There and Back Again? Religious Studies and the Shadow of Theology

Abstract

In its current state, the Study of Religion operates as an unstable and confused field in which, quite often, no differential is made between critical and confessional approaches. Drawing on collaborative work with other doctoral colleagues, we hold that a new Study of Religion is modelled from Critical Religion, adopting an anti-realist ontological framework which does not assume that our object of study exists ‘out-there’. Instead, ‘religion’ should be conceived of as a social construct, a product of language, particular histories, and intertwining relations of knowledge and power. Following this, we hold that discourse analysis is taken up as the primary methodological framework used by academics of religion. Doing so, we enter into the debate regarding the nature and position of the Study of Religion as a separate academic endeavour from that of other social and human sciences.

Introduction

This paper is the result of inquiries into the status of Religious Studies within the academy, and its approach to, and understanding of, method and theory, which have arisen from mine and a doctoral colleague – Liam Metcalf-White’s – PhD research. From our analysis of the multitude of methods and theories available for religion scholars, we came to the shared conclusion that, in its current state, Religious Studies operates as an unstable and confused field in which, quite often, no differential is made between critical and confessional approaches. Thus, in this paper, we analyse the possibility of a split in the academy – conceptualised using the categories ‘Religious Studies’ and the ‘Study of Religion’. The former we understand as a critical realist field and the latter an anti-realist discipline. This dichotomy is rooted in a historical division – present since the study’s genesis – which we examine by looking at the early religionist scholars who were integral to creating a separate academic space that was committed to studying religion. We then contrast this to the development of critical approaches in the 1990s whereby the core assumptions of the previous scholars were challenged. In the latter half of this paper we demonstrate how, despite arguments to the contrary, this division continues to exist through an analysis of two introductory textbooks.

Early Study of Religion

While non-theological studies of religion occurred from as early the 19^th century, seen, for instance, in the work of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and William James, we are more interested in what became called the History of Religions, a separate and definable area of study within the academy which focused solely on religion. This independent academic enterprise, born in the 1950s, argued that religion was a  unique aspect of life, requiring its own study and methods. The History of Religions nevertheless claimed, as did the earlier 19^th-century studies, that it was non-theological. Thus, History of Religion scholars wanted to study religion from an ‘objective’ standpoint which bracketed out truth claims; however, the academic would be favourably disposed to their object of study – seeing religion as a ‘good’ thing. The manifestation of this position was seen most explicitly in the History of Religion’s adoption of the phenomenological method, which, emerging from the philosophical phenomenology of Heidegger and Husserl, believed there to be inherent realities that exist substantively outside of human language – only accessible by performing the epoché – in other words, removing human bias.

A synopsis of this logic can be found in Jerald Brauer’s forward to The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (1959). Here Brauer  states that:

[The perspective of the history of religions] upholds the uniqueness and givenness of vast expanses of human [religious] experience. Unlike the approach which seeks to reduce all experience and reality to a few basic ingredients or principles, this new perspective strives to grasp a given reality in its own terms, its own uniqueness, and in its own contexts (viii; emphasis added).

Brauer here, then, exemplifies the core ontology and epistemology of the History of Religions. Hence, he claims, first, that religion ought to be understood as both unique and an inherent fact of life – a fact that is universal no matter context or history. In other words, Brauer subscribes to a realist ontology which holds that objects are universal, unchanging, exist independently of the mind and language, and have an intrinsic characteristic which gives them definition. Second,  Brauer claims that to understand this realist reality it must be studied in its own right and therefore engages in epistemological realism, which holds that there need to be unique methods which can get at the heart of reality without due influence – this method, as stated above, was phenomenology.

Thus, History of Religions was realist attempt to understand religion, which helped facilitate the development of the first religion departments, as we understand them today, as separate and legitimate from theology and other social scientific disciplines. However, this school of thought’s legitimacy began to be critiqued and undermined, starting in the 1970s but gaining prominence in the 1990s. The scholars who critiqued the History of Religion method belong to the critical study of religion.

