In this episode, my aim is to encourage you to stop using the word ‘belief’ when you think about (and talk about) religion.

It  is not a useful word, and for most of the time it does the opposite of  what we want the word to do — that is, it obscures our attempts to  understand, rather than adding any clarity or precision.

Agency is a concept often used to understand how people participate in (and sometimes resist) religious contexts and structures.

That  is, how do people who are in a subordinate position and who are  marginalised from the main areas of power, how do they live with (and  perhaps overcome) their powerless-ness?

This  episode introduces the concept of intersectionality, a way to  understand complex issues and identities deriving in particular from the  work of Kimberlee Crenshaw.

An  intersectional approach recognises that the ‘single’ categories that we  rely on for much of our analysis (race, gender, class, etc) do not and  cannot exist on their own. There is no race, it exists within its  intersections with other differences — such as class, gender,  sexualities, religion, and so on.

Every time we ‘see race’ we see it within such intersections, intersecting with other categories / aspects of cultural life.

Is race a matter of identity (what people think of differences) or is it a biological given?

How  is it that the idea of race-as-a-given works to structure and enforce  differences (and power relations) within a particular society?

Gender  matters to our understanding of culture and religion. How we understand  gender, gender differences, and the understandings and practices of  gender has a profound impact on how we talk about (and understand)  religion.

Gender is a means of understanding the concept of culture.

All  aspects of culture are gendered — both in terms of how differences  between genders are perceived, but also how they are lived out. Gender  is a place for power relations (remember that power is everywhere) — not  only clear cut male control of women (such as patriarchy), but also the  means by why power relations are put into practice.

An  understanding of power, in its many forms, is an important part of the  study of religion and culture. In this podcast on ‘Religion, Power and  Ideology’ I give an outline of Michel Foucault’s understanding of the  concept of power. In particular, ‘power is everywhere because it comes  from everywhere’.

One  instance of power and religion is the idea of an ideology – religion as  a means by which power relations (and inequalities based on such power  relations) are naturalised and legitimated. Religion is not the only  form of ideology, but I raise the important question to ask in any study  of religion: ‘where is the money?’.

Religion  does not just exist within the context of culture. What we think of as  religion always also exists within contexts of power, gender, race,  ethnicity, and other areas of identity and difference.

Or  to put this another way: power, gender, and race are basic (and  universal) aspects of human behaviour. To understand what humans do, we  have to understand the contexts of power, gender, and race, etc in which  that human action is located.

Whenever we do something, it can be understood and analysed (if we wish) in relation to power, gender, and race.

And likewise so with religion. A key part of understanding any religious context requires also asking similar questions.

Building  on the discussion in the last two episodes, I introduce here the idea  of subculture to explore through examples the linkages between such  cultures of resistance, the cultural products that come from them, and  religious ideas and practices.

When  we reverse the discussion, and explore how we can understand the many  ways in which we can explore culture within religion, again the gap  between the two disappears.

Thus,  culture is the medium through which religion is done, and cultural  differences often are the means by which religions differ.

This  can be highlighted by the ways in which we talk about differences  within what we consider the ‘same’ religion (e.g., the differences  within Christianity or within Islam). People live and express different  forms of these religions through their culture differences.

Continuing  the discussion of religion and culture, in this episode we explore what  is seen as the gap between the two. Looking at specific examples of  religion in culture – in both ‘high’ and popular culture – we examine  how religion is often the basis of the language of experience, a form of  culture that we live by.