Coherence, Professionalization, and the Critical Study of Religion

Then and Now

Abstract

This short essay critically engages Claude Welch's Graduate Education in Religion (1971).  For Welch the central challenge for the field of religious studies was to establish its “identity” in a post-Schempp world, referring to the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case that endorsed the study of religion in U.S. higher education.  Now the study of religion is firmly established in universities as part of the humanities.  As such religion departments should respond to the broader crisis in the humanities.  This article lays out some provisional recommendations, as Welch did in the early 70s.