The Olympics are airing as I write this, and there’s one ad I particularly detest. It features a slick, fifty-something, white man standing next to an opulent backyard pool overlooking a walled yard backed by palm trees. Over the course of the ad, this apparently successful businessman walks through an equally opulent and pristine house complete with very brief cameos (blink and you miss them) of two young, white girls and an attractive, predictably younger-appearing, white woman. The ad concludes with the man changing with lightning speed from expensive leisure clothing to an equally expensive business suit, walking out of his front door, removing the electric charger from his Cadillac, and stepping inside the car.

Academic fields are constituted by their debates, and the relation between theological and religious studies approaches has been one of the most enduring but least productive debates in the study of religion. This dialogue between Graham Ward, a distinguished theologian, and Ann Taves, a distinguished religious studies scholar, attempts to refine that conversation. It is the product of months of exchanges as they read each other’s work (Taves 2016; Ward 2014) and tried to discern where they concurred and where they diverged as they prepared for a plenary session, “Normativity in the Academic Study of Religion,” at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. That conference session, and this published version of their scripted dialogue, strives to reframe the conversation about theology and religious studies.

I organized the session because I thought it might help to talk more precisely about what unites and divides scholars as we imagine the nature and scope of the academic study of religion—a topic I also addressed in my 2015 AAR presidential address (Tweed 2016). I was concerned, on the one hand, that some theologians seemed surprisingly disinterested in religious studies scholarship, including historical or social scientific studies and analyses of their own tradition, even though every theologian I know engages scholarship in some other discipline. Some theologians even seem a bit defensive, complaining that the academy doesn’t respect their discipline, yet they don’t engage the research of those they want to persuade. On the other hand, I was concerned that some religious studies scholars not only didn’t engage those doing constructive religious reflection, or arrogantly dismissed them, but they also claimed that the AAR’s “big tent” had grown too large and that those who enact values and make normative judgments have no place in it.

The concept of a sabbatical has its roots in the Western religious traditions, in particular in the Bible. The Ten Commandments, ostensibly given to Moses, includes not only a negative series of commands—“thou shalt nots”—but also includes two positive commandments—“Honor thy mother and father,” and “Keep holy the Sabbath day.” Of all of the commandments, keeping holy the Sabbath day was probably the easiest one to obey! Who is going to argue with taking a day off, even if the express purpose is to focus on God? Of course, remembrance and worship of the God who created all and made all things possible was the primary intent. But there were practical implications as well—everyone/everything was able to rest, including humans, animals, and the land.

In our modern world, this directive has been somewhat watered down, especially with so many Blue laws no longer in effect. Yet many religious believers the world over take this opportunity to attend their house of worship to focus on God. The directive to take a break in the seventh year was a further extension of the Sabbath day. While most biblical scholars will be familiar with the religious component of the sabbatical, almost all faculty, regardless of area of study, know the secular idea of the sabbatical used in the modern college and university. This is what specifically informs the ministerial and academic practices of the sabbatical—the idea that one could take a full year off to focus on things other than one’s usual routine, with the ability to apply and hopefully receive the opportunity to be released from one’s regular duties. It is not so much to focus on God (although that is not necessarily precluded), as to focus on “something else.”  

Editor's note (3/5/2016): Since publication of this essay, Larycia Hawkins has accepted a position at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture as the Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow.