Smith, Brian K. 1999. "Authority, Power, and the Definition of "Religion"." Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques no. 25:413–422.

"The study of religion, as I understand it, inevitably and necessarily entails the demystification of religion (as I understand it ). The demystification of religious discourse and practice, which I take to be the interpretive task of the study of religion, inevitably undercuts the very claims that religions put forward and depend upon-claims that, in fact, make religions "religions." Such authoritative claims, involving the superhuman origins, eternal veracity, and universal application of its truth, are, however, by no means limited to what have been generally agreed to be "religions."

In constitution and function, several kinds of modem (and seemingly "secular") phenomena might usefully be analyzed as possibly "religious," as mentioned above. But it is also the unique potential contribution of the study of religion to act as the guardian within the secularized academy of the academy's own secular principles. These latter, as those of us who study religion are in the position to see clearly, are often compromised within academic discourse. The human origins of all knowledge are often forgotten or intentionally elided in the "objective" packaging of truth claims within the academy, or in postmodernist theories that deny human authorship and agency in favor of free-floating "discourse." Cultural and historical relativity are also often evaded in the continuing search within the academy for universal and timeless truth. Religious or pseudoreligious claims to authority, in short, are not absent from modern and supposedly secular scholarly discourse.

The critical dimension inherent in religious studies requires the unmasking of religious discourse in all its forms, whether it appears in traditional guises or in new forms of "truth" that also attempt to transcend the limitations of the humans who have produced them." (pp. 421-422)
Smith, Christian. 2017. Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

"This book explains in general theoretical terms what religion is, how it works, and why and how religion influences people and societies. Offered here is not a comparative study of various religions, but a social scientific theory of religion that helps make sense of all religions. Readers will learn not about the particular beliefs and practices of some specific religions, but about the nature of religious beliefs and practices per se that make religions what they are. By learning to approach and understand religion theoretically, readers will become equipped to grasp and explain any specific religion that may interest them." (p. 2)

(..)

"I develop this book’s theory of religion by answering five basic questions, which provide the titles of its five chapters. First I explain what religion is. Then I describe what causal powers religion generates for influencing people, institutions, and cultures. Next I examine the key cognitive process involved in practicing religion, namely, explaining events by attribution to the influence of superhuman powers. I then explore why people are religious (or not), and in particular why humans seem to be the one animal species on earth that practices religion. Finally, I consider the question of religion’s future fate in modern societies.

I begin in chapter 1 by defining what religion is. Religion, I will argue, is best defined as a complex of culturally prescribed practices that are based on premises about the existence and nature of superhuman powers. These powers may be personal or impersonal, but they are always superhuman in the dual sense that they can do things that humans cannot do and that they do not depend for their existence on human activities. Religious people engage in complexes of practices in order to gain access to and communicate or align themselves with these superhuman powers. The hope involved in the cultural prescribing of these practices is to realize human goods and to avoid bads, especially (but not only) to avert misfortunes and receive blessings and deliverance from crises. Key to this definition is the dual emphasis on prescribed practices and superhuman powers, which distinguish it from other approaches that focus instead on people’s beliefs or meanings (rather than practices) and on the supernatural, sacred, transcendent, divine, or ultimate concern (rather than superhuman powers). This emphasis helps to avoid problems that plague other theories of religion." (p. 3)
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1982. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

"If we have understood the archeological and textual record correctly, man has had his entire history in which to imagine deities and modes of interaction with them. But man, more precisely western man, has had only the last few centuries in which to imagine religion. It is this act of second order, reflective imagination which must be the central preoccupation of any student of religion. That is to say, while there is a staggering amount of data, of phenomena, of human experiences and expressions that might be characterized in one culture or another, by one criterion or another, as religious—there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no independent existence apart from the academy. For this reason, the student of religion, and most particularly the historian of religion, must be relentlessly self-conscious. Indeed, this self-consciousness constitutes his primary: expertise, his foremost object of study." (Introduction , p. XI)
———. 1996. "A Matter of Class: Taxonomies of Religion." Harvard Theological Review no. 89:387–403.

Reprinted in J. Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essay in the Study of Religion , Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2004, pp. 160-178.

"I shall reflect here on the taxonomic enterprise as it applies to that form of scientific detection known as the academic study of religion." (p. 161)

(...)

"Nowhere in the taxonomic literature on “world religions” is there a noticeable sense of the difficulties in defining particular religions. This has been a more recent concern, prompted as much by the area studies model for non-Western religions as from intellectual challenges such as the one mounted by Wilfred Cantwell Smith.(40) In the Dictionary of Religion , two strategies prevail. Judaism and Christianity are each defined in terms of an exemplum: for Judaism it is the “classical Judaism of the dual Torah” as expressed in the foundational rabbinic literature; for Christianity it is Roman Catholic tradition with confirmatory data from the Orthodox Church. The other “world religions” devote considerable space in their introductory essays to issues of definition and classification, one essay concluding that “there are at least as many conceptual difficulties in the definition of ‘Buddhism’ as there are in the definition of ‘religion.”(41)

In contrast, and surprising to me was the persistence of an easy, unarticulated assumption of the universality of Christianity. As general editor I had to insert the adjective “Christian” into the defining sentence fragment of the majority of the Christian entries. Articles in no other area presented that editorial problem." (p. 169)

(40) Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York, 1963).

(41) M. David Eckel, HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion , s.v. “Buddhism,” 149.

References

HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, ed. Jonathan Z. Smith (San Francisco, 1995).
———. 1998. "Religion, Religions, Religious." In Critical Terms for Religious Studies , edited by Taylor, Mark C., 269–284. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Reprinted in J. Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion , Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2004, pp. 179-196.

"It was once a tactic of students of religion to cite the appendix of James H. Leuba’s Psychological Study of Religion (1912), which lists more than fifty definitions of religion, to demonstrate that “the effort clearly to define religion in short compass is a hopeless task” (King 1954). Not at all! The moral of Leuba is not that religion cannot be defined, but that it can be defined, with greater or lesser success, more than fifty ways. Besides, Leuba goes on to classify and evaluate his list of definitions. “Religion” is not a native term; it is a term created by scholars for their intellectual purposes and therefore is theirs to define. It is a second-order, generic concept that plays the same role in establishing a disciplinary horizon that a concept such as “language” plays in linguistics or “culture” plays in anthropology. There can be no disciplined study of religion without such a horizon." (pp. 281-282)

References

King, Winston L. 1954. Introduction to Religion . New York: Harper and Row.
———. 2000. "Classification." In Guide to the Study of Religion , edited by Braun, Willi and McCutcheon, Russell T., 35–44. New York: Cassell.

"The most fundamental classificatory distinction deployed by religions, as represented by modern scholarship since Durkheim, is that between the "sacred" and the "profane.” In the case of Durkheim’s privileged example of the Australian aborigines, subsequent scholarship (e.g., Yengoyan 1989) has tended to bear out both the general and the specific critique of W. E. H. Stanner (1967: 229-34) who notes that “historians of ideas will no doubt wish to say much about Durkheim’s inclination to dichotomism and dualism,” and goes on to argue for the presence of “intermediate forms” or degrees of sacredness and profaneness. There is little doubt that students of religions have shown a marked preference for sharply dualistic or oppositional classes, not simply because they are commonplace (Needham 1973; Maybury-Lewis and Almagor 1989), but also because they often allow scholars to assert some form of affirmation of transcendence. In fact, much of the intellectual work of religions is devoted to the making of fine distinctions (even within apparently dual categories) and to the organization of these in classificatory schema. Religious expertise, in part, consists of the ability to think with and to manipulate these structures." (pp. 38-39)

References

Maybury-Lewis, David and Uri Almagor (Eds.) 1989 The Attraction of Opposites: Thought and Society in the Dualist Mode . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Needham, Rodney 1973 (Ed.) Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification , Foreword by E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Stanner, W. E. H. 1967 “Reflections on Durkheim and Aboriginal Religion.” In M. Freedman (ed.), Social Organization: Essays Presented to Raymond Firth . London: Prank Gass.

