What Is Religion?

This chapter examines two major trends in the contemporary study of religion—cognitive science and cultural anthropology. While the former seeks a universal, naturalist, evolutionary explanation for religion, the latter emphasizes cultural relativism, variability, and local context. After interrogating the weakness of both, the chapter suggests that Bruce Lincoln’s more critical, reflexive, and ideologically sensitive approach offers one of the best ways to move forward in the study of religion today. While recognizing the limitations and provisional nature of any definition of religion, Lincoln’s approach offers for a broad comparative method while also paying close attention to history, politics, and social change.

Context (archaeology) · Cultural relativism · Epistemology · Ideology · Naturalism · Political science · Politics · Reflexivity · Relativism · Social science · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion