phenomenology ‘as the practice of empathy’ (Smart 2000: 26). He also
advanced a ‘dynamic phenomenology’, that is, ‘a phenomenology without
essences’ as ‘a moving grammar of the human spirit’ (Smart 1994: 902). In
other respects, however, the 1970s marked the twilight of the phenomenology
of religion, the rejection of which has now become the standard prologue to
contemporary attempts at self-understanding within the field. Unfortunately,
many of these sweeping accusations show little knowledge of either the writings
of the phenomenologists or the differences among them. Many an anti-
essentialist ‘contextualizing’ critic of the phenomenology of religion provides
an essentialist and de-contextualized reading of phenomenology.
Most scholars appointed to chairs between the late 1960s and the early
1980s did not begin an open campaign against phenomenology. They silently
ignored it. Academic legitimacy was no longer achieved by drawing the larger
picture but by methodological competence, mostly in philology, and attention
to detail and context. A solid training in some branch of ancient or Oriental
philology and some interest in religious source materials was, and to some
extent still is, a better qualification for positions in the field than more
‘superficial’ knowledge of wider terrains of religious history and the ability to
work comparatively.
This period saw the appearance of several attempts to review the state of
the art. The Dutch scholar, Jan de Vries (1890–1964), who lost his posi-
tion at Leiden because of his commitment to National Socialism, surveyed the
main tendencies in the field in 1961. The early 1970s saw the publication of
the first edition of Eric Sharpe’s history as well as several volumes assembling
and reviewing major approaches to the non-confessional study of religion
(Waardenburg [ed.] 1973; Lanczkowski [ed.] 1974). Conferences devoted to
methodology were held for the first time, at Rome (1969) and Turku (1973),
resulting in important publications (Bianchi, Bleeker, and Bausani [eds] 1972;
Honko [ed.] 1979). The Turku conference also illustrated the rising ‘influence
of the social sciences, particularly of cultural anthropology’ (King 1984: 132).
Nowhere was the challenge to the phenomenological approach more explicit
than in its traditional homeland, the Netherlands. Willem Hofstee (2000,
2001) argues that this was due in part to ideas of cultural relativism imported
from American anthropology. Already in the late 1940s van der Leeuw’s
student, Fokke Sierksma (1917–1977), had ‘revolted publicly... against the
theological inspiration of the phenomenology of religion’ (Platvoet 1998: 335).
However, the eclipse of the approach is usually ascribed to van der Leeuw’s
successor in Groningen, Theo van Baaren (1912–1989). Van Baaren questioned
the empirical validity of van der Leeuw’s work and then set out to challenge
its very epistemological foundations, demanding the elimination of all
metaphysical presuppositions and a search for explanation by means of the
historical and social empirical sciences (Platvoet 1998: 339–342). He received
both support and inspiration from the Groningen Working Group for the Study32
MICHAEL STAUSBERG