Yengoyan, Aram A. 1989 “Language and Conceptual Dualism: Sacred and Secular Concepts in Australian Aboriginal Cosmology and Myth.” In David Maybury-Lewis and Uri Almagor (eds.), The Attraction of Opposites: Thought and Society in the Dualist Mode . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
———. 2004. Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Contents: Preface IX, Acknowledgments XIII-XV; 1. When the Chips Are Down 1; 2. Acknowledgments: Morphology and History in Mircea Eliade's Patterns in Comparative Religion (1949-1999), Part 1: The Work and Its Contexts 61; 3. Acknowledgments: Morphology and History in Mircea Eliade's Patterns in Comparative Religion (1949-1999), Part 2: The Texture of the Work 86; 4. The Topography of the Sacred 101; 5. Manna, mana everywhere and /̆/˘/ 117; 6. The Domestication of Sacrifice 145; 7. A Matter of Class: Taxonomies of Religion 160; 8. Religion, Religions, Religious 179; 9. Bible and Religion 197; 10. Trading Places 215; 11. Differential Equations: On Constructing the Other 230; 12. What a Difference a Difference Makes 251; 13. Close Encounters of Diverse Kinds 303; 14. Here, There, and Anywhere 323; 15. Re: Corinthians 340; 16. A Twice-told Tale: The History of the History of Religions' History 362; 17. God save This Honourable Court: Religion and Civic Discourse 375; Appendix: Jonathan Z. Smith: Publications, 1966-2003391; Name Index 403; Subject Index 407-412.
Smith, Jonathan Z., and Green, William Scott. 1995. "Religion, Definition of " In The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion , edited by Smith, Jonathan Z. and Green, William Scott, 893–894. New York: HarperCollins.

"An Adequate Definition : One may clarify the term religion by defining it as a system of beliefs and practices that are relative to superhuman beings.

This definition moves away from defining religion as some special kind of experience or worldview. It emphasizes that religions arc some special terns or structures consisting of specific kinds of experience or beliefs and practices: beliefs and practices that are related to superhuman beings. Superhuman beings are beings who can do things ordinary mortals cannot do. They are known for their miraculous deeds and powers that set them apart from humans. They can be either male or female, or androginous. They need not be gods or goddesses, but may take on the form of an ancestor who can affect lives. They can take the form of benevolent or malevolent spirits who cause good or harm to a person or community.

Furthermore, the definition requires that such superhuman beings be specifically related to beliefs and practices, myths and rituals.

Defining religion as a system ot beliefs and practices relative to superhuman beings excludes Nazism, Marxism, or secularism as religions.

This definition also excludes varieties of nationalism and civil quasi-religious movements." (pp. 893-894)
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1963. The Meaning and End of Religion: A New Approach to the Religious Traditions of Mankind . New York: The Macmillan Company.

Reprinted with a Foreword by John Hick, Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1991.

"At present, let us consider the word and the concept ‘religion’ itself.

The term is notoriously difficult to define. At least, there has been in recent decades a bewildering variety of definitions; and no one of them has commanded wide acceptance.

In some cases of this sort, a repeated failure to agree, to reach any satisfying answer or even to make any discernible progress towards one, has turned out to mean that men have been asking a wrong question. In this instance one might argue that the sustained inability to clarify what the word ‘religion’ signifies, in itself suggests that the term ought to be dropped; that it is a distorted concept not really corresponding to anything definite or distinctive in the objective world.

The phenomena that we call religious undoubtedly exist. Yet perhaps the notion that they constitute in themselves some distinctive entity is an unwarranted analysis." (p. 21)

(...)

"I certainly do not deny, then, that Christians in their religious life have something in common— or Muslims, or any group, or indeed all men together. What rather I am asserting (conformably both to the historian, who cannot see that common element, and to the man of faith, who therein can) is that what they have in common lies not in the tradition that introduces them to transcendence, not in their faith by which they personally respond, but in that to which they respond, the transcendent itself.

The traditions evolve. Men’s faith varies. God endures." (p. 173, a note omitted)
———. 1992. "Retrospective Thoughts on The Meaning and End of Religion ." In Religion in History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality / La religion dans l'histoire. Le mot, 1'idée, la réalité , edited by Despland, Michel and Vallée, Gérard, 13–21. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

"I have elsewhere remarked that, of my two categories proposed as alternatives to "the religions," one of them, "tradition," has been much more widely accepted than has the other, "faith." In academic circles it has by now become relatively standard to speak of "the Hindu tradition," "the Confucian tradition," "the Jewish tradition," and the like; and even in general parlance to some extent one hears such wording. In "faith," on the other hand, academics, at least, have proven themselves much less ready to be interested, explicitly interested. I have not claimed, of course, to have coined the "tradition" usage, although perhaps my book did something to popularize it. (I got it, by the way, from attempting to understand China.)

Certainly, of course, I did not coin the notion "faith." Yet it can be said, perhaps, that in choosing "tradition" I hit upon a congenial and potentially highly serviceable term (though the "cumulative" bit has been less stressed, even less noticed); whereas in selecting "faith" I may have guessed wrongly. (My Faith and Belief perhaps demonstrates that the choice was logically, if not sociologically, valid.)" (p. 14)
Snoek, Jan A. M. 1994. "Classification and Definition Theory: An Overview." In The Notion of “Religion” in Comparative Research: Selected Proceedings of the XVI Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (I.A.H.R.), Rome, 3rd–8th September, 1990 , edited by Bianchi, Ugo, 741–754. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

"In Summary, we have been dealing with general classification and definition theory.

In the first place we have investigated characters and classes.

(...)

In order to provide a method for our further inquiry, we reviewed the tools, presented before, and decided which of them are useful for our purpose: the construction of a scientific definition of the term "religions". We came to the conclusion that, if we want to prevent unnecessary confusion, we shall have to produce a lexical definition, before we can construct the desired stipulative one. As to the method of constructing this last one, of the four kinds of scientific definitions available, we abandoned definition-by-classification and by-example, but decided that a combination of both a definition-by-identification and a definition-by-description should be provided. For the definition-by-identification we should use, as far as possible, discrete monothetic positive characters. All characters, also those not necessary in the definition-by-identification - and including all continuous, polythetic or negative ones, if any-should be included in the definition-by-description. All these characters are defining characters, the presence or absence of which may be indicated by diagnostic characters, if necessary.

If we, as a scientific community, should decide to accept a definition of the term "religions", constructed along the lines I just presented, then there could be no question as to the usefulness of such a term for our scientific work." (pp. 753-754)
———. 1999. "Defining 'religions' as the domain of study of the empirical sciences of religions." In The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests , edited by Platvoet, Jan G. and Molendijk, Arie L., 313–333. Leiden: Brill.

"Introduction

In this contribution I construct a definition of the term 'religions', as a designator of the domain of study of the empirical sciences of religions. The first section deals with some methodological issues, running from the question whether 'religion' can be defined at all, to a short summary of the available tools to do so. In the second section, a short lexical definition is given, paying special attention to unusual definitions, as well as some phenomena which cause problems for the usual ones. In the last section I then build up my stipulative definition, which I precede with a statement concerning my personal position towards this issue." (p. 313)
Stark, Rodney, and Bainbridge, Willlliam Sims. 1987. A Theory of Religion . New York: Peter Lang.

"In this book we present a general theory of religion. The theory’s claim to generally rests on the large number of central questions about religious phenomena it attempts to answer. In seeking these answers, however, we have not settled for an immense generalization or two about what religion is and does.

Instead, we try to specify in a relatively complete way why and how various aspects of religion occur and to do so through a structure of formal explanation." (p. 11)

(...)

"Religion is a major factor in human life and can be expected to remain so for the forseeable future. It is time, therefore, that we begin to gain a theoretical understanding of religion.

The absence of major theoretical efforts in this area provides us with an unusual opportunity. Before us lies a literature rich in profound insights and immense with carefully collected and tested facts: a wealth of resources beyond the imaginings of those 19th century scholars who gave attention to religious questions. Moreover, through the decades when no one has theorized about religion, major theoretical developments occured in many other areas of social science. These pose the opportunity to borrow some extremely powerful tools, and we have responded by ransacking the treasuries of economics, learning theory and cultural anthropology.

Our purposes in this book are theoretical. However, it is fatuous to theorize without keeping a close eye on the available data relevant to one’s theoretical results. There is no virtue in putting a theory into print that already is falsified by established facts. Therefore, we have combed the empirical literature to show that various portions of our theory are congruent with what is known. Moreover, we have published a number of studies in the past several years that test important predictions from the theory, and many of them can be found in our previous book, The Future of Religion . However, we regard all of these tests of the theory as quite preliminary. Extensive testing can occur only after the theory is available to others. Therefore, our references to empirical results in this book are not meant to imply that the theory already is well tested." (pp. 12-13)
Stausberg, Michael. 2008. "Western Europe." In Religious Studies: A Global View , edited by Alles, Gregory D., 14–49. New York: Routledge.

"‘Religion’: a foundational concept

The most obvious, crucial, and lasting impact of Western Europe on the study of religion, however, is the genesis of the very concept ‘religion’. Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of a vast body of scholarly literature in Western Europe as elsewhere, most of it written by authors who ignored each other, on the history and implications of ‘religion’ as a clear and distinct if not altogether autonomous and universal domain of human reality.

The Italian historian of religion Dario Sabbatucci (1923–2002) emphasized that there were no objective criteria for classifying facts as ‘religious’ in non-Western cultures, as the category of religion was valid and functional only in the Western cultural environment (1988: 46). He also argued that the study of religion led to the dissolution of the religious object (Sabbatucci 1988: 55, 57).

Some years later, and without reference to Sabbatucci, the British-American anthropologist Talal Asad challenged the ways in which dominant theoretical understandings of the category of religion imply its conceptual division ‘from the domain of power’ (Asad 1993: 29). Without any apparent reference to Asad, the French anthropologist Daniel Dubuisson argued that the category of religion as referring to a separate domain is a Western construct that has helped shape Western systems of values and representation. He suggested replacing ‘religion’ with the notion ‘cosmographic formations’ (Dubuisson 1998: 276).

Neither Asad nor Dubuisson seemed to be aware of the large-scale research project of the German Catholic theologian, Ernst Feil. Feil’s (1986, 1997, 2001) detailed reconstruction of the Western history of the concept from early Christianity to the Enlightenment further evidences the important epistemological transformation that occurred in the formation of modernity.

From a postmodern background, Timothy Fitzgerald (2000) has extended the critique of the intercultural usefulness and validity of the category ‘religion’, especially when applied to India and Japan. In doing so, he explicitly challenged the very basis of religious studies as an academic discipline. Still, one looks in vain for a discussion of the studies mentioned above in Fitzgerald’s book.

Although Western European scholars now generally recognize the Eurocentric bias of ‘religion’, few, if any, seem prepared actually to give it up. Several scholars, however, mainly from Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany,

Denmark, and Italy, are involved in a lively debate on the concept (e.g. Bianchi [ed.] 1994; Platvoet and Molendijk [eds] 1999; Feil [ed.] 2000). Hans-Michael Haussig has published a substantial comparative study on (emic) concepts of religion in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam (Haussig 1999)." (pp. 17-18)

References

Asad, Talal 1993, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam , Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bianchi, Ugo (ed.) 1994, The Notion of ‘Religion’ in Comparative Research , Roma: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider.

Dubuisson, Daniel 1998, L’Occident et la religion. Mythe, science et idéologie , Bruxelles: Éditions Complexe.

Feil, Ernst 1986, 1997, 2001, Religio , 3 vols, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Feil, Ernst (ed.) 2000, Streitfall ‘Religion’. Diskussion zur Bestimmung und Abgrenzung des Religionsbegriffs , Münster: LIT.

Fitzgerald, Timothy 2000, The Ideology of Religious Studies , New York: Oxford University Press.

Haussig, Hans-Michael 1999, Der Religionsbegriff in den Religionen. Studien zum Selbst- und Religionsverständnis in Hinduismus, Buddhismus, Judentum und Islam , Bodenheim: Philo.

Platvoet, Jan G., and Molendijk, Arie L. (eds) 1999, The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests, Leiden: Brill.

Sabbatucci, Dario 1988, ‘Kultur und Religion’, in Cancik, Hubert, Gladigow, Burkhard, and Laubscher, Matthias (eds), Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe , Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, vol. 1, pp. 43–58.
———. 2010. "Distinctions, Differentiations, Ontology, and Non-humans in Theories of Religion." Method and Theory in the Study of Religion no. 22:354–374.

Abstract: "This essay has four main parts. (1) Reviewing previous theories of religion, it suggests that it may be helpful not to conflate, a priori, the notions of (the) religious on the one hand and religion\s on the other, and that it may be useful to explore concepts such as (the) sacred and transcendence as independent yet related to the business of theorizing religion. (2) Distinguishing social/cultural from biological/genetic evolution, it outlines the occurrence of three processes/stages of the evolution of religious affairs and religions(s), here called attributive, structural, and functional differentiation respectively. While the first two processes/stages occurred in the remote and ancient past respectively, the third process/stage is typical of modernities and has by now globalized.

(3) The article argues that recent criticisms of the validity of the category of religion are informed by a reverse sui generis approach characterized by a tacit claim that religion is an anomaly, by virtue of its supposedly being inherently different from similar concepts. The article suggests that John Searle’s philosophy may throw light on the mode of existence (ontology) of religion as an example of social and institutional reality, as an intentionality- and observer relative yet real and empowering structure. (4) In the final section, the article engages some lines of thinking of Bruno Latour’s interpretation of Actor-Network-Theory, in particular the category of non-humans and the importance of things (objects) for social reality, including religion."

References

Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the Social: an introduction to actor-network-theory . (Clarendon lectures in management studies). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Searle, John R. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality . New York.: Free Press.
———. 2021. "The Demise, Dissolution and Elimination of Religions." Numen no. 68:103–131.

Abstract: "While it is generally acknowledged that religions can “die” or go “extinct,” little research has been dedicated to the problem of the demise of religions. This text reviews earlier research on this topic and develops some reflections on two types of religion (ethnospecific and transcendental ones) and on the end of indigenous religions. The text stresses the importance of ruler conversions and indigenous agency in religion demise and transformation processes, introduces the category of “religiocide,” and proposes some criteria for identifying “religion death.” Finally, it introduces the articles of this special issue."
Stausberg, Michael, and Gardiner, Mark Quentin. 2016. "Definition." In The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion , edited by Stausberg, Michael and Engler, Steven, 9–32. New York: Oxford University Press.

