Normative Commitments: A Philosophical Vision for the Study of Religion

[rug]

Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion — and Vice Versa
By Thomas A. Lewis

Published 02.17.2016
Oxford University Press
224 Pages

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016
By Raphael Magarik

SHOULD A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY teach theology? In 2015, the University of California, Berkeley launched a “Public Theology Program.” Funded by a million-dollar grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and run by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the three-year program supports post-doctoral fellowships, public lectures, faculty reading groups, and curricular development in order to “chart new paths for the study of religion in the public university.”

Whether it was intentional or not, the BCSR has chosen a loaded preposition by advocating the “study of religion.” Religious studies departments at public universities have long presumed their constitutionality from the 1963 Supreme Court case Abington v. Schempp. While the Court’s main holding in that case was that readings of the Bible or the Lord’s Prayer in public schools were unconstitutional, in his concurrence, Justice Arthur Goldberg noted, passingly, that “The Court would recognize the propriety of […] the teaching about religion, as distinguished from the teaching of religion, in the public schools.” It is unclear if Justice Goldberg’s prepositional distinction is settled law; indeed, it is hard to say exactly what he meant by it. But just as ambiguities have never impeded the canonization of religious texts as scripture, the ambiguity of Goldberg’s statement has not impeded universities from building religious studies programs on the rock of that “about.” Regardless of whether law prohibits professors from advancing normative religious agendas, academic taboo certainly does. So introductory courses in world religions or the Hebrew Bible legitimate themselves as value-neutral and purely descriptive. Divinity schools theologize, the argument runs, whereas universities study. The Berkeley Public Theology Program’s “of” symbolically transgresses this taboo, opening an old and thorny intellectual problem. How can public universities teach theology if they are forbidden from endorsing particular theological claims?

In his book, Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion — and Vice Versa, Thomas Lewis presents one vision of public theology. Lewis surveys the last half-century of religious studies scholarship, arguing that religious studies should become more philosophical. Thankfully, he does not mean emphasizing the “philosophy of religion” as it is often done in American universities. In Lewis’s view, contemporary philosophy of religion usually splits along the Analytic-Continental divide. Analytic philosophy focuses on arid, scholastic apologetics over the tenets of Christian theism, while Continental philosophy usually — and fuzzily — posits religion as an irrational Other used to club Enlightenment, rationalist modernity. Neither is a particularly attractive direction for religious studies, for both make strong, problematic assumptions about the nature of religion. Lewis proposes something else altogether. When he argues that scholars of religious studies should become more “philosophical,” he means that they should be more willing to make and defend normative claims, to meditate self-reflexively on their own concepts, and to concern themselves with their own historical context.

Lewis explicitly rejects the commonplace dichotomy in religious studies between “good” descriptive scholarship and “bad” normative theology. Critical scholars often claim that the discipline of “religious studies” was molded by Protestant theologians cloaking their religious commitments in universal, academic terms. As Lewis writes, these critics claim that religious studies “remains tainted” by those roots and thus “functions as a kind of liberal Protestant — or at best ecumenical — apologetics.” Liberal Protestant scholars, these critics argue, implicitly project their own theologies onto other religions. For instance, religious studies scholars have often overemphasized belief and doctrine, even though many non-Protestant religious traditions emphasize bodily practice. Others tendentiously locate an “ur-monotheism” hidden within indigenous polytheisms such as traditional Maori mythology. This misreading of other religions wrongly affirms the universality of the scholar’s own commitments. Indeed, the very concept of “religion” academics often use — a distinct sphere of culture, grounded in transcendent beliefs and individual experience, and impervious to rational argument — describes modern Protestantism much better than, say, the life of medieval monasteries, Talmudic practice, or anything outside Western culture. As a result, some critics even deny that religious studies has any place in academia at all.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/normative-commitments-a-philosophical-vision-for-the-study-of-religion/#!

[Jim__]

1. Sounds like an interesting book.

I would think the only limitation you would want to put on the study of religion in a public university is a prohibition on any class that mandates certain beliefs. In a university, discussion should be open and that should include discussion of religion.

