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Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2005 73(1):183-207; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfi009
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Religion and the University: The Controversy Over Essays and Reviews at Oxford

Harvey Hill

Department of Religion and Philosophy at Berry College, Mount Berry, GA 30149-0050

In 1860 a book innocently entitled Essays and Reviews shook the theological world of England. And yet the book was flawed enough that this response was surprising. As a partial answer to the question of why Essays and Reviews created such an uproar, this article proposes seeing it as a volley in the ongoing culture wars over the appropriate nature of British higher education and the place of religion in it. Translating the issues at stake into contemporary language, the essayists advocated "religious studies" as part of a liberal arts education at Oxford. Their opponents, on the other hand, advocated "theological studies" as a necessary part of the doctrinal preparation of Anglican clerics, which they saw as Oxford’s primary mission. The controversy over Essays and Reviews thus represents one step in the emergence of religious studies as an intellectual discipline within the academy alongside of and separate from Christian theology.


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