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The academic study of religion in the United States is in crisis as departments close and tenured faculty are terminated. Simultaneously, we are witnessing not only an unprecedented alliance between religion and politics at the federal level, but the turning of many non‐religion scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals to religion as the last possible explanation for otherwise inexplicable current events. Religion scholars, looking to defend their field, have begun reappraising its history and, in some cases, reviving definitions of religion as a meta category of human activity that transcends time and place. This essay analyzes various attempts by such authors within and without the field to deploy religion as a distinctively useful category for understanding our current moment; it argues that such deployment often assumes a comprehensive definition of religion that is both context‐dependent and a universal feature of human life. The essay thereby traces both popular (mis)conceptions of the field of religious studies and longstanding conflicts within the field over its shared goals and core principles. The goal of the essay is not simply to document the different aspects of the field's current crisis. Rather, it is to explore how that crisis is reshaping the way we think about our work and enabling us to identify new imperatives and possibilities for the field's future.

• Climate Change and the Art of Devotion

  Sugata Ray, Padma Kaimal et al.•Climate Change and the Art of…•2019

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