Podcast Summary:

New Books Network — Interview with Nathan McGovern
"Seeing Through Religion: An Introduction to the Study of Religion and Religions" (Routledge, 2025)
Date: December 20, 2025
Host: Shataj Jain
Guest: Dr. Nathan McGovern

Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Nathan McGovern, Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, discussing his forthcoming textbook Seeing Through Religion: An Introduction to the Study of Religion and Religions (Routledge, 2025). The conversation, led by Shataj Jain, covers the pedagogical challenges of teaching religious studies, the limitations of "World Religions" models, and McGovern's "lens" metaphor for understanding religion. The episode delves into how Protestant Christian and Orientalist frameworks shape our modern perception of religions, concrete misperceptions in popular and academic discourse, the downstream effects of Protestantism and secularism, and the future directions and existential challenges of the field.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Purpose of the Book (03:01)

• Pedagogical Motivation: McGovern wrote the book to address the challenge of teaching introductory religious studies in light of outdated, "factoid-driven" pedagogies and the problematic world religions paradigm.
• Traditional survey courses force instructors to cover "one damn thing after another" (quoting J.Z. Smith) instead of fostering methodological sophistication.
• From Trade to Textbook: Originally envisioned as a popular book, McGovern switched to a textbook on advice that "nobody’s gonna buy a book about what is religion because they think they know what it is. They don’t, but they think they do, so they’ll never buy the book." (McGovern, 06:09 quoting an anonymous editor)

2. Central Metaphor: The Lens of Religion (08:02)

• Seeing Through vs. Seeing At: Rather than treating religions as objects "out there," McGovern frames religion as a lens—a Western, Christian-derived category—through which societies view diverse practices.
• "When we look at the world through the category religion... all the things that we look at and call religions end up looking like different shades of Christianity." (10:30)
• The metaphor extends: the lens (Christian category of religion) tints and refracts what we see, often through types of Orientalism—either overtly negative (e.g., Islamophobia) or superficially positive/exoticizing (e.g., "Buddhism is philosophy, not religion").

3. Colonialism, Orientalism, and the Category of Religion (13:21)

• The word "religion" and its analogues entered Asian languages via colonialism, often by recruiting native terms like dharma, agama, etc. "This is not a native category in most human languages... it’s a Western category... tied up with Christianity." (09:47)

• Colonial Orientalism established ideas of "real religion" (scriptural, original, pure) versus "adulterated" folk or later practices, a framework derived from Protestant models privileging scripture and origins.

4. Developing Metacognitive and Critical Skills (15:35)

• Approach for Undergraduates: McGovern balances factual survey with manageable doses of theory, using accessible concepts (such as simplified excerpts from Edward Said's Orientalism) as core organizing ideas.
• Final exams challenge students to identify contemporary examples of Orientalist portrayals of Asian religions.
• The goal: Equip students to detect both overtly negative and exotifying forms of Orientalism, fostering the ability to question sources, including "AI summaries" (19:52).

"If you don’t have the ability to recognize Orientalism when you see it, you can get very easily suckered into it." — McGovern (20:12)

5. Concrete Examples: Misperceptions and Lenses (22:59)

• Each Religion, a Distorted Lens: Every chapter in part two addresses a common misperception:
  • Islam: Islamophobia as negative Orientalism.
  • Buddhism: "Is it a philosophy or a religion?"—exoticizing, positive Orientalism.
  • Hinduism: "Is it polytheistic or monotheistic?"—driven by Christian theological binaries.

"Polytheism is not a word that polytheists came up with. This is a word that monotheists came up with to 'other' other religions." — McGovern (33:50)

• Hinduism Example: Critiques both popular Western views ("polytheistic") and self-representations stressed for political/historical reasons ("monotheistic"), concluding the binary is unhelpful and shaped by Protestant monotheistic and iconoclastic assumptions.

• Tibetan Buddhism Example: Dismissals of Tantric practices as inauthentic or degenerate reflect Protestant priorities (scripture/origins/anti-ritualism) and Orientalist bias.

