Gill, The Academic Study of Religion

Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXII/4

The Academic Study ofReligionSam Gill

J. HE EMERGENCE OF an academic study of religion has beendisappointing despite the boost it received thirty years ago whenreligion entered the curricula of state-supported American collegesand universities. The academic study of religion as envisionedhere is distinguished by several bounding criteria:1. The academic study of religion must not depend upon orrequire of its researchers, teachers, or students any specific reli-gious belief or affiliation, race, culture, or gender.2. The academic study of religion must be sensitive to multi-cul-turalism: the awareness that there are many peoples, cultures, andreligions, none of which has any exclusive claims to be made withregard to religion as an academic subject.3. The term "religion" must be understood as designating an aca-demically constructed rubric that identifies the arena for commondiscourse inclusive of all religions as historically and culturallymanifest. "Religion" cannot be considered as synonymous withChristianity or with the teaching of religion to members of specifictraditions. "Religion" must not be thought of as the essence of thesubject studied. "Religion" is not "the sacred," "ultimate concern,"or belief in god (or some disguising euphemism). There is nothingreligious about "religion." Religion is not sui generis. There are nouniquely religious data.4. The methods of the academic study of religion are necessarilycomparative. Religion is a category whose subdivisions are catego-ries that demand comparison. Comparison must be understood asthe play of fit and non-fit, of congruity and incongruity, rather thanconformity with a pre-existing pattern.5. Once it is comprehended that religion designates a significantaspect of a major portion of the human population throughout its

Sam Gill is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder,CO 80309-0292.

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history, dual motivations arise for the study of religion. On theone hand is the desire to appreciate, understand, and comprehendspecific religions in their historical and cultural particularity. Onthe other hand is the opportunity afforded by the broadly compara-tive category, religion, to learn more about ourselves as humanbeings.

The academic study of religion, as distinguished by these crite-ria, has not enjoyed adequate development. As an academic disci-pline, distinct from the religious study of religion, it has failed toadvance any sustainable body of theory, any cadre of religion theo-rists, any substantial body of literature. The inability to articulatethe academic study of religion and the unsatisfactory defense ofthe place and role of religion studies in the modern academic envi-ronment have placed departments of religion at a low level of budg-etary priority and at risk in many colleges and universities.

In contrast, what has thrived is the religious study of religion,that is studies in which the scholar is studying her or his own reli-gion or a religion other than his or her own primarily for the pur-pose or purposes stipulated by the religion studied rather than thepurpose or purposes stipulated by the academy. In other words,the study of any religion—whether one's own or another—in orderto find God, to transcend desire, or any other reason that religiouspractitioners have for their religious practices, including study, is areligious, and not an academic, study. These religious studies havelong American traditions and intellectual heritages spanning cen-turies. However, it will be contended that the success of thesekinds of religious studies has likely contributed to the repressedand retarded development of the academic study of religion.

While there is a correlation of the academic study of religionwith the university and the religious study of religion with semi-naries and theological schools, both approaches occur in bothkinds of institutions. These approaches are presented here asclearly distinctive, yet there is no intent that either has inherentlygreater value than the other. While these approaches have differ-ent bounding conditions it is possible that some scholarship maysimultaneously adequately satisfy both sets of bounding condi-tions. This essay argues that it is important to make this distinc-tion and it focuses on the approach labeled the academic study ofreligion, arguing that this approach should be the approach fos-tered by the American Academy of Religion. When the academicstudy of religion fails to understand and to accept the demands of

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being a member of the academic community, which it does rou-tinely, it embraces vagueness; it invites its own dissolution. Whenthe academic study of religion ignores the bounding conditionsstated above, it abandons its own distinctiveness.

