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1. UNISA
2. 2023
3. RST1502-23-S2
4. Section 1
5. 2STUDY UNIT 2

CONTENT PAGES

2STUDY UNIT 2
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Completion requirements

Mark as done

3DEFINING RELIGION AND THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGION

OUTCOMES
After completing this unit, you should be able to:

• Discuss the problems associated with the use of the term “religion.”
 • Explain why the term “religion” is useful for science and academic research.
• Assess the theosophical, interfaith, and critical approaches to the study of religion and
provide examples of each from the South African and/or Indian contexts.

KEY QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the problems associated with the term “religion”?
2. Is the term “religion” useful for science and academic research?
3. What are the differences between the theosophical, interfaith, and critical
approaches to the study of religion?

2.1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we will look at the definition of religion. It may seem odd to devote a whole
study unit to the definition of a term of which the meaning appears obvious. Most of us
have a clear idea of what the word “religion” is supposed to refer to. For example, one
might think of a church, or mosque, or some “religious” practices, such as praying, when
one hears the word. What comes to mind when you hear the word? You will soon discover
that many prominent scholars defined religion with reference to belief in the supernatural,
or in spiritual beings. However, if one considers that some religions, like Buddhism, are
more philosophies of life without much regard for spiritual beings or divinities, such
definitions seem inadequate. It is therefore not surprising that there is still no consensus
among scholars about what precisely constitutes religion. While this lack of agreement
may persist, it is still useful to look at ways in which “religion” has been defined and used in
the academic study of religion.

We will begin our discussion by considering various definitions of religion, particularly with
reference to the founding figures in the modern study of religion. Many of these definitions
will be explored in more detail in later units. It is interesting to note that scholars of the
19th and 20th century tended to focus on what they regarded as “primitive” religion in
colonised territories in order to contrast it with “science” in modern, “civilised” Europe. In
addition to the “scientific,” or critical study of religion, we will also consider interfaith
approaches, which focus on elements that are thought to be common to various faith
traditions, and theosophy, which is a more intuitive and esoteric approach to religion.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.1

Before we start with the debate about the definition of religion, it may be useful to consider
how you feel about what we call “religion.” Do you think it has a place in society?

FEEDBACK
Watch the following video about the value and criticism of religion (“History of Ideas –
Religion”):

Play Video

. Do you agree with Dawkins that it is outdated and maladaptive?

2STUDY UNIT 2
3DEFINING RELIGION AND THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGION
OUTCOMES
After completing this unit, you should be able to:

• Discuss the problems associated with the use of the term “religion.”
• Explain why the term “religion” is useful for science and academic research.
• Assess the theosophical, interfaith, and critical approaches to the study of religion and
provide examples of each from the South African and/or Indian contexts.

KEY QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the problems associated with the term “religion”?
2. Is the term “religion” useful for science and academic research?
3. What are the differences between the theosophical, interfaith, and critical approaches to
the study of religion?

2.1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we will look at the definition of religion. It may seem odd to devote a whole study
unit to the definition of a term of which the meaning appears obvious. Most of us have a clear
idea of what the word “religion” is supposed to refer to. For example, one might think of a
church, or mosque, or some “religious” practices, such as praying, when one hears the word.
What comes to mind when you hear the word? You will soon discover that many prominent
scholars defined religion with reference to belief in the supernatural, or in spiritual beings.
However, if one considers that some religions, like Buddhism, are more philosophies of life
without much regard for spiritual beings or divinities, such definitions seem inadequate. It is
therefore not surprising that there is still no consensus among scholars about what precisely
constitutes religion. While this lack of agreement may persist, it is still useful to look at ways in
which “religion” has been defined and used in the academic study of religion.

We will begin our discussion by considering various definitions of religion, particularly with
reference to the founding figures in the modern study of religion. Many of these definitions will
be explored in more detail in later units. It is interesting to note that scholars of the 19 th and
20th century tended to focus on what they regarded as “primitive” religion in colonised territories
in order to contrast it with “science” in modern, “civilised” Europe. In addition to the “scientific,”
or critical study of religion, we will also consider interfaith approaches, which focus on elements
that are thought to be common to various faith traditions, and theosophy, which is a more
intuitive and esoteric approach to religion.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.1

Before we start with the debate about the definition of religion, it may be useful to consider how
you feel about what we call “religion.” Do you think it has a place in society?

FEEDBACK
Watch the following video about the value and criticism of religion (“History of Ideas –
Religion”):

Play Video

. Do you agree with Dawkins that it is outdated and maladaptive?

