The Religio non est sui generis Confession: Once More unto the Religious Studies / Theology Divide.

Focusing on a recent Festschrift for Donald Wiebe but considering related work in the study of religion since the 1970s, this article argues that the distinction that Wiebe urged between the academic study of religion and the practice of theology remains viable, if difficult. Analysis of the claims of the Festschrift’s editors concerning a ubiquitous "failure of nerve" in the academic study of religion indicates that it is, if anything, their nerve that has failed. They have concluded that any recognition of "religion" as a distinct and isolatable entity necessarily involves the postulation of a veridical access to some assumed transcendence and thus constitutes the practice, rather than the study, of religion. This claim is contested and a suggestion made for an academic study that does not involve any such postulate.