This article is about one of the most popular discursive strategies in meta-theoretical discourses on the academic study of religion : the continual reference to the distinction between theology and the academic study of religion. This strategy rests on the association of theology with religiousness, phenomenology and hermeneutics, which are then taken as a whole and put in a relation of opposition to science and scientific activity. I intend to show that this strategy produces discursive effects that contradict its explicit content. Some alternative examples of meta-theoretical discourses in which religion is not considered as the enemy of science will be brought in. All these elements are considered in the specific context of the academic study of religion in Canada.
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