Should Religious Studies Develop a Method?

Abstract

The study of has become a recognized feature of higher education. Private and church-related colleges that have always had such studies have now begun to update their programs. Some colleges that owe their foundation to the colonial and nineteenth century periods of our history had never formalized the study of religion. Many of them are now in the process of establishing departments. However, the most significant development has taken place in public or tax-supported colleges and universities. The growth of departments and programs of religious studies in these institutions has been little short of phenomenal.' Two observations are in order. One is that the process of secularization has removed religious sanctions to a point of objective distance where they no longer seem threatening to academic freedom and can therefore be studied as phenomena of the culture (presumably like all other cultural phenomena). The second observation is that religious questions have become popular among a generation whose elders were only superficially concerned with such issues. A complementary decrease in the interest in institutional religion