North American intellectuals, poets, and scholars have shown considerable enthusiasm in exploring religion dating back to the nineteenth century. This spirit flourished in scholarly, theological, philosophical, and artistic investigations.

The Early Roots of the Academic Study of Religion

Academic study in the nineteenth century was often tied to Christian theological interests and institutions, but this is not to say that all religious study was simply apologetics. Early scholars in the emerging field of North American comparative religions included James Freeman Clark (Harvard Divinity School), who published Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology in 1871. Between the 1860s and 1900 several religiously oriented university chairs were appointed at places such as Harvard, Boston University, Princeton, and Cornell—Clark's appointment as "Professor of Natural Religion and Christian Doctrine" at Harvard being one example. Although these chairs...