- There, the International Association for the History of Religions
(IAHR) was established, with van der Leeuw as its first president, followed by
Pettazzoni after van der Leeuw’s untimely death in the same year. The
conference led to the founding of several affiliated national organizations: the
Deutsche Vereinigung für Religionsgeschichte (founded 1950), the Società
Italiana di Storia delle Religioni (1951), and the British Association for the
History of Religions (1954). Prior to World War II only France already had a
national association, the Société Ernest-Renan: Société Française d’Histoire des
Religions, founded in 1919. Its activities were disrupted by the war and
resumed in 1952.
All of these associations have the word ‘history’ in their names. There was
a broad consensus that an historical approach to religion was what made the
field into a discipline, thereby distinguishing it from other scholarly enterprises
studying religion. This consensus weakened in subsequent decades. In the early
1990s an attempt to replace ‘history’ with ‘study’ in the name of the international
association was rejected. The French and Italian associations have also retained
their original names, but in 1989 and 2005, respectively, the British and German
associations replaced ‘history’ with ‘study’ or ‘science’, a trend followed by most
of the younger associations, including the Swiss, Austrian, and Greek associa-
tions (founded 1977, 1996, and 2003, respectively).
The name changes reflect a broader self-understanding on the part of
scholars in the field, in particular openness to the social sciences and contem-
porary issues (cf. Whaling [ed.] 1985, vol. 2.) Today, competency in history
and a solid training in dead or non-european languages are no longer generally
assumed to be key elements in the formation and competency of scholars.
Accordingly, the historical-philological method, which was predominant earlier,
is today almost marginalized. Instead, there is an increasing tendency to focus
on contemporary religions and religiosities, often of the alternate variety, and
on migrant or diaspora groups. It is no exaggeration to say that the study of
contemporary Hinduism(s) or Islam(s) in Europe almost surpasses the study
of these religions in former periods and in their places of origin. Such develop-
ments mirror changing realities in Western Europe.
The decline of institutionalized Christendom and a field on the riseThe 1960s and 1970s were a watershed both for the European religious
landscape and the non-confessional study of religion. For example, ‘from 1956
all indices of religiosity in Britain start to decline, and from 1963 most enter
free fall’ (Brown 2001: 188). Similar observations can be made for most
European countries, with slightly varying chronologies.
The decline of institutionalized Christendom was not, however, accom-
panied by a decline in the non-confessional study of religion. Quite to the
contrary. In Italy, for instance, ‘[t]he history of religions as a discipline fully24
MICHAEL STAUSBERG