The Outrageous Idea of a Christian Literary Studies: Prospects for the Future and a Meditation on Hope

Abstract

At the beginning of the second fifty years of this fine journal, perhaps it is timely to look both back and forward by way of suggesting possible directions for the future of our joint mission as scholars of Christianity and literature. It is indeed a daunting task: to scan the broad expanse of recent scholarship, assess the symptoms and drift of our profession, and then offer up, as my title presumptuously puts it, some prospects for the future. However, that is the assigned task at hand, and so it is with genuine fear and trembling that I offer up these pages. I should also say that, when I must illustrate my points with specific literary examples, these will almost all be from my own field of American literature. I am certain that my colleagues in British and other national literatures in English could provide many more examples of whatever I may be describing; rather than attempt what I am simply not capable of producing, I will leave that task to others more knowledgeable than myself. Thus do I begin somewhat apologetically, begging the reader's kind patience.

Toward a Postsecular Eighteenth Century

“…Because religious freedom – overcoming the tyranny of non‐Protestant absolutist regimes – is the foundation of politics under secular liberalism, religion differs from other politics of identity – race, class, gender, and nationalism – that have been the focus of critiques of the Enlightenment. For these categories, we assume, as Harold Bush has argued, that the native informant has special knowledge, while for religion, we tend to assume the opposite. Being religious would tend to disqualify a critic – Charles Taylor being both the rule and the exception here – from scholarship on religion…”