Implicit Religion

Religion 40 (2010) 271–278

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Journals and Venues

Implicit Religion Edward Bailey* Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality (CSIRCS), The Old School, 10 Church Lane, Yarnton, Oxford, OX5 1PY, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Accepted 12 July 2010 Available online 25 August 2010

Implicit Religion: the Journal of the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality began publication in 1998, but the formal study of Implicit Religion began just thirty years before, in 1968. Its study concentrates upon those aspects of everyday life, the understanding of which may be enhanced if we ask whether they might have, within them, some sort of inherent religiosity of their own. While many other terms, and many other journals, have some degree of overlap with this area of interest, now, it is thought that this Journal is unique in its consistent study of the non-reductionist theory and empirical manifestations of (what might be termed) “secular faith.” Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The subject area described The formal study of what came to be called Implicit Religion was pioneered by the current editor of the journal of that name. Two observations, regarding those among whom he lived and worked, particularly lay behind this initiative. The first was that a considerable number of those who attended worship services, in the parish in which he served as an apprentice minister, could not be understood as they really were (from the “inside,” so to speak), unless one took their religion into account. One did not have either to agree with its truth or to admire its effects, but to ignore its presence and influence would be “like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.” While this personal deduction might seem blatantly obvious today, in the 1960s it flew in the face of much accepted opinion (particularly academic and ecclesiastical), which assumed that all religion was “really” something else, such as socio-political ideology, or psychological escapism and fantasy. The second observation came from ministering in the relatively tight community of a boarding school of Christian origin. It was that (at least some of) those members of staff who “cared for none of these [religious] things,” possessed values, exhibited behaviours, held beliefs, shared feelings of solidarity, that were comparable with the various aspects of what is usually called “religion.” To ignore this, was to treat them as “non-persons.” So it seemed, in the light of what we are beginning to learn about religion, that, when studying people in secular situations, it might help us to understand them better, if we were to ask whether there was anything present in their lives that was comparable to religion, in any of its various dimensions and manifestations. The secular study of any inherent secular religiosity seemed also to be required (in addition, of course, to the standard social sciences), if full justice was to be done even to ordinary secular life, let alone to the passion of full-blooded, selfconscious and articulate secularism. Thus the area of concern was originally (in 1967) identified as “secular religion” (Bailey, 1969). As the study proceeded, however, the description was changed (for better or for worse) to “implicit religion” (Bailey, 1976, 1997, etc.). “Secular religion” had the advantage of being, if not paradoxical, then at least blatantly counter-cultural. However, it had the disadvantage of requiring a repetition of those phenomenological distinctions which had been drawn in the former study (1969:32–33): between, firstly, a methodological secular (“bracketing-out” the ultimate questions of life, as in the experimental sciences), and, secondly, a cultural secularity (as in a non-religious, unquestioned way of life), and, thirdly, an ideological secularism (as a symbiotic symbol system, in conscious opposition to religion).

* Corresponding author: CSIRCS, The Old School, 10 Church Lane, Yarnton, Oxford OX5 1PY, UK. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0048-721X/$ – see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.religion.2010.07.002

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However, “implicit religion” also has the advantages of directing attention to that which is unspoken, and of thus suggesting that such behaviour will probably not be perceived by its actors as religious. It also avoids any suggestion that, as the mere contrary of religion in general, or of any single religion in particular, it is simply a mirror image of its opposite number. It therefore leaves open the possibility that it has both an independent life, and a character, all of its own. Unfortunately, however, it may (mistakenly) seem to totally exclude whatever is explicit, and/or whatever is seen as religious, albeit alternatively so (as in, “Her Church is her religion, but my religion is football”). More seriously, however, it may lead the student simply to look for signs of one of the (named) religions, so that “implicit religion” may be misunderstood as meaning “implicit Christianity,” for instance. In cultures with a long and strong religious tradition, the influence of such “explicit religions” is only to be expected: indeed, an explicit tradition may exercise such a conscious or unconscious influence upon people, as to become an “implicit religion.” But any such conclusion can only be drawn from the data observed: it cannot be assumed in advance. Forty years ago, contextlessness apparently still being considered both possible and ideal, it was usual for the plain delineation of any area of study to seek legitimacy through being “defined.” Such expectations tended to ignore the difference between concepts as products of conceptualisation, and concept as conception of existents. Thus, for instance, “four” can presumably be defined as “twice two,” but the paper (or whatever it is) that these words appear on, can, ultimately, only be described. The inclusion of “only” in that context, can itself now be seen as speaking volumes: the data relating to such “speaking” and “volumes” could themselves be examples of the processes and products that are the concern of the study of Implicit Religion. Citing such concrete instances in that way, however, carried little weight at that time, in view of the (then) prevailing epistemology of modernity: if data, or its observation, could not be replicated at will, it tended not to count as evidence of anything that was real. The very indefinability of the “arts” and the “humanities” was among the