Holbrook, Why an Academy of Religion (Old)

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Why an Academy of Religion?C L Y D E A . H O L B R O O K

I W O U L D like to place before you some observations which have bearing on the im-portant business which will come before us in the Report of the Self-Study Committee.I would not have you think that these remarks are merely limited in import to theproposals to be made by the Committee, for I believe that they suggest wider per-spectives for our several concerns than those referred to in the Report. Let me presentseveral theses and attempt to document them to the degree that time allows.The first thesis is that scholarship in America in religion is being carried on to asignificant extent not by professors in the college, seminary, or graduate schools of religion,but by scholars outside the professional field of religion as such. I shall use as examples anumber of journals where one might expect to find scholarship in religion. The Journal ofthe History of Ideas, a journal whose domain is humanistic studies, from 1951-60 publishedone article by a Roman Catholic seminary professor and one by a person who might havebeen a Protestant clergyman. During the same period there were several articles bearing onreligion, all of which w ere w ritten by men from philosophy, history, and literature. W emay say that it is not the kind of journal in which scholars in religion are expected to pub-lish. And we may also ask, "What of the journals which are more clearly connected withthe field of religio n?" 1 should mak e tw o rep lies. If religion is a field of scholarship w hosenormal associations are primarily with the humanities, and if this journal is a fair exampleof a humanistic journal, which I think it is, why does not more scholarly productivity fromthe pens of men in the field of religion appear in such journals? Can it be that our training,largely out of seminary orientation, has led us away from the humanistic orientation of thefield and turned us too largely to ecclesiastical interest? Have we become the victims of agraduate training which led us away from confrontation with other disciplines? If suchdangers exist is there a possible remedy by constituting a professional society in whichmen working outside of the field of religion are brought together with those in the fieldon the basis of a mutual interest in the field itself?

M y second line of reply is that the evidence draw n from journals which are mo reclosely related with the field itself is equally disquieting in its implications. Here are thefurther results of spot-checking. Church History for the years 1954-55 and 1957-60 con-tained 118 major article s: 2 w ere contributed by college professors of religion; 34 b yCLYDE A. HOLBROOK is Professor of Religion at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. His most recentbook is Religion, A Hum anistic Field (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963). The paper here

presented is his presidential address to the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Biblical In-structors, given December 30, 1963. The report of the Self-Study Committee, to which he refers, can befound on pp . 200-201 o f this issue of the Journal.

1964, by Am erican Academy of Religion


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9 8 CLYDE A. HOLBROOK

sem inary professors, 1 by a gradu ate professor, and 64 by faculty mem bers in other dis-ciplines; 13 we re contributed b y " ot he rs" by which I mean foreign scholars, gradu atestudents, clergymen, and unidentified contributors. The Harvard Theological Review forthe ye ars 1952-53, 1956-57 contained 56 major articles; 3 we re contributed by collegeprofessors of religion; 10 by seminary professors; 6 by graduate professors; 18 by mem bersof other disciplines and 19 by "others." Th e Journal of Biblical Literature for the years 1956,1958-60 contained 97 major articles: 15 came from college professors of religion; 47 fromseminary professors; 5 from graduate professors; 1, by a member of another field and 28from "others." Clearly in this journal the preponderance of scholarly output is due toprofessors in the field, and even more strictly from seminary faculty members, who ac-counted for a little less than half the total. The Journal of Religion from the years 1952-57contained 101 major articles; 15 were contributed by college professors of religion, 37 byseminary professors, 4 by graduate professors, 3 3 by faculty members in other disciplines,and 15 by "oth ers."

