ABSTRACT
Religion has gained new visibility in the media and public spaces—an awareness of it has been heightened since 9/11—and as such, scholarly debates about religion have been brought to the fore. Religious beliefs, practices and the terms associated with it are considered as well. A dominant perspective of the secularisation thesis that predicts religion’s declining importance has been criticised as scholars reconsider religion’s place, position and participation in the public sphere. The viewpoint that postulates that religion will diminish in social and political importance is commonly termed as the secularisation thesis. This secularisation thesis has been generally understood as an outcome of the Enlightenment period. The study of religion traditionally sits within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, where it is studied as a cultural phenomenon. More precisely, the study of religion is an exploration of how people view religion and how their understandings of it shape their beliefs and practices.