"There are innumerable attempts at defining ‘religion,’ both in various branches of the academy and beyond.

(...)

The appendix to this chapter samples some influential and noteworthy classical and contemporary definitions proposed by scholars (see Dubuisson 2003, 57-63 and Greil 2009 for larger samples). A commentator has observed there to be a “gulf … between those scholars who think that arguments about definitions are very important and those of us who believe that some loosely commonsensical conceptualization of religion is sufficient to allow us to get on with our primary purpose of exploring its sociologically interesting features” (Bruce 2011, 118). In fact, “[m] ost scholars of religion do not develop a definition of religion”

(Platvoet 1999a, 252), and even some theoreticians of religion have failed to propose (e.g. Rappaport 1999) or refused to suggest definitions of religion. Among classical theorists, Max Weber, at the beginning of his study of religious communities, stated that a definition of religion cannot be made at the outset of such a study, but, if at all, only at the end (Weber 1993 [1920], 1)." (p. 10)

References

Bruce, Steve. 2011. “Defining Religion: A Practical Response.” International Review of Sociology 21(1): 107– 120.

Dubuisson, Daniel. 2003. The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology , translated by William Sayers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Greil, Arthur L. 2009. “Defining Religion.” In The World’s Religions: Continuities and Transformations , edited by Peter B. Clarke and Peter Beyer. London and New York: Routledge, 135–149.

Platvoet, Jan G. 1999a. “To Define or Not to Define: The Problem of the Definition of Religion.” In The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests , edited by Jan Platvoet and Arie L. Molendijk. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 41– 72.

Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sterelny, Kim. 2017. "Religion re-explained." Religion, Brain & Behavior no. 8:406–425.

Abstract: "This article has three aims. First, it attempts to identify the exact problem religion poses to those developing an account of the evolution of human social life, and of the cognitive capacities that sustain that life. Having done that, the article aims to specify the criteria that an explanation of the evolution of religion should meet. Second, it presents a critique of one popular account: the idea that religion emerges as a result of cognitive biases that favor agentive thinking, that favor minimally counterintuitive narratives, amplified and entrenched by some form of cultural evolution. Third, it sketches a positive account in which various forms of communal practice and quasi-religious activity precede the emergence of religious belief. The machinery of the cultural transmission of religion is built before religion transitions into (in part) an ideological system. I call this an ethnographic model of the evolution of religion, because the core ideas are implicit (and sometimes partly explicit) in ethnographically oriented anthropology of religion."
Strenski, Ivan. 1998. "On "religion" and its dispisers." In What is Religion? Origins, Definitions and Explanations , edited by Idinopulos, Thomas A. and Wilson, Brian C., 113–132. Leiden: Brill.

"Toward a Theory of Religion: Becoming a Religion

Where then do I stand on this issue? Given the fact that religion is one of those larger social realities which exist beyond anything intellectuals control, how should we use, understand or conceive religion?

One way to articulate a positive view would be to begin by opposing my approach to one which I feel manifests most of the errors afflicting the way we deal with this issue of defining religion.

I find myself particularly uncomfortable with the ways the matter of the definition of religion is often discussed, particularly by voices raised in the pages of MTSR (Method and Theory in the Study qf Religion ) among those I would call the NAASR (North American Association for the Study of Religion ) group-Gary Lease, Russell McCutcheon and Tim Fitzgerald. I am "uncomfortable" with their work becauseof the nihilistic polemic which it embodies. I believe it is alternately an exercise in naivete, bad faith, or ignorant mischief, or indeed all of the above." (p. 118)

(..-)

"In my view, a "religion" is that social entity which comes into being when diverse or dispersed cultural forms are brought under the command and control of an overarching system.

(...)

A "religion" is moreover all of these dimensions taken together with other features in a condition of dynamic interaction. The dimensions of Buddhism, like the "texts" of post-structuralism referring to other texts, "refer" to other dimensions of religion. One dimension takes its meaning and purposes from others within the Buddhist constellation. Rituals such as monastic begging reinforce dogmas of selflessness and detachment. Experiences of emptiness resonate with vows of poverty and material simplicity, with the refined austerity of the shaven head of the bhikkhu , with purity of some of Theravadin architecture such as in the simple white stupas seen everywhere in these countries." (pp. 129-130)
Taira, Teemu. 2013. "The category of ‘invented religion’: A new opportunity for studying discourses on ‘religion’." Culture and Religion no. 14:477–493.

Abstract. "The category of ‘invented religion’ – along with related categories, such as ‘fiction-based religion’ – has gained scholarly attention in recent years. At the same time, we have witnessed changes in the public discourse on religion: as ‘religion’ has become a resource for claiming rights, privileges and legitimacy, more attention is paid to negotiations of what counts as religion and what is meant by religion. This article examines the category of ‘invented religion’ and provides a framework for analysing its typical examples from the point of view of the discursive study of ‘religion’. The first section evaluates the analytical category of ‘invented religion’. It concludes that the use of the category has been related to an interest in typologies and that studies have focused on the question of whether the examples count as ‘real’ religions. The second section introduces an alternative framework for studying the so-called ‘invented religions’. This shifts the focus from arguing about the analytical use of the category to studying the practical interests and potential consequences of all instances where groups and activities are classified as ‘religious’. The third section illustrates this framework by analysing one controversial case concerning Jediism in Britain. From a discursive point of view, the question on whether ‘invented religions’ count as ‘real’ religions is irrelevant. They can be simply understood as additional cases for studying discourses on ‘religion’."
———. 2020. "The Historicization of “Religion” and The Devastation of Study of Religion Departments: Siamese Twins or Contingent Acquaintances?" Implicit Religion no. 22:291–308.

Abstract: "Two main arguments of Timothy Fitzgerald’s The Ideology of Religious Studies (2000) (IRS) are that religion is an analytically useless (and even harmful) category and that study of religion departments could be rearranged as departments of cultural studies, theoretically informed ethnographic studies or humanities that study the institutionalized values of specific societies. This article introduces Fitzgerald’s argument, examines the reception of Fitzgerald’s work, and then proceeds to argue that, contrary to the opinion of many commentators, Fitzgerald’s first criticism opens up important research possibilities for scholars of religion. However, this article takes a slightly more critical view on the second argument, despite agreeing with the necessity of interdisciplinary research. Finally, this article suggests that historicizing the category of religion can enliven study of religion departments, rather than representing a reason for their problems."
———. 2022. Taking “Religion” Seriously: Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion . Leiden: Brill.

"The starting point of this book is to reveal possible means of studying the category of religion without applying scholarly definitions of religion. The aim is to show how to conduct interesting and socially relevant research when the category of religion, rather than religion as a phenomenon, is the primary object of study. As such, this work is an answer to those who confess that the historicisation or deconstruction of religion has left them unable to imagine how to redirect their research and teaching. This is also why the primary focus is on concrete cases where religiosity has been negotiated by many social actors in different institutional contexts, rather than on debating the strengths and weaknesses of existing scholarly definitions of religion.

