Treating 'religion' as a fully social, cultural, historical and material field of practice, this book presents a series of debates and positions on the nature and purpose of the 'Study of Religions', or 'Religious Studies'. Offering an introductory guide to this influential, and politically relevant, academic field, the contributors illustrate the diversity and theoretical viability of empirical methodologies in the study of religions. The historical and cultural circumstances attending the emergence, defence and future prospects of Religious Studies are documented, drawing on theoretical material and case studies prepared within the context of the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR), and making frequent reference to wider European, North American and other international debates and critiques.

Contents: Foreword, Peggy Morgan; Introduction: Qualitative empirical methodologies: an inductive argument, Steven J. Sutcliffe. Part One Category And Method: Phenomenology, fieldwork and folk religion, Marion Bowman; Media, meaning and method in the study of religion, Chris Arthur; How to study religious experience in the traditions, Peter Antes; 'The Sacred' as a viable concept in the contemporary study of religions, Terence Thomas; The sense and nonsense of 'community': a consideration of contemporary debates about community and culture by a scholar of religion, Kim Knott; Chosen people: the concept of diaspora in the modern world, Gerrie ter Haar; Study of Religions: The New Queen of the Sciences?, Brian Bocking. Part Two Case Studies: Religious Experience in Early Buddhism?, Richard Gombrich; Women and goddesses in the Celtic world, Miranda Aldhouse-Green; Religion, gender and Dharma: the case of the widow-Asceti, Julia Leslie; A Buddhist-Christian encounter in Sri Lanka: the Panadura Vada, Ria Kloppenborg; Religion and community in indigenous contexts, Armin W. Geertz; African spirituality, religion and innovation, Elizabeth Amoah; Unificationism: a study in religious syncretism, George D. Chryssides; Multiculturalism, Muslims and the British state, Tariq Modood. Afterword: separating religion from the 'sacred': methodological Agnosticism and the future of religious studies, James L. Cox. Index.