How can mainstream approaches become more critical?

Abstract

Since our launch, we have received a number of submissions that follow what we consider to be ''mainstream'' approaches in the study of religion. We think that all of these approaches have the potential to be critical, but in many cases, those who employ them do not take the additional steps necessary to make their scholarship a critical contribution. This suggests that a discussion of pathways between (to borrow Max Horkheimer's terms) traditional and critical approaches may be helpful to both readers and potential contributors. Some of the comments below reiterate and expand on our inaugural editorial.We will begin our discussion with religious studies, where to a considerable extent, critical approaches have in fact become normative. While there is much work to be done, the inherently interdisciplinary nature of religious studies makes it a useful guide to the study of religion from particular disciplinary perspectives. Our discussion will continue with theology, biblical criticism, and the relationship between the two. In the sociology of religion, which has much to learn from religious studies and biblical criticism, we would characterize mainstream approaches as those belonging to the other major paradigms including interpretive sociology, comparative-historical sociology, positivism, functionalism, social constructionism (phenomenology) or rational choice. While some of the work within some of these paradigms has been critical, too much of it has not. The fields on which we concentrate in this editorial are intended as models for a more comprehensive discussion. In this editorial, we will make suggestions as to how the scholarship in each of these fields can become

Critical theory of religion vs. critical religion

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Last year's editorial, ''How can mainstream approaches become more critical?'' (Goldstein, Boer, King and Boyarin, 2015) provoked some strong responses. Initially, these occurred in social media-a place which one might think unlikely for intellectual discussion but in some ways has become its vanguard.

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What makes Critical Religion critical? A response to Russell McCutcheon

“… 2 See Goldstein, Boyarin, and Boer 2014; Goldstein et al. 2015; Goldstein, King, and Boyarin 2016, 2017.…”

On a balanced critique: (or on the limits of critique)

“…As a discipline, religious studies has worked diligently to differentiate itself from theological and other ideological influences (see Goldstein, Boer, King and Boyarin, 2015 editorial). This process has occurred in fits and starts and has been organized around different schools, individuals, and cohorts of scholars—many of whom would rather not be classified in kind (e.g.…”