reasons for questioning their (ontological) validitydand was therefore a reason, no doubt, for their own desire to demonstrate their respectability in accordance with the (then) hegemonic canons of orthodoxy. So, not yet aware of the limitations of this particular example of such currently prevailing intellectualism, the need for a definition was accepted as a sine qua non. However, three definitions were offered, accompanied by an apology for the confessed inability to choose one, from among them all, as being the “correct,” or even the best, one. Subsequent reflection suggests that had they been seen from the start, not as a definition of a consciously created abstraction, but as an attempted description of a partly apprehended, but posited, existent phenomenon, then their multiplicity, and even the possibility of their equal validity, could actually have been anticipated. The problems (or even the impossibility) of a single definition, and the multiplicity of appropriate descriptions, were concomitant upon the very reality of what was intuited, while the difficulty in describing it suggested both the extent of its possible ubiquity, and the depth of its possible significance. Far from being suspect as a case of “special pleading,” in order to cover up a deficiency, everything that has just been said of Implicit Religion, might, perhaps, be said of Religion, too; and, so far from that simply being a wider example of special pleading, on the part of religion’s own aficionados, the same points can also be made in relation to, say, Art, or Politics. Our inability to define them does not preclude our studying their history; or, indeed, of establishing university departments devoted to describing instances of their occurrence. Perhaps, as Ugo Bianchi said (1975:5, 201–220), the definition of [Implicit Religion, as well as of] Religion can only be seen as even a possibility, at the conclusion, rather than start, of its study. (Perhaps a parallel may be found, when engineers say they cannot be certain what is the problem with the working of what they have produced, until after they have solved it.) Realities have to be observed and then described: they can only be defined by dint of trimming them downdand so to their being equated with the idea of them. Implicit religion defined The three definitions that were suggested, then, were commitments, and integrating foci, and intensive concerns with extensive effects. (A fourth was also suggested, but not enlarged upon: personal depths.) Today, any apology must concern, not their number, but their longevity, over forty years. Only (I confess) has the understanding of their utility, both alone and together, changed and developed during this period. Commitment(s) has always been preferred, in that form, despite its slight clumsiness, in order to clarify from the start that the concept of Implicit Religion involves no assumption about the number of commitments that may be found. The unifying thread is the fact of being committed; the objects of any such commitments may themselves be plural. These different commitments may co-exist without apparent relation; or they may be, on the one hand, in competition, and even conflict, with one another; or they might be, on the other hand, united, as particular expressions of a single (over-arching, or underlying, but uniting) commitment. However in that case, it will still be plurally expressed, through its lesser companions. Thus commitments will be assembled (albeit imperfectly) into (usually diverse) hierarchies. Whether singular or plural, such commitment(s) may be conscious or unconscious. Just as neither the self-conscious “decision for Christ,” of an eighteen-year-old student, nor the life-long devotion to the Mother of Jesus, on the part of an octogenarian peasant, can be allowed to limit the whole of the reality that is referred to as Religion, so the presence or absence of conscious choice can no more serve as a yard-stick for Implicit Religion, than it should of Religion. For “Commitment” also has the virtue of not being limited to indicating any single level of consciousness. While choice that is deliberate, conscious, or even self-conscious, may be seen as a type-case, few would deny the ascription of “religious” to those with a commitment that was “imbibed with their mother’s milk.” It may or may not ever have been questioned; it may or may not even be conscious, let alone selfconscious. Yet in either case, and particularly perhaps in the absence of such awareness, popular speech (which can be penetratingly perceptive) may say the commitment was “implicit in everything”, meaning, it was deeply present, even if largely unconsciously, at every level involved in the living of life. It could be read off by the observer, like the age of a tree from the rings in its trunk. Their becoming visible when it is felled and cut open may be compared with the funeral address which asks, “What did he stand for?” – without suggesting that he necessarily achieved his aims. Be that as it may, in any particular case, the commitment that is referred to, can operate at any psychological level, whether in the apparently sub-conscious or unconscious domains, or whether in conscious, self-conscious, or (as we might describe moments of apparently heightened awareness) “sur-conscious,” experiences. Just as “commitments” can be seen as operating “vertically” (at the various levels of psychological consciousness), so “integrating foci” can be seen as operating “laterally,” along the varying “widths” of sociality. So the focus (or, it may be anticipated, usually the foci) that

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serves to integrate (or expresses the existing integrationdor, more likely, does both), may be located in the inner, so-called personal life of the (hypothetical) “individual,” or in inter-personal life; or in the life of a small group, such as a family, or of a large group, such as a nation; or in a race, or the human species, the environment as a whole, or the planet, the universe, existence, or Creation. “Intensive concerns with extensive effects” is (virtually) the definition of Religion itself, that was suggested by F.B. Welbourn (1960). No doubt his anthropological studies and acquired Africanness, his English background and Anglican theology, all helped to produce a “[British] common sense” understanding, which, however, also happens to echo both the Curial criteria for Canonization, and the Jewish-Christian Scriptures. Thus, on the one hand, by taking part in the quest for a definition, it accepts the identifiability of religion; but, on the other hand, it only