 Previous12Next

DEFINING RELIGION AND THE COMPARATIVE

STUDY OF RELIGION
THE DEFINITION OF “RELIGION”
The definition of religion is a controversial topic in religious studies. Despite the
fact that many scientists have tried to define it, there is still no final description of
religion that is universally accepted. Several scholars have drawn attention to the fact
that the terminology used in the study of religion, as well as the basic assumptions of
religion as an analytical category derive from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In the
latter part of the 20th century, this was done by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in his 1962
book entitled The meaning and end of religion. Wilfred Cantwell Smith was a Canadian
professor that is widely regarded as one of the most influential scholars of
comparative religion of the previous century. He devoted much of his time and energy
to correct the Western bias in the definition and study of religion.

However, the problems associated with the term “religion” had already been
recognised by intellectuals in the 19 th century. Already then many scholars suggested
that the term should be rejected. In order to understand the background of the
contemporary debate surrounding the term “religion,” it is well worth taking a closer
look at criticism of the concept during the rise of comparative religion in the 1870s.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, some anthropological theorists

suggested that the term “religion” should be excluded from academic discourse, since
it was incoherent and loaded with theological and historical associations (Chidester
2014:12). For example, in a presentation to the Anthropological Institute in 1877, the
naturalist W. L. Distant argued that the term was so undefined that it was not suitable
for scientific purposes. He suggested that, due to the lack of a coherent, general
definition of the term and the theological convictions associated with its use, it should
be left to the field of theology. He concluded that science should give “religion” some
universal definition, stop using the term, or find an alternative term that wasn’t loaded
with theological presuppositions. Distant clearly anticipated the critique of W. C.
Smith almost a century later.

2.2.1 Definitions of religion in the 19th and 20th centuries

Chidester (2014:15–16) points to a review of definitions of religion by James H.

Leuba in 1912 where he classified forty-eight definitions according to affective,
intellectualist, and social approaches. Although this review has been quoted as
evidence that religion cannot be defined, Jonathan Z. Smith interprets it as proof that
religion can in fact be defined in many different ways. Since the inception of
comparative religion, scholars have come up with various definitions and approaches
to the study of religion. Initially, imperial theorists attempted to define religion in
universal terms. For example, • Friedrich Max Müller, often identified as the founder of
comparative religion, defined religion as an affective sense of the infinite.

• E. B. Tylor defined religion as a cognitive belief in spiritual beings.

• C. P. Tiele, who is also sometimes cited as the founder of modern comparative religion,
combined the affective and cognitive elements by defining religion as both an original,
innate sense of infinity, as well as a belief in the superhuman.

These theorists employed various methods to study what they believed to be the
“essence” of religion. In the chapters that follow, we will discuss the philological,
anthropological, sociological, and psychological approaches to the study of
comparative religion in more detail. For now, let’s consider the ways in which scholars
have used the term “religion” in their work despite the problems associated with its
definition.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.2

What, in your view, are the most important differences in the classic definitions of
religion of Max Müller, E. B. Tylor, and C. P. Tiele?
FEEDBACK

Do you agree with Chidester’s distinction between “cognitive” and “affective”

elements in the definitions of religion? Do you find it helpful?

2.2.2 Usefulness of the term “religion” for scientific research

Despite this severe criticism and the fact that the term “religion” have been
regarded as unstable and ambiguous right from the outset of comparative religious
studies, scholars have used it in fruitful research throughout the history of the
discipline. Let’s briefly consider some of the ways in which various scholars have
employed “religion” in their work before moving on to the definition of religion.
Chidester (2014:13) points out that some theorists, choosing to retain “religion” for
science, associated religion with empirical measurements of human abilities and
limitations.