From the mid-nineteenth century the development of many aca-demic fields—namely the social sciences and, to a lesser extent, thehumanities—has emerged from and been motivated by boundaryconditions similar to those listed above. Such boundaries aredemanded of modern academic studies. Whereas such intellectualactivities as Christian studies and Jewish studies precede and par-allel the academic study of religion, there are no counterparts tothese studies in the social sciences. The social scientific andhumanistic academic enterprises often emerged by carefully andsometimes dramatically presenting positions in opposition toWestern religious views and thereby, in contrast to the academicstudy of religion, won a measure of freedom and had to respond tothe necessity to carefully distinguish and define themselves interms of theory, method, and model. The academic study of reli-gion, rather than arising as a field in its own right, has taken lessinspired and productive paths. It has either simply extended tonew culture areas the methods and theories of the pre-existingapproaches—that is, of the religiously motivated studies of reli-gion—or it has borrowed social scientific methods and theories bywhich to study religion. The former approach produces studiesmodeled largely on long heritages of the study of Western religioustraditions in which history, text, and thought are emphasized. Thelatter produces studies that are difficult to distinguish from thefields in which the theories and methods are borrowed. Neitherapproach has been much shaped by the boundary principles out-lined above.

The academic study of religion has often failed to acknowledgewhat it is. It is academic; it is Western; it is intellectual. This iden-tification does not mean the academic study of religion must benarrow-minded, insensitive, irresponsible, closed, or exclusive. Itdoes mean that rational discourse is the basic mode of communi-cation. It does mean that the boundary conditions stated abovemust be respected.

A brief critical discussion will illustrate the difficulties of theapproaches taken.

Illustrative of the failure in developing the academic study ofreligion are the ways in which the question "what is religion?" has

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been approached. Often the question is approached by attemptingto establish a mandate by setting forth an essentialist definition ofreligion prior to the study of the subject. This strategy correlateswith the heritage of the religious study of religion where the limitsof one's study are commonly distinguished by the nature of thedata. To study Christianity, for example, is simply to study thingsChristian. Perhaps it seemed logical to extend this principle to thegeneral academic study of religion by arguing that the academicstudy of religion is the study of data that are distinctively anduniquely religious. A definition of the essence of religion wouldfunction for the academic study of religion, it might be supposed,something like doctrine or a statement of faith. But this defini-tional approach requires that the religious distinctiveness of thesubject be described and defended at the outset. The unreachablegoal towards which the study is directed, that is to understandwhat religion is, is required as a precondition to the study.Defending the sui generis character of religious data retards theacademic study of religion. The effect is a degenerating discussionof definition while ignoring the specific historical and cultural sub-jects. Theory remains aloof or is the mere restatement or explica-tion of the statement of essence. Founding the study of religion onessentialist definitions encourages discourse conducted on theauthority of vision, insight, or experience rather than rational dis-course, hypothetic inference, and the application of scientificmethod. Persuasion overshadows criticism. Academic freedom isreplaced by the requirements of conformity. Inarguable resultsproduced by relying on some religious givenness displaces aca-demic responsibility. Comparative study becomes the instrumentof academic proselytization, of exacting belonging. Diversity anddifference are unwelcome.

The development of the study of religion that borrows its theo-ries and methods from the social sciences (or other disciplines)faces the problem of distinguishing itself from the sources of bor-rowed theories. The problem has been tackled in several ways.One common defense has been to place the difference in thescholar, by holding that religion scholars are endowed with somespecial sensitivity that permits them to use scientific theories to theend of studying religion non-reductively, that is, studying religiousdata as religious in contrast to some reductive interest such as thatof social scientists. Perhaps as newcomers to academia there hasbeen a failure to recognize that all academic studies are reductive.

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Reduction means to render data in terms of a chosen perspective,to look at a subject from one perspective or theory among many.This anti-reductive defense is based on an embarrassing mystifica-tion of the academic study of religion and an unfortunate misun-derstanding of academic methods. Another defense has been toproclaim that the academic study of religion is distinguished asinterdisciplinary or eclectic in its approach. This defense is a veilthat attempts to conceal the dearth of religion theory.