The methodological premise is that nothing is religion or nonreligion as such, but that some societies organise themselves by using the category of “religion” and they have multiple means by which classifying something as religious is stabilised and made effective. They slice the world into the religious domain and what is outside that (nonreligious secular). What gets to count as religion is ultimately a question of power and the outcome of sometimes complex and contested negotiations. Some agents and institutions are capable of defining the category, as well as its meaning and boundaries, and imposing it on the rest of the society, whereas the others’ ways of using the term, if they do not correspond to the established discourse, are rejected, marginalised or left outside of the institutional definitions of religion. As will be seen throughout the study, this is by no means the only way to sketch what discursive approaches might contribute to the study of religion, but it constitutes the starting point for each case study in this book." (p. 2)
Taves, Ann. 2009. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

"The book addresses the subject of religious experience directly and the problems of reductionism and humanistic fears of the sciences indirectly and by example. The orientation of the book is practical more than philosophical. In the process of identifying methods that will allow us to cross back and forth across this humanistic/scientific divide more easily and responsibly, I draw from work in religious studies, anthropology, history, philosophy of science, psychology, and neuroscience. In doing so, I sidestep contentious issues where possible, privileging method over theory and philosophy in the interests of actually crossing the divide, while alerting readers to the unresolved philosophical and theoretical issues in the notes.(1) The book is not intended to address all the thorny issues surrounding “religious experience” but is designed to alert researchers to some of the most hotly contested issues and to provide suggestions for dealing with those that directly affect the way we set up and conduct our research." (Preface , p. XIV)

(1) For a different approach to bridging the divide between the sciences and humanities that addresses humanistic fears more directly, see Slingerland (2008).

References

Slingerland, Edward G. 2008. What science offers the humanities: Integrating body and culture . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2015. "Reverse Engineering Complex Cultural Concepts: Identifying Building Blocks of “Religion”." Journal of Cognition and Culture no. 15:191–216.

Abstract: "Researchers have not yet done an adequate job of reverse engineering the complex cultural concepts of religion and spirituality in a way that allows scientists to operationalize component parts and historians of religion to consider how the component parts have been synthesized into larger socio-cultural wholes. Doing so involves two steps: (1) distinguishing between (a) the generic elements that structure definitions and (b) the specific features used to characterize the generic elements as “religious” or “sacred” and (2) disaggregating these specific features into more basic cognitive processes that scientists can operationalize and that historians can analyze in situ. Three more basic processes that interact on multiple levels are proposed: perceiving salience, assessing significance, and imagining hypothetical, counterfactual content."
Tayob, Abdulkader Ismail. 2024. "Religion after Critique: Postcolonial Reflections on the Construction and Effects of Religion." Religion & Theology no. 31:93–113.

Abstract: "In the last few decades, religion and its terms have shown to be implicated in projects of colonial modernity. While this critique of religion is now generally accepted, the term continues to be used in the field with little regard to its history and its colonial construction. This essay aims to bring greater attention to the continuing relevance of religion in contemporary society as articulated in postcolonial scholarship. It proposes closer attention to the critique of religion in the work of David Chidester, Talal Asad and Charles Long. Two distinct dimensions of religion are identified in their work.

The first is a construction of religion in colonial modernity, while the second suggests ways of studying religions in light of this construction. I show in this essay that their work points to multiple complementary ways of studying religions in the contemporary.

Their work suggests that the field of religious studies cannot ignore its discursive history and construction."
Ter Borg, Meerten B. 1999. "What is religion?" In The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests , edited by Platvoet, Jan G. and Molendijk, Arie L., 397–408. Leiden: Brill.

"In this article I will argue in favour of widening the scope of the concept of religion, in order to enlarge our understanding of it as well as our understanding of human behaviour. I will do so, however on the basis of clear and fundamental criteria, and the definition will be directed not to an institution, but to a junction. Which function does an institution have to fulfill in order to be called religious?

I will start by giving some of the definitions of religion from the 1960s (especially Bellah's) a clear content and a clear demarcation.

I will view religion as a function, not as an institution.

This is Bellah's definition:

. . . religion is a set of symbolic forms and acts which relates man to the ultimate condition of his existence.(6)

All this I will work out below first. This will lead to a proposal for a definition of religion. Then I will discuss some of the advantages of this definition. In conclusion, I will discuss its consequences." (pp. 398-399)

(6) Bellah 1964: 358.

To give it a clear content is, firstly, to circumscribe as precisely as possible (albeit in very abstract terms), what is meant by 'ultimate condition of existence'. Secondly, to give it a clear demarcation means to distinguish it from other ways of coping with the human condition.

Thirdly, to view it as a function means to abandon the idea of a 'set of symbolic forms and acts'.

References

Bellah, R.N., 1964, 'Religious Evolution', in American Sociological Review 29: 358-374.
Vallée, Gérard. 1992. "The Conference." In Religion in History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality / La religion dans l'histoire. Le mot, 1'idée, la réalité , edited by Despland, Michel and Vallée, Gérard, 3–6. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

"The idea of the October 1989 conference was suggested by a concourse of events that were not entirely coincidence: three scholars, W. C. Smith, M. Despland, and E. Feil had virtually written the same book. More precisely, they had written a work on the same topic, the history of the concept "religion." It appeared highly desirable, therefore, to have the same three persons sit around the same table to talk about the ways they see the subject matter now, confess their errata, and incorporate various corrigenda, but also hear from other colleagues who, though not having written the same book, have nevertheless read our three authors and would have fruitful things to interject from their respective positions in the field of religious studies. Such colleagues were chosen not only for their competence but also for the diversity of perspectives they represent, in the hope that the encounter of a wide variety of views would produce some longed-for insights. A single purpose, therefore, brought together all the participants.

As a way of introducing the -three colleagues whose work constituted the main focus of the conference, it might be useful to recall the nature of the contribution each of the three was in a position to offer. This will be done briefly, at the risk of oversimplification."

(...)

"All three have dealt substantially with the same issue: the history of the concept "religion" in the Western tradition. All three begin their investigation in the Greco-Roman period, which soon becomes for all three the Latin West and eventually the Christian Latin West. All three look at literary material that was produced in the course of sixteen to nineteen centuries.

Their work is cumulative in the sense that Despland knew of Smith, and Feil knew of both Smith and Despland. So far the elements common to the three." (p. 3)

References

Smith, W. C., The Meaning and End of Religion: A New Approach tothe Religious Traditions of Mankind , New York: Macmillan 1963.

Despland, M. La religion en Occident, évolution des idées et du vécu , Paris; Cerf 1979.

Feil, E. Religio: die Geschichte eines neuzeitlichen Grundbegriffs vom Frühchristentum bis zur Reformation , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986-2007 (4 volumes).
Valtrova, Jana. 2016. "“Religion” in Medieval Missionary Accounts about Asia." Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni no. 82:571–592.

Abstract: "The article strives to contribute to the discussion about medieval development of thinking about “religion” by exploring selected Christian missionary accounts about non-Christians in Mongolian empire and India.

The contact with religious plurality in these areas, together with missionary zeal, encouraged new ways of thinking about “religion”, which challenged the existing terminology concerning “religion” (terms lex, secta, fides, ritus). Analyses of missionary terminology and descriptions of various “religions” reveals a tendency to implicitly accept general comparability of Christianity with non-Christian traditions. Not in terms of truthfulness, however in terms of typology – Christianity comes to replace and upgrade previous ways of life. In this context the question of relationship between religious practice (religion as worship) and faith (religion as system of beliefs) becomes very important. The question of (non)reception of missionary thinking about “religion” within European audience is also briefly outlined."
Vecchi, Ilaria. 2020. "The Relevance of Fitzgerald’s Critical Approach to the Study of Religions in Asia." Implicit Religion no. 22:429–438.

