such des- ignators as “a sign of parentage or at least respectability” (1986: 43), imply- ing thereby thae Miller may have failed to distinguish clearly religion from. the study of religion. Sharpe stresses that Miller grew up in an atmosphere ‘of German Romantic idealism, as if that fact would account for Miller's being more than a mere scientist (historian-philologis) in his taking up the comparative study of religions (1986: 43). Millers enthusiastic support for the Worlds Parliament of Religions in 1893, Sharpe further argues, shows that he was involved in more than a search for knowledge about religions; Religion and the SciemificImpule in the Nineteenth Century 13 he was also actively engaged in a religio-philosophic activity in his compar- ative study of religions (1986: 44). Consequently, for Miller (as for other founding figures) the Science of Religion (chat is, Comparative Religion) “was at root a practical activity,” and nor simply science (1986: 252). ‘This seems a strange conclusion to reach once one has recognized that a ‘major contribution of Mile to the field of religious studies is his ue ofthe phrase “Science of Religion.” Moreover, Sharpe arrives at this conclusion without describing Miller’ use of that phrase. If Mller and other students of religion in this early period of the emergence of the field incorporated ther religious agendas into their study of religions so as to make the disei- pline essentially “a practical activity” itis difficule co see in what sense they are, then, the founders ofa scientific discipline. That i, it would appear that the derivation of this field of research would be primarily religious rather than scientific. I do not think this to be the case, however, for even though fone must admit, with Sharpe, that Miller reveals a religious agenda throughout much of his published work, he does not, I think, confound his religious concern with the scientific basi of his study of religions” And de- spite Sharpe's argument to the contrary, he does seem aware of this. Al- though having suggested that Millers advocacy of the 1893 Parliament of Religions constitutes evidence that Miller understood the study of religions to be an essentially practical activity, Sharpe also claims that participation in the Parliament presented a danger to one's scholarly reputation at tha time since it was recognized that “Whatever the need for incerteligious under- standing, the seientfic study of religion, committed to the quest of truth for truths own sake, ought not to be saddled with such an onerous and subjec- tive incidental” (1986: 139). And in recognizing that Millers reputation might withstand the apparent confusion of scientific and religious agendas in supporting such an undertaking, but that che reputation of lesser scholars right not, Sharpe indicates thar scholars a the time had, atleast ro some extent, demarcated the scientific from the religious exercise ‘That Millle’s science of religion was not a practical activity of the sort defined by Sharpe would have been evident I think, if Sharpe had analyzed Miller’ use, in the Jntroduction and elsewhere, of the phrase “Science of Re- ligion.” In the Introduction, Milles, noting that scholars who study medicine leave the application of that study to others, advises the student of the Sci- ence of Religion to invoke a similar “division of labout” in che study of reli- gion. “In practical lif,” he writes, i would be wrong to assume a neutral postion berween ... conflicting views [of religion). Where we see that che reverence due to eligion is violated, we are bound to protest; where we see cha superstition saps the rots of faith, nd hypocrisy poisons the springs of moralry, we must take sides. But a eudents 14 The Poities of Religious Soudies ofthe Science of Religion we move ina higher and more serene atmosphere (1893: 7: my emphasis. ‘And in the preface to his ealier Eisays om the Science of Religion, Miller also

    You might also like