One of the first critical religion scholars was Jonathan Z. Smith. In his article Religion, Religions, Religious (1998), Smith argued that instead of religion existing in a realist sense, its semantic content was constructed predominantly in sixteenth-century Europe, exported worldwide through the processes of colonialism – as seen in the World Religions Paradigm – and now globalisation and capitalism. Thus, Smith states that:

“Religion” is not a native category. It is not a first-person term of self-characterization. It is a category imposed from the outside on some aspect of native culture. It is the other, in these instances, colonialists, who are solely responsible for the content of the term. (282)

Rather than peddling a realist view of religion, then, the critical study of religion argues for an anti-realist perspective. This ontological and epistemological framework does not assume that our object of study, religion, exists ‘out-there’. Instead, ‘religion’ should be conceived of as a social construct, a product of language and discourse, particular histories, and intertwining relations of knowledge, power, and ideology. In other words, religion is understood through the prism of social constructivism whereby the relation between the signified (the object of religion) and the signifier (the term ‘religion’) is seen as co-dependent. The signifier constructs the signified; the signifier does not point to a signified that exists ‘out-there’ independent of human discourse and language.

So far, we have articulated two positions. The first, is the History of Religions approach, characterised in terms of understanding religion using phenomenological methods and realist ontologies. An approach mainly sympathetic to the constructed narratives of those individuals and groups that we study as religious. The second, is the critical study of religion, which deconstructs the category of religion – demonstrating it to be socially and strategically constructed by language alongside other equally problematic classifications in this semantic web such as ‘secular’, ‘politics’, ‘economics’, ‘science’, etc.

We hold that this dichotomy should be conceptualised using the categories ‘Religious Studies’ and the ‘Study of Religion’ – where Religious Studies stands for a field (a culmination of multiple disciplines and methodologies) in which, quite often, due to realist commitments, no differential is made between critical and confessional approaches. On the other hand, the Study of Religion stands for a critical, anti-realist endeavour, focused on discourse and the strategic formation of identities labelled religious or not.

Contemporary period: A comparison between two introductory textbooks

Several scholars have argued that this dichotomy, between Religious Studies and the Study of Religion, is a false one. The dichotomy, they argue, is a theoretical one – or debates regarding the lack of theory. Thus, while in the past Religious Studies, they acknowledge, lacked theoretical rigour – in the sense that scholars did not theorise the category of religion as seen for example in the epoché approach which actively shunned any theoretical engagement – today it is not possible to engage in Religious Studies without completing courses in method and theory; specifically at postgraduate level but also trickling down into undergraduate degree courses (Hughes, 2018).

Despite this turn toward method and theory in Religious Studies, the dichotomy we have established is not a false one. Instead, an examination of two introductory textbooks in the Study of Religion – that both claim to be theoretical – demonstrates how persistent these problems can be. We will finish this paper, then, by looking at Bradley Herling’s A Beginner’s Guide to the Study of Religion and Russell McCutcheon’s Studying Religion: An Introduction – both published within the last three years – and how they answer two fundamental questions: ‘Why study religion? and ‘How do we study religion?’

The first question is an ontological one. Herling opens his book by tackling this query head-on. He muses why, in the 21^st century, Religious Studies is needed. As he points out, and as you may be aware, there is a common view that religion is losing its social influence in the contemporary world – a process called secularisation. The quintessence of this view can be seen in Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote that ‘God is dead’. However, Herling counters these claims with the following argument:

Despite those who have predicted and sometimes hoped for its disappearance, this strange, familiar thing keeps showing up, calling out for examination, not as something that is dead or dying, but as a thriving reality – something that, at the very least, we must live with. (emphasis added)

Thus, despite the prostrations of some contemporary scholars, Herling’s arguments are remarkably like those put forward seventy years ago by History of Religion scholars. Both see religion as universal as demonstrated by Herling’s idea that although unfamiliar cultures may confront us, we nevertheless feel instinctively acquainted with something that lies behind them – which also lies behind our own culture – i.e. religion. He also believes religion to be a reality which exists outside of language, something which has autonomy. For instance, he suggests that religion can ‘show up’, can grab our attention by ‘calling out’, and is something we must live alongside. Thus, we see once again the logic of realist ontologies which underpins these studies of religion.

Conversely, Russell McCutcheon suggests that we should study religion, not because of the above, but rather, as with J.Z. Smith, due to ‘religion’ existing first and foremost in acts of classification; classification, which he suggests ‘is hardly an innocent business; [but] instead, […] tied up with issues of power and identity’ Thus, McCutcheon opens the first chapter of his book with the following:

Readers beware: this opening chapter is not about religion. Come to think of it, despite what many readers might think, neither are all of the other chapters. Instead, they are about some of the issues involved in defining an object of study – whatever that object of study may be. Although in our case it happens to be a collection of claims, behaviours, and institutions that many people today know by the name ‘religion’...

