Theses on the critique of “religion”

The norms typically adhere to or are inherent in binary schemas, wherein two opposing terms are conceived as properly or essentially distinct, either de facto or de jure: for example, religion vs. magic; religion vs. superstition; religious experience vs. organized religion; individual religion vs. institutional religion; outward ritual vs. inward sincerity; reasonable religion vs. fundamentalist religion; church vs. the state; religion vs. politics; religion vs. the secular; the private sphere vs. the public sphere; religion vs. spirituality; religious faith vs. scientific knowledge; revealed knowledge vs. empirical knowledge; etc.

One normative use of the term religion—that characterized it as solely concerning private, inner faith or belief—was central to the modern European social imaginary following the Protestant Reformation. Propagandists imagined an inviolable separation between “church” and “state,” each with their own proper spheres. This rhetorical parturition brought into being much of what the “separate spheres” discourse purported merely to describe. (Of course, the hard line that was rhetorically drawn between public and private power was in practice sometimes rendered porous—or even nonexistent—by the fact that those forms of socialization that took place in the newly-invented “private sphere” had demonstrable “public” effects). Sometimes this “two kingdoms” ideology was used to legitimate the incipient state’s monopoly on violence, and sometimes it was used to legitimate the newly found independence of churches from state intervention. “Religion” turned out to be a flexible tool that could be put to use by all parties for a variety of social ends. The contemporary use of the concept of religion is today often still imbricated with the operations and ideologies of this distinctly modern mode of governmentality. ¹

Due to its articulation within this modern social imaginary, the concept of religion is often invoked to authorize violence. The myth that religions are endemically and inappropriately violent is one of the means by which we authorize state violence against what can successfully be labeled “religious” violence. ²

Because the contemporary concept of religion is native to the European modern period and is constitutive of our modern Western social order, its application in interpretations of other contexts—for example, ancient Rome, 19th century Japan—is conceptually anachronistic. Conceptual anachronism is not inherently problematic; we could rightly point to “ideologies” or “social hegemonies” in cultures that did not use such terms so long as these are recognized as our technical terms, doing our work in the analysis of others. However, in contexts where the term was not constitutive of the social order, scholars run the risk carrying over connotations that are completely alien to the context under analysis. For example, while we could rightly speak of hegemonies in ancient Rome, it would be problematic to refer to Marcus Aurelius as Rome’s CEO. ³

We often fall back on conceptual anachronism when our vocabularies are thoroughly naturalized for us, although we would find it jarring and potentially imperialistic were foreign vocabularies to be ahistorically applied to our own social world. We could refer to aspects of ancient Indian culture as a religion, but what if Indians identified Euro-Americans according to their own indigenous terms, as if all trades or vocations could be broken down to the categories of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra? Where do professors, plumbers, copyeditors, and movie stars fit in this categorical schema? If, as a scholar, I am not intrinsically a “Brahmin,” then perhaps ancient Indians were not intrinsically “religious.” Ahistorically falling back on those folk classification schemes that have been naturalized for us is a mark of intellectual laziness.

Scholars have also demonstrated that the concept of religion has been used to authorize or legitimate some forms of culture over others within Euro-American contexts. For instance, European colonialists used the term to distinguish those who were religious and cultured from those indigenous folk who lacked religion, lacked culture, and as such were uncivilized and barbarous—and consequently, whose land and resources could rightly be appropriated for the empire. Similarly, today we often hear the claim “I’m spiritual but not religious,” a claim that is part of a discourse wherein “spirituality” is authentic and liberating, but “religions” are coercive and promote a herd mentality. Just as “civilized” is today seen as a prescriptive term doing ideological work in the analysis of other cultures, so too should we see that “religion” and “spirituality” often perform similar work. ⁴

Because social institutions labeled “religions” are awarded special legal privileges in the United States and many other Western nations, it is a particularly contested term. In these contexts, whoever can effectively apply the term to their own social group—or get others to apply it to them—may be afforded privileges and protections not awarded to other civil institutions. Institutions or cultural formations claiming to be “religious” in many cases have been able to exempt themselves completely from certain laws that apply to other, similar institutions. ⁵ (Notably, in other contexts—such as Soviet Russia—the identification of an institution as “religious” legitimized state seizure of “church” property.)

In some social contexts, “religion” carries blatantly positive moral associations used to authorize some groups as morally righteous or authentic. For instance, during the Cold War many Americans employed a rhetorical opposition between America as a “Christian nation” and the “godless commies” in the USSR. In other social contexts, “religion” carries blatantly pejorative moral and epistemological associations. Popular atheist literature today imagines “religious” people as backward, fundamentalist, mythical, or credulous. In the latter cases the adjective “religious” serves as an insult as much as a description. ⁶

Scholars are obligated to retire words, ideas, or concepts that carry unduly burdensome normative baggage. Historians of early Christianity have abandoned the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” except as first-order, socially formative identifications used by those whom they study. Anthropologists no longer distinguish between “civilized” and “uncivilized” societies, and the term “cult” has largely been replaced by the less normative phrase “new religious movements” (although the latter is not without its own problems).

We could attempt to purify the concept of its ideological baggage, at least for our own academic purposes, by offering a non-normative stipulative definition.

For scholarly purposes, a non-normative stipulative definition of the term would have to meet the following two conditions.

First, “religion” would have to be defined strictly as a second-order, analytical term, rather than as a rhetorical weapon used to win first-order social battles. We would have to ask: with our definition are we engaging in a social or political field in which we or others have something to gain or lose from our application of this contested term? If we identify a group as “religious,” does our act of identification—if it is received as authoritative in whatever social field is at stake—award the group so-named any privileges (symbolic or real) or social capital? Does our act of identification implicitly or explicitly carry condemnation? In sum, does it matter, socially speaking, if we decide whether this group is religious or not? If someone stands to win or lose on the basis of our application of the term, then we’re more likely naturalizing our own politics than historicizing our data set—that is, we’re back to separating the civilized from the barbarians, orthodoxy from heresy.

Second, the concept would have to demonstrate some analytical purchase. We would have to ask: if neither praise nor penalty is incurred with the use of the concept, does its use nevertheless add anything to our understanding of the social formations at hand? For instance, when studying ancient Indian culture—how appeals to the gods were used to authorize the caste system, or how an appeal to a nonmaterial substance underlying the universe was used to reconcile arcane philosophical debates—do we lose any understanding of the material if we fail to apply the “r” word to the forms of culture at hand? Or, by adding the “r” word—by suggesting that “religious” culture is somehow different from other forms of culture—do we learn anything new or gain a better understanding? If not—if the application of the concept only mystifies our data or accomplishes a political task for us—then the term lacks analytical usefulness. ⁷

Scholars of “religion” have failed to provide a definition that meets both of these conditions, likely for a priori reasons. Until a useful definition is provided, we shouldn’t use it except as an unsophisticated colloquialism, much as a psychologist might use the term “crazy.” ⁸

Without an analytically useful, non-normative concept of religion, we should reconceive religious studies as the study of the rhetorical games and institutional politics taking place in those forms of culture that falls under the folk taxon “religion,” as well as the concept of religion itself as a site of contestation ⁹ —much as race studies today focuses not on racial essences but rather on the social construction and performance of race. The academic study of religion need not require the word “religion” to have a referent.