Thread by @AudreyTruschke

This sort of sentiment reflects a common misunderstanding about the academic study of religion.

So, let's do what we do as scholars -- Treat this as a teachable moment.

A short #THREAD

We want to distinguish two different contexts --

Practicing a religion.
Academically studying a religion.

There is overlap in the sense that practitioners can also engage in the academic study of their religion. But the two contexts are different, with distinct precepts.

First -- Practitioners. Most people encounter religion in in this context, at temple, in church, at mosque, or in home practices.

Commonly (although far from always), there is an assumption to have a voice in this context, you should be a member of the given religious group.

Second context -- Academic study. Many people never encounter this.

Historians of religions, like me, study what people of a given religion do, what they say they believe, what they have written, and how a tradition has been articulated by people at different points in time.

There is no religious litmus test for the academic study of religion.

You don't need to be Jewish to study Judaism. We have lots of scholars of Christianity who are not Christian. Likewise for every tradition.

What qualifies someone to speak on, say, Hinduism?

In a practitioner context, it might be a range of identity factors.

In an academic context, it is training and adherence to scholarly ways of arguing. You can be Hindu or not. It is your skills and knowledge that matter.

Easy way to distinguish these two on campus --

Hindu chaplain vs. scholar. I am the latter, not the former.

What do you do if, say, you're Hindu and you think that only Hindus should have a voice regarding your tradition?

Answer: Go ahead. That's a practitioner's prerogative. Just please understand that you are opting out of an academic approach to Hinduism, not engaging with it.

Another difference -- Scholars cannot cherry pick within traditions we study. Practitioners can. Hindus can adopt and reject aspects of their tradition and remake it as they see fit.

I can't do that. That would be a grave violation of scholarly ethics.

One thing that, as a scholar, I never do is to prescribe regarding religions I study.

I have nothing to say about what Hindus should do or what Hindu practices ought to look like. I study what I see (primarily in premodern history), often working in languages little known today.

It is sometimes a sore point that I know stuff about aspects of Hinduism in history that most Hindus don't. E.g., I read Sanskrit.

You don't have to respect academic learning. You can reject it. But it is inappropriate to try to straitjacket it with ideological restrictions.

alam ativistarena