This response to Brand’s and Kollmar-Paulenz’ commentaries further develops the case for a relational paradigm in the Study of Religion by addressing critiques concerning comparison, generalization, and historical scope. It argues that relational approaches do not reject abstraction but relocate scholarly inquiry from the essence of “religion” to the historically contingent relations through which the category is constituted. A comparative survey of English, French, Spanish, and Italian encyclopedias demonstrates that the shift from essentialist to relational understandings extends beyond the German context while simultaneously challenging narratives of a homogeneous European Enlightenment. Rather than abandoning comparison, the article advocates historically situated, non-universalizing forms of theorization that remain sensitive to conceptual dynamics and relations of power. It concludes by arguing that safeguarding epistemological pluralism and academic freedom is indispensable for the future development of relational scholarship in the Study of Religion.
This short response article will consider Oliver Krüger’s “relational paradigm” as offering a potential mediating position between proponents of systematic-phenomenological and critical-relational approaches in the study of religion\s. Following a recent stand-off in the Dutch study of religion\s, I examine the potenti...
The global socio-ecological crisis has renewed interest in the role of religion in shaping environmental attitudes. The greening of religion framework examines how religious traditions rediscover, reinterpret, and revitalise their sacred texts, rituals, ethical teachings, and communal practices in response to contempor...
S. Fel, Jarosław Kozak, M. Vogt· Religions· 0 citations
The paper addresses the concepts of globality, universality, and pluralism in contemporary philosophy of religion. We argue that embracing a form of pluralism is essential to meet the growing demand for inclusivity in the philosophical study of religions, although this does not equate with any rejection of the clas...
This article examines whether religion can continue to serve as a defining criterion of civilisation in an age of secular globalization. It revisits recurring debates over the concept of religious civilisation by engaging with Arnold Joseph Toynbee’s theory of civilizations, one of the most influential attempts to plac...
V. Simonov· Russian Journal of Church Hi...· 0 citations
This paper examines whether relational autonomy can serve as a plausible ideal for postcolonial women despite persistent critiques that autonomy functions as a vehicle of liberal imperialism. It aims to reconstruct relational autonomy in a way that disrupts the epistemic hierarchy between Anglo-European and postcolon...
This essay reexamines the relationship between Marxism and religion by challenging the orthodox assumption that religion is merely a historically contingent form of alienation destined to disappear with the development of socialism. It distinguishes between social alienation, which arises from historically specific rel...
Sebastián León· Red America· 0 citations
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