Commitment, Theology, and the Dilemma of Religious Studies at the State University

Abstract

AbstractThe dominant practice among scholars in Religious Studies has been to exclude committed religious belief from the teaching of religion. Theology was once the center of the academic study of religion, but its present-day exclusion has deprived Religious Studies of a methodological center characteristic of a true academic discipline, and thus Religious Studies appears to be merely a marginal interdisciplinary program rather than a discipline in its own right. Theology was once taught in a denominational way that is inappropriate to the pluralism of a secular university. Another understanding of theology, however, is as a distinctive worldview offering a unifying perspective on life, a worldview which has the same rights on the campus as any other contemporary worldview. The presence of theology so understood would restore the methodological center to the discipline of Religious Studies and would enhance that intellectual pluralism to which the modern university is committed.