does so in order to insist upon the necessary relatedness of the religious with the non-religious remainder of life. This is not a judgement as to the worth of any religion that is so identified, or professed (or, better, confessed); it is an assessment of the validity of its description as religious. This definition of religion is based on an understanding of the phenomenon itself, as being necessarily linked, on the part of those experiencing it, with part, or with all, of that which lies outside itself (i.e., the secular). Utterly neutral as to the value of the religion in question, or as to the relative influence that either pole may be exerting on the other, it nevertheless relegates any self-contained (but so-called) “religion” to the status of a hobby (or a hobby-horse), which it is a simple misnomer to label as religious. The plurality (“commitments”) which was maintained in the first definition (despite its slight clumsiness), is retained in each of the other two (“foci”, “concerns”). The active verbal dimension (committing, integrating, concern-ing, and effect-ing) possesses a unifying singularity, even when the objects of such action are diverse. As with descriptions of the Japanese and Chinese understandings of religion, it seems to be both more accurate, empirically, and more fruitful, methodologically, to hypothesize (until the data demand its amendment) that every body (i.e., every individual and every group) is likely to have more than one religion. Disregarding for the moment the evaluations made of the great Founders, it is the very heart of personal confessions of faith (as of sin), and the very stuff of the themes of history (as of fiction), to find two (or more) wills or spirits, influences or desires, forces or gods, present within any society, or inside any single person. Perhaps future historians will find that the simplistic utopianism of the contrary assumption (that any body, ordinarily speaking, only has one religion), tends to occur hand-in-hand with the equally non-empirical assumption that the sacred is not only distinct phenomenologically, but that sacred phenomena (“sacramentals”) are different in themselves from other phenomena. Perhaps they will likewise suspect a link between Durkheim’s bifurcation of phenomena (rather than of experience) into what, in English, always seems to be described as the “sacred” and the “profane”, with the then tendency of the Roman Catholic Church to claim a monopoly of the sacred, leaving the rest of existence to subsist in a secular reality, from which both believers and unbelievers were invited to assume that the sacred was absent. The concomitant confusion as to the equivalence of the secular and laïque, can be compared with the skewed description of the everyday or (better) the ordinary, as “profane.” To find an equivalent (outside Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, 1864), we would have to call any scripture (such as Shakespeare) that is outside the Canon of Holy Scripture, to be blasphemous; any value, other than Divinity itself, to be abhorrent; any wor[th]ship, apart from Divine wor[th]ship, to be idolatrous; or any leader, other than Christ, an (or the) anti-Christ. For “profane,” as anyone using (at least the British form of) English knows, is nothing less than the exact opposite of “sacred” (or even of “holy”). It refers to an abomination that is beyond description; which leaves us, as we say, speechless, in the face of what “passes all understanding” (by way of sub-division). It is one of the two, extreme (in this case negative), phenomenological forms of sacredness. It is at least as rarely encountered, as is the positive pole of this continuum. So we “worship” (¼ “wor(th)ship,” in origin) it, phenomenologically, by abhorring it, and therefore, morally, by avoiding it, “like [some say] sin”. It is at least as much at the opposite pole to ordinary life, therefore, as is the positive form of sacred. Whether the error lies with Durkheim or with his translators, the consequences remain both significant and unfortunate. (A comparison, and connection, might be drawn with the frequent understanding of the prohibition in the United States’ Constitution of the Establishment by the state of any particular Church, which confuses and equates such a veto with a refusal to recognise the reality and inevitability of religion in a general sense in society as a whole.). So “implicit religion” avoids the sort of misunderstanding that “secular religion” might have given rise to. Its study is concerned with commitment, positive or negative, of any type or strength or influence (regardless of its moral value), although beginning, inevitably, with the more, rather than the less, integrative and extensive. To use an expression that Tillich made relatively popular in the 1960s, and which is still to be heard, it focuses on our “ultimate concerns”; or, to use a slightly more informal expression, both then and now, on “what makes people tick.” Such an understanding of (“definition of”) religion may be unusual in some intellectual discourses. However, it is the standard understanding of religion in customary spoken English (in England, at least). Typically, it is said, “I read the [news]papers religiously.” Indeed, it is spelled out in such analyses as, “She goes to Church every Sunday, but her real religion is her family.” If a Latin parallel (or “origin”) be sought for what common usage means by the word, the Latin of the Middle Ages would seem a more likely candidate than classical Latin. For this is precisely the usage of religio as in the Benedictine Order, which, with its successors, in the Middle Ages permeated the whole country (owning one third of it), percolating its entire culture. From it, therefore, we also inherit both “profession” and “habit.” For to be a “religious”, both then and now, is to live the life of a regular, according to a Regula, of conversi, turning both profession into habit and habit into profession. When the “man-in-the-street” says he “reads the papers religiously,” he means it is his rule (voluntarily adopted) of life, his habit (but, unlike blinking, one that is not biologically determined), his (deliberate) way of living, his (intended) life-style. Such (objective and subjective) commitments are both his, and also he himself. Although some talk of “religious preferences”, they are in fact not so much “preferred” (like the choice of a particular jacket), as “required” (like one’s skin). They integrate, define, identify, what is personal about the person. Their denial would be a denial of one’s own self: a kind of suicide (even if it led to a re-birth).

