Introduction

This book looks at the many perspectives from which religions may be viewed. It starts by looking at different answers to the question ‘why study religion?’. It then considers how the study of religion(s) has developed – it is important to know how we got to where we are in a subject and how scholars have theorized about religion. The chapter by Eric Sharpe maps the historical picture of the growth of religious studies. Contrary to popular imagination there are many disciplines or approaches involved in the study of religions; each is discussed here in a separate chapter. The obvious routes are theology and religious studies, though there is much debate about the relationship between the two. In America there are indications of a growing difference, whereas in Britain the two appear to be coming closer together as can be seen in their respective chapters in this book (Ford and Wiebe). Authors were asked to look particularly at recent developments in their subjects; Rosalind Hackett exemplifies this in her chapter on anthropology by avoiding the all-too-common tour of nineteenth-century theorists. There are various social and/or scientific ways of studying religions – sociologically (Riesebrodt and Konieczny), anthropologically or by use of philosophy (Vardy) and through phenomenology (a term used by Allen slightly differently in religious studies from its use in ‘straight’ philosophy). ‘Psychology of religion’ is an umbrella term for a number of approaches, which are discussed in the article by Merkur. William Paden, author of two of the most widely used books on comparative religion, has authored the chapter on that subject here.