Relational religion: manifesto for a synthesis in the study of religion

Abstract

Religious traditions – although socially constructed – are distinguishable as distinct, practiced entities having pragmatic effects. Religion is not a purely scholarly invention. Correspondencies between empirical data and scientific concepts, or, between object language and metalanguage, have to be found beyond essentialism and reification. Consequently, there is a shift in parts of the study of religion towards approaches that counteract essentialism and reification by explaining subject-matters through relationality. A relational paradigm is beyond the alternative of a naïve realism and positivism on the one hand or a radical constructivism or deconstructivism on the other hand. Against this background, the article draws attention to relations in the study of religion, especially between cognition, experience, action, and materiality, between semantics and social structure, and between structure and process. The article argues for a synthesis of different approaches in the study of religion, namely cognitive and material approaches, and experience- and action-orientated theories and methodologies.