Clearly there are many ways of interpreting such figures as these, and I am not makinga case for the exhaustiveness of these data. All I wish to note is that these are typical ofwhat is going on, and that they strongly point to several conclusions about which thisassociation should be concerned. The first conclusion is that scholars outside of the field ofreligion are producing in the field of religion to a degree which should make us ask someserious questions of ourselves questions which cannot be evaded by referring to our-selves as being primarily teachers rather than scholars. W e are not producing scholarshipin proportion to our numbers, since in colleges, universities, and junior colleges, omittingseminaries, there are estimated to be about 3500 persons teaching religion in some form oroth er! A nd noticeably more who were unk now n to the U . S. Office of Education. It mightalso be noted that seminary faculties, contrary to popular opinion, are not producing scholar-ship in large amounts, with the exception of biblical studies. I could also document for youthe fact that Jewish scholars less often than might be expected publish in journals in thefield of religion which are non-Jewish in orientation, that Protestants tend to keep to theirjournals and Catholics to theirs. In brief, with the possible exception of the biblical area,there is much less interchange of ideas than might be expected from the various denomina-tional sources, or from those scholars who have no religious affiliation but who have anintellectual interest in the field. It appears that religious affiliation, as well as graduatetraining, may be having some injurious effects upon certain forms of scholarly publication.And again may this line of thought not direct us toward the need for a professional societywhich represents in its constituency, its publications, and its programs the variety of reli-gious and non-religious perspectives which illuminate the area of religion?

The second thesis I propose which bears upon the question of the need for an Academyof Religion is this: that an inspection of the courses typically offered by undergraduatedepartments of religion indicates that they tend to have three biases; these in turn presenta distorted view of the field of studies of religion to the student and academic world. (Imight in passing argue that not a little of this bias derives from the heavy influence of theseminary oriented curriculum for graduate work which then is passed on into the under-graduate department.) But to return to the main line, the three biases which seem to meto ha ve warped th e presentation of studies of religion are thes e: courses in weste rn religions,especially Christianity, heavily outweihg those offered in non-western religions; secondly,biblical courses make up more of the curriculum than do courses in phenomenology, andthirdly, a Protestant orientation of auricular content is more common than that of other


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W HY AN ACADEMY OF RELIGION? 99

religious traditions. I would prefer not to take your time to discuss in detail the historicaljustifications which can be offered for what I have called biases. But I would suggest thatamong other reasons the predominance of Christianity over non-western religions reflectsthe same limitation of vision and lack of trained personnel which afflicts the academic scenegenerally in this regard. In the case of religion, however, the lack of personnel may also betracked back to the influence of the virtually seminary-controlled graduate training, whichgenerally has failed to make a significant place for the preparation of persons trained inthe non-Western field. The problem of imbalance between biblical and phenomenologicalstudies also has a strong historical tradition behind it, not a small amount of which is due tothe heavily Protestant character of departments of religion which in turn is connected withthe problem of graduate training. In the second instance of bias, I take it the study of theBible at the undergraduate level needs no defense before this body; but what may need tobe said is that more room should be made, especially at the introductory range, for syste-matic presentation of the forms and types in which the religious consciousness expressesitself so that the study of the Bible itself may be set in a broader context of thought thanthat provided by some forms of biblical theology or textual criticism. The third bias, thatof the impress of the Protestant ethos on departments of religion, is again understandable interms of the history of the development of undergraduate departments of religion and thehand which seminary graduate curricula have had in the structuring of these departments.It simply seems to be a fact that the majority of the departments of religion which developedover many decades, did so out of a Protestant interest in higher education, and out of therelative ease with which persons of Protestant inclinations with their diversity of beliefsfitted in to both the church-founded and related colleges and the free university tradition.Neither Judaism nor Catholicism at earlier stages of the development of these departmentswas specifically preparing men for teaching in free liberal arts colleges and universities.The result clearly has been that the personnel teaching in the liberal arts college and univer-sity are largely dra wn from Prote stan t back ground s, and the curricula offered reflect thos eissues and materials which Protestant scholarship believes to be of preeminent importance.Consequently, as with non-western religions, courses in post-biblical Judaism and certainareas of Catholic thought appear as rather esoteric subjects in curricula. To remedy thissituation the inevitable and exasperating cry goes up for representatives of these faiths toserve as instructors in such fields. In short, the failure of Protestant training in the fieldsof Judaica and Catholic thought, and the laggard attentions paid to the desirability ofdeveloping personnel from these faiths for service as scholars and instructors in the liberalarts non-denominational college leaves us with that vexing question of sectarianism as abasis for faculty selections. I would totally deny that members should be brought to afaculty because of their religious affiliations in order to "present" a particular religiouspoint of view. T he re should be no infringement on the integrity of the university b y religiousbodies any mo re than by managem ent, labor, o r political parties. In short, sectarianismshould not be a determining factor in hiring faculty. The focus must be rather on the pro-duction of scholars and professors, regardless of religious affiliation, whose competencemeets the highest standards of scholarly professionalism. The field of religion as an integral