6. Protestant Reformation’s Enduring Influence (39:55)

• Structural Assumptions about Religion:
  • Sola scriptura (scripture alone); sola fide (faith alone); sola gratia (grace alone).
  • Hyper-individualism, anti-ritualism, focus on belief, origins, and iconoclasm all stem from Protestant legacies.
  • These have become so normalized that students define religion first as "belief," a legacy of Protestantism.

"The way that people think about religion today is often rooted in or focuses on belief to the exclusion [of] what people actually do, which is a legacy of Protestant thinking." — McGovern (43:20)

• Impact on Secularism: Even modern secularism, with its privatization of religion, is rooted in Protestant strategies for managing religious difference (26:34).

7. Distortions in Popular and Student Understanding (52:16)

• Students (especially in rural Wisconsin) typically come with an assumption that religion is essentially about belief, a direct Protestant legacy.
• McGovern aims to preemptively inoculate students against both negative and exotifying misconceptions. He avoids being the spark for "little Orientalist consumers of Asian religions"—a teacher's task is not merely inspiring enthusiasm, but critical understanding.

"If they ever encounter real-life Buddhists... they're going to be like, 'Wow, I guess they're doing it wrong because the theoreticalist move is to say, 'I understand the religion, it's super cool because I've read its original scriptures,'... That's not helpful." — McGovern (53:18)

8. Existential Questions for Religious Studies (58:07 onward)

• The field struggles with general devaluation of the humanities, closure of departments, and student confusion over what "religious studies" means ("critical, descriptive, non-confessional," rather than theological study).
• Normative concerns: How to make the field compelling when its mandate is non-normative, teaching descriptive, not prescriptive or confessional approaches.
• Drawing comparisons to philosophy, McGovern notes students' thirst for normative discussion, which is less available in descriptive religious studies. He reflects that understanding before judging is key.

"The benefit of the descriptive approach is it helps you to make normative judgments in the end. Right. Like, you can't make normative judgments if you're not even aware of like, what's actually going on." — McGovern (63:37)

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• "When we look at the world through the category religion, all the things that we look at and call religions end up looking like different shades of Christianity." — Dr. Nathan McGovern (10:30)
• "This is not a native category in most human languages... it’s a Western category, and because it’s a Western category, that it's tied up with Christianity." — McGovern (09:47)
• "Polytheism is not a word that polytheists came out and say, 'well, I'm a polytheist.' No, this is like, this is a word that monotheists came up with to, to other other religions." — McGovern (33:50)
• "If you don’t have the ability to recognize Orientalism when you see it, you can get very easily suckered into it." — McGovern (20:12)
• "Just as I think in popular culture, assume, like, well, Hinduism's polytheistic full stop, like, you're not going to be aware of things like what happens in the Gita or the conception of divinity that's found in the Mahabharata as a whole." — McGovern (36:34)
• "The benefit of the descriptive approach is it helps you to make normative judgments in the end." — McGovern (63:37)

Important Timestamps

• [03:28] — Origin and pedagogy behind the book
• [08:02] — Lens metaphor and critique of the "World Religions" model
• [13:21] — Orientalism, colonial legacy, "real religion"
• [15:35] — Teaching theory and metacognitive skills to undergraduates
• [19:52] — Why the lens matters in the age of AI and mass information
• [22:59] — How each religion is distorted through Protestant/Orientalist lenses
• [29:58] — Concrete examples: Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism
• [39:55] — Protestant Reformation as root of many religious "defaults" in the West
• [52:16] — How students' intuitions reflect Protestant biases
• [58:07] — The existential challenge and future of religious studies

Tone and Language

The conversation is thoughtful, clear, and pedagogically focused, with McGovern often pausing to clarify terms, explain classroom practices, and reflect on both his own experience and the deeper intellectual history of religious studies. Academic, but also practical and occasionally wry — especially concerning his discipline's challenges.

Conclusion & Current Work

Dr. McGovern is working on a new academic book, Brahmanism in the Shadow of Buddhism, which argues that classical Hinduism as reflected in the Mahabharata emerged in response to a long Buddhist-dominated period in Indian history (68:02). He notes that reversing the standard paradigm offers new insight into religious development in ancient India.

This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the critical and methodological challenges of teaching and understanding religion in the modern academy.