Another academic year, another rendition of "Theorizing Religion"!As for the last few years I presented the academic study of religion as a subset (if one of privileged self-awareness) of the broader "religion-making" of our modern society.
But to mark what's really new this year - the "world religions" MOOCs, to ensure there is fresh academic knowledge of the richness and complexity of particular traditions in the mix as we theorize - I wore one of my favorite teeshirts. I think we've done the walking part really well these past years, especially through engagement with the literature of "lived religion." Religions aren't monolithic systems, their members living out their every stipulation (or not), but living congeries of practices, relationships, institutions, communities, with each part articulating (if not always consciously) its own particular pattern of participation over time. Yet at times it seemed that we were walking through a miniature landscape, or perhaps a landscape of bonzai trees, as if religious people were in some way larger than the traditions and practices from which and with which they assembled their particular walk. This year should be different... we'll see in what ways!