ingredient of a liberal education should not be turned into a battleground for sectarian tenetsfor the benefit of religious bodies whose province and authority lie outside that of theuniversity community. For that very reason Protestants, in spite of a certain historic, pre-sumptive interest in the development of the field of studies of religion, cannot continue totreat it as a private preserve.


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100 CLYDE A. HOLBROOKM y second thesis thus again points to the encouragement of a national professionalbody which could represent, and increasingly make evident, the common concerns for

scholarship and instruction in studies of religion, and which would move us away fromthe partialities which at present afflict the field of religion. A society which orients itselfto the academic community at large rather than to ecclesiastical bodies, and aims at demon-strating to the academic world at large the need for both a more inclusive view of the fieldof religion and a more intensive examination of the nature of religion should have a place inthe co ntem porary scene. By the same token it should offer a platform of confrontation wh erescholars from specialized societies may meet together to their mutual advantages.

The third thesis which I propose has to do with the development of an intellectualtradition in American religion. 1 do not suggest tha t Am erican scholarship is in the do ldrum s,but I do see the need for a franker recognition of our shortcomings. The word "scholarship"is a slippery term, including as it does both the most minute pedantries and the works ofcreative power which set new problems and move thought into untried areas of interpreta-tion. At both extremes American scholarship has been busy, but at present admittedly itseems in many areas, American scholarship is deeply indebted to foreign learning. Biblicalstudies, church history, and theology have to a very large degree depended upon Europeanand British scholarship for fresh leads. W e are som ewhat less indebted to the se sources forworkmanship in the sociology of religion, Christian ethics as related to empirical data,studies of church and state relations, and for bridge studies between theology and the artsand literature. To some degree the dependence of American scholars upon foreign authors isunderstandable by virtue of our past associations with Britain and Europe. The roots ofour spiritual and intellectual heritage lie there, and although a distinctive civilization hasbeen developed on this continent, those foreign roots have continued to nourish our artsand religious life. But more than past associations have been at work here. The deferencepaid to foreign scholarship in religion, in the last analysis, is due to the excellence of thatscholarship. It has been thorough and creative it has provided the fresh viewpoints whichin turn have stimulated our own scholarship. I cannot explore in any depth the reasons forthis capacity in foreign scholarship but I do wish to point to what I believe to be an im-portant and incontrovertible factor namely the recognition and development of an honoredintellectual tradition abroad which in this country has not as yet won a place of respecteven in our academic institutions. The scholar from abroad has inherited and developed atradition of academic excellence which is oriented to basic research and pioneering effortson religious issues. Their work has not customarily been evaluated on the grounds of itsimmediate relevance to the religious life of their culture and churches. It is a tradition thathas stood on its own feet as scholarship, although at the same time it has eventually hadprofound effects upon the modes of religious activities and parish responsibilities. Further-more, opportunities for specialization have seemed to be larger than those offered in thiscountry, particularly for our undergraduate professors.In this c ountry the development of an intellectual tradition in religion has had a checkeredcareer. The scholarly tradition with which an influential segment of the clergy and laity ofthe seventeenth and early eighteenth century was familiar was seriously curtailed by theexcessive pietistic ardor of the evangelical movements of the mid-eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. A popular religion of the "heart," which took precedence over a religion of"head and heart," joined with a native pragmatism to depreciate the value of the intellectuallife in matters religious. To this day in many quarters, including the academic world, thenotion that religion is an area for study in its ow n right, distinct, but not necessarily irrelevant


