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In 1636 the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay was confronted with a sectarian outburst which rent the religious and civil peace of Boston and temporarily threatened that of the whole colony. Certain of the Boston congregation, led by Anne Hutchinson and abetted by John Cotton, the teacher of the church, charged that the clergy of the Bay, almost entirely, were not true ministers of the gospel but in fact a company of unregenerate “legalists”, preaching a “covenant of works” instead of a “covenant of grace”, and there by hindering the work of redemption. For nearly two years the “Antinomian Controversy” darkened the radiance of the City on the Hill, and echoes of the affair returned in the next decade to plague apologists for the New England Way. Part of the apologists' difficulty was the fact that their star, the illustrious Cotton, had been on the wrong side.

This essay considers an exchange between ''new secular'' theologians in the US and a Canadian proponent of the scientific study of religion, about humanistic and scientific values in the academic study of religion, in relation to the character of contemporary universities and the scope of the humanities. It suggests that the humanistic study of religion is culturally normal in North American higher education and educationally important, but is limited as a program for the study of religion as social reality. The essay argues that systematic, integrated study of religions, incorporating contemporary knowledge about human behavior, is necessary for understanding actions of religious people in social and historical circumstances. To this end it proposes an integrated causal model, drawing on Michael Pye's concept of Religionswissenschaft and Talcott Parsons's general action theory.Ré sumé : Cet article considère un échange entre les « nouveaux théologiens laïques » des États-Unis et un promoteur canadien de l'étude scientifique de la religion, au sujet des valeurs humanistes et scientifiques de l'étude académique de la religion, en relation avec le caractère des universités contemporaines et la portée des sciences humaines. Il suggère que l'approche humaniste de la religion est culturellement normale dans l'enseignement supérieur en Amérique du Nord et importante du point de vue éducatif, mais elle est limitée en tant que programme pour l'étude de la religion comme réalité sociale. L'article soutient que l'étude systématique des religions, en intégrant les connaissances actuelles sur le comportement humain, est nécessaire pour comprendre les actions des personnes religieuses dans des contextes sociaux et historiques. À cette fin, Mots clé s étude académique de la religion, théologie laïque, sciences humaines, théorie d'action, science de la religion Is the scholarly, academic study of religion fundamentally an interpretive matter, an exploring and appropriating of distinctive meanings relating to human character and condition, an exercise requiring special sensibility? Or is it properly a descriptive and explanatory matter, treating behaviors continuous with human behavior generally, in the public domain shared by modern sciences? This familiar tension appeared anew, if not afresh, in a recent exchange between ''new secular theologians'' in the United States and the Canadian proponent of scientific study of religion, Donald Wiebe. The exchange evokes the mixed history of the field, comprising Hume's effort to account for religion in the natural circumstances of human life, Schleiermacher's counter-effort to derive religion from a distinctive perception, and efforts of confessing and erstwhile Christians to navigate in relation to these positions and avoid obscurantism while retaining religious credentials. Both parties offered prescriptions for the proper scope and conduct of the academic study of religion, bracketing a persistent tension in the field between promoting religious sensibility in a needy world and subs...

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led an independent gathered congregation concurrently there (from c. 1642). His parishioners and congregants were prominent in London radical politics and sectarian activity during the Civil Wars and after. Of independent mind and a natural polemicist, attuned to the potential of unlicensed printing, Goodwin produced a great stream of tracts, defending liberty of subjects against royalists, Independency against Presbyterians, instituted churches and trained clergy against sectaries, toleration against coerced uniformity, and trinitarianism against Socinians. In print, he vociferously supported the war against the Cavaliers, the Army revolt, the purge of Parliament, the execution of the king, and the Protectorate. He advocated liberty of conscience and independence of religion from the authority of magistrates, and he broke with Cromwell over the ecclesiastical Triers. He survived the Restoration, partly on his reputation as an Arminian and a troubler of Puritans. Presbyterians called him the "great Red Dragon of Coleman Street." Coffey offers an "intellectual biography" (6), set in the context of Goodwin's intellectual affiliations and political connections, his associates and antagonists, and his publishers and printers, and also of contemporary events. He draws extensively on recent scholarship on English Puritans and on the period of the Interregnum. Nine chapters treat Goodwin's education and early career, early tenure at Coleman Street, activity during the First Civil War, challenge to Presbyterians and support of the New Model Army, conversion to and defense of Arminianism, and continued polemic and waning influence after 1652. Coffey canvasses both sides of Goodwin's running and episodic controversies and campaigns as they appear in his manifold publications. There is a bibliography of primary and secondary sources for Goodwin, and a critical review of anonymous works attributed to him. Coffey shows that, as a city preacher in a strategic parish, Goodwin was at the center of excitement and contention during the high period of the Puritan