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William Wood. Analytic Theology and the Academic Study of Religion

The task William Wood sets for himself in Analytic Theology and the Academic Study of Religion is demanding and ambitious. Wood seeks to defend the rightful place of analytic theology (“AT”) and theology generally within the secular university, especially against the objections of anti-theological religious studies scholars. But the title tells less than half of the story, for he also, and at greater length, aims to vindicate AT as properly Christian and truly theological over and against theologians who claim it is neither, some of whom regard it “an especially pernicious…form of philosophy” (4). These two aims are not only equally central to the book, but unfold amidst an admirable and skillful overarching attempt to facilitate dialogue and build bridges between these diverse fields. The book, then, is simultaneously a two-front apologia and a welcome attempt to spark a mutually enriching and much needed conversation. Thus, in addition to apologist, Wood positions himself and ably serves as a kind of translator, one whose native tongue is AT and who primarily speaks to non-analytic theologians and religion scholars, while occasionally helping fellow analytic theologians or philosophers of religion to better understand their critics. Wood rightly notes the difficulty of holding his dual audiences and distinct apologetic projects together: persuading theologians of AT’s acceptability requires demonstrating its maximally Christian theological character, but just that seems likely to further alienate already skeptical religion scholars. Conversely, showing AT to be an acceptable and legitimate form of inquiry vis-à-vis “secular” standards threatens to harden AT’s theological critics in their view that it is insufficiently theological and deploys a methodology that diminishes God’s transcendence, rendering God just another (albeit larger) object among objects. In its parts and in the particulars of its various arguments, Wood’s book is largely successful and with insightful