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WH Y AN ACADEMY OF RELIGION? 101to , the religious life in its institutional forms, is almost incomprehensible. As recently as1957 the Niebuhr-Williams-Gustafson study of seminary education could say: "Facultymembers who attempt to turn the tide of anti-intellectualism must fight every inch of thew a y . "1 Little wonder that Professor Robert Calhoun felt it necessary to state: "If judgedby the standard of the freest, maturest, most distinguished inquiries man has performed,much religious thinking has been vitiated by too constant subordination to ulterior practicaldemands. Religious preoccupation which forever urges the thinker to find what shall beedifying, consoling, or somehow spiritually useful rather than just to find what is the case,is m ore than likely to shorten perspec tives, narro w his purv iew and deflect his line of v ision." 2

The cultural and religious changes of the nineteenth century moved the center ofreligion scholarship into the theological seminary where it has since lived a precariousexistence in the face of competing claims upon the time and energies of faculty members.The remarkable burgeoning of practical courses, the insistent call of churches for clergywho knew how to "run" a church, provide counselling, preaching, and religious educationtechniques continued to run parallel with drains upon faculty time for extra-academic duties.Under these circumstances the intellectual tradition in studies of religion has had a difficulttime of coming to fruition. W h er e it has done so it has been by dint of extra ord inary effort,and in some cases the work has been connected solely with the issues which concern thechurches.The increased interest in the development of departments of religion and chairs ofreligion has also played a curious role in the lack of a firmly established intellectual traditionin religion. The auspices under which undergraduate departments of religion were re-furbished or established in the thirties and forties aroused false expectations in somequarters. It was suggested by influential spokesmen on behalf of strong departments ofreligion that religion should be taught not simply because it rightfully belonged to anygenuinely liberalizing educational process but also because and here matters went astray because the curricula of colleges were fragmented and religion could provide a necessaryfocal point o f synthes is or becau se secularism had a s trangle ho ld on liberal educationand moral relativism was abroad and religion could answer secularism and show moralrelativism wh ere it w as w rong or because student morals w ere low or confused andstudies of religion plus chapel or other extra-curricular duties attached to the religionprofesso r's job could have a beneficial effect on morals and morale or because, in short,religion was supposed to do in the college what the churches failed to do in the culture atlarge. Therefore, religion should be taught. The religion professor's task was thereby setin the ambiguous context of a morale officer and teacher. Scholarship did not seem veryimportant. He was supposed to teach general courses, avoiding the danger of impingingupon the precincts of seminary training where it was supposed the real work in studies ofreligion began. Consequently, impetus for scholarship among the undergraduate facultymembers in religion lagged behind that of the seminary faculty member. Furthermore, he,the undergraduate professor, taught religion as such he was not supposed to be a specialistin anything. He was hired to teach religion not New Testament, philosophy of religion,or history of Christian thought or world religions. By dint of effort he managed somescholarly output. To be sure, this situation has been gradually improving but only slowly!The expectations that the introduction of religion was going to revolutionize the liberal arts

1 Clyde A. Holbrook, Religion, A Humanistic Field, Englewood Cliffs, N . J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc ., p. 259.*Ibid.


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10 2 CLYD E A. HOLBROOKprogram did not come off, nor did many of the other expectations materialize. What diddevelop on the hopeful side was that religion as an academic subject began to have itsopportunity to prove itself as an academic field of consequence in the orbit of liberal arts.But when publicly cast in the role of a nostrum for social, educational, and religious illsand proclaimed, as it was in some instances, as coming on the campus with scarcely con-cealed polemical, if not indoctrinational, ambitions, it has had steadily to fight for an in-terpretation of its role consistent with the highest aims of a liberal education which wouldinclude scholarship as well as instruction. And outside a fairly small circle of academiciansthis battle has yet to be won.

