Can Critical Religion Play by Its Own Rules? Why There Must Be More Ways to Be “Critical” in the Study of Religion

Abstract

According to some of the most vocal proponents of Critical Religion (CR), taking CR seriously entails accepting that religion as an analytic category leads to reification and naturalization and is unduly normative, thus critical scholars of religion should abandon it and restrict ourselves to studying discursive battles over the uses of religion. In this article, we build on the case for alternative critical proposals by offering an immanent critique of the work of proponents of CR. In doing so, we identify and outline CR’s major analytical flaws, which we name as follows: inconsistent historicization, crypto-normativity, and arbitrary abandonment. We conclude that CR scholarship cannot but fail to live up to its own ideals, and moreover that much would be lost were we to limit the critical study of religion to CR.

Response

“…In his comment, Henley points out: “There is also a shortage of literature to help teach the canon from this perspective.” Thus, he argues that “a great deal more work needs to be done to close the gap between critical religion literature and our core teaching needs.” On the other hand, critics of “critical religion” recently noted in their article published in the Journal of American Academy of Religion that “CR [critical religion] has gained traction in the field” (Watts and Mosurinjohn 2022, 318).…”

Revisiting scriptures: Unbinding a critical comparative subfield

“…225–227) and Fitzgerald (2006, pp. 392–423); Watts and Mosurinjohn (2022, pp. 317–334), Fitzgerald (2023), and Martin, 2022).…”

Entheogens: Psychedelic religion in the United States, part one

“…Instead of looking for essentializing definitions, these scholars argue that we should explore the evolution of this and related terms as we highlight issues associated with invocations of religiosity. As evident by a recent article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion , scholars of religion commonly reject this approach to the study of religion as they reify their alleged object of study (see Watts & Mosurinjohn, 2022). The current article—and indeed, one footnote in the article—will not settle this debate, but it’s worth mentioning that this article and its arguments are rooted quite firmly in the tradition of critical religion.…”