The Academic Study of Religion

• The academic study of religion is not concerned with evaluating truth claims. The scholar of religion seeks not to discover what is religiously true or false, but to understand the truth claims made by particular religious traditions.
  
  
• The scholar seeks to understand those truth claims not in order to evaluate their validity, but to understand how those claims influence the lives, beliefs, and practices of their adherents.
  
  
• The scholar of religion is interested in the interrelationship between ideology and practice. It is important to understand that, in some areas of religious practice, ideology need not be clearly articulated (or indeed, even present at all). Ideology does not always explain nor is the "real meaning" of ritual practices.
  
  
• It is not necessary for the scholar to seek one common "essence" of a tradition. Religious traditions claiming the same source (for example, Christianity) may make competing truth claims, employ different religious practices, and exclude other groups from membership. The scholar looks for the characteristics each group displays and prioritizes, and seeks to understand how each group understands itself and its tradition. Religious traditions seldom have one point of origin, and the scholar seeks instead to discover many (often conflicting) strands of origin.