The development of its study As already indicated, those with professional interests (whether academic or ecclesiastical) seemed to find the possibility of religiosity existing outside the established, recognised, official, organised Religions, inconceivable (literally), in 1968. Even the pioneering Ninian Smart (who, in the 1980s, both publicly and privately paid tribute to this prior, particular innovation), asked in 1969 at a conference at Lancaster

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University, “Do you mean that when I go out to bat, in my white flannel trousers, there could be something sacred about the cricket square itself?” The immediacy of the reaction sometimes, especially on the part of those with a personal investment (financial and/or more generally emotional) in the then current “intellectual” bifurcation between sacred and secular, sometimes suggested the presence of a causality that was unconscious: there was no “pause for thought.” (Occasionally, their fear found expression in the form: “You’re not suggesting everyone’s religious, are you?”) However, just as educationists have increasingly recognised the home and the media, as well as schools and colleges, as locations of education; and just as health workers have regained a concern for life-style, as well as prescribing medicines; and just as dramaturgists, as well as drawing upon ordinary life for their material, have seen politics (for instance) as possessing its own dramatic dimension, outside the theatre, with or without such an awareness on the part of those involved; so also have those academics (and ecclesiastics), who have been professionally involved with organised religions, come to see them as the tip of the ice-berg of human being, rather than as one division in a horizontal world (known or unknown), reminiscent of that devised between the Spanish and the Portuguese by Pope Alexander VI in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. Another fear is still occasionally voiced: “But if everything’s religious, then the word has no meaning.” That would, indeed, be true; just as, “If everything is secular [a hypothesis, or a goal, of some, in the 1960s, and again today], then that word also has no meaning”, is, or would be, true. However, it is doubtful whether anyone has ever suggested that the former was an empirical description of any existing situation. (Apocalypses, both secular and religious, can be “seen” and described in the present tense, but that is a recognised convention, comparable to conventions in the theatre; their very need to describe their vision indicates that it is, presently, at least incompletely true, or at least incompletely recognised by their audience.) What has been said (on many occasions) is that, in advance of investigation, “any thing may be religious,” which is, surely, an anthropological commonplace. (Why, “Any thing may be religious” should sometimes be confused with, or converted into, a statement such as “Every thing is religious,” would appear to be a question for the student of psychology, rather than of religion or philosophydunless, of course, such an equation or confusion functions as a datum, a “given”; but in that case, it is itself revelatory of an “implicit religion”, or at least an implicit ontology). A third concern focuses on that very inability to define Implicit Religion, or to locate it, in advance of its situated study. However, this question prompts another: Does it differ in this respect from Religion generally, as accepted in, for instance, university departments (or indeed, journals) that are dedicated to the Study of Religion? If the answer to that question is, But these official titles are working with what Religion is conventionally understood to mean, then we may ask, in return, Whose conventiondthat of the intellectual, whose concepts may obscure his hermeneutics, or that of “the man on the Clapham omnibus”, whose insights may be valid, although they usually lack articulation and audience? We may also point out that, according to different students, of different institutions, the vehicles of Religiosity can already be mainly theology or liturgy, prayer or meditation, icon or dance, public life or private, divinity or morality, the super-natural or nature. In which case, the extension of the sphere of interest of its study to the secular realm would simply seem to be part of a continuing process of development, now made more explicit, although in this case it takes the form of a return to origins that matches the premodern aspects of postmodernity. Indeed, far from the concept introducing an unmanageable width, or even (some have suggested) imprecision, into this area of studies, it could be said that, by its singling out of (say) commitment, as the sine qua non of its special interest, its sphere is both more restricted, and more clearly delineated, than is that of Religion, as conventionally understood in most academic discourse. A practical consequence, on the other hand, of studying Implicit Religion, wherever it may occur, rather than studying whatever (intellectual) convention calls Religion, is the difficulty it could cause (for instance) for librarians and publishers, or for the division of labour between academic departments. However, although the initial problem is no doubt real, it is not unique, and can be overcome; for we have already adjusted our thinking to keep pace with the fluid boundaries of politics (in order to take account of Ministers for, and international relations influenced by, erstwhile trivia such as sport), and of art (an unmade bed may or may not be seen as a form of art, but only the immobility of gardens prevents their inclusion also in Art Galleries). As with all the other social sciences, the difficulty in predicting the specific subjects of future studies simply testifies to human creativitydand to the relevance and facticity of the subjects of their concern. In the early years of the study, it was gratifying to discover some fifty terms (Bailey, 1976: 189, n.2) that were pointing in varying degree to approximately the same phenomenon. (Since then, as many again have probably been encountered.) The two most fruitful ones (unknown originally to the author of this one), as it happened originated just before “Implicit Religion,” in the middle of the 1960s. One was “civil religion,” which overlapped with the social and particularly the societal end of the Implicit Religion spectrum. Classically set forth by Bellah in his great (Bellah,1967) essay, it largely followed Rousseau in being confined to civic, rather than civil (but the distinction is less clear in French) theology, rather than religion (a limitation he tacitly acknowledged, in personal conversation in 1982). The other closer synonym was “invisible religion.” Its author (Luckmann (1967) also) differed from the present writer, above all (and, perhaps, only) in delaying his empirical trial of the utility of the concept, until he had retired from his full-time academic post (according to a personal conversation, about Bailey, 1990). Some of the other terms, such as “popular religion” and “folk religion,” allude to phenomena that may be expected to contain elements of Implicit Religion significance. However, they are also usually outcrops of canonical religions (which, insofar as they are relevant to ordinary life, must also of course include expressions of implicit religiosity). At least as significant as such overlapping concepts, however, are the many metaphors that tend to be used–in order to avoid being reduced to silence. It seems as though, in academe, as in journalism, when the usually articulate are “rendered speechless,” they tend to turn to the vocabulary of religiondwhen they “don’t know what to say,” and when (other) “words fail them.” This phenomenon has been previously described by the present writer (1990): Examples in scholarly and/or popular usage, include: absolve and agnostic, abracadabra and acolyte, apocryphal and apocalyptic, apostle and apostate, alpha and omega, Armageddon and atone, angelic and aisle; Bible and blessed, baptize and bishop. Their witness to the (Durkheimian) function of religion, as a source of types and categories for the experience as well as the object of human consciousness, is in no way diminished, either by their occasional misuse, or their sometimes avowedly metaphorical status, or by their [own] possibly secular origin, or the ambiguity of their primary reference, or by their inclusion of a degree of

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humour or hostility. As religion itself becomes less imperialistic in a post-modern world, and its perception becomes less threatening, so its utility increases as a model for understanding the distinctively human, including secularity and its autonomy. When the cosmos is primarily cultural and existentially plural, the gods are more easily seen as empirical, ubiquitous, and inevitable. Perhaps it is for this reason that, as the social sciences, from Freud to Derrida, seem to delve ever deeper into a human understanding of the human, so they increasingly seem to have recourse, with talk of Oedipus or taboo or communion, to Greek mythology or Polynesian spirituality or Christian anthropology. The Journal, Implicit Religion: journal of the C.S.I.R.C.S Implicit Religion: Journal of the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality began publication in 1998. Listing some of its topics of concern, at the close of its first decade in 2008 and since it began its second decade in 2009, may indicate its flavour. At a personal level, they have included vegetarianism (Dyczewska, 2008) (cp. Portmann, 1999), the place of ritual in everyday life (Borg, 2008a), compulsive shopping (Arya, 2009a,b), belly-dancing (Kraus, 2009), Budo (Molle, 2010), the appeal of islands (Grainger, 2009), “sacro-egoism” (i.e., the ideology of self-fulfilment) (Knox, 2008), and “fandom” (Porter, 2009). At a more cultural level, they have included the values of young leaders (Carter, 2009), the rationale underlying the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (Reinbold, 2009), recent popular instances of transcendental experiences in the Netherlands (Borg, 2009), the “hidden curriculum” of Walmart stores’ architecture (Newton, 2009), the philosophy behind (environmental) “transition” towns (Reader, forthcoming), Evolution as itself a Creation myth (Badertscher, forthcoming), and a survey of the literature on spiritual capital (Baker and Miles-Watson, 2010). Or, to turn into a more specifically Religious Studies direction, they have included the media’s distortion (or denial) of sociological data (Bibby, 2009), conversion experiences to irreligion (Bullivant, 2008), religious/secular paradigms (McMullin, 2010), (religious and nonreligious) counsellors’ and nurses’ understanding of “spirituality” in Denmark (Ahlin, 2008) (cp. Papadopoulos and Copp, 2005, in Britain), Tantrism as a universal substratum in Asian religions (raising questions regarding its presence, as diabolatry or pornography, within the Semitic religions and their accompanying secularities) (Selvanayagam, 2008), belief in luck and/or in purpose in life (Francis et al., 2008), religious reticence, and the strategies of explicit religion (Beckford, 2010; Percy, 2009), (Groot, 2008), Brown’s and Dawkins’ “religionfiction” as a new form of science-fiction (Jenkins, 2009)dand reviews of Francis Bacon’s retrospective exhibition (Arya, 2009a,b), and of the film Atonement (Roberts, 2009). From these recent examples it will be seen that the identity of the Journal arises less from the uniformity of the objects of the commitments, than from their similarity in being the subjects of actors’ commitment. This objective interest in subjects, and subjective concern with objects, is a sine qua non of human sciences, but this particular serial publication would appear to be distinguished by its underlying question: can our understanding of apparently secular behaviours be enhanced by asking whether they contain within themselves (in addition to all their other characteristics, that are the concern of other approaches), any element of some kind of religiosity that may be inherent to themselves? Other journals, such as Beliefs and Values, or Ultimate Reality and Meaning, and of course such classics as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion or the newer Journal of Contemporary Religion, increasingly overlap (nowadays) with the concerns specifically studied here as Implicit Religion; but for none of them is it their central concern. Another rare, although obviously not unique, characteristic of Implicit Religion, is its confessed welcoming of both the academic and the applied, in the conviction that intellectual rigour itself requires the inclusion of both sides of that coin. So, for instance, at the theoretical end of the spectrum, the concept of Implicit Religion has been related to the secular by Ashley (2000), Borg (2008a,b), Dupré (2007), Hay (2003), Homan (2000), Ménard (2004), and Thomas (2001). Its relation to the moral has been discussed by Bowker (1998), Dupré (2003), and Solyom (2005). Its inter-faith relevance has been explored by Dupré (1998), Pye (1998) and Roberts (1999). It has been placed within its Religious Studies contexts by Davies (1999), Dupré (1998, 2005), Gollnick (2003a), Hammond (2007), Ménard (2009), Smart (1998), Swatos (1999), Sweetman (2002), Ustorf (2000), and pedagogically by Badertscher (2000), Porter (2007), and Wender (2009). Its psychological dimensions have been explored by Hills and Argyle (2002), Lewis (2005) and Schnell (2003). Its spiritual components have been debated by Gollnick (2003b) and Grainger (2004), Kraus (2009) and Papadopoulos (1999). Its central meaning has been analysed by Dupré (2001), Hamilton (2001), Hunter (2004), Lord (2006), and Ménard (2001, 2009). At the other end of the same intellectual spectrum, have been concerns that have less conceptual, more public emphasis. So, for instance, Bellamy et al. (1999) looked at Australian responses to the death of Princess Diana, and Nathanson (1999) at Canadian responses, primarily; Campbell (2001), at Scouting in Canada; Connor (2006) at graffiti in San Francisco; Gauthier (2005) at raves in Montreal; Johnson (2004) and Swatos (2006) at American civic tradition after 9/11; Makrides and Sotiriu (2003) at the academic cultivation of Weber; Parna (2006) at the pre-Millenium internet hype; Smith (2004) at urban regeneration in Britain (an article which one reader insisted Prime Minister Blair should read); and Wender (2007) at the “war on terror” (cp. Reinbold, 2009). Likewise, less active perhaps, but more cultural tendencies, have included Ahlin (2008) on the public understanding of “spirituality”; Campana (2007) on Roman and American domestic civil religion; van Gelder (2004) on wild-ness; Heddendorf (2004) on humour; Jenkins (2005) on sacred persons; Lamb (2004) on love (cp. Schnell, 2000); Lowe (2001) on animal rights, and Reader (2003) on human rights; Schmied (2002) on prayer intentions (cp. Sion, forthcoming); Selvanayagam (2005) on spirituality in India; Sharpe (2002) on justice, and (2005) on the pursuit of happiness; Stahl (2002) on technology; and Sundback (2007) on Nordic civil religion. Practical aspects of Implicit Religion have also been explored, in Borgman et al. (2006) on pastoral strategy in a technical university; Brown (2000) on working with life-threatened children; Dupré (2003) on the critical potential of the concept; Francis and Robbins (2004), and Davies’ response (2004), on “believing and belonging”; Gollnick (2005) on dreams; Grainger (2005) on actors; Hanson (2006) on English law; Knox (ibid. 2008) on religious change; Mayers and Johnston (2008) on defining spirituality; Ménard (2005) on sexuality; Moss (2005) on spirituality and social work; and Newton (ibid. 2009) on supermarkets’ architecture. A third distinctive aspect of the Journal, from its inception, may be its insistence that a mere multiplicity of references is neither a guarantee of, nor a sine qua non qualification for, publication. We have not (so far) published any poems or plays, but articles have covered

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the whole gamut between literature reviews, such as Baker and Miles-Watson (2010), Hamilton (2001), Lord (2006), and Papadopoulos (1999), on the one hand, and, on the other, literary tours de force, such as Grainger (2009). Footnotes may indicate care and industry but, by themselves, do not necessarily guarantee the originality, relevance, or intellectual quality of a potential contribution. A fourth, possibly distinctive, characteristic of Implicit Religion is the inclusion on the Editorial Board of at least one scholar who is known, having weighed the evidence, to doubt the validity or utility of the concept of Implicit Religion itself. Concomitant with this desire to maintain a critical distance or edge with regard to the enterprise as a whole, is the Editor’s restraint from insisting upon any one particular understanding or application of the concept (or, from indicating places in his own writing in which contributors’ suggestions have either been anticipateddor refuted!). The future, of the concept and the journal The academic year 2009–2010 may come to be seen as a watershed in attitudes to the concept and study of what is here described as Implicit Religion. To take initiatives that have come my way: Oxford Brookes University has held a conference on “sacred modernities”; younger scholars at Oxford University and Cambridge University have taken the lead in establishing a network for the study of nonreligion and irreligion; scholars, particularly in Scotland, have encouraged a reconsideration of the boundaries, and the distinction, between the religious and the secular; gatherings in South Africa have begun re-examining whether the current academic understanding of the concept of religion is an adequate basis for the discipline of “religious studies.” The common element in all these (relatively local) initiatives was reflected in the recurrent concern, at the annual jamboree of the American Academy of Religion, at Montréal in November 2009, with the meaning of the secular, spurred in part no doubt by the philosophical or popular challenge of “the new atheism.” The underlying, incipient concern of (what is here called) Implicit Religion was epitomised during a plenary session, by José Casanova’s plea for the study of the positive content of what secularity and secularism stand for, to replace and/or supplement the unexamined acceptance of what they claim to oppose or appear to lack. A more public, academic call for the study of Implicit Religion can hardly be imagined. Perhaps one reason why it is required can be found in the equally obvious, but in this case equally bleak, view, in the Prepared Statement (p.11) attributed to Charles Taylor, in the Templeton Trust’s own Report ([email protected])) of his reception of the 2007 Templeton Prize: that such a phenomenon as Communism cannot be seen as religious, because it was so evil. The existence of such a view, suggesting a process that “progresses”, from a (dubious) reification of Religion, to its virtual deification (or, in the case of Dawkins, its demonization), so far from being pertinent to the extent of Religious Studies, is itself a fit subject for study as itself being an example of an implicit religion of some sort. Experience suggests that one academic season is no guarantee of a