The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University: (Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation)

In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Part One: Disenchantment with Science in the Academic Study of Religion 1 Including Religion in “Religious Studies” 2 Secular Theology Is Still Theology 3 Scientific Study of Religion and Its Cultured Despisers 4 Apologetic Modes of Theorizing 5 The Learned Practice of Religion in Canada 6 Affirming Religion in the History of Religious Studies Part Two: Evidencing the Rejection of the Modern Epistemic Tradition in the Study of Religion 7 Religion Thin and Thick 8 Incurably Religious: The AAR at Fifty-Five 9 American Influence on the Shape of Things to Come 10 Religious Studies in North America during the Cold War 11 The Desire for Moral Validation Part Three: In Search of a Culture-Transcending Knowledge of Religions and Religion 12 Removing Religion from the Study of Religion: A Nineteenth-Century Innovation 13 Modernism and the Study of Religion 14 Rejecting a “Science-Lite” Study of Religion in the Modern University Conclusion: Need Religious Studies Remain “Conspicuously Unscientific”? Epilogue: Tending to Werblowsky's Concerns Notes References Index

About the Author :
Donald Wiebe is Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Toronto, Canada.

Review :
Wiebe has done it again! In this collection he offers a framework for what should be the appropriate study of religion in the modern university. Providing a refreshing antidote to the irenic and the interfaith, Wiebe maintains that the study of religion must be a scientific endeavor unencumbered by religious or moralizing agendas. A science of religion is about knowledge pure and simple, and not about slogans that invoke the betterment of individuals and society. Donald Wiebe's work rightfully remains at the center of debates on the study of religion's shape and its limits, making it required reading for anyone concerned with how “the study of” and “the practice of” ought to relate to one another; the unrelenting rigor of his advocacy for a truly scientific study of religion keeps the field honest by preventing readers from ever forgetting what was and remains at stake when scholars study religion.