Abstract: "During my doctoral research, I looked at a specific type of medium who lives in the north of Japan. Although many of these figures are categorised as religious, the activity and role they cover in their communities goes beyond the “religious” function. In light of this consideration, I became interested in the use of the term religion, as its application in this context limited the capacity to understand these mediums. As I began questioning the category of religion, I was introduced by my supervisor to The Ideology of Religious Studies by Fitzgerald. The book quickly became a relevant source to understand the development of the discourse on the study of religion and in my specific region of research: Asia, and more specifically, Japan. Since then, I have applied his critical approach to the study of religion to my methodology of research, coupling it with visual ethnographic methods, “giving a body” to Fitzgerald’s observations in his critique of religion in Asia. This paper will explore the use of the critical religion approach in the analysis of the use of the concept in Japan and, more specifically, in the study of the Itako mediums of Nord Tohoku. This work will also be related to the visual ethnographic work moulded on the critique of religion as conceived by Fitzgerald."
von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2005. Religion, concept of. Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online : 1–3.

"Principles

Definitions of “religion,” “religions,” and “religious” are far from straightforward; neither are they free from presuppositions. Much of the function of a definition depends on whether one is comparing (plural) religious traditions and putting them in historical contexts, or whether one is using “religion” as a single, “true” category [7].

Postcolonial criticism has clearly shown that allowing or denying the status of religion, and determining what constitutes a religion, are processes that take place within a complex discourse of power [2]. Accordingly, the historical reconstruction of a variety of concepts of religion is an important aspect of modern religious studies and religious historiography (Religion, history of).

In Roman antiquity, the key sense of the Latin word religio was punctiliousness in the observance of cult. When Cicero wrote, “religio, id est cultus deorum” (“religion, that is the cult of the gods” [4. vol. 1, 48]; cf. Cicero, De natura deorum 3,5 / 2,9), he meant nothing to do with “right belief” or theological doctrine, but rather the correct performance of cult actions like sacrifices or oracles. Moreover, in Roman law, a place was religiosus if it belonged to a deity and therefore was due cult ministrations and special rights.

Superstitio as the antonym to religio therefore originally meant not superstition in the (high) modern sense, but an action in the cult context that was wrongly performed, exaggerated, or unauthorized." (p. 1)
———. 2013. "Discursive Study of Religion: Approaches, Definitions, Implications." Method and Theory in the Study of Religion :5–25.

Abstract: "The article explores recent approaches to historical analysis of discourse that have been developed in disciplines such as the sociology of knowledge and historical epistemology. These approaches have only sporadically been taken seriously in the academic study of religion, although they have a great potential to establish a study of religion that is both academically rigorous and aware of its societal and historical contexts and limitations. The article defines the necessary concepts for a discursive study of religion as an hermeneutical discipline that scrutinizes and historicizes the societal organization of knowledge about religion. This discourse on religion—defined here as religion—generates, legitimizes, and maintains meaning structures and societal realities. The discourse-historical analysis of religion is not itself a method but a research perspective. Nevertheless, this perspective implies several steps in designing a research project that the article describes with concrete examples."
Waardenburg, Jacques. 1992. "In Search of an Open Concept of Religion." In Religion in History: The Word, the Idea, the Reality / La religion dans l'histoire. Le mot, 1'idée, la réalité , edited by Despland, Michel and Vallée, Gérard, 225–240. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

"It is time now to come back to our starting question: How to envisage and conceptualize Islam as a religion? Our answer has arisen out of the practice of Islamic studies: by using a model which allows for an objectively given sign and symbol system and subjective interests, motivations, and intentions we are able, in principle, to discover various meanings, including religious ones, which specific elements of the Islamic sign and symbol system have had and have for particular individuals and groups who have recourse to it, giving their particular interpretations of it in specific situations and circumstances. If this is true for the conceptualization of Islam as a religion, we can move on to a more abstract level and ask what kind of concept one should have of religions in general. Would the concept developed for Islam be of general validity?" (p. 234)
Warner, Cameron David. 2014. "On the Relationship Between Method and the Object of Study When Studying Religion." Numen no. 61:131–144.

Abstract: "If a discipline is defined by the object of its study, then the definition of the object of study has a priori paramount importance. Studies of the evolution of the study of religion show that researchers have been unable to escape their own socio-political contexts. I begin with a brief consideration of the evolution of superstition as a means to gain perspective on the evolution of the study of religion and definitions of religion and as a cautionary note to both the contextual study of religion and the cognitive evolutionary ( c E) study of religion. I then continue with an overview of our conference, "Researching Religion: Methodological Debates in Anthropology and the Study of Religion," at Aarhus University, and the seven articles published in this special double issue of Numen. Taken together, they reflect and address an international rupture between the contextual and the c E study of religion, and point towards productive avenues for future research ."
Watts, Galen, and Mosurinjohn, Sharday. 2022. "Can Critical Religion Play by Its Own Rules? Why There Must Be More Ways to Be “Critical” in the Study of Religion." Journal of the American Academy of Religion no. 90:317–334.

Abstract: "According to some of the most vocal proponents of Critical Religion (CR), taking CR seriously entails accepting that religion as an analytic category leads to reification and naturalization and is unduly normative, thus critical scholars of religion should abandon it and restrict ourselves to studying discursive battles over the uses of religion. In this article, we build on the case for alternative critical proposals by offering an immanent critique of the work of proponents of CR. In doing so, we identify and outline CR’s major analytical flaws, which we name as follows: inconsistent historicization, crypto-normativity, and arbitrary abandonment. We conclude that CR scholarship cannot but fail to live up to its own ideals, and moreover that much would be lost were we to limit the critical study of religion to CR."
Wiebe, Donald. 1994. "From Religious to Social Reality: The Transformation of "Religion" in the Academy." In The Notion of “Religion” in Comparative Research: Selected Proceedings of the XVI Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (I.A.H.R.), Rome, 3rd–8th September, 1990 , edited by Bianchi, Ugo, 837–846. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

"I must now bring these comments on' religion' to a close. I have argued here that with the development of the academic/scientific study of religion there was indeed a radical transformation of the notion of religion. In this I am in agreement with W.C. Smith that 'religion', though at one time involving reference to a (transcendent) religious reality now refers only to a socio-historical reality (although a socio-historical reality with a peculiar ideological content). Unlike W. C. Smith, however, I do not see that transformation as problematic for the student of religion.(26) Indeed, I have given grounds rather to show that such a change was necessary if the study of religion was ever to transcend its original theological and apologetic intentions and to become genuinely scientific. Its transformation, that is, is the concomitant result of the emergence of the academic/scientific study of religion. The similarity this transformation of· religion' has to other conceptual developments in the physics of motion should be obvious.

A denial that the same physical laws can account for both mundane terrestrial motion and divine celestial motion would today be recognized as quite absurd. To argue that radically different laws and explanatory frameworks are required to account for profane social phenomena and religio-social phenomena, I would argue, should be seen as no less so.

As for the criticisms of J. Z. Smith, [Timothy] Fitzgerald and [Philip C.] Almond little more needs to be said. Though some of their criticism are on target their generalizations about the use of the terms· religion' and 'world religion' are not. That some scholars are guilty of reification does not mean that all are, nor that that tendency to reify cannot be transcended.

I think I have given indication that it can.