• For example, at a meeting of the Ethnological Society in 1870, where E. B. Tylor also
presented, Cornelius Donovan argued that phrenology constituted a scientific method
to measure mental, emotional, and religious capacity in humans through the
measuring of skulls. However, Donovan’s search for the cephalic index for “veneration”
could be compared to the contemporary search for the “religious gene,” rather than
with sound scientific research. Indeed, phrenology is widely regarded as
pseudoscience today, since its practitioners tended to extrapolate beyond empirical
knowledge in a way that departed from scientific principles. Nevertheless, phrenology
was clearly committed to empiricism and in this limited way may be regarded as a
crude forerunner of twenty-first-century methods of cognitive science or evolutionary
psychology.
• Although E. B. Tylor agreed with Distant that the term “religion” lacked scientific
precision and that it was theologically loaded, he still chose to use the term for
scientific purposes (Chidester 2014:13). He suggested that “religion” was an element
of “primitive” psychology that prevented human progress. Instead of abandoning the
term to theology, he used it to identify destructive superstitions in the modern world
that “survived” from “primitive” ages and that needed to be eliminated. He therefore
 regarded his science of religion as a reforming endeavour. Admitting that it was
sometimes painful and harsh to expose remnants of old religions that turned out to be
harmful, he regarded the elimination of superstitions as essential for the well-being of
modern society. In this way, E. B. Tylor started an enterprise that is continued today by
scientific atheists, who also use the term “religion” to mark it out for annihilation.
• Another interesting phenomenon with reference to the use of the term “religion” in
science, is the utilisation of religious terminology and metaphors in scientific speech.
Chidester (2014:14) recounts how Thomas Huxley developed a “religion” of science by
awarding science a kind of religious significance and even spiritual awe. This is
comparable to what Richard Dawkins recently called “Einsteinian religion.” Although an
atheist, Einstein sometimes invoked the name of God, which, unfortunately, has often
been misinterpreted by believers as an indication that he was religious. Dawkins
cautions that Einstein used these religious metaphors merely for scientific insights
and that his “natural religion” should not be confused with supernatural religion.
• Another example of the use of the term “religion” in scientific research is the work of
Charles Darwin, who found in his dogs the key to understanding religion as a universal
ability shared by humans and animals (Chidester 2014:14–15). This paved the way for
cognitive and evolutionary explanations of religion and for campaigns to eliminate
harmful elements associated with religion. Darwinism has also been used to advocate
for a separation of religion and science, although it has also been associated with
“secular religion.”
• Chidester (2014:17–18) also draws attention to the fact that although “religion” may be
a Western concept, the ubiquitous claim that Asian religions were invented by
European scholars with the aid of colonial administrators and missionaries may not be
entirely true. Recent research on the invention of Hinduism, for example, demonstrates
that Europeans discovered religious categories that were already present in India. The
category of Hinduism was therefore created in an ongoing process involving both
indigenous and European intellectual inventions. The objection by some scholars, such
as Wilfred Smith and Russell McCutcheon, that many cultures, such as the Chinese or
 Indian, do not have a word for religion, is therefore only partly true. Further, while the
terms for major world religions today, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism,
were only invented in the 19th century, this was not done by Europeans without any
indigenous input.

2.2.3 Recent definitions and criticisms of the term “religion”

Since the 1990s the project of questioning the meaning and use of the term
“religion” was continued by a group of scholars who criticised the academic study of
religion as a theological venture which imposed views onto the people it was
supposed to study. Russel T. McCutcheon (1997), for example, criticised traditional
academic approaches to the study of religion for assuming that religion is
somehow sui generis, or unique, self-caused, and mysterious. According to
McCutcheon, this sui generis argument had an ideological basis. It led to the study of
religion in a way that was ahistorical and a political and helped to create religious
study departments, jobs, and publication outlets for scholars of religion who were
uncritical, unskilled, and theoretically naïve. Most importantly, in his view, the study of
religion as an ahistorical category significantly contributed to the system of political
domination and economic exploitation of colonised peoples.

Similarly, in 1998, tracing the history of the term religion, Jonathan Z. Smith
(1998:269– 284) suggested that the contemporary understanding of ‘world religions’
is a modern Christian and European construct with its roots in the European colonial
expansion of the sixteenth century. Shortly after, Timothy Fitzgerald (2000) argued
that the comparative religion enterprise of the twentieth century was driven by a
hidden theological agenda which distorted the practices of non-Western societies and
interpreted them against Christian norms. Adding to this critique with her The
Invention of World Religions (2005), Masuzawa suggested that the Christian
supremacists of the 19 th ordered “world religions” hierarchically with reference to the
supposed superiority of Protestant theology. In addition, she suggests that the
pluralism implied by the term “world religions” could be regarded as an attempt to
reintroduce the ideals of European modernity to dominate in the twentieth century.
SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.3: MYUNISA DISCUSSION

FORUM

Go to the discussion forum on myUnisa entitled “My definition of religion.”S hare

your definition of religion in the forum.

FEEDBACK

Watch the following video about the definition of religion to help you formulate your
own definition (“What is Religion?”):
Play Video

Play Video

Do you agree with Jonathan Z. Smith that “religion” is a term that scientist can define
according to their analytical needs? What aspects of religion does your definition address –
cognitive belief aspects, emotional and feeling aspects, or behavioural aspects, such as

rituals?

