Dynamics of Speaking and Doing Religion

Abstract

The aim of this volume is to engage in the dynamics of speaking and doing religion, which extends from a religious to a social context. This volume contains selected papers presented at the interdisciplinary workshop ‘Religious Speech and Religious Speakers: Authority and Influence of Word and People’ (February 2019), which brought together scholars from anthropology, theology and culture studies with the focus to explore ways in which religious speeches have impact specifically as instructive and normative resources. The contributions demonstrate the diversity of issues around the topic of religious speech within Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Presented case studies deal with religious specialists and their authority, the authority of lay people, the effects and force of religious speeches and discourses and the role of religious speech in interpreting natural phenomena or mediating value changes. Although religious speech is taken as the subject of discussion, the focus in this volume is not religious speeches per se, that is, how religious speech is defined, shaped, framed, or produced, but the social impact of religious speeches and speakers in the ways they shape and influence our worldview, social interactions, cultural practices, and power relations.