Thinking Religion and Religious Studies Milad Milani methodology essence of religion Religious studies Martin Heidegger Friedrich Max Müller phenomenology of religion philosophy of religion history of religions reductionism comparative religion religious thought multi-disciplinarity This article argues religious studies is a discipline specifically designed for answering the big questions about religion. The comparative and general study of religion is what emerges when scholarship abandons the big questions about religion. This occurs first by the field’s distancing from theology and later philosophy. Historical and phenomenological approaches present religious studies as a pluralistic and multidisciplinary research field, whilst arguably it is originally polymethodic. The difference, I argue, is that the religious studies discipline is better defined by a multiple methods approach rather than a disciplinary hybridity. I make my argument by discussing the philosophical method of “thinking” as necessary to reclaim for religious studies and specifically making the case for thinking as a key method for religious studies research. Philipps-Universität Marburg Marburg Deutschhausstraße 9, 35037 Marburg 2025 2025-05-27 2025-05-27 Text article urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-0004-2025-334-88537 eng 1418722-x 26 1 (2025) 1 https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0004/article/download/8853/8497 10.17192/mjr.2025.26.8853 https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0004/2025/334/8853 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0