ABSTRACT
Scholars seem never to get tired of exposing all sorts of profane phenomena as in essence religious. This chapter presents the reader with a catalogue over “everything religion”, with no fewer than fourteen entries. The expositions of wide range of phenomena (politics, law, sports, arts, humanism, atheism, capitalism, etc. – even the theory of secularisation itself) as actually religious phenomena necessarily assume a very wide definition of religion. In contrast to the likewise wide definition of “religion” influenced by Durkheim’s sociological theory (discussed in Chapter 1), this sort of exposing procedures is typically based on a psychological or “spiritual” understanding of religion. This point of departure surely enables daring expositions, but in the end it leads to misguided interpretations. After exploring this oddly popular trend among scholars, this everything-religion trend, the author discusses the lingering idealism within the study of religion and then moves on to propose analysing religion and politics within the concrete framework of capitalist mode of production. Commenting briefly on the nowadays widespread hypothesis about a recent emergence of a post-secular condition, and criticising this hypothesis for not being solidly grounded in socio-economical changes, the finale of the chapter – dwelling upon the meaning and usefulness of a dialectical understanding of secularity – becomes a bridge to the subsequent chapter.
