Phillips, as a philosopher, was interested in faithfully representing religious beliefs and practices. He described three different approaches to religion – the hermeneutics of suspicion, recollection, and reflection. For Phillips, the hermeneutics of suspicion is any approach that does not accept that a religious belief is simply that – religious. Those who follow this approach must “explain away” beliefs through reductionist methods: someone like Freud or Durkheim seek some other explanation to religion, and then “translate” religion through this lens. The hermeneutics of recollection is an approach which is primarily apologetic for a given religion. A person of a given religion or faith who seeks to defend their beliefs from the standpoint of their own doctrines is practicing the hermeneutics of recollection.
Phillips seeks to set out a third approach which does not distort or defend religion, but faithfully give an account for it, which is the hermeneutics of contemplation. This approach gives attention to the role that religious “concepts play in human life” (Phillips 4). He believed that the non-religious philosopher who had an interest in religion could make efforts to understand religious concepts and seek to “explain religion in non-religious terms” (Phillips 5). This approach is neither seeking to explain away religion or defend it, it is simply seeking to understand and consider the role certain concepts play in people’s lives.
For James, though he shared Phillips’ non-reductionist approach, he was not interested so much with particular beliefs, but with experiences of individuals, as noted in the comparison with Evans-Pritchard. The particulars of each theology were not of concern to James, since these particular beliefs for him did not substantiate true religious experience. Since James was a psychologist, he wanted to know what could be called a religious experience in the mind? Particular patterns of thought concerning beliefs were not as significant as, say, a mystical experience of union with a divine existence. These kinds of experiences on which James focused where accompanied by great joy and transformation to the individual’s life. He was not interested in translating religious concepts to philosophical ones, necessarily.