When McCutcheon says that this chapter is not about religion, he means religion in a realist sense – as understood by Herling. Instead, McCutcheon views religion as a name deployed strategically by human actors – not an aspect of life which interests us because it calls out to us, but a category useful for maintaining boundaries and assigning semantic connotations which suit particular interests. Thus, when it comes to the issue of why we study religion, and the ontological logic behind that, we see that what Herling and McCutcheon bring to the table are entirely different theories.

The next question is choosing how to study religion – i.e. an epistemological issue. And again, Herling and McCutcheon have polarising suggestions. For instance, on theory, Herling states that good scholarship ‘begins as an attempt to look at religion differently, to see it more clearly, to get at what’s really going on… This process is all about improving our understanding and discerning the meaning and significance behind the “facts”’. Thus, for Herling, knowledge of religion is acquired by removing critical judgment and getting to the “heart” of the object of study by cleaning away the apparent distortions made by culture and social practices. Religion has, therefore, at its core, universal and essential meaning, as stable as the object itself. This understanding of theory and method is practically identical to the History of Religion’s understanding of phenomenology.

McCutcheon, in contrast, argues that ‘classifications often tell us far more about the classifier who is naming things in the world than they do about the item being named’, and, as a consequence, companions ‘discourse analysis’ – a method which argues, in this context, that because there is no religion outside of human construction, no study can ‘safely go beyond the investigation of the uses to which notions of religion are put in social life’ (Beckford, 2003, 18). Instead, discourse analysis argues that it is better ‘to map the varieties of meaning attributed to religion in social settings, to discern the relative frequency of the prevailing meanings and to monitor changes over time’ (20). Thus, rather than defining religion as a means by which to point to some essence beneath human culture, a discursive approach refuses to define the object of study and instead studies how terms are deployed and for what reasons.

In summary, then, from an analysis of these two introductory texts and their approaches to the most fundamental questions, ontological and epistemological, there is not only a difference of tone but a significant contrast which makes these two approaches incompatible. Thus, the dichotomy we established, between Religious Studies and the Study of Religion, still exists today, and, in our view, cannot be papered over with a ‘big tent’ approach. The so-called ‘big-tent’ in the academy is untenable and is already starting to fall apart – seen, for example, in the establishment of rival academic societies, conferences, and journals which actively attack other each for not engaging in ‘proper scholarship’. Though, this also has implications for those completing degrees in Religious Studies, as students move from class to class learning irreconcilable ways to study religion.

Concluding Remarks

From our perspective as early year researchers, a split within the academy is preferable to maintaining the present unstable, status-quo relationship. Thus, to conclude, we argue that current Religious Studies departments transform into Study of Religion departments, where the Study of Religion is understood as a discipline – an area of study with an underlying commitment to social theory, anti-realism, social constructivism and discourse analysis as its primary method. What counts as Religious Studies now, however, should not to abandoned as illegitimate. Instead, we hold that this confused field moves into other, already existing, academic departments, for instance, sociology, psychology, etc.

Ours may seem like an extreme position to take – an uncompromising means of using institutional structures to legitimise what we see as ‘good’ scholarship in religion against scholarship we do not view as such. However, our commitment to this position is not borne out of a mere desire for intellectual purity. Instead, we are also concerned with the practical and moral implications of this debate. For instance, what is an undergraduate or postgraduate student to do when encouraged to read a book, such as Christopher Deacy’s Christmas as Religion, which asks whether Christmas is a religion – assuming some prefixed and universal category exists to enable us to make such normative claims – and then another book, such as James Beckford’s Social Theory and Religion, which would instead ask us to critically question the motivations of both scholars and the public behind such questions as whether Christmas is religion. For some, this may seem like a pedantic nuance. However, as we have demonstrated in the previous sections, there are fundamentally different ontological and epistemological logics that underline these two books, the questions asked, and the results produced.

There is also, despite the lack of attention paid to this point, a moral dilemma to these issues. As Monica Miller states, ‘Reified notions of culture [religion, gender and race] … are often at the root of systems of violence and war, […] as well as the icons and indices used to chart violence and the meanings attached to violence’ (5). Evidence for Miller’s arguments can be seen in the discourse over the so-called ‘Clash of Civilisations’ which partly justifies the ‘War on Terror’ and is also part of the logic behind far-right populist movements in Europe and America. These issues, being of such importance, warrant not only the establishment of a dichotomy between Religious Studies and the Study of Religion on a level of theoretical typologies but also a corresponding split within the academy.

Jack Lewis Graham and Liam Metcalf-White

This paper was due to be delivered at the University of Chester Postgraduate Symposium, 2019; however, due to illness, this was not possible. The paper has, therefore, been published here so that the arguments we wished to make on that day are not lost.

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