The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests

This volume promotes a pragmatic, anti-essentialist and anti-hegemonic approach to the problem of the definition of religion. It argues that definitions of religion are context-bound strategies for pursuing a variety of purposes, extra-academic as well as academic. Religions being immensely varied, complex and multi-functional phenomena, they need to be studied by several academic disciplines from many different perspectives. It is, therefore, legitimate and useful that many definitions of religions are developed. The volume has contributions from scholars in Philosophy of Religion, the Comparative Study of Religions, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion and Psychology of Religion. It has chapters on the polemics of defining religion in modern contexts, the history of the concept of religion, and the methodology of its definition; it includes several definition proposals.

Jan G. Platvoet, Ph.D. (1982), Utrecht University, is currently Senior Lecturer in the Comparative Studies of Religions at Leiden University and Vice-President of the African Association for the Study of Religions. He has published on the traditional religion of the Akan of Southern Ghana, the Study of Religions in Africa, spirit possession, the study of rituals, and the history and methodology of the Science of Religions, particularly in the Netherlands. Apart from articles, his publications include Pluralism and Identity: Studies in Ritual Behaviour (Brill, 1995) and The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present, Prospects. (Roots & Branches, 1996).
Arie L. Molendijk, Ph.D. (1991), Leiden University, currently holds a post-doctoral position at the Leiden Theological Faculty and is researching the emergence of the science of religion in the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century. His main research interest concerns the history of 19th and 20th century theology and philosophy in Germany and the Netherlands. Main publications: Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie: Ernst Troeltschs Typen der christlichen Gemeinschaftsbildung: Kirche, Sekte, Mystik (Gütersloh 1996) and Religion in the Making: The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion (Brill, 1998).