Religion Is Not Done with You
Or, the Hidden Power of Religion on Race, Maps, Bodies, and Law
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A smart, irreverent, and accessible guide to thinking more deeply about how religion permeates and shapes the world around us –and why you need to understand the work it's doing
Religion lurks in the floorboards of our daily lives, whether we want it to or not. A departure from more traditional approaches to "Religion 101," Religion Is Not Done with You gives thought-provoking context to the basics of religious studies by challenging readers to consider the origins of their assumptions about religion and broaden their perspectives on what religion is and does.
Religion scholars and Keeping It 101 podcast duo Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin offer their straightforward, plainspoken overviews of religious studies theory: that religion is what people do (not just beliefs or individual practices); that people are complicated and messy and constantly changing, which means religion is also complicated and messy and constantly changing; that religion shapes what choices you get to make. Choices like what you can learn in school; how your government works; what kind of options you have (or increasingly don’t have) in caring for your own body.
Sure, you have the choice to participate in religion or not. But how you make that choice builds on your entire personal history, your connection to communities and regions, and the systems that surround you. All of which have been shaped by religion.
Religion is systems and structures and assumptions we didn’t create or choose – and, to be honest, we might not even like or agree with. You can feel however you want to feel about religion, but religion is shaping your world whether you like it or not. And if you don’t like how religion is shaping our world? This book might just be your first step in diagnosing the problems and agitating for positive change. Even if you are done with religion, religion is not done with you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Religion shapes virtually all "systems and structures" underpinning society, from the courts to foodways to medical rights, contend Keeping It 101 podcasters Goodwin (Abusing Religion) and Fuerst (Words of Experience) in this stimulating treatise. Unpacking "how certain ways of being in the world came to be called ‘religious,'" they trace how constellations of "ideologies, rituals, customs, cultures, languages, even ethnicities and races" solidified into discrete "religions" in the early modern period, as imperialist forces spread Christianity to "uncivilized" nations and began to more clearly classify what counted as faith to consolidate influence, reach, and resources. The authors then explore how white Christianity helps to enshrine America's "imperial agenda" (one can have "absolutely zero interest in religion and still not have sovereignty over your own body because of white Christian nationalist sexual ethics") and discriminatory laws (they point to "decades of religio-racist policies" targeting Muslim Americans at airports, later "justified" by 9/11). Astutely drawing out religion's intimate links to power without painting it as inherently harmful—it's also been used by adherents to "resist and survive"—the authors perceptively reveal the way morals and norms gain credence when codified as faith, influencing even the most private choices. This is sure to spark debate.
