Belief Unbracketed

For this week's online essay, go read Stephen Prothero's Belief Unbracketed: A Case for the Religion Scholar to Reveal More of Where He or She Is Coming From, posted at the Harvard Divinity School website. Hint: it's short, twenty modern paragraphs (that's about five 18th-century paragraphs; we're less patient than our ancestors). Prothero, of course, is the author of American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (2003), a penetrating work of religious cultural history that I read about half of two years ago over Christmas vacation and that I fully intend to finish someday. And I was just getting to the good part ...

Prothero has also set up a blog. Of course, it's more like a personal advertisement than an actual walking, talking blog. I guess when you get famous enough, you don't blog: you hire someone to blog for you. Or maybe it's just that once you write a couple of books, life becomes a never-ending exercise in book promotion. One ceases to be simply a person with a name and becomes a walking blurb whose name cannot be mentioned without being paired with the most recent publication: "Stephen Prothero is the Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of numerous books, most recently American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003) and Religious Literacy: What Americans Need to Know (HarperSanFrancisco, forthcoming in February 2007)." [This from the "About" tab on his blog.]

Well, perhaps I'm being unfair. Anyone who writes a book or two tends to display them rather prominently on their right sidebar. I guess I'm just amused by a "blog" with no posts and no comments. Did I mention he writes fine books? He's got a new one coming out in a couple of weeks, entitled Religious Literacy. Click here to buy it. (If you can't promote your own books, promote someone else's.)

Now, about that essay ... Prothero critiques "bracketing": "For more than a century, scholars of religion have been distinguishing themselves from theologians by attempting to bracket questions of truth, morality, and causality—all in the name of better understanding religious phenomena." After ten short paragraphs, he concludes, "If we really want to resuscitate religion as a moral enterprise, make bracketing a temporary strategy rather than an eternal imperative."

Comments

[John Remy]

Dave, I scouted around on Prothero's site, I can't see where he calls the "News" section a blog. He does point visitors to the WaPo's On Faith site, where he is one of many 'celebrity' panelist bloggers.

As a religious studies scholar in training, the concerns Prothero addresses in his essay are more than academic to me. I like that he draws attention to the problems caused when scholars bracket their own beliefs: this "objectivity" essentially justifies an intellectual moral high ground (while obscuring this action). Objectivity implies disinterest, and academics are anything but politically, socially, ethically and morally disinterested. I'm not saying that objectivity isn't a worthy goal, only that scholars should recognize that they aren't there, even as they strive for it.

That said, I'm uncomfortable with Prothero's attempt to bracket religion scholars into one mode of examining religion. I like the approach he describes--scholars shouldn't consider themselves so far removed from their subjects and shouldn't 'otherize' them, and it's one an attitude I try to adopt in my own research. I just don't think that all religion scholarship should adopt this mode.

Religion scholars should be permitted to moralize as well (something Prothero engages in in the "On Faith" forum). As public intellectuals, they should be willing to be morally and ethically critical of aspects of religion, even in their scholarship. But when they do so, they should throw off any pretense at objectivity, and make it clear where they are coming from.

[Dave]

John, the link I followed to get there (from The Revealer, I think) called it "Prothero's blog," and it is set up using Blogger. It's actually a nice way to put up a site showcasing one's books, publications, etc.

I know when I'm reading an article on an LDS topic or a general religious topic, some disclosure by the author of "where they're coming from" is much appreciated. If they've got an agenda (and aren't blind to it), it helps to know. Most authors make that sort of attempt in the Preface or Introduction, in a book, but in articles or essays I see it less frequently. And I think it has more application to religion, as a topic, than to other topics.

Prothero noted there were several formal responses to his essay. I'll try to dig them up online.

[Duff]

I would say there is a lot to be critical of concerning any religious philosopher's interpretation of any subject.
How does it help the accuracy of a view point if the author "discloses" where they are coming from in advance? Every viewpoint should either stand or fall on its merits. Either you have a epistemological foundation for what you state or you don't.
In my humble opinion, if an author reveals his viewpoint, most people will either tune in or out, depending on their personal predilections.
I say, don't announce in advance and maybe you will expose someone to a viewpoint they would otherwise avoid considering. Heaven forbid, someone should learn something new. Consider everything!!!
Of course, where people are insecure in their beliefs, they want advance warning that they are going to be exposed to something anathema to those beliefs.

[Lynnette]

Thanks for the link; I find these questions fascinating. As an (aspiring, at least) theologian, I've often wondered about the current situation in which theology is seen as suspect in the academy because those in the discipline work from an explicit faith commitment—-but explicit commitments of other varieties (to feminism, to Marxism, etc.) are frequently valued rather than seen as problematic. I can imagine a kind of approach to religious studies which combined things like rigorous honesty, willingness to seriously engage evidence which might potentially undermine your beliefs, and genuine efforts to understand other religious worldviews, with straightforward acknowledgment and even perhaps use of your own religious commitments and perspective. I honestly don't think they have to be a liability. A Catholic studying religious topic x, for example, might well have a unique and valuable perspective on the subject not in spite of her Catholicism but rather because of it.

[Dave]

Lynette, I found the contrast Prothero made between "scholars of religion" and "theologians" to be revealing. The "scholars" are expected to be secular, objective, and bracket their faith commitments (or better yet, hide them or just lost them). "Theologians" can express faith commitments, but thereby take themselves outside the "scholar" category. Seems like politics and quibbling over labels to me.