[rug]

3. I think it's basic literacy at this point.

The discussion around ISIS, for one, would be much different if there were a basic level of understanding of religion, along with geography and history.

[Brettongarcia]

2. Thomas A. Lewis and Berkeley should be opposed .

"Public theology"" clearly violates the separation of church and state.

Establishing the difference between the teaching of religion, and treaching about it, was clearly the intention of the Supreme Court. And clearly Berkeley is now in violation of that Constitutional law.

[rug]

4. That's complete nonsense.

Read this case: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/374/203#writing-USSC_CR_0374_0203_ZC2

[Brettongarcia]

5. A vague "ceremonial deism" at most is allowed ...

... by the Constitution, when it comes to government support for religion. And even that should be reasonably contested by American atheists. In part by noting the subordination of "nature's God" to after all, Nature as defined by naturalism.

[rug]

6. Geez, it's about what constitutes the study of religion versus promoting religion.

[Brettongarcia]

7. I'm outlining the larger constitutional case

Based on this and other cases, and my own proposal.

Within just this case? Note that this case affirmed a prohibition on school prayer. And justice Goldberg said, concurring, that the distinction between the teaching "of" vs. About, was well established.

"And it seems clear to me from the opinions in the present and past cases that the Court would recognize the propriety of providing military chaplains and of the teaching about religion, as distinguished from the teaching of religion, in the public schools. The examples could readily be multiplied. "

Our review author rightly notes though, problems with the author's advocacy of allowing normal or normative religion in religious studies departments:

'The program he describes is interesting, but what, exactly, makes it “religious studies,” as opposed to an explicitly normatively committed account of the humanities? '

In fact the line is often blurred. But what will be read as the simple advocacy of normal religion, seems to open up academe to the return of state religion, more than any new freewheeling creativity.

[rug]

8. Oh, good. Name two.

[Brettongarcia]

9. Lynch. vs. Donnally, (1984)

Was the first time, among several occasions, that the Court explicitly used Rostow's earlier phrase "ceremonial deism."

It was used to suggest the limits of government adoption.

http://www.pewforum.org/2008/08/28/on-ceremonial-occasions-may-the-government-invoke-a-deity/

[rug]

10. Which has nothing to do with the teaching of religion as an academic subject.

[Brettongarcia]

11. It suggests similar limits in gov./public ed.

[rug]

12. Er, no.

[Brettongarcia]

13. Er, yes.

Though education was not the main explicit focus of Lynch, in effect, if government support for religion is limited to only ceremonial formalities, then support of educational religious programs would logically be similarly prohibited or circumscribed. As we in effect began to see hinted in the school prayer cases.

[rug]

14. So, teaching what religion is is tantamount to promoting religion.

[Brettongarcia]

15. Teaching religion's flattering view of itself forwards religion's agenda

So teaching "normative" religion, the teaching "of" religion, is rightly prohibited by the Supreme Court.

But further, since as a practical matter it's often hard to separate teaching religion at face value, and forwarding religion, from taking a critical perspective? Then for the time being it may be best for the state, our government, not to fund religious study programs.

The new Berkeley Public Theology program may only partially but not completely escape this conundrum, by funding itself partly by a private grant.

As for combing religious with philosophical study? Specifically Phenomenology? My recent experience with exactly that found that at first, when believers encounter any secular opposing idea, at first they try to twist it and bend it to fairly traditional religious goals. Only with some very considerable effort do they finally learn to adopt secular objectivity.

So for example, religious believers looked at Biology and evolution, and tried to twist them to support normative Christianity. In Creationism. Recently, they looked at phenomenology and Memory Theory. And, rather like John Paul II and the religious phenomenologsits, existentialists, they tried at first to simply create phenomenologicalistic Christianity.

Launching a "Public Theology" program therefore might we'll just end up creating more religions. At best, new religions. But religion nevertheless.

And therefore, for now, a more prohibitive reading of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, might be advisable.