Science under Siege in the Academic Study of Religion
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Description
In this collection of essays, distinguished scholar Donald Wiebe works towards restoring the scientific credibility of the study of religion in the modern research university.
This book brings together some of Wiebe's landmark essays on theory and method in the study of religion with previously unpublished work on the latest developments of the research landscape in the field. Based on an understanding of the modern university as an institution designed to gain disinterested knowledge about the world, including religions, Wiebe criticizes increasingly widespread approaches in the field of religious studies that promote religious, moral, or political agendas. He argues that, by adopting non-epistemic objectives, these approaches betray the mandate of the modern university and erode the scientific and intellectual respectability of the academic field of religious studies.
In a next step, Wiebe makes a powerful case for understanding the study of religion as a search for knowledge about the natural determinants of religious thought and behavior that uses the tools of the social and natural sciences. By conducting research that is grounded in these methodologies, he argues, scholars can produce transculturally accepted empirical, historical, and explanatory knowledge about religion(s) and return the study of religion to a scientifically sound undertaking.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Adopting an Academic 'Culture-Transcending' Mode of Thought
1. A Short Story of an Intellectual Obsession: Religion, Science, and the Modern Research
University
2. The Ivory Tower and the Public Realm
3. The Road Not Taken in the Academic Study of Religion
4. Science as a 'Culture-Transcending' Mode of Thought
Part II: Prevalent Problematic Approaches in the Study of Religion
5. Dissolving Rationality: The Anti-Science Phenomenon and its Implications for the Study of
Religion
6. 'Understanding' in Religious Studies: A Gnostic Aberration in the Modern Study of Religion
7. Ideology and the Subversion of Rational Inquiry
8. Is Globalization a Trojan Horse in the Academic Study of Religion?
9. Claims for a Plurality of Knowledges in the Comparative Study of Religions
10. History or Mythistory in the Study of Religion?
11. The Politics of Wishful Thinking: Must the Scholar of Religion be a Public Intellectual?
12. Is the Academic Study of Religion Really Not About Religion?
Part III: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion
13. 'It's Never Been Better': Comments on the Possibility of a 'Science of Religion'
14. Diverse Cultural Contributions to a 'Science of Religion': An Emerging Asia-European
Dialogue
15. Zwi Werblowsky, the IAHR, and Religionswissenschaft as 'Basic Science'
16. A Manifesto for the Scientific Study of Religion
Index
Product details
| Published | Nov 26 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 9781350610514 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Series | Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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