I conclude this discussion, therefore, by insisting, like Eric Pyle, that students of religion have no need to abandon their use of the term 'religion'. Indeed, I have no doubt but that more confusion within this field of study would result from that course of action than presently exists." (pp. 844-845)

(26) That this modern concept of 'religion' is not indigenous to the religious community itself - because, that is, it differs radically from 'religion' as it is used by the religious - does not present the kind of problem for the scholar that [W.C.] Smith thinks it does. The modern concept, that is, is simply a different concept of which the community being studied is unaware. And as W. G. Runciman, A Treatise of Social Theory, 1, The Methodology of Social Theory , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 13 points out in regard to the study of ancient cultures and their economies, the historian is not deterred by the fact that those ancient cultures lacked the modem concept of culture. As he puts it, such historians will not, on the basis of their lack of that concept, conciude "that theirs was not an economy any more than that because they lacked the concept of 'malaria' they never died from it".
Wiebe, Donald. 2010. "Religious studies." In The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion: Second Edition , edited by Hinnells, John R., 125–144. New York: Routledge.

"‘Religious studies’: a summary and proposal

The term ‘religious studies’ it appears from this discussion, is used in two quite different yet not wholly unconnected ways. In one sense, as the state-of-the-art reviews of ‘religious studies’ in universities around the world suggest, the term includes whatever study of religion and religions is undertaken in any post-secondary institution of education, whether religious or secular, and regardless of the methodology adopted. Here the term is often taken to be commensurate with ‘the academic study of religion’ and ‘the scholarly study of religion,’ which notions themselves are often used synonymously.

(...)

The second, more common use of the term, however, is as a designation for a particular kind of approach to the study of religion with a particular aim, methodology, or style that distinguishes it from the type of (religious/confessional) study of religion antedating it. And when used in this sense, it still refers to the study of religion undertaken in the academy, but now designates an enterprise legitimated by the academy – in this case the modern research university – because it measures up to the received criteria of scientific study in the other university disciplines. Identification of religious studies with the academic study of religion in this instance, therefore, does not apply to all post-secondary research carried out under that rubric. ‘Religious studies’ as an academic undertaking, therefore, ought to connote a scientific enterprise even though it does not, as some would argue, constitute a scientific discipline (see, for example, Pye 1991).

I use the notion of ‘enterprise’ here as defined by Robert A. McCaughey (1984) as ‘any organized understanding of sufficient magnitude and duration to permit its participants to derive a measure of identity from it’ (xiii)."

References

McCaughey, Robert A., 1984 International Studies and Academic Enterprises: A Chapter in the Enclosure of American Learning , New York: Columbia University Press.

Pye, Michael, 1991 ‘Religious Studies in Europe: Structures and Desiderate,’ in Klaus K. Klostermaier and Larry W. Hurtado (eds), Religious Studies: Issues, Prospects and Proposals , Winnipeg: University of Manitoba and Scholars Press, pp. 39–55.
———. 2019. "A Manifesto for the Scientific Study of Religions or Setting the Parameters for a Scientific Study of Religions In the Modern University." Method and Theory in the Study of Religion no. 31:1–4.

Abstract: "This is a manifesto—setting out the framework for the appropriate study of religious thought and practice in the context of the modern university."

"Preamble

In his Philosophy and the Study of Religion: A Manifesto , professor of philosophy of religion Kevin Schilbrack claims that I, and those like me, argue that non-scientific projects involving the study of religions “are not appropriate for the academy” (Schilbrack 2014: 192). My argument with Schilbrack is that the “study of religion” is, for him, not simply an epistemic enterprise but also a philosophical, metaphysical, practical, and axiological undertaking; and the “academy” for him, it appears, is any tertiary educational institution.

By contrast, the manifesto that I set out below is restricted to a scientific study of religious phenomena. It is the historical product of what philosopher and anthropologist Ernest Gellner has called the “mainstream Western epistemological tradition” (1992: 85)." (p. 1)

References

Gellner, Ernest (1992). Postmodernism, Reason and Religion . London: Routledge.

Schilbrack, Kevin (2014). Philosophy and the Study of Religion: A Manifesto . Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Wiggins, James. 1998. "What on Earth is Religion?" In What is Religion? Origins, Definitions and Explanations , edited by Idinopulos, Thomas A. and Wilson, Brian C., 133–139. Leiden: Brill.

"So we come in the end to the place of our beginnings. What on earth is religion? We often seem to get further in our efforts to say what it is not than we do in our saying what it is. We who spend our lives studying religion know full well that there is an important distinction between what we do in our teaching and scholarly work and what people do who are identified as being "religious." The lure of somehow saying more than "religion is not this and is not that" calls forth many responses. And every serious response is worthy of being extended the most generous attention we can give it. For professors and students alike the journey of exploration of the question is likely more significant and meaningful than would be any place of arrival.

And it keeps "religion" lively, both as studied and as lived, never to be satisfied with any resting place, as if it were final. Kafka long ago saw this when he wrote in one of his parables that "our destination is away from here"." (p. 139)
Willard, Aiyana. 2018. "Defining religion." Religion, Brain & Behavior no. 8:449–451.

"The fact that religion is indefinable supports its roots in more general cognitive and cultural learning processes. Religion is a family resemblance category precisely because nothing about religion clearly delineates from other parts of culture. No piece or combinations of pieces of our category of religion can capture everything that we consider religion without also capturing a number of things we generally do not consider religion.

(...)

"As researchers we are free to, and should more readily, tackle the task of defining religion. When we talk about “religion,” we can still operationally define the set characteristics that we are interested in, but in doing this we need to recognize that dating the evolutionary origins of “religion” is ineffectual if there is no widespread agreement on our definition. Changing the age of religion only requires changing the set of traits we consider part of our operational definition of religion. This does not change our understanding of the evolutionary age of these traits themselves." (p. 451)
Williams, J. Paul. 1962. "The Nature of Religion." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion :3–14.

"A fifth category of religiousness needs to be added to the four categories stated above: to secret, private, denominational, and societal religiousness add international religiousness. If a viable society in our day demands integration in some degree around religious values, then a major task of our aborning international society is to develop among its dominant individuals and groups such shared religious belief-attitudes as will tend toward the preservation rather than toward the destruction of this society. An adequate study of religiousness can neglect none of these five categories. In our day, however, a prime object of investigation must be societal and international religiousness. Here lie the major forces which work for and against man's survival." (p. 14)
Wilson, Brian C. 1998. "From the Lexical to the Polythetic: A Brief History of the Definition of Religion." In What is Religion? Origins, Definitions and Explanations , edited by Idinopulos, Thomas A. and Wilson, Brian C., 141–162. Leiden: Brill.

"In this chapter, therefore, what I wish to do is to provide a brief historical overview of the definitional enterprise in the academic study of religion. Obviously an exhaustive history would require book-length treatment, and what follows is perhaps elliptical in the extreme. However, it is, I feel, a necessary prolegomena to such a future study. Perhaps one of the reasons why the history of the definitional enterprise remains relatively neglected within the academic study of religion is because the field has failed to develop any kind of uniform formal categories for dealing with definitions of religion. In the following pages, therefore, I present a brief historical overview organized with an eye towards highlighting and labeling formal developments in the definition of religion. I hope this overview will serve not only as an introduction to the range of definitional possibilities for religion, but that it will also facilitate further attention to the history of the definitional enterprise in general." (p. 142, a note omitted).
Wilt, Henry Toomey. 1954. Religio: A Semantic Study or the Pre-Christian Use of the Terms Religio and Religiosus , Columbia.

Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation available at ProQuest Dissertation Express ref. number 0008864.