N o t only Prote stant professors in undergradua te seminary and graduate institutionshave had to labor for the establishment of an intellectual tradition in studies of religion.Roman Catholic scholars have also bewailed the loss of an intellectual tradition, a traditionwhich had its incipient beginnings in the eighteenth century before the influx of foreignCatholic populations laid a heavy burden upon seminaries for the preparation of priests toundertake pastoral duties for these immigrants. Professor J. Tracy Ellis, for example, hasmarked "an absence of love of scholarship for its own sake among American Catholics"even among those engaged in higher education. Oscar Perlmutter complains in a similarvein that "outstanding works, even in fields of direct Catholic interest, are written bynon-Catholics ."3 The pressure which was placed upon the Catholic seminary to producepriests to care for the ever enlarging populations which came to these shores in the nineteenthcentury has reacted upon these institutions in somewhat the same way as the revivalism andthe proliferation and growth of Protestant denominations in the same century did uponProtestant divinity schools. The need for pastoral care, the development of practical coursesto meet parish needs, tended to thrust aside a concern for what might be called disinterestedscholarship.W h a t w e are saying here is not that the establishment of an Academy of Religion willin some mysterious fashion bring about an intellectual renaissance in scholarship in religion.Nor am I suggesting that there is no such intellectual tradition extant today. What I dowish to affirm is that the broadening of the spectrum of interests of this association mayassist in a fundamental way to excite, especially among undergraduate professors of religionbut also those who work anywhere in the field, an enthusiasm for scholarship which can besustained across a broad front of diverse methodologies. The meeting place of the historianof religion, the sociologist of religion, the specialist in medieval literature, the psychologistwhose research has turned to some aspect of religion, as well as the biblical scholar, thechurch historian, and theologian should be in this Academy. This organization shouldprovide an opportunity not only for the exchange of ideas from differing segments of thefield of religion, but also a platform where religious affiliation or the lack thereof offers nobarrier to the pursuit of our common concern for a more enlightened understanding of thenature of religion. And by so doing we may rightfully expect that there shall be a strength-ening of that tradition of intellectual excellence which has lived a precarious existence inAmerican culture.

You may wonder why I have given over so much of this address to the matter ofscholarship. I assure you this emphasis is not intended to imply that the establishment ofan Academy of Religion would lessen concern for the teaching function. But I have been

8 Ibid., p . 263 .


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struck by what seems to be the fact that the teaching of religion has already become a fairlywell established aspect of higher education. In 1960 it was estimated that sixty percent ofall colleges, one hundred percent of all church-related colleges, forty-five percent of statecolleges and universities have religion departments or chairs, to say nothing of variousalternative arrangements for academic work in religion. 4 The teaching of religion in statesupported institutions of higher learning has met difficulties, to be sure, and studies arebeing carried out on this problem by the Society for Religion in Higher Education. Theproblems met in this case may be less formidable than often supposed, but they must bedealt with. But my immediate point is that in one way or another, by some means or otherthe teaching of religion has largely won a place for itself. The existence of this associationand others underlines this fact. But on the other hand, I am impressed by the fact thatscholarship in religion has not clearly won for itself an authentic and independent place asa scholarly pursuit among humane studies. As I have already suggested this study has oftenbeen excessively church-related rather than university oriented. At the undergraduate levelthe importance of the teaching function has too often put scholarship in a weak second placein the eyes of both the instructor himself and the college community at large. And theimpression remains that much which rightfully can be called scholarship in religion hasbeen produced by scholars outside the ranks of professors of religion at all levels of highereducation. For many, in addition, the field of religion is an amorphous affair which has yetto define itself as to content without undue dependence upon the structure of the theologicalseminary curriculum. This last observation moves me to offer a second reason for empha-sizing the role of scholarship in this address; namely, that a field of study identifies itselfas much, if not more, by the scholarship produced in respect to it as it does by what goeson in the classroom. It is scholarship which defines the dimensions of content and the varietyof methodologies which are appropriate to a given subject matter, and this scholarship mustbe of an order which commands respect not only from those who practice the scholarlyarts in that area but also those who work in other areas of humanistic studies as well. Itwould seem to me that this problem of definition of the field of religion may be given publicform by an organization one of whose paramount aims is that of the encouragement ofscholarship aimed at clarification of the field itself. Certainly if among its members thereare those who work this territory from diverse viewpoints and methodologies there shouldgradually come into more prominence than now exists a recognition of the conformation ofthe field and a more clearly articulated sense of its position among the fields of study nowoffered in institutions of higher learning. And for this third reason I have emphasized scholar-ship as an important aspect of the program of an Academy of Religion. An Academy ofReligion should stand as a society which gives high prominence in the academic worldgenerally to the serious importance attached to religion as a scholarly enterprise. In A mericancultural life it is my conviction that this "image," if I must at last use the term, can best begiven public form by an organization whose programs, journal, membership, and projectsreflect this concern.

