Religions: Are There Any?

Abstract

Several scholars have recently argued that the concept of "religion" is manufactured, constructed, invented, or imagined, but does not correspond to an objective reality, "out there" in the world. This paper seeks to evaluate that critique. I argue that the critique is composed of three levels or threads: that "religion" is a social construction, that the term distorts one's perceptions of the reality it seeks to name, and that it is ideologically poisonous. Granting the partial truth of these three arguments, the paper agrees with the critics that a naive realism about religion is indefensible. However, some of the critics draw the conclusion that "there is no such thing as religion" or "there are no religions," but I reject this conclusion. I seek, instead, to develop a critical realist view of the concept of religion that is able both to take into account the history of the semantics of the concept and, nevertheless, to see the study of religion as the study of patterns of behavior which are independent of the scholar.Several scholars have recently argued that the concept of "religion" is manufactured, constructed, invented, or imagined, but does not correspond to an objective reality, "out there" in the world.1 If one thinks of deconstruction in a nontechnical sense as an approach that takes meanings that are unreflectively taken as real and seeks to reveal them as conceptually unstable, historically emergent, and ideologically motivated, then these critics are pursuing the deconstruction of the concept of religion.2 This paper seeks to evaluate that critique.Here is a summary of this paper's trajectory. There is an unreflective, but widespread, view of religion that takes religion as something that exists independent of the concepts with which it is described. From this perspective, religion has a certain objective character and the scholar's task is to discover it. Call this view of religion "naive realism." I believe that in the face of the critique, a naive realism about religion is indefensible. Nevertheless, some of the critics draw the conclusion that "there is no such thing as religion" or "there are no religions," but I argue that this anti-realist view of religion does not follow from the critique. I seek, instead, to develop a chastened view of the concept of religion, a critical realism, that takes into account the contribution of the modern western provenance of the concept, but nevertheless sees the study of religion as the study of a social reality that is in the crucial respects independent of the scholar.3

The Un-translatability 1 of Religion, The Un-translatability of Life: Thinking Talal Asad’s Thought Unthought in the Study of Religion

“…When I contend that any and every interpretation and theorization of religion is based on a decision, I am not suggesting, as do some scholars (Lincoln 2003;Strenski 2010;Schilbrack 2010) who misread Asad's argument, that religion cannot be defined because it is not an essential thing. Rather, that the decision to define and theorize what is called religion turns religious practice/ life into a symbol/metaphor, producing what Nietzsche and Heidegger call "distortion" or "covering up" or "burying alive" (Entstellung and Verstellung, respectively) of such life.…”

Does “Religious Violence” Exist?: An Argument Against Essentialism with Particular Reference to the Conquest of the Americas

“…"With social realities," Kevin Schilbrack writes, "if people find the term useful and live in its terms, this agreement is all that is needed for the alleged thing to exist" (Schilbrack 2010(Schilbrack , 1134. "With social realities," Kevin Schilbrack writes, "if people find the term useful and live in its terms, this agreement is all that is needed for the alleged thing to exist" (Schilbrack 2010(Schilbrack , 1134.…”

Developments in religious studies: towards a dialogue with religious education

“…Schilbrack, 2010), has changed the climate of the study of religions by demanding analysis of its foundational category and awareness of the complexity of the factors that condition its meaning and implications in certain contexts. At its most basic, it involves thinking about 'religion' as the interpretive paradigm through which we think about what we study.…”