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Is Religious Studies Possible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Donald L. Dougherty
Donald L. Dougherty
Affiliation:
Madison, Wisconsin
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Extract

If one were to investigate the underpinnings of religious studies, or, in other words, to undertake a sort of meta-religious studies (a study which would be twice removed from the actual subject matter of the discipline) one would find that the main contemporary criticisms, by both lay students of religion and the academic community at large, have been primarily twofold. The first stock objection, possibly somewhat more popular twenty years ago, was that ‘religious studies’ was simply not to be considered an autonomous academic discipline worthy of recognition as an independent ‘department’ in a university curriculum. In short, the pejorative implications were clear in the behind-the-back finger-pointing which was conjoined with whispers of ‘interdisciplinary’. The second major criticism of the ‘discipline’ of religious studies has been a polymorphous diversity of twists on the old theme – ‘Oh my God, they are practising what they preach’. The impetus of this criticism is in large measure, the fear, by various sectors for various reasons, that the student of religion is somehow ‘doing’ (as opposed to simply studying) religion and, what's more, doing it inside the hallowed halls of the university.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 295 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 295 note 1 See Jordan, Louis Henry, Comparative Religion: Its Genesis and Growth (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clarke, 1905).Google Scholar

page 295 note 2 See Wach, Joachim, The Comparative Study of Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

page 296 note 1 See Baird, Robert D. (ed.), Methodological Issues in Religious Studies (Chico: New Horizons Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Eliade, Mircea and Kitagana, Joseph M. (eds.), The History of Religion: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Ramsey, Paul and Wilson, John F. (eds.), The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Sharpe, Eric, Comparative Religions (London: Duckworth & Co., 1975).Google Scholar

page 296 note 2 One fine example is the ‘Wingspread conference’ held on 16–18 February 1978 in Racine, Wisconsin, where Walter H. Capps said on page 1 of his unpublished Religious Studies in an Age of Limits: Notes from the Wingspread Conference, ‘The purpose of the conference was to create a perspective on where the academic study of religion is in relation to where it is supposed to be, and, perhaps, where it may be in the future.’

page 297 note 1 An excerpt from a short prefatory remark to a study done on religious studies in Ontario, Canada by Ninian Smart entitled The Nature of Religious Studies.

page 297 note 2 Wach, , The Comparative Study of Religions, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 298 note 1 Smart, Ninian, The Philosophy of Religion (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 3 f.Google Scholar

page 300 note 1 See Phillips, D. Z., Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (New York: Schocken Books, 1971).Google Scholar

page 300 note 2 Ramsey, Paul, The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities, p. 267.Google Scholar

page 300 note 3 Ibid. pp. 267 f.

page 300 note 4 My italics.

page 300 note 5 Ibid. p. 253.

page 300 note 6 Wach, , The Comparative Study of Religion, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 301 note 1 Ibid. p. 11.

page 301 note 2 Ibid. p. 12.

page 301 note 3 Sharpe, , Comparative Religion, p. 239.Google Scholar

page 302 note 1 Smart, , Philosophy of Religion, pp. 24 f.Google Scholar

page 302 note 2 Ibid. p. 25.

page 302 note 3 Ibid. pp. 24 f.

page 303 note 1 Wach, , The Comparative Study of Religion, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 303 note 2 Ramsey, , The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities, p. 251.Google Scholar

page 303 note 3 Smart, , Philosophy of Religion, p. 9.Google Scholar

page 304 note 1 Ibid. p. 20.

page 304 note 2 Ibid. p. 21.

page 304 note 3 Ibid. p. 23.

page 307 note 1 See Ayer, A. J., The Problem of Knowledge, chapter 5.Google Scholar

page 309 note 1 Baird, , Methodological Issues in Religious Studies, p. 6.Google Scholar