ABSTRACT
The study of religion is one place where issues of consequence and limitation have particular relevance and Smith is the one who has been the most persistent in bringing them to our attention. Smith's Relating Religion was awarded a book prize by the American Academy of Religion in 2006, this strikes many of our colleagues as troublesome as well. If one considers Smith to be involved in a long-term, and still developing, project that he tests at a number of sites, then the monograph is a rather unhelpful genre. In the opening lines of this book's Preface Smith writes: Although I have been delighted that an earlier collection of essays, Imagining Religion, has made its way onto a number of course syllabi, it has been an unintended source of frustration. To correct such an ahistorical reading of his work, the first chapter of Relating Religion, entitled "When the Chips Are Down", constitutes what Smith calls a bio-bibliographical essay.