Your lecturer or online tutor will summarise and conclude the discussion. Note that,
although you will not be assessed on this activity, your participation may assist you in
your assignment tasks and exam preparation.

2.3 THREE TYPES OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION

While one can identify different approaches to defining religion, there are also
varying methodologies in the practice of comparative religion. Chidester (2014:258–
286) draws attention to three techniques that were used to study religion in the
twentieth century, namely the interfaith, theosophical, and critical approaches – each
of which constituted dramatically different ways of authenticating knowledge. His
examples focus on the interaction between the British metropoles of India and South
Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries.

2.3.1 Interfaith comparative religion

In the interfaith approach, only religious adherents of a faith tradition are

considered authoritative sources of knowledge. Chidester mentions the example of
the Religions of the Empire conference held at the University of London in 1924 as an
example of this approach, since speakers were required to be followers of the religion
they talked about. Many speakers asserted that the same truths are taught in various
religions, but also that such religious unity was ensured by the peace of the empire.
These ideas reflected the views of Sir Francis Younghusband – one of the driving
forces behind the conference. Strongly committed to mysticism, Younghusband saw
the unity of religions in reverence for nature and devotion to the British empire
(Chidester 2014:263). Invoking the imperial spirit of Queen Victoria in his opening
address, he suggested that she was worshipped by her subjects. He also said that she
was regarded as a prominent figure in India, where some people considered her to be
divine.

Towards the end of the conference, most presenters focused on nature mysticism.
This reflected Younghusband’s idea that nature and God were one and the same. Of
particular interest is the presentation on “The Bantu Religious Ideas” of Albert Thoka
of Pietersburg. Thoka’s exposition of the religion of nature and nature mysticism
echoed the ideas of Younghusband in surprising detail. In fact, his reinterpretation of
African indigenous religion in terms of universal nature mysticism and the imperial
spirituality of Younghusband is so striking that Chidester (2014:267) suspects that
Thoka may have been an invention, or “mask,” of Younghusband rather than an actual
historical figure.

The interfaith notion that only adherents of a faith are authoritative sources of
information about a religion is known as the insider-outsider problem in the academic
study of religion. In his Critics not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of
Religion (2001), McCutcheon has argued that the assumption that there is a distinct
‘insider’ perspective as opposed to an outsider view is the result of the sui generis, or
essentialist, viewpoint. Religion is approached as independent, timeless truth that
needs to be protected. In McCutcheon’s view, however, the academic study of religion
is primarily concerned with the beliefs, behaviours, and institutions of human beings,
rather than with assessing the ‘truth’ of their various beliefs or behaviour. On the other
hand, scholars in the essentialist tradition, like Robert Orsi (2011:84–106), insist that
anthropological and sociological explanations of religion, as proposed by
McCutcheon, fall short of the realness of the phenomena they purport to describe in
people’s experience. Although pretending to be exhaustive, such descriptions diminish
and distort the “realness” of religious phenomena and experience.

Several international movements have continued to promote cooperative and

positive interaction between different religious traditions throughout the twentieth
century. It may be interesting to consider a few South African initiatives in this regard.
The Cape Town Interfaith Initiative, which was formed as a result of the Parliament of
World Religions gathering in Cape Town in 1999, endeavours to promote interfaith
understanding, harmony, and cooperation. The Turquoise Harmony Institute, initially
established in 2006 as the Interfaith Foundation of South Africa before it was renamed
in 2009, pursues the strengthening of dialogue and tolerance among people from
different religious backgrounds.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.4

What do you think of the interfaith approach to the study of religion?

FEEDBACK

Watch the following video about interfaith initiatives in South Africa (“Interfaith –
religious leaders promo”):
Play Video

Play Video

Do you think interfaith movements have a role to play in addressing social issues in South
Africa? Is an interfaith approach useful for the academic study of religion?
2.3.2 Theosophical comparative religion

In theosophical comparative religion knowledge is authenticated by claiming

access to secret knowledge. Practitioners in this tradition imitate methods of
philological analysis, textual exegesis, or historical research in discovering new
languages, sacred texts, and hidden histories of religion. An aura of authenticity is
created not by the testimony of religious adherents as in the interfaith approach, but
by an underlying secret hidden from most religious adherents. While interfaith
comparative religion focuses on religious truths that are shared by various religions
and available to the general public, the truths of theosophical religion are mysterious
and hidden from public view (Chidester 2014:269).

