ABSTRACT
Visually rendering “religion” in contemporary global politics reflects similar challenges and assumptions to those encountered when attempting to make sense of the category of religion with the written word. We do not really know what “religion” is, or at least there is little consensus on how to define this intangible dimension of the human experience. We grasp at elements of what might be called “tradition,” “the sacred,” “the supernatural” in an attempt to depict religion. Largely, however, “religion” is a category that resists definition and concreteness, shifting in its meaning from one context to the next (Hurd 2015; Beaman and Sullivan 2013). Efforts to clearly define “religion” reflect influence from secular worldviews, which assume that the religious and the secular can be and should be clearly delineated from one another, maintaining the dominance of the secular over the religious (Wilson 2012, 2017). When specific definitions are made about what religion is and does, it is frequently an exercise of power. These exercises of power may take place internally within a specific religious tradition, to claim access to the “true” religion and authority over all other interpretations; or externally, often by political actors who seek to control religion and harness its influence in the pursuit of largely secular Euro-American Enlightenment goals and values, including specific interpretations of democracy, human rights, human dignity and development. It is important to bear in mind, however, that just as “religion” is a category that resists definition and concreteness, so too does “secular.”