Another way to show how the academic study of religion hasfailed to adequately develop is the treatment of comparison. TheChristian missionary mandate has fostered much comparativestudy of religion as a method of expanding Christianity. Inevita-bly Christian terms, categories, and ideas have been fundamentalto the comparative enterprise. The patternists' use of comparisonwas an extension of this Christian understanding of comparison,both in terms of the categories used and the attitude toward differ-ence. For patternists the criteria for the religious are determined atthe outset of the study. They use comparison as the method, thelens, by which to recognize or identify "the religious" in the historyof religions. In the academic study of religion comparison hasinvariably meant fit or congruity to pre-exiting patterns or criteria.The academic study of religion has tended to restrict comparisonprimarily to finding similarity among different traditions, but thismost often has meant concocting similarities and ignoring differ-ences. Too much of the study of religion has been simply theextension of broadly accepted patterns and categories to data notyet rendered in terms of these patterns. This comparativeapproach diminishes both the broad advancement of an under-standing of "religion" and the potential for seeing the distinctive-ness of the specific.

To hold that the academic study of religion is necessarily com-parative does not mean that every study must compare more thanone religious tradition, a form now rather rare. Comparison is atthe root of all learning, but knowledge is not advanced or of inter-est except where difference is discerned. Unfortunately differencesand incongruities, if not simply ignored, have usually beenexplained away.

The comparative operations of the academic study of religioncorrelate with the broadly held essentialist view of religion—that is,that religion is "the sacred" or "ultimate concern" and that theattributes of "the sacred" and "ultimate concern" are goodness,

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purity, and unity, or of the center or origin. From this approach, tostudy religion means to discern and appreciate these desirablequalities in any culture. This is not only a weak form of compari-son, it is also a form of imperialism because it reduces all culturesto reflections of these ideas. Furthermore, this comparativeapproach coupled with a vague and romanticized understanding ofreligion tends to be blind to any potentially negative (as evaluatedin these same terms) aspects of religion, blind not only to theJonestowns and the Wacos, but also to the poverty, suffering,oppression, and violence that are aspects of almost every religioustradition.

In light of these remarks I want to look at specific areas withinthe academic study of religion. The heritage for the academicstudy of small-scale exclusively-oral peoples is deeply rooted in thenineteenth century evolutionist studies in which the cultures thenlabeled "primitive" were sought for evidence of religion-in-the-mak-ing or the ur-religious or the original monotheism. The heritagefor this study is the same as that for modern anthropology and thecomparative study of religion. These particular cultures and tradi-tions were the principal subjects for anthropological studies wellinto this century and remain highly important to that field.

There is significant potential—now more than ever—to the aca-demic study of religion in the study of these cultures, a potential tomove beyond the limitations set forth above. Nearly everythingabout these cultures and their religions questions the assumptionsand approaches of the academic study of religion. For example,where the academic study of religion has depended almost exclu-sively on texts (scripture) and thought as reflected in writing (the-ology, doctrine, historical documents), none of these forms of dataexists in exclusively-oral cultures. One finds instead dance, ritual,movement, objects. Such awareness of difference could lead to thedevelopment of techniques, methods, questions, and perspectivesthat are not only applicable to exclusively-oral cultures, but thatalso open new and important areas within the study of all religiouscultures. The implications for the academic study of religion, foreven this one issue, are enormous.

Courses on Native American religions are taught in collegesand universities throughout North America. The American Acad-emy of Religion has recognized the area for the last twenty years.Still, during this period few scholars (certainly less than a dozen)within the academic study of religion have devoted the majority of

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their time to research and publication on the subject. Almost noneof these scholars, few as they are, did their graduate schooling inthe academic study of religion, but rather such fields as historyand anthropology. Notably most of this group who did their grad-uate work in religion studied other traditions—Hinduism, Chinesereligions, Christianity—rather than Native Americans. Duringmost of this twenty-year period the only PhD program where onecould study Native American religions was not even in NorthAmerica, but in Sweden. Currendy only a couple religion pro-grams in North American support study of Native American reli-gions at the PhD level.

