Critical theory of religion vs. critical religion

Abstract

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.There a debate ensued (mostly between Russell McCutcheon, Craig Martin, and CRR Editor Warren S. Goldstein), which was published subsequently in Religion Bulletin under the title ''On the Nature and Ends of Critique in the Study of Religion.''2 After that, we received two submissions, one by Craig Martin and the other by Timothy Fitzgerald, which were largely responses to the editorial.Both were published in the December 2015 issue of CRR (see Fitzgerald, 2015 andMartin, 2015).They focused on a line of inquiry we had neglected in our editorial, centering on the problems with the category of religion, which Fitzgerald has coined ''critical religion.''Here, we want to engage critical religion as articulated by McCutcheon, Fitzgerald, and Martin, recognizing that they do not stand as a cohesive unit and that there may be as much disagreement between them as there is agreement.While we appreciate the many insights that critical religion has contributed to our understanding of religion as a category, we also find limitations in the debate over the category and the ensuing assumptions concerning the methods of scholarly analysis of religion.In juxtaposition to critical religion, we shall offer a critical theory of religion more narrowly defined (a position with which we closely identify).In the Facebook exchange, McCutcheon's and Martin's objections centered on our value laden approach-which is an aspect that we share with religious traditions. 1 We argued that in order to engage in critique, one must select values as a ground for evaluation.McCutcheon pointed out that values are socially located, and we agree.Nevertheless, we see his attempt to gain a historical, institutional understanding as similarly value laden

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