Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
8. Preaching to the Choir? Religious Studies and Religionization
Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
Ian Alexander Cuthbertson [+]
Ian Alexander Cuthbertson is an independent scholar who is broadly interested in exploring how the category “religion” is deployed to legitimize certain beliefs, practices, and institutions while delegitimizing others. Ian lives in England with his wife Virginia and their son Ciaran and often puts pineapple on pizza.
Description
In this response, I argue the academic study of religion ought to limit itself to investigations of how the term ‘religion’ is deployed by social actors with varied agendas as a means of reifying a presumed distinction between apparently separate religious and secular spheres. I conclude by suggesting that religious studies scholars should reconsider not only the ways we describe ‘religion’, but also the audience to which these descriptions are directed.