What Is Happening to Religious Studies? Six Narratives

The starting point of this essay is the assumption that religious studies (or the study of religion\s, as I prefer to call it) are topically defined, that is, that our work somehow relates to religion or religions, to “religion” or “religious” features; religion establishes our “disciplinary horizon” (Smith 2004, 194). As scholars of religion/“religion,” we are endlessly fascinated by it. There may be good theoretical and pragmatic reasons to abandon this key notion and opt for more promising ones—maybe spirituality (Hanegraaff 2020) or worldview (Taves 2020)—but until we have agreed on such proposals, our fate is tied to that of religion, or “religion.” So, what is the fate of religion, or rather, how do we tell it? A while ago, Jim Spickard argued that “sociologists of religion are no longer arguing over a single account of religion's place in the contemporary world” (Spickard 2006, 14). Instead, he held that we can best “comprehend our current disciplinary conflict as a clash between six distinct stories about ‘What is happening to religion?’ today and in the years to come” (Spickard 2006, 14). In this essay, in a recursive move, I will reflect on “What is happening to religious studies” by using Spickard's six narratives as signposts.1 Of course, as critical readers will not fail to observe, I will need to allow myself a good dose of hermeneutic liberty to make the exercise of analogous thinking work. Space does not allow me to unpack any of these six narratives or tropes, so I will need to allude to potential stories that could be told and leave the rest to the readers' imaginations. I hope the reader will forgive me for this conceit and for referring to some of my own earlier work as examples of some of the trends I mention in this essay. This master trope can be turned into several stories. The obvious one is the story of decline; just as fewer people attend services in Western countries, we now have fewer students than before. Departments have been closed, just as many convents and churches have. And maybe there is not just correlation but causality at work here. Secularization has been reinforced by a decrease in religious socialization (Stolz 2020); similarly, there is a lower degree of religious literacy among the students we get in Western Europe—few have grown up with Biblical stories, even though many have encountered religious motives through popular culture—and fewer of our students choose religious studies to cope with their religious biographies. In other words: as fewer people find religion important in their own lives and have experience with practiced religion or homes imbued by faith or apostasy, fewer find religion a salient option to study. If this biographical trigger disappears, so does the emotional appeal of religious studies, and as I see it, we do not offer intellectual resources that are ahead of or superior to other disciplines—in fact, most of our methods and theorizing derives from other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology—nor do religious studies degrees offer promising career or job opportunities. In this story, secularization causally affects religious studies. Yet, secularization also causally affects religious studies because fewer scholars have a religious biography; as there are fewer liberal Christians out there, there are also fewer here (i.e., in our departments). The present cohort of scholars in the community is no longer dominated by Christians, and the study of religion\s, at least in Europe, has become a self-avowedly secular affair,2 where religion is taboo as a subjective factor and “theology” a dirty word, or where religion has been given up in favor of studying “religion,” to see what groups and institutions do with this word or category (e.g., Taira 2022).3 Traditionally, historicization has been an effective strategy of disenchantment or laicization, and under the disguise of “history of religions,” we have been part of this story (see Stausberg 2023 for the case of Geo Widengren). Just as many churches live on as cultural heritage, we describe religions similarly by emphasizing cultural context and significance while at the same time being skeptical toward factors like religious experiences as driving forces. A significant strand of European scholarship on religion looks at representations of religion, for example, in tourism (Stausberg 2011), in the media, in popular culture, in fiction; in all of these segments of culture, professional scholars can find an abundance of religion, even if this does not mean that they observe religious communication, that the writers and their readers are highly religious. Also, the recent rise of the study of the nonreligious makes sense in this narrative of secularization (see the journal Secularism & Nonreligion [2012ff]). Even though the term “fundamentalism” has a certain outdated flavor to it since Evangelicalism has surpassed Fundamentalism as the dominant successful rival to Liberalism in recent decades, the features Spickard associates with this label have not disappeared; among other things, Spickard mentions literalism, conservativism, sectarianism in the sense of world rejection and seeing their respective religion as “the sole repository of truth” (18), reverence for rules, and a grounding for identity “for those who distrust a world gone mad” (18). Spickard adds the caveat that the fundamentalist narrative “is a common one among journalists and political scientists” but “not so common among sociologists and scholars of religion” (17). And, of course, with regard to this narrative, my strategy of redescription can look implausible, for would I really go so far and claim to detect “fundamentalist” tendency in religious studies? But wait a minute. Are there no positions in religious studies, for instance in Germany, where candidates' religious or confessional outlook overrules their academic competence? And is the experience of hitting some kind of doctrinal wall really that uncommon in academia? What are the limits of the sayable? Are there no tendencies in academia, including religious studies, to consider one's own version of it as “the sole repository” of true scholarship? Are we senior scholars not sometimes