universal volte-face, especially in the face of such institutional and personal investments. Like the infamous battleship captain who insisted that a lighthouse must change course, so the larger the liner the more difficulty it has in taking on board a “new” idea. This particular change, however, seems in keeping with a wider cultural shift. For instance, interest in (largely secular) spirituality, has become almost de rigeurdwhile religion itself is increasingly seen in terms of ethos and ethics. (Ancient universities have less difficulty in adding the study of the future, or of finance, than some of their faculties have in adjusting to what has been learned since 1800, or to what “ordinary people” have always known.) Linked with this is the gradual removal of the Iron Curtain between the academic and the practical, the laboratory becoming a rendez-vous between library and workplace. Thirdly, as contextualization succeeds reification, so diffuseness (aided by feminisation) enables concepts and institutions to be seen as type-casesdand “the Religions” possibly to be seen above all as phenomenological typesdwhich can serve as stereotypes of attitudes that are common (in varying degree, of course) to humanity at large (cp. Murphy and Murphy, 1968). More specifically, then, the Journal’s approach coincides with a returning apprehension that, both empirically and qualitatively, truth and life are indissolubly linked, and that the religious and secular fundamentalisms to which both the academy and the media are prone, are too shallow and arid to encompass or celebrate the cornucopia of humanity. It matches, in its own way, on the one hand, the inclusion of spirituality in more than three hundred of the five hundred management courses available in Britain, according to one study at the opening of this century; and, on the other hand, the way in which the increasing number of teenaged candidates for examinations in Religious Studies (albeit meaning mainly ethics) continually exceeds (in Britain, where it might perhaps be least expected) the growth in that of all other school examination subjects. Indeed the diversity of the topics explored in the Journal’s articles is matched by the diversity, not only of the subject matter of the books and other artefacts that have formed the basis of reviews, but also of their publishers or producers. So the Journal can be seen as pointing to the long-seen opportunity for some publisher(s) to take the study of Implicit Religion into their brand, as a part of their investment in the future. Meanwhile, the initial group of eminent scholars who have given their blessing to the enterprise, are preparing to hand some batons on to the very able younger scholars and thinkers who are now emerging, from an equally diverse range of disciplines, locations, and personal backgrounds. References Ahlin, L., 2008. The meaning of “spirituality”. Implicit Religion 11 (1), 25–38. Arya, R., 2009a. Religious musings on Francis Bacon: a review of the Francis Bacon retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain from September 11, 2008–January 4, 2009. Implicit Religion 12 (1), 95–102. Arya, R., 2009b. The religious dimensions of compulsive buying. Implicit Religion 12 (2), 165–185. Ashley, M., 2000. Secular spirituality and implicit religion: the realisation of human potential. Implicit Religion 3 (1), 31–49. Badertscher, J., 2000. Northern lights: Canadian studies in implicit religion. Implicit Religion 3 (1), 15–29. Badertscher, J. On Creation Myths. Implicit Religion 13 (2), forthcoming. Bailey, E.I., 1969. The Religion of a “Secular” Society. M.A. thesis, Bristol University Library. Bailey, E.I., 1976. Emergent Mandalas: The Implicit Religion of Contemporary Society. PhD Thesis, Catalogued as The Religion of a ‘Secular’ Society, Bristol University Library. Bailey, E.I., 1990. The “implicit religion” concept as a tool for ministry. Sociological Focus: Quarterly Journal of the North Central Sociological Association XXIII (3(Aug)), 203–217. Bailey, E.I., 1997. Implicit Religion in Contemporary Society. Kok Pharos, Den Haag. reprinted, Leuven: Peeters, 2001 etc. Baker, C., Miles-Watson, J., 2010. Faith and Traditional Capitals: defining the public scope of spiritual and religious capitalda literature review. Implicit Religion 13 (1), 17–69. Beckford, J., 2010. Constructing religion in unexpected places: phishers of men and women. Implicit Religion 13 (1), 71–83.

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Bellah, R.N., 1967. Civil religion in America. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences XCVI (1) (Winter). Bellamy, J., Black, A., Hughes, P., 1999. Responses among Australians to the death and funeral of Princess Diana: the spiritual dimension. Implicit Religion 2 (2), 89–100. Bianchi, U., 1975. The History of Religion. Brill, Leiden. Bibby, R., 2009. Canada’s dataless debate about religion: the precarious role of research in identifying implicit and explicit religion. Implicit Religion 12 (3), 251–270. Borg, M.ter B., 2008a. Some ideas about the persistence of rituals. Implicit Religion 11 (1), 39–49. Borg, M.ter B., 2008b. Non-institutional religion in modern society. Implicit Religion 11 (2), 127–141. Borg, M.ter B., 2009. Transcendence and religion. Implicit Religion 11 (3), 229–238. Borgman, E., van Drongelen, H., Meijknecht, T., 2006. Pastoral work: search for a common language. Implicit Religion 9 (1), 90–104. Bowker, J., 1998. Implicit morality: an empirical ethical perspective. Implicit Religion 1, 69–75. Brown, E., 2000. How long is the future? Working with life-limited and life-threatened children. Implicit Religion 3 (1), 5–13. Bullivant, S., 2008. Introducing irreligious experiences. Implicit Religion 11 (1), 7–24. Campana, D., 2007. Civil religion at the hearth: current trends in American civil religion from the perspective of domestic arrangement. Implicit Religion 10 (2), 151–163. Campbell, R.A., 2001. When implicit religion becomes explicit: the case of the boy scouts in Canada. Implicit Religion 4 (1), 15–25. Carter, A., 2009. Social values in a secular age: what sort of religion do they imply? Implicit Religion 12 (3), 295–301. Connor, K.T., 2006. The fifth corner: hip hop’s new geometry of adolescent religiosity. Implicit Religion 9 (1), 7–28. Davie, G., 2004. A reply to Francis and Robbins. Implicit Religion 7 (1), 55–58. Davies, D.J., 1999. Implicit religion and inter-faith dialogue in human perspective. Implicit Religion 2 (1), 17–24. Dupré, W., 1998. Implicit