The Study of Religion in the UK in Its Institutional Context

KIM KNOTT The Study of Religion in the UK in its Institutional Context THE STUDY OF RELIGION IN THE UK IN ITS INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT How has the study of religion in the UK been shaped by its institutional contexts? Consideration is given to the Christian and secular foundations of universities and higher education colleges, the relationship of theology and religious studies, and the impact of institutional structures and drivers associated with teaching and research. The formation of ‘TRS’ as an instrumental and contested subject area is discussed, as is the changing curriculum. Research on religion is examined in relation to new institutional pressures and opportunities: the assessment of university research and the public funding of research. The importance of the impact agenda and capacity building are illustrated. The nineteenth century roots of religious studies (Religionswissenschaft) in Britain lie in the work of scholars such as Max Muller, E.B. Tylor, J.E. Carpenter and T.W. Rhys Davids. Britain hosted the third IAHR Congress in 1908 in Oxford, but the British Association for the History of Religions (later to become the British Association for the Study of Religions) was not founded until 1954, with E.O. James and Geoffrey Parrinder as two of its founder members. Although a Manchester Chair of Comparative Religion was established in 1904, and a Department of Theology and Religious Studies was opened at the University of Leeds in the 1930s, it was not until 1967 that the first autonomous non-theological Department of Religious Studies was opened, at Lancaster University, with Ninian Smart as its first Chair. The academic study of religion in the UK is formally divided into theology (largely Christian in orientation, but increasingly including Islamic and Jewish theology), biblical studies, and religious studies (Religionswissenschaft). Religious studies is a multi-disciplinary field which in the UK has favoured sociological, anthropological, historical, philosophical, geographical and material approaches to religions. Psychology of religion and the cognitive study of religion remain under-represented. All the major religions and many minority and new religions are now researched and taught, and non-religion in all its various guises is increasingly covered in university syllabuses. Since the 2 KIM KNOTT 1990s, gender, discourse, culture and practice have been important lenses through which to critically examine religion and its study. Although religious studies is the major non-theological disciplinary field covering the study of religion, ‘religion’ as subject matter or as an issue is taught in a range of degree programmes and addressed by scholars from a variety of other disciplines, including history, politics and international relations, philosophy, sociology, law studies and educational studies. University departments, disciplinary relations, and the concept of ‘TRS’ UK universities founded prior to the nineteenth century have Christian origins, including Oxford and Cambridge in England, and St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland, most of which were founded by Papal Bull; St David’s College Lampeter, in Wales, founded in 1822, was the first Anglican college to provide a general education. The University of Durham was founded in 1831. It was not until the 1850s and 1860s that non- Anglicans were admitted to degrees at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham. Most other universities in the UK have secular foundations, apart from those Church colleges (for example, Chester, Chichester and Leeds Trinity) which acquired university status during the period of university expansion in the 1990s (the majority of which were Anglican, with a minority Catholic). How have these foundations affected the organisation and teaching of theology and religious studies at UK universities? Until the twenty-first century, most of the faculties, departments and programmes associated with the older universities were labelled ‘Divinity’. They focused on Christian theology, and only gradually began to incorporate teaching and research on other religions, often by drawing in other theological traditions (e.g. Islamic theology). A number of the historical Chairs at these universities were supported by Church patronage. Drawing on this historical model, many of the universities founded in the twentieth century, despite their secular foundations and lack of clerical patronage, likewise offered degrees in theology or, latterly, in theology and religious studies. Theology was deemed to be a necessary part of a comprehensive university curriculum. It was not possible to study for a degree solely in religious studies until the second half of the 1960s (at Lancaster). Other universities followed suit, but not until the 1990s, with new departments and degrees in religious studies or the study of religions then THE STUDY OF RELIGION IN THE UK IN INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT 3 initiated at Bath Spa University College, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and the Open University. During the twentieth century, university teaching and learning on religion gradually moved away from a systematic theological model, including Church history and philosophy, to focus more on religions, social science and cultural approaches to their study, and contemporary themes.1 More than forty higher education institutions now have departments, centres or other units which focus on the study of religion.2 It is not unusual for religious studies and theology to be combined within a single department (such as ‘Theology and Religious Studies’ at Kings College, London, ‘Religions and Theology’ at Manchester, or ‘Theology and Religion’ at the University of Birmingham), and is quite common for them to be taught together within a single degree programme. Increasingly, however, the study of religion forms part of broader interdisciplinary humanities and/or social science units, such as the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster, the School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science at Leeds, or the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University. Small departments or subject areas have frequently been amalgamated by their universities to create larger units for reasons of efficiency and economy. The conjunction ‘TRS’ has been widely used in the UK since the 1980s to refer to the breadth of higher educational provision related to the study of religion, despite perceived disciplinary and methodological differences between theology and religious studies.3 Steven Sutcliffe has referred to TRS as a ‘disciplinary-administrative rubric (…) under which title college and university programmes for the study of religion are categorized for funding, staffing, student applications and other disciplinary-administrative purposes’.4 _____________ 1 This view of what constitutes university theological education is reflected in a widely used curriculum guide from 2011: Amy M. Russell, Why Study Theology and Religious Studies, HEA-PRS, 2011, 3-4, http://www.theologysociety.org.uk/ltdocs/557.pdf, accessed 24 October 2016. 2 Forty-one units are registered with TRS-UK, the forum for discussing and representing issues relating to the teaching of theology and religious studies in the UK. ‘TRS-UK members and affiliates’, http://trs.ac.uk/trs-members/, accessed 23 October 2016. 3 S. Sutcliffe, ‘Introduction. Qualitative Empirical Methodologies: An Inductive Argument’, in S. Sutcliffe (ed.), Religion: Empirical Studies, Aldershot and Burlington VT – Ashgate, 2004, xvii–xliii, xxi. 4 Sutcliffe, ‘Introduction’, xxi. 4 KIM KNOTT Founded around 1990 as a consultative forum, the Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious Studies (AUDTRS) changed its name in 2013 to embrace the compound ‘TRS’.5 Like its predecessor, TRS-UK serves to bring together and support academics and departments as they undergo change (whether as a result of university restructuring, the allocation of funding, or the assessment of research or teaching). TRS-UK is not a disciplinary or subject area association akin to the British Association for the Study of Religions or the British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group. Rather, it represents the institutional and public face of the academic study of religion in the UK in all its guises. It concerns itself with the career progression of academic theologians and religious studies scholars, and with the health, resilience and, sometimes, fate, of the university departments and schools in which they work. It lobbies Government, intervenes when a department of theology/religious is threatened with closure, and contributes to public debates and consultations about teaching and research quality. Given that most individuals are wedded to their position as scholars of either theology or religious studies, how has it been possible for them to collaborate in TRS-UK at the expense of pursuing their disciplinary interests? First, the even-handedness of TRS-UK in representing both subject areas has been assured because its unit of membership is the university department or school rather than the individual scholar: the majority of these units include both religious studies scholars and theologians. Secondly, there is a general recognition that the wider public, including Government and the media, are not interested in what differentiates the two. In fact, it is held that vocalising internal differences is only likely to encourage a public strategy of divide and rule, leading to the likely closure

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