having the sensation of “a world gone mad”? The diagnosis of this “madness” can, of course, vary a good deal, with potential culprits ranging, mostly for good reasons, from neoliberalism, new management, the competition state, cancel culture, identity politics, truth decay, new fascisms, and political authoritarianism. Liberal intellectuals find themselves in opposition to these developments, some even doing this is in a mode of activism (Van der Haven 2023) or by taking on a habitus of silent resistance.4 A culture of fear may have spread to such an extent that there is “an army of scholars who wisely don't publicly resist postmodernism, feminism, poststructuralism, etc., but do quietist resistance by doing for instance only philology, dry detailed historical work, etc., and avoiding any ‘political’ subjects” (Van der Haven 2023). We may also ask: Is there no “reverence” for canonical figures in religious studies, where a citation of some phrase, or the dropping of some name (or just invoking initials), has the intended effect of settling the matter, of closing the case, instead of constantly self-critically questioning our basic assumptions? Maybe the Liberalism fought by Fundamentalism, or the Humanistic Secularism attacked by Evangelicalism can, in scholarship, loosely be compared with the phantom image of postmodernism with its chaotic (almost) anything goes (within certain limits) that needs to be disciplined by evoking fundamental rules of real science or by invoking a set of “theses”? And just as Fundamentalism wishes to Make Religion Great Again, so certain branches of scholarship wish to Make Religious Studies Science Again against the perceived threat of its navel-gazing postmodern dilution and playfulness. Others criticize “woke” versions of religious studies that seek to overcome colonialism, structural discrimination, and injustice, starting with confessions of epistemic sins, as “evangelical, dogmatic, or even fundamentalist” and religion-like programs (Prohl 2022, 125). Does the power invoked by postmodernists and critical theorists disempower others? This section of Spickard's essay has a clearly American perspective; he believes that this “tale … is as plausible on the American scene as the tale of religious decline is on the European one” (19). Several European sociologists and most European scholars of religion would instead go for the tale of the great religious transformation. While Spickard's narrative focuses on churches, European scholars tend to conceptualize religion more broadly. Spickard's reorganization refers to “church shopping” and the rise of “independent churches”; he points to immigrant congregations and “religious localism,” that is, religion “in its local manifestation.” In my attempt to use this trope for my playful exercise, I can point to a tendency among many religious studies programs in Europe to draw on their local religious environments for teaching and research. Immigration has, of course, been a key factor in changing religious landscapes in Europe, especially in urban contexts.5 Second- or third-generation migrants have become an important part of the student population in religious studies departments. Another dimension is migrant sponsorship of the study of their respective religious tradition through donations and endowments. So far, this development has been less visible in continental Europe compared with the UK and North America. In the field of Zoroastrian studies, where some of my scholarly activities are located, this has been a game changer since partly adherent-endowed chairs and institutes have been established in England (SOAS), Canada (University of Toronto), and the United States (University of California, Irvine). As governments tend to reduce their investment in the study of ancient and foreign languages or adopt policies that come at the expense of the humanities (see Hammer 2020 for the case of Denmark), this partnership with religious groups and people may become ever the more important. If we extend Spickard's focus on the reorganization of churches to transformations of or within the religious field in a broader sense, then this would cover much of the ground that religious studies has been gaining over the past decades, which has gone past the canon of the big religions, dismissed the idea of “world religions,” paid attention to religious discourses and discourses on religion beyond the sphere of religions, addressed the history and work of the category of “religion,” and explored alternative religiosities, or alternatives to religion and “religion.” In Europe, for example, Western Esotericism has become a big thing—and once again, private sponsorship has been instrumental to push this field off the ground, with the Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP) located at the University of Amsterdam (Stausberg 2013). While committed Christians or Jews have become rare, or invisible, in the study of religion\s, at least in Europe, my impression is that a fair amount of students of Western Esotericism have more than purely academic interests in this subject matter; practicing pagans, witches, and magicians have also become more visible, and this field thrives in the interplay between research and practice. Religious diversity has grown, not just between churches but within them. Where once most individuals accepted what their leaders told them, today they demand the right to decide for themselves … Not only do individuals today not generally believe everything that their church leaders tell them they should, but members of many churches display a diversity of religious beliefs and practices that formerly would have been defined as heresies. (21) Another perspective down from our pulpits is the increased diversity within our classrooms. Where we in Norway can still assume a fairly coherent template for a shared understanding of “religion,” partly because our students had the benefit of compulsory education on religion at private and public schools, such degrees of background coherence can no longer be taken for granted in many other countries. However, can we really be sure that we avoid groupthink? To some extent, groupthink can be a side effect of the formation of disciplines that streamline academic discourse. Is