The Concept of the Invention of Religion in Contemporary Critical Religious Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71294/ers.2025.06Keywords:
invention of religion, critical study of religion, world religions, Confucianism, Judaism, essentialism.Abstract
Abstract. This article examines the concept of the “invention of religion” within contemporary critical study of religion, drawing on the classic works of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (1963), and Brent Nongbri, Before Religion (2013), as well as contributions from Leora Batnitzky, David Chidester, Daniel Dubuisson, Timothy Fitzgerald, Tomoko Masuzawa, Anna Sun, and Jonathan Z. Smith. It demonstrates that the modern concept of “religion” emerged within the European Christian intellectual context of the early modern period and has no direct equivalents in other cultures. Particular attention is devoted to critiquing the presumed universality of religion and to how modern definitions of religion are projected onto indigenous traditions, thereby distorting their original meanings. Based on historical and comparative research, the article explores how European colonizers constructed and imposed their own understanding of religion on other societies, and how, in the nineteenth century, “Eastern religions” and the category of “world religions” were likewise invented. Special attention is given to the formation of modern conceptions of Confucianism and Judaism as religions. The article argues that the idea of the “invention of religion” serves as a key analytical tool within the critical study of religion for challenging essentialism.
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