In 1875 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) founded the Theosophical Society

with Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907) in New York City. After a few years Blavatsky and
Olcott moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, in
Madras (now Chennai). Blavatsky claimed to have gained access to secret ancient
knowledge of the East by means of spiritual correspondence with Buddhist masters of
Tibet while in a trance. In addition, she professed to have mastered an ancient
language called Senzar, which enabled her to translate a certain Secret Book of Dz yan.
While Friedrich Max Müller, as the leading nineteenth-century philologist in the study
of religion, boasted that scholars gained unprecedented access to Vedic texts under
the expanding British Empire, Madame Blavatsky trumped his boast by asserting that
she could understand their secret meaning (Chidester 2014:270).

Max Müller complained about Theosophy’s “Esoteric Buddhism,” which he felt was
misleading. Since he insisted that there was nothing mysterious about Hinduism and
Buddhism, theosophists accused Max Müller of being a sexist academic elitist who
was jealous of Madame Blavatsky’s accomplishments (Chidester 2014:271). However,
a later leader of the Theosophical Society, Mohandas Gandhi, used Müller’s authority
in his struggle against British imperialism in India and South Africa. Interestingly,
Annie Besant, who led the Theosophical Society after Madame Blavatsky and before
Mohandas Gandhi, also played a crucial role in anti-imperialist politics (Chidester
2014:271). She campaigned for Indian independence, founded the Home Rule League,
and even served as president of the Indian National Congress.
 The Theosophical Society’s headquarters in Ireland was based in Dublin and led by
Captain Patrick G. Bowen (1882–1940). Dissatisfied with his prospects in Ireland,
Bowen moved to South Africa, where he developed a keen interest in indigenous
languages and local ways of thinking. While in South Africa, he discovered the
theosophical “secret” of the Itongo (Chidester 2014:272–276). In an article entitled
“The Ancient Wisdom in Africa,” published in the Theosophist in 1927, he reports on
his encounter with a secret African brotherhood, the Bonabakulu Abasekhemu – the
Brotherhood of the Higher Ones of Egypt, who supposedly were custodians of ancient
wisdom that could be traced to a priest of Isis during the reign of Pharaoh Cheops in
ancient Egypt. Although unacknowledged by Bowen, the secret wisdom he claimed to
have discovered had obvious parallels with Blavatsky’s theosophy. Chidester
(2014:274) explains: “While the Great White Brotherhood of the Himalayas taught that
the goal of life was union with the Atma, the African Brotherhood of the Higher Ones
of Egypt taught that the goal for every human is ‘union with the source of his being –
the Itongo.’”

Bowen claimed to have gained his knowledge by mastering a sacred, secret ur-
Bantu language called Isinzu. He further claimed to have gained access to secret texts
that were written on parchment or the entrails of a hippopotamus in hieroglyphic
symbols and that he received instruction from a spiritual master, Mandhlalanga, who
represented an occult brotherhood. Surprisingly, the recurrence of theosophical
themes in his discoveries were taken to confirm theosophical truth rather than raise
the question of plagiarism. As this example illustrates, theosophical comparative
religious knowledge was created by combining myth, fiction, and scholarship.

Another exponent of the theosophical approach to the study of religion who

deserves to be mentioned is Phirozshah D. Mehta (1902–1994). Brought up by
Zarathustrian parents in India, Mehta developed a strong interest in all of the major
religions from a very young age. His goal was to discover the truth, which he called the
heart of religion, through personal experience. To this end, he practiced both the inner
and outer disciplines of several great religions. He was closely involved with the
Theosophical Society for many years of his life and even run the Colombo branch of
the Society at the age of 16. In 1976 he completed The Heart of Religion, which
presented what Mehta believed to be the essence common to all religious experience.

Although not member of the Theosophical Society, Aldous L. Huxley (1894–1963)

could also be mentioned as an advocate for the theosophical study of religion. Born
into the prominent Huxley family of Britain as the grandson of Thomas H. Huxley, also
known as Darwin’s bulldog due to his advocacy of Darwin’s theory of evolution, Aldous
gave up on medicine as a career due to an eye disease. Instead, he devoted his life to
writing and philosophy. In 1937 Huxley moved to Hollywood, where he was introduced
to Vedanta philosophy and meditation. He soon became a Vedantist and in 1945
wrote The Perennial Philosophy, which discussed the teachings of renowned mystics
around the world. With this work, Huxley (1945:1) aimed to identify the “Highest
Common Factor” of all religions from all ages and all regions, namely the “immanent
and transcendent Ground of All Being.”

