[kwhitefoot]

> Western academia has a bias towards defining religious institutions out of consideration as true academia.

My alma mater offers a BA in Theology and Religion: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/theolog...

Oxford has a Faculty of Theology and Religion: https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/

Cambridge (the original one) has a Faculty of Divinity: https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/

Perhaps what you say is true of lesser institutions.