religion and inter-faith dialogue: a philosophical perspective. Implicit Religion 1, 29–39. Dupré, W., 2001. Difficulties in discerning religious phenomena. Implicit Religion 4 (2), 73–85. Dupré, W., 2003. The critical potential of the concept of implicit religion. Implicit Religion 6 (1), 5–16. Dupré, W., 2005. The quest for myth as a key to implicit religion. Implicit Religion 8 (2), 147–165. Dupré, W., 2007. Why and when should we speak of implicit religion? Implicit Religion 10 (2), 132–150. Dyczewska, A., 2008. Vegetarianism as an example of dispersed religiosity. Implicit Religion 11 (2), 111–125. Francis, L.J., Williams, E., Robbins, M., 2008. Church attendance, implicit religion and belief in luck: the relationship between conventional religiosity and alternative spirituality among adolescents. Implicit Religion 11 (3), 239–254. Francis, L.J., Robbins, M., 2004. Belonging without believing: a study in the social significance of Anglican identity and implicit religion among 13–15 year-old males. Implicit Religion 7 (1), 37–54. Gauthier, F., 2005. Orpheus and the underground: raves and implicit religiondfrom interpretation to critique. Implicit Religion 8 (3), 217–265. van Gelder, L., 2004. At the confluence of paradox. Implicit Religion 7 (3), 207–227. Gollnick, J., 2003a. Implicit religion highlights religion in childhood. Implicit Religion 6 (2–3), 70–85. Gollnick, J., 2003b. Is implicit religion spirituality in disguise? Implicit Religion 6 (2–3), 146–160. Gollnick, J., 2005. Implicit religion in dreams. Implicit Religion 8 (3), 281–298. Grainger, R.B., 2004. A reply to Gollnick: implicit religion isn’t spirituality in disguise. Implicit Religion 7 (3), 276–278. Grainger, R.B., 2005. The faith of actors: implicit religion and acting. Implicit Religion 8 (2), 166–177. Grainger, R.B., 2009. What islands say. Implicit Religion 12 (1), 73–79. Groot, K. de., 2008. Three types of liquid religion. Implicit Religion 11 (3), 277–296. Hamilton, M., 2001. Implicit religion and related concepts: seeking precision. Implicit Religion 4 (1), 5–13. Hammond, P.E., 2007. Implicit religion from below. Implicit Religion 10 (3), 281–289. Hanson, S., 2006. English law as implicit religion. Implicit Religion 9 (2), 136–165. Hay, D., 2003. Why is implicit religion implicit? Implicit Religion 6 (1), 17–40. Heddendorf, R., 2004. From faith to fun: the role of humour in a secular world. Implicit Religion 7 (2), 142–151. Hills, P., Argyle, M., 2002. A psychological dimension to implicit religion. Implicit Religion 5 (2), 69–80. Homan, R., 2000. The marginality of the implicit. Implicit Religion 3 (2), 101–109. Hunter, R., 2004. Implicit religion as commitment process. Implicit Religion 7 (1), 20–36. Jenkins, T.D., 2005. Sacred persons in contemporary culture. Implicit Religion 8 (2), 133–146. Jenkins, T.D., 2009. Faith and scientific mind/faith in the scientific mind: the implicit religion of science in contemporary Britain. Implicit Religion 12 (3), 303–311. Johnson, S.M., 2004. American civic tradition after 9/11: Protestant, Jewish and African–American resources for healthier national faith and committing. Implicit Religion 7 (3), 228–245. Knox, J., 2008. Sacro-egoism and the shifting paradigm of religiosity. Implicit Religion 11 (2), 153–172. Kraus, R., 2009. The many faces of spirituality: a conceptual framework considering belly dance. Implicit Religion 12 (1), 51–72. Lamb, C., 2004. The implicit religion of love. Implicit Religion 7 (1), 7–19. Lewis, C.A., 2005. Implicit religion in the psychology of religion: what the (psychology) papers say. Implicit Religion 8 (1), 64–78. Lord, K., 2006. Implicit Religion: definition and application. Implicit Religion 9 (2), 205–219. Lowe, B., 2001. Animal rights as a Quasi-religion. Implicit Religion 4 (1), 41–60. Luckmann, T., 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. MacMillan, London. Makrides, V., Sotiriu, E., 2003. Cult-figures within academia: the case of Max Weber. Implicit Religion 6 (2–3), 105–132. Mayers, C., Johnston, D., 2008. Spirituality: the emergence of a working definition for use within healthcare practice. Implicit Religion 11 (3), 265–275. Ménard, G., 2001. Religion: implicit or postmodern? Implicit Religion 4 (2), 87–95. Ménard, G., 2004. The moods of Marianne: of Hijabs, Nikes, implicit religion and postmodernity. Implicit Religion 7 (3), 246–255. Ménard, G., 2005. O Come all ye faithful: contemporary sexuality, transcendence and implicit religion. Implicit Religion 8 (3), 266–280. Ménard, G., 2009. Translation of Présentation from La religion Implicite: une Introduction. Implicit Religion 12 (1), 81–94. : studying the implicit religion issues. Implicit Religion 13 (1), 85–104. Molle, A., 2010. Towards a Sociology of Budo Moss, B., 2005. 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Fresh expressions: a journey into implicit theology. Implicit Religion 12 (3), 313–332. Pius IX, 1864. Syllabus of errors (Syllabus Errorum), Dec. 8. Porter, J., 2007. On Teaching Implicit Religion at Memorial University, Newfoundland. Implicit Religion 10 (1), 5–7. Porter, J., 2009. Implicit religion in popular culture: the religious dimensions of fan communities. Implicit Religion 12 (3), 271–280. Portmann, A., 1999. Friends at table: cooking and eating as religious practices. Implicit Religion 2 (1), 39–49. Pye, M., 1998. Implicit religion in inter-faith perspective: focussing the issues. Implicit Religion 2 (2), 109–111. Reinbold, J., 2009. Rogue agents, religion, and the rule of law: the limits of legalism in the face of weapons of mass destruction. Implicit Religion 12 (1), 3–20. Reader, J., 2003. The discourses of human rights: a secular religion? Implicit Religion 6 (1), 41–51. Reader, J. Transition Initiatives and Implicit Religion. Implicit Religion 13 (2), forthcoming. Roberts, R., 1999. Implicit religion in inter-faith perspective: focussing the issues. Implicit Religion 2 (2), 111–112. Roberts, V., 2009. Implicit sacraments in Atonement, the movie. Implicit Religion 11 (3), 297–308. Schmied, G., 2002. God images in prayer intention books. Implicit Religion 5 (2), 121–126. Schnell, T., 2000. I believe in love. Implicit Religion 3 (2), 111–122. Schnell, T., 2003. A framework for the study of implicit religion: the psychological theory of implicit religiosity. Implicit Religion 6 (2–3), 86–104. Selvanayagam, I., 2005. The quest for spirituality in the secular multi-faith context of India. Implicit Religion 8 (2), 101–117.

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