Compartmentalizing the Bracket and the Problem of Creep

A little while ago TT wrote about a debate in the field of Religious Studies concerning the role of personal judgment in scholarship. “Bracketing” one’s judgment, meant withholding a pronouncement of “superstitious”, “backward”, or even “good or bad” on the people or objects one studies. The scholar’s role in this regard is to provide an accurate and sympathetic account of religious attitudes and actions. S/he attempts to see the world from the place of an other, and understand them in their own terms. This is sometimes described as a methodological “agnosticism”, that at least leaves the door open for the real possibility of religious experience by not ruling it out from the get-go. Thus for LDS scholars, there is a strong benefit to this position in that it provides an opportunity to study and produce scholarship about religious claims without having to “come out of the closet” so to speak in regards to their personal beliefs which may not be widely shared (or accepted). Some form of bracketing in this general sense is the dominant position in the field.