Religion is a broad term that can mean anything from a belief in a god or goddess to a ritual. Whether you are interested in learning more about the cultural beliefs of your friends or family, moving to a new country for work, or simply wanting to be more empathetic, the study of religion is an important topic.
What is interesting about the concept of religion is that it has shifted over time. Originally, it was a term for scrupulous devotion and rituals. Later it was retooled to include the belief in many different gods and spirits. In the 19th century, the study of religion branched out into multiple disciplines and began to focus on the study of human culture.
The question of what constitutes a religion is one that has long divided scholars. Some have sought to define religion in a way that is both clear and universal, whereas others have emphasized the importance of differences among religions. A third approach is to focus on the role of religion in a specific social context, such as capitalism or colonialism.
More recently, there has been a “reflexive turn” in the study of religion, where scholars have pulled back to examine how the concepts we use to think about social realities are constructed and political. This has included examining the ways that assumptions baked into the definitions of what counts as a religion distort our understanding of historical realities. For example, some scholars have argued that the fact that religion is not found in all cultures shows that it is an invented concept rather than a social reality. Others, such as Talal Asad, have critiqued this by arguing that while it is true that the notion of religion is a social construct, that doesn’t imply that it is nonexistent or unreal.