Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion: Essays in Honor of Donald Wiebe. Edited by William Arnal, Willi Braun, and Russell T. McCutcheon. Sheffield: Equinox, 2012. Pp. ix+243.

Abstract

Book Reviews One has to admire the industry, enthusiasm, and creativity with which Chen tackles the antediluvian puzzle. The author exhaustively compiles the sources, which are treated with philological acumen; he puts forward many interesting literary interpretations; and his main point about the rise of the Flood in the OB period is well established. As for some of the other developmental conclusions, the numerous methodological diffi- culties that Chen lists in his introduction and the fact that many pieces of the traditions are likely missing place question marks over several of his suggestions. Still, those looking to work with Mesopotamian Flood traditions would be wise to consult this monograph and the author’s dissertation. A LAN L ENZI University of the Pacific Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion: Essays in Honor of Donald Wiebe. Edited by W ILLIAM A RNAL , W ILLI B RAUN , and R USSEL T. M C C UTCHEON . Shef- field: Equinox, 2012. Pp. ixþ243. Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion honors the influence of Uni- versity of Toronto’s Donald Wiebe and his 1978 essay of the same name. The result is a collection of fifteen essays, subdivided into sections, “General Failures” and “Spe- cial Failures.” Some of the authors, Luther Martin, Russell McCutcheon, Darlene Juschka, or Johannes Wolfart, will be known to most readers, but the balance may not be. This review focuses on the implications of the curious inaptness of the core notion of “failure of nerve” but first attends to some salient aspects of this collection. Of the five essays classified as “General Failures,” fans of Russell McCutcheon will find his critique of cognitive and evolutionary psychological approaches to religion an intriguing development of his continuing battle for a historicized conception of reli- gion and “religion.” But, now, instead of attacking “tender-minded” neotheologians, like Mircea Eliade, for hiding a neotheological agenda behind the methodological assertion of a sui generis “religion,” McCutcheon wields his critical ax against “tough- minded” cognitivist science of religion (CogSci). CogSci, like Eliade, deploys a dis- credited sui generis (and thus theological) notion of religion (91). Although these new- est pretenders to the throne of “Prince Charming of Theories” promise nothing less than a “tough” regime of “scientific” studies of religion, McCutcheon thinks they are not nearly tough enough. CogSci, in effect, picks right up where E. B. Tylor’s essen- tialist, animist theory of religion left off in the mid-nineteenth century: religion is the worship of superhuman beings. But the CogSci neo-Tyloreans “fail” to historicize reli- gion or “religion,” much less even adequately conceptualize it, as E´mile Durkheim argued almost exactly a century ago (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, bk. 1, trans. J. W. Swain [New York, 1915]). Honors for the best essay in the “General” section go to Johannes C. Wolfart’s spar- kling historical engagement with the all-important early modern theological trend “confessionalism.” One of the targets of Wiebe’s (and my) attack on theologizing is what we call “confessional” theologizing. By this we mean sectarian attempts to place particular religious grounding under arguments about religion in the university. The