Abstract: "Since the time ot Cicero the semantics of religio has recurrently been a matter tor study and discussion among scholars in the field or philology and of religion. The reason tor this recurrent interest down through the centuries is to be found in the obscure etymology or the word rather than in the immediate field of semantics. From antiquity to modern times two different etymologies have been current; the earlier is that proposed by Cicero, who suggested relegere as the parent word to religio , the second was that or the Christian theologian Lactantius who believed that the verb religare with its meaning ot "binding" must be its source.

Scholars accepted one or the other of these derivative explanations, depending on the philosophical view that each held of the term religion. Until quite recent times, little attempt was made to explain the word religio linguistically.

In the nineteenth century, however, a new etymological possibility was suggested -- namely, the Greek verb alego .

The problem undertaken and studied in the present dissertation was first of all to test each of the three proposed etymologies against Greek and Latin passages containing alego and religio respectively to see which etymology is most probably the true ancestor of the term religio and then to determine the original meaning and subsequent changes in the meaning of the word.

A survey of the earlier studies showed that all authors started from a preconceived meaning of the word which they had either derived from an etymology or from a usage of the word religion current in modem times. They then interpreted every passage in ancient authors so as to make it agree with their preconceived notion.

In the present study I have tried to follow a more objective method. I followed two lines of investigation independently from one another: first to find out which etymology was most likely to be correct on the basis of a comparison of similar roots in a parent Indo-European language; secondly, I tried to interpret the passages in early Latin in which the word religio or its derivative was found exciusively from the context without introducing any preconceived notion.

I did this in the conviction that if both lines of investigations should lead to the same original meaning of religio the results wuld support each other. In actual fact it turned out that the results were the same in both cases. They support the etymology from alego . The secondpart of the investigation shows furthermore that in very early Latin the words religio and religiosus have not yet the meaning of 'religion' and 'religious' respectively, but a much broader meaning. It is further shown how this broader meaning was gradually narrowed down to the modern meaning of 'religion' and 'religious'." (pp. 1-3)
Woll, Donald Bruce Woll. 2019. "Locating the Study of Religion in a Theory of the Academy. The Unexamined Relationship between Jonathan Z. Smith’s Two Careers." Method and Theory in the Study of Religion no. 31:309–346.

Abstract: "The central claim of this article is that Jonathan Z. Smith, in addition to his extensive contributions to the study of religion, makes a valuable contribution to the theory and responsible public exercise of cognitive power. This larger public concern is explicitly and repeatedly addressed in his writings on the academy in which he develops a theory of the academy that articulates the conditions essential to the responsible exercise of cognitive power. A further claim is that this theory constitutes the integrating standpoint of his study of religion. The failure to recognize the relationship between his theoretical writings on the academy and his study of religion, reflecting his two careers, has given rise to misunderstandings that have obscured the wider public significance of his entire oeuvre."
Yinger, J. Milton. 1970. The Scientific Study of Religion . New York: Macmillan.

Chapter One: On the Definition of Religion , pp. 1-23.

"We have looked at the problem of definition from several points of view.

Perhaps our approach can be summed up in these words: The human individual, who is blessed (and sometimes cursed) with the power of language, is capable, therefore, of anticipating the future, including a foreknowledge of his own death; he is also able to verbalize ideal states, and to create standards; yet he is continually threatened with failure, with frustration, with lack of fulfillment of his conception of justice. These problems tend to loom up as overwhelming or absolute evils. Religion is man’s attempt to “relativize” these difficulties by interpreting them as part of some larger good, some conception of the absolute that puts the individual’s problems into new perspective, thus to remove or reduce their crushing impact. At the same time, man’s social relations, his societies, are threatened by these same problems. Fear and frustration can lead to disrupting hostilities, unless they can be reinterpreted as part of a shared experience. In addition, there is the tendency of each individual to think only of himself, to make his personal joys and desires into absolute goods, thereby threatening the patterns of mutual adjustment that social life requires. Religion is the attempt to relativize the individual’s desires, as well as his fears, by subordinating them to a conception of absolute good more in harmony with the shared and often mutually contradictory needs and desires of human groups." (p. 15)
Yoder, Don. 1974. "Toward a Definition of Folk Religion." Western Folklore no. 33:2–15.

"The concept of folk religion in the academic world has at least two major roots. The first root is the study of what German scholarship has named "religiose Volkskunde," for which I have two trans lations: the religious dimension of folk-culture, or the folk-cultural dimension of religion. The second root is the anthropological study of syncretisms between two forms of religion on different levels of civilization, as for example the mélange of African primitivism and Roman Catholicism that is in Haiti called "Voodoo," or the syncretism between Catholicism and native Indian religious beliefs and practices in Central and South America. The format of this paper will involve a threefold division: 1. a brief review of the development of the concept of folk religion from these two roots; 2. a look at selected problems in defining folk religion; and 3. an attempt to define folk religion." (p. 2)
Ze'ev, Levy. 1994. "Deconstruction and the Meaning of Religion." In The Notion of “Religion” in Comparative Research: Selected Proceedings of the XVI Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (I.A.H.R.), Rome, 3rd–8th September, 1990 , edited by Bianchi, Ugo, 873–880. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.

"This paper undertakes to explore the implications of Deconstruction (or at least some of them) on contemporary philosophy-of-religion, from the perspective of postmodernism, and in particular their reflections in modem Jewish thought. This will make necessary the examination of certain essential notions of E. Levinas which left their imprint on Derrida and contributed to the shaping of his deconstructionist philosophy.

It is now an undeniable fact that Deconstruction brought about a pivotal change in the method of reading literary, philosophical and religious texts. It considers one of its chief assignments to dismantle those theoretical models that had been, until quite recently, the principal basis of structuralist methodology. The American literary theorist Harold Bloom, though not a deconstructionist himself, followed all these developments from close-by, and devoted to them careful attention. He tried to detect there certain surprising affinities to what had been characteristic of Jewish mysticism. He described, e.g., the controversial trends of Deconstruction by the term Breaking of the Vesse!s (2), borrowed from the Kabbalah." (p. 874)

(2) Harold Bloom, The Breaking of the Vesse!s Chicago and London 1982.
Zemmin, Florian. 2021. "Global Perspectives on Religion as an Object of Historical and Social Scientific Study." Implicit Religion no. 24:271–279.

"This brings us to the treatment of “religion” as a historical concept.

Such treatment in a way turns a problem into a topic. The problem results from the historicity and normativity of the concept of “religion,” which make its universal assumption impossible and its analytical usability problematic. In turn, inquiring into the genealogy and the present reach of “religion” treats this concept as a topic of historical research. Such conceptual inquiry provides an alternative to both modernist universalism and postmodern relativism: it acknowledges that historical contingencies did create a lasting conceptual order and consequently enquires into how widely certain concepts are shared (Zemmin and Sievert 2021, esp. 8). The starting point of such historical inquiry is the observation of present global usages of “religion”. The role of academic and political power in shaping the public and global usages and meaning of concepts must neither be denied nor plainly asserted, but rather investigated on a case-to-case basis. This means to attend to the impact of (post-)colonial power, but also to local reservoirs of knowledge in conceptualizations of “religion”. Relatedly, the European academic formation of “religion” was not a self-sufficient affair, but was influenced by non-European contexts and ideas, too, which merits greater attention." (p. 273)

References

Zemmin, Florian and Henning Sievert. 2021. “Conceptual History of the Near East: The Sattelzeit as a Heuristic Tool for Interrogating the Formation of a Multi-Layered Modernity.” Contributions to the History of Concepts 16(2): 1–26.

Skip to the top of page