The topics that have engendered lively discussion in recentyears in the study of Native American religions are revealing. Dis-cussion has frequendy centered on whether or not active participa-tion in the study of Native American religions should to berestricted to those who speak Native American languages and havefield experience. Another topic of recent interest is whether non-Native Americans should study and teach Native American reli-gions. This discussion from start to finish has explored issues thatdivide along ethnic and racial lines (as even the question wasformulated).

In terms of academic criteria both these issues are misplaced.The question of whether or not one ought to know one's subject interms of the language and cultural setting seems to be the questionof whether or not the area of study is an academic one. For thereto be any discussion is evidence enough that it is not. Such a dis-cussion could certainly not occur in other academic disciplines. Ifone wants to participate in the academic study of Judaism, ithardly needs to be stated that minimally one must know Hebrew.If one wants to contribute to the academic study of contemporaryHindu ritual practice, one must spend time in Hindu communitiesand know the relevant languages.

The issues of language and field study are linked to the secondissue of whether or not non-Native Americans should teach (and itseems it would imply also to conduct research on) Native Ameri-can religions. Here the matter has become almost purely politicaland has failed to raise any substantive academic issues. If the aca-demic study of religion understood both what it means to be aca-demic and how discussions permitted under the "religion" rubricare bounded, these topics would be irrelevant. There is no ques-tion that one must know languages and do field studies as appro-

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priate to the methods and requirements of the larger academiccommunity. Racial or cultural distinctions cannot possibly be rele-vant criteria by which to determine research or pedagogical compe-tence in any sub-field. To hold that one race, ethnicity, or gender issomehow privileged in any area of academic study is racism andrefutes important gains that have been made this century.

These discussions of academic qualifications are hopelesslysidetracking. Without the guiding academic context that shouldbe provided by the broader academic study of religion, too oftenscholars in such small fields as the academic study of Native Amer-ican religions simply talk about what seems personally mostimportant. Native American members of the group often talkabout their experiences, both in terms of their own tribal culturesand as Native Americans (oppressed minorities in academia as wellas American culture). Non-Native Americans frequently talk abouttheir attempts at academic studies of Native American religions,usually as tangential to a scholar's principal area of study,attempts that may be motivated by a romanticism of Native Ameri-cans or conducted without adequate language and field support.The results of these discussions are usually not engaging or pro-ductive enough to support a vital academic field. The publications,few as they are, by members of this field tend to be as much discus-sions about what should or should not go on in the field, whoshould and should not contribute to the field, as they are produc-tive studies of Native American religious topics. Discourse aboutthe shape and nature of a field are important and inevitable to thehealth of a field, but it is a sure sign of the tenuousness and irrele-vance of the field when this talk about the field becomes the princi-pal topic of discussion, the main product of the field.

Graduate study in Native American religions in departments ofreligion has been minimal. The trend seems to be to develop pro-grams that encourage primarily those who are ethnically NativeAmerican. This predictably replicates the pattern of the religiousstudy of religion. Who other than Native Americans should studyNative American religions when it is primarily Christians whostudy Christianity? The studies of Native American religions per-mitted and encouraged in graduate programs are usually highlyspecific studies of the students' own heritages and traditions con-ducted in ways that little engage the broader academic study ofreligion. A good many of these students engage only culturalmaterials absent of conversation with any academic community