In recent years the study of esotericism, which can be regarded as related to

theosophy, has been gaining momentum in European universities. Notable is the work
of Wouter J. Hanegraaf (b. 1961), who is full professor of the History of Hermetic
Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam. In his New Age
Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (1996) he
traces the history of New Age religion to western esoteric traditions during the
Renaissance. In his Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western
Culture (2012) he demonstrates how intellectuals since the Renaissance have rejected
‘pagan’ ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion
and Greek rationality. In its attempt to define true religion, sound science, and
modernity, Western culture has rejected esoteric traditions as the ‘other’ in opposition
to which it defined its own identity.
 In his Was ist Esoterik? Kleine Geschichte des geheimen Wissens (What is
Esotericism: Brief History of Secret Knowledge, 2004) Kocku von Stuckrad (b. 1966)
traces the development of Western esotericism through ancient Greek sources,
Islamic philosophy, Jewish kabbalah, the European Renaissance, and the modern New
Age movement. According to Von Stuckrad, esotericism played a central role in the
development of Western theological and scientific thought.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.5

What do you think of theosophical comparative religion?

FEEDBACK

Watch the following video about Helena Blavatsky to help you answer the question
(“A Look Into “Isis Unveiled” by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky”):
Play Video

Play Video

. Do you think the approach is useful for the academic study of religion?
2.3.3 Critical comparative religion

Chidester (2014:276–281) points out that even critical comparative religion, as

practiced by prominent imperial theorists, also combined myth, fiction, and
scholarship. In this approach footnotes came to play a central role in the production,
authentication, and circulation of knowledge about religion and religions. Importantly,
the footnote also exposed the theories of scholars to critique.

Again, Chidester reviews critical comparative religion with reference to the way in
which theorists treated the Zulu term Itongo. In line with his definition of religion as a
sense of the infinite, Max Müller uncritically followed his colonial source, Henry
Callaway, in appropriating the term Itongo as a word to designate the Supreme.
Looking for Zulu data to support his theory of religion as animism, E. B. Tylor referred
to reports by Callaway’s informants, who suggested that sneezing was caused by
the Itongo (ancestral spirit). Similarly, in support of his dream theory of religion, the
Zulu accounts of Itongo visiting a person in a dream provided support for the notion
that religion developed from primitive dream-life and psychological processes. Finally,
James Frazer finds support for his pragmatic theory of ritual in Zulu transactions with
the Itongo. Also citing Callaway, Frazer suggests that ritual sacrifices to
the Itongo (ancestral spirit) were concerned with practical issues, such as food and
children.

In this way, Chidester demonstrates how imperial theorists drew upon the same
body of evidence to support their differing theories of religion. This was possible
because of the ambiguity of Callaway’s data, which constituted a “chaos” of
indigenous voices, all influenced, in one way or another, by colonial interferences and
missionary impacts. All these imperial theorists depended heavily on texts produced
by colonial experts, such as Henry Callaway and Henri-Alexandre Junod. To further
complicate matters, these colonial experts’ indigenous sources were often social
isolates who were strongly affected by colonial relations and contexts in which data
about religion were being produced. This process of knowledge creation, which
Chidester calls “triple mediation,” since it involves three parties, will be discussed in
more detail in the chapters that follow. As we will demonstrate, the introduction of the
footnote by imperial theorists – although creating an air of authenticity and opening
their work to verification and falsification – could never overcome all the challenges
associated with the triple mediation process of knowledge creation.

SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY 2.6

What do you think of critical comparative religion?

FEEDBACK

How is knowledge authenticated in the critical approach? Is it befitting of the

academic study of religion?
2.4 CONCLUSION
In this chapter you were introduced to problems associated with the use of the
term “religion” in scientific discourse. Although obscure, many scholars have
continued to use the term and successfully retained it for the scientific study of belief
and practice. Religion remains difficult to explain and is not likely to ever be defined in
a way that would satisfy all scholars of religion, who often adopt various approaches
to the study of religion. Rather, it can be defined in many different ways as it can be
studied using varying methodologies. The interfaith, theosophical, and critical
approaches to the study of religion serve as good examples of how theorists and
scholars have attempted to authenticate knowledge in the initial stages of the modern
study of religion. In the following chapter, we will continue our evaluation of imperial
and colonial approaches to the study of religion.

2.5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fitzgerald, T. 2000. The Ideology of Religious Studies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Hanegraaff, W. J. 1996. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in
the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: Brill.

Hanegraaff, W. J. 2012. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in

Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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