“How can public universities teach theology if they are forbidden from endorsing particular theological claims?”
“Lewis proposes something else altogether. When he argues that scholars of religious studies should become more “philosophical,” he means that they should be more willing to make and defend normative claims, to meditate self-reflexively on their own concepts, and to concern themselves with their own historical context.”
“Lewis explicitly rejects the commonplace dichotomy in religious studies between “good” descriptive scholarship and “bad” normative theology.”
“Philosophy and political science make normative claims regularly. More broadly, all humanistic scholarship commits itself normatively by choosing which texts to study or through which lenses to interpret religious behavior.”
“Lewis believes the real trouble lies not with normativity but with unquestionable assumptions. Rather than excluding normativity from academia, Lewis proposes we exclude authority.”
“By pairing a “religious” text with modern philosophical work, Arnold illustrates how the best religious studies scholarship can redefine the field itself.”
“In fact, the concept of “religion” that these literacy advocates employ often makes it hard to understand why adherents of “the same” religion disagree with each other without assuming extra-religious causes like economics or politics.”
“Imagine someone claiming that a socialist leader had no right to question someone’s socialism, or a leading choreographer their dancing, or a parallel in practically any field of human culture. Yet many Americans do think, like Trump, that no one has the right to question your religion, not even the pope.”
“This strange theory would be fine were religion purely a question of personal taste. But as Trump’s wrangling also shows, religious claims seriously influence American public life: many votes hang on whether Trump can credibly describe himself as a Christian.”
“These two points form an unsustainable paradox. Religion cannot at once be an important category of public discussion and an un-discussable, totally private absolute. Perhaps books like Thomas Lewis’s, and initiatives like the Berkeley Public Theology Program, can return religious belief and practice to the sphere of rational argumentation and deliberation — where they belong.”