religious worlds

I've been reading Robert Orsi on the weaknesses of religious studies as a discipline:

"Any approach to religion that foregrounds ehtical issues as these are now embedded in the discipline obstructs our understanding of religious idioms because religion at its root has nothing to do with morality. Religion does not make the world better to live in (although some forms of religious practice might); religion does not necessarily comform to the credal formulations and doctrinal limits developed by cultured and circumspect theologians, church leaders, or ethicists; religon does not unambiguously orient people toward social justice. Particular religious idioms can do all of these things. The religious motivated civil rights movement is a good example of a social impulse rooted in an evangelical faith and dedicated to a more decent life for men and women. But however much we may love this movement and however much we may prefer to teach it (as opposed to the "cultic" faith of Jonewtown or the "magical" beliefs of "popular" religion) this is not the paradigm for religion, nor is it the expression of religion at some idealized best. There is a quality to the religious imagination that blurs distinctions, obliterates boundaries - especially the boundaries we have so long and so carefully erected within the discipline - and this can, and often does, contribute to social and domestic violence, not peace. Religion is often enough cruel and dangerous, and the same impulses that result in a special kind of compassion also lead to destruction, often among the same people at the same time. Theories of religion have largely served as a protection against such truths about religion."

Robert A. Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them, 191.