there evidence for a greater diversity of opinions and preferences within the tribe? I think, to some extent, there is (but see also below #6). As I see it, there is general agreement that there is no longer a master narrative that unites us, whether it is history or phenomenology. Instead, what we find is a proliferation of different approaches or “turns” (Bachmann-Medick 2016), groundbreaking methodological and theoretical reorientations such as the interpretative, performative, reflexive, postcolonial, translational, spatial, iconic, discursive, semiotic, semantic, material, aesthetic, cognitive, evolutionary, ecological, critical, digital, or others, which all have enrichened our understandings of religion. Facilitated by smooth new technologies, there also occurs a proliferation of new journals, often on the initiative of individual scholars. So, individualization can be tied to complaints about fragmentation and overspecialization—as if these were not rather common processes of academic developments. Spickard, however, rightly raises the question whether the individualization narrative maybe paints a distorted picture of the past (22). We may likewise ask whether our writing of disciplinary history tends to conceal diversity and eclecticism, for example, by privileging certain individuals, schools, and institutions considered as more important or original than their more mediocre coevals, by overlooking publications that at some points were no longer cited (even though they may have astonishing insights; Gilhus 2023) and periodicals that stopped being produced. Writing history can be a canonization of the past. From his American vantage point, Spickard assigns great importance to the marketplace, rational choice, or supply-side theory. While Spickard finds it “extremely popular among young sociologists,” he also warns that “most of its advocates have little cross-cultural experience” (23). My impression is that this narrative has been much less popular among European sociologists, and it has come under heavy attack on this side of the ocean (e.g., Bruce 1999; Gauthier 2020; see also Gauthier and Spickard 2022). Indeed, this narrative aptly illustrates the cultural divide between the United States and Europe, and Rodney Stark's theorizing, as I read him, has to no small measure been informed by American triumphalist disgust for European models of state church relationships, aka “monopolies.” Can this narrative be applied to reflecting on the current and future situation of religious studies, apart from serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of cultural context and reminding of the global impact of neoliberalism on universities worldwide? Is a religious studies degree a good “investment” for students, and are religious studies departments good ways to spend “tax money”? Has the university run like a business made us more “industrious” or “productive” and our teaching more “efficient”? Have the incentives to reach for more low-hanging fruits worked? As embarrassing as it is, there might even be reasons to answer such questions in the affirmative (but the opposite may also be true). Let us take a different perspective. If what Stark says about successful “religious firms” is true, could such a marketplace model potentially endorse the importance of old-fashioned and strict scholarship (high-cost, strong boundaries, similar to allegedly successful churches). Are interpretations of religion that are presented with more self-confidence—THIS is the way SCIENCE of religion REALLY is—and that more self-assertedly distinguish their claims from “nonsense,” “pseudo-scholarship” or “theology” more successful than softer, more reluctant, hesitant, open, and reflexive accounts? There is also another way of looking at it: We should become better entrepreneurs, we should make religion (“religion”) more interesting, we should our we should tell better stories (see also As Spickard this narrative, to narrative is on the that the for “religious “is (22). So, there should be a demand for about We tend to that religion (“religion”) is of but we make it more than it really religion, or for that “religion,” often a is not by that some who live off the of their the for their or for their do a better job in this business of how A is Stark has been right at public instead of that will our we are like the of churches who have no to to in with and our congregations of students to Writing in 2006, Spickard that narrative “not so now Spickard powerful of it. that the of a global sphere of religion has been a driving of religious studies as a global and that the claim of of religion has been by of the and Stausberg it is no that the by which the global of the out some years Spickard's essay world of the for the History of of Europe and North also the to the In some countries, like religious studies has but compared with other the of religion and other disciplines (see Spickard scholarship has not much attention in the canonical such as and our has to become and and maybe certain versions of have the of the by its of the and intellectual of the (Van der Haven 2023). Even though diversity has increased in some ways (see it is considered in of by some studies, where religion is from such as from have been for models of the other models of such as work, have been on the in this sense does then not mean the global of established of Western scholarship but new of So far, I to that little of this work has to my To make my own my to that the and of our in the context of the study of religion\s, I still to their that are in or in the name of and truth whether they to the of or or we to ask ‘What is happening to religion?’ I he would is And I would have to And I would have to as religious studies. And because are we can tell different stories that all have some degree of I could have stories, of course, but the has not been to present an picture but to offer a of beyond my own preferences while at the same time that my own work can be in several of such Let me this with a of I believe in and with and and and as If we the study of to under the of and our best is to these in our students and career scholars. to my and and der Haven for on a of this essay.

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