The ivory tower and the public realm

Abstract

This essay is a response to the question of whether scholars of religion in the employ of the modern university have an obligation to help meet the challenges and threats ‘to the social order sometimes linked to aspects of religion’ raised at the 2023 annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion. Donald Wiebe argues here that even raising the question ignores, or reveals a failure to understand, the character and purpose of the modern university, which is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The task of the professor, therefore, is simply to transmit accepted knowledge, seek out new knowledge, and confer on students the skills necessary to grow knowledge of the world and its contents. Wiebe maintains, therefore, that even considering the question amounts to an unjustifiable attempt to inflate the importance of the profession, which will result in making scholars of religion in the academy public intellectuals and departments for the study of religion a type of non-governmental organization.