"It is the conviction of many thoughtful [persons] that the objective study of religion is at best impossible, and at worst dangerous."
J. Milton Yinger. Religion, Society and the Individual
Milton Yinger is a past president of the Amerian Sociological Society and a leading sociologist of religion for over a half-century. The quotation above is the first sentence from a text he first published forty years ago. It captures well the dilemma and tension between faith and science as ways of knowing.
Many persons who object to the idea that religion might be studied with the methods of the social sciences mistakenly presume that the social sciences seek to grasp the "truth" of religion. Or, they believe that the social sciences claim to be able to adjudicate the truth claims made by the many faith traditions. Neither presumption is correct. It is true that many of the founding fathers of the social sciencies believed religion would wither in the face of rationality in the modern world. Further, some believed that it was the responsibility of the new social science disciplines to hasten that process.
Contemporary social scientists of religion are much less dogmatic than the founding generation. They study and debate the impact of science and rationality on religion. Some have come to the conclusion that modern science is damaging to religious belief. Others see religion as having self-renewing qualities. Contemporary sociologists of religion generally make much more modest claims, than the founding generation, about what social science knowledge can achieve. Few would venture to argue that social science knowledge could or should have significant impact on the fate of religion. But they do see the methods of the social sciences as instruments to learn interesting (and sometimes important) things about religion. Consider the following analogy.
For many people, viewing a great masterpiece of art is a spiritual experience. One can feel deeply moved, experience a sense of awe, and so forth. And one need not be a scholar of art to have extraordinary feelings in the presence of great art. Still, the existential moment of viewing great art does not constitute the whole of what may be known or experienced with respect to the masterpiece. Knowledge of the life of the artist, as well as the culture and times in which the artist worked, may significantly enhance our capacity to appreciate the masterpiece. Indeed, there are many kinds of knowledge that might enhance our knowledge of appreciation of a particular work of art.
When the sociologist studies religion she is contributing to a stock of cultural knowledge that will enrich our understanding of religion and its role in society, just as the many disciplines my enhance our appreciation for great art.
Religion is quintessentially a social phenomenon. While religion has a private dimension, people experience religion in groups. All the world's great religions have created, and are sustained by large bureaucratic institutions. People profess to believe certain truths that are passed down by religious traditions, but some people believe more fervently than others. And what people profess to believe often has consequences for their behavior. Through the ages, the activities of groups on behalf of their religion has placed them in conflict with other groups. Not infrequently through the annals of time, people have done awful things in the name of religion. But religion provides motivation and legitimation for good as well as evil.
All of these features of religion are amenable to investigation with the research methods of the social scientists. Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and economists bring different emphases to the study of religion. Each adds perspective that is unique to his or her scholarly discipline. What is common of all the social sciences is a commitment to objectivity and a preference for empirical data.
Social scientist cannot address the truth of a particular belief, but it can speak to the question of how many people profess to believe a particular tenant of a faith tradition. And, similarily, determine with some reason validity whether profession of belief in a particular religious doctrine has consequences for behavior.
In short, there are many things to be learned about religion from a sociological perspective. For the student taking their first course in the sociology of religion, they can expect to learn at least three things that will likely impact the way they think about religion for the rest of their life:
Finally, recall Yinger's quotation at the beginning of this page. I've tried to make the case that it is possible to study religion objectively. The objective study of religion doesn't yield information pertaining to the "truth" of any faith tradition, but it can provide lots of different kinds of information that is pertinent to better understanding religion.
The second part of Yinger's quote addresses the proposition that the objective study of religion might be dangerous. Dangerous in this context could have two meanings. First, it suggests that the objective study of religion could undermine the influence that religion has on culture. Second, it could mean that objective knowledge might result in the errosion of individual belief.
There is no easy response to either of these propositions. My own view is one of considerable skepticism toward both. Even so, there is no question that objective knowledge can significantly affect how we understand religion. While I do not consider this to be dangerous, I would not recommend the objective investigation of religion to those who feel absolutely certain that their faith tradition possesses "the truth," and that all other traditions are wrong. For such persons, the sociological study of religion is at best wrong headedly annoying and at worst diabolic.