an introduction
spirit) in contrast to Naturwissenschaft. Without being modeled necessar-
ily on the natural sciences, the German term Wissenschaft (science)
includes humanistic and social studies that are regarded as rigorous schol-
arly sciences, whereas the English usage tends to refer to the natural sci-
entific model. Thus the German term Wissenschaft is much wider in
meaning and scope than the English term. In contrast to natural science,
the study of religion is concerned with data connected to persons. During
the term’s formative period of usage, Religionswissenschaften served as a
synonym for comparative religion and a historical/philological science.
In eighteenth-century America, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
Jefferson conceived of colleges that would be essentially secular and
practical, resulting in the founding respectively of the University of
Pennsylvania and the College of William and Mary. Unlike Franklin and
Jefferson, other American educators thought that American colleges and
universities should be nurtured by Christian values in the nineteenth cen-
tury. The late nineteenth century witnessed a movement away from the
Christian-centric type of education with the rise of the modern university,
toward more specialization and the subsequent diversification of subjects
into academic fields. After World War II, there was a rapid expansion of
higher education during which the academic study of religion began to
prosper on a broader scale; its nature and mission altered in a way that
helped it break free of the seminary curriculum model. The reduction or
total elimination of required religion courses and/or chapel attendance as
requirements for graduation at many church-related institutions gave
impetus to more imaginative approaches to the study of religion and the
development of more pluralistic course offerings. Although economic
prosperity and general higher education growth in the 1960s and 70s in
America contributed to the expansion of religion programs, the study of
religion was also aided by the American federal courts drawing an impor-
tant distinction between religious indoctrination and teaching “about”
religion. The courts ruled, culminating with the 1963 United State
Supreme Court decision in Abington v. Schempp, that it was constitution-
ally permissible to teach about religion in a state setting, a ruling that
included teaching the Bible objectively as a part of a secular program of
education. This ruling came at a time of rapid expansion in American
higher education, giving impetus to the development and expansion of
departments of Religious Studies, with course offerings in Eastern reli-
gious traditions proving to be very popular with undergraduate students.
This prompted graduate programs to turn out well trained teachers to
meet the demand. Even church-related colleges and universities broad-
ened their course offerings beyond biblical study and theology. Besides
courses in Eastern religious traditions and the standard types of offerings