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whatsoever. Such students graduate without being able to, or evenwanting to, participate in the larger discourse of the academicstudy of religion. This strategy, which also applies, in part, tomany religion sub-fields—women and religion, African religions,Protestant Reformation history, African-American religions, etc.—will prove disastrous. The result is the population of the academicstudy of religion with scholars and teachers who know only theirown specific area and who study it primarily because it has reli-gious and political importance to their personal religious, racial,ethnic, or gender connection with it and whose studies are evalu-ated more on the authority granted by religion, race, gender, orethnic identity than upon academic performance. This strategyamounts to the abandonment or betrayal of the academic study ofreligion. Were the study of religion adequately established as anacademic field, the tradition of academic study—the heritage ofissues, concerns, problems, questions, literatures that comprisethe larger field—would frame and shape the discourse that identi-fies the specific studies as belonging to the academic study of reli-gion. The studies and programs presently permitted andencouraged suffer in quality and in terms of realizing the potentialof their academic contribution because they are conducted in thecontext of an academic field that provides little guidance, disci-pline, or support. Almost all of these studies are informed most byfields other than religion—that is, by fields such as anthropology,sociology, literature, philosophy.

Further evidence of the failure of the academic study of the reli-gions of exclusively-oral small-scale cultures: within the academicstudy of religion, the study of Australian Aboriginal religions hasbeen virtually abandoned, as have the small-scale cultures inOceania and Indonesia. South and Central Americas and Africafare little better. Around the world the religions of thousands ofsmall-scale societies that are labeled peasant and folk receivealmost no attention. The enormous potential of this area of studyremains.

In most cultures around the world, save Western traditionsespecially Christianity, religion and dance are practically synony-mous. From the ancient Bharata natyam of South India to HopiKachina dances, from Jewish wedding dances to the Sufi whirlingdervishes religion is not only expressed, but enacted, throughdance. For many religious traditions, religion without dance isunimaginable. Yet, perhaps because of the paucity of dance in

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Christianity (and to a lesser extent other Western religions) andgiven the influence of Christian (and other Western religious) stud-ies on the academic study of religion, dance, and to a somewhatlesser extent other forms of physical movement and ritual, havereceived almost no attention by students of religion. It is astonish-ing that the academic study of religion has been so little attentiveto the religious forms by which most religious people identify theirown religiousness.

Certainly in the academic study of religion there is a movementto be attentive to the study of ritual and more recently to the studyof the body. Yet even these concerns suffer by being framed in theCartesian and Western dualism—mind/body, spirit/body. Forexample, much of the present study of ritual is understood as thestudy of the non-textual in contrast with the textual, the study ofnonverbal action as opposed to speech and writing. This bifurca-tion is at best misleading.

The impoverishment of these areas of study demonstrates thatthe academic study of religion remains almost exclusively a reli-gious study of religion in almost exclusively Western religiousterms. The studies of the religions of small-scale exclusively-oralcultures; the studies of movement, ritual, and dance of all religiouscultures has been almost entirely yielded to the purview of thesocial sciences. The studies of women and religion, African-Ameri-can religions, and Asian religions are not exempt from thedescribed limitations of the academic study of religion.

The distinctiveness of what presently exists as the academicstudy of religion than arises by default. It is a field that has littletheory, but welcomes the appropriation of theory from all otherfields. It is a field that takes pride in being eclectic, but conse-quently suffers in the absence of a distinctive academic tradition.The study of religion suffers as an academic field because its prac-titioners confuse making clear boundaries with rigidity, narrowmindedness, and intolerance.

For many who identify with the discipline, the academic studyof religion is no more than a cumbersome rubric that makes possi-ble what to them is the actual study of religion, their specific areaof study conducted commonly as a religious study. The AmericanAcademy of Religion is for many but a rambling organ that hostsannual meetings for a large variety of specific religious studygroups. The bulk of the productivity of the academic study of reli-gion goes on through these small and often highly rigorous

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groups. The overwhelming majority of work in the Academy is thebusiness of specific studies within the Christian tradition. For themajority of the members of these organizations, however theymight define the term, religion is effectively synonymous withChristianity. Too few of these studies contribute to or benefit fromthe concerns that ought be the main business of the academicstudy of religion.1

1 My thanks to Delwin Brown and Lynn Ross-Bryant for careful readings of this paper.