Secular Theories on Religion: A Selection of Recent Academic Perspectives

The authors have been asked to present their ideas of what a secular study of religion should be like, what methods it should apply, what aims, and what kind of scientific thinking to pursue. The result is a broad pattern of approaches, some wholly theoretical, some also based on case studies. All in all, the texts offer a comprehensive account of modern scholarly positions and summarizes much of the ongoing theoretical debate and the effort to further emancipate the study of religion from theological biases.