But I have belabored this point sufficiently and must now say a few words on how thispurpose is to be fulfilled. I will by-pass problems of organization as these properly willcome up in connection with the report of the Self Evaluation Committee. One of the moreimportant ways in which we may carry forward our aims as a professional body is that of

* Ibid., p. 57.


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104 CLYDE A. HOLBROOKengaging in projects which call for research by groups of scholars or an individual, whichproject would be carried on under the auspices of a publications committee. There are un-doubtedly many such projects which members of this body have had on their minds forsome time but have not had time or incentive to carry out. Some of these surely are worthyof support from this body and could be carried out if we seriously went after the procure-ment of funds for this purpose. It might be desirable that funds for the development of suchprojects be provided for sub-regional meetings of scholars to work on problems of mutualinterest. A possibility which moves me to suggest in passing that this organization mightwell be more active during the periods which elapse between national and regional meetings.W it h the establishment of a publications comm ittee there would come into existence agroup which could sift through the possible projects and make decisions as to their potentialcontributions to scholarship in religion.

I should also think that our programs should increasingly reflect the scholarly interestsof our membership, and to this end the time given for our national meetings should beexpanded so that the different fields within the area of religion can have adequate oppo rtunityfor exposure and discussion. It seems to me that our journal has shown us the way in thisrespect, for it has steadily improved in quality and breadth as it has brought before our ownmembers, if not as yet before a still wider audience than it now reaches, substantial con-tributions to scholarship. It may even be that the journal eventually should itself be en-larged to accommodate increases in scholarly output.As might be expected there is a catch in all these grandiose hopes and possibilities and that is the m atte r of finances. W e shall need more mem bers and more of these mem bersshould be drawn from outside the range of professors of religion at the undergraduate level.The separation between seminary and graduate professors on the one hand and under-gradu ate faculties should be increasingly overcome by an Acad em y wh ich aspires to representfully the total field of religion. Beyond this normal expectation ther e is the need for draw inginto membership those scholars whose subject matter is religious phenomenology in someform or other but whose methodologies and approaches stem from other fields. I think hereparticu larly of those in the areas of literature, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.The Academy, in short, should not consider itself solely a group of professors of religion,but a g roup of scholar-teachers whose common concerns center upon religion. Th is expansionin membership, which will take time to develop, will also answer in part our ambitions forsupport of scholarly projects undertaken under the auspices of the Academy, because addi-tional dues may be expected from increased membership. It may be necessary even at thisinitial step before extensive additions in mem bership occur, to increase dues and here Idefer to our Treasurer to spell out in his report the cruel economic facts of life. PersonallyI see the need now for increase in membership fees since we are one of the least expensiveprofessional societies in existence. Last of all in respect to matters financial we must lookforwa rd to securing funds from foundations for the prosecution of our plans. I am not ove rlypessimistic nor optimistic on this score. But I am morally certain that an organization whichboldly steps forward at this juncture with a program for organizing the resources for scholar-ship in religion across the entire field and which would worthily represent the total field ofreligion, somewhat on the same pattern as the American Philosophical Association providesfor philosophy, would stand a better chance of securing funds for its work than is possibleunder our present title and structure. Yes, money is close to the heart of our problem, butbefore m oney the re come plans and I hope to that end that the Self-Evaluation Com mitteewill be enabled to continue its work for another year at least and with plans must come


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the conviction and courage of the present membership to seize the opportunity which liesbefore us. That opportunity is one that we in comparison to other bodies now existing inthe field of the study of religion should be best fitted to take . W e already "c ov er" in ourmembership and interests the wide spectrum of the field of religion and there is simply noother body which will at present attempt to provide a similar coverage for the field ofreligion as a whole.

There is nothing simple about this step to be taken; it may turn out to be an exasperat-ingly slow process but let it be said that we matched big words with big deeds. To thatend I commend to you the report of the Self-Evaluation Committee. A beginning can bemade in the light of that report toward those goals which we all cherish and with whosesuccessful accomplishment our professional destinies are intertwined.

Documents

Holbrook, Why an Academy of Religion (Old)