ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the classifications we use to name and negotiate our social worlds, notably 'religion', are implicitly political. The common rhetorical strategy is nicely represented in the US by the still celebrated nineteenth-century psychologist of religion, William James. James defines the religion as 'the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine'. The chapter examines the utility of naming some parts of our social worlds as 'religions' and their members as uniformly 'pious' and 'faithful' in distinction to other parts of those worlds that are understood as public and therefore contestable. It also examines the ways in which classifications such as "religion", "faith", and "full understanding" help to make certain forms of knowledge that enable some group members to channel difference and dissent into non-threatening avenues.
