Rethinking Heresy as a Category of Analysis
This article aims to rehabilitate and restore the concept of heresy in the analysis of “religion” in a broad sense. Heresy is largely considered as a paradigmatically Christian, pre-modern, and, by implication, useless concept for scholarly investigations into religious phenomena today. A re-examina...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 88, Issue: 3, Pages: 726-748 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Wilhelm, von Ockham 1285-1347
/ Heresy
/ Durkheim, Émile 1858-1917
/ Phenomenology of religion
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| IxTheo Classification: | AA Study of religion AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations CG Christianity and Politics KAC Church history 500-1500; Middle Ages |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article aims to rehabilitate and restore the concept of heresy in the analysis of “religion” in a broad sense. Heresy is largely considered as a paradigmatically Christian, pre-modern, and, by implication, useless concept for scholarly investigations into religious phenomena today. A re-examination of the medieval concept of heresy, particularly that of William of Ockham, reveals that pertinacity as a defining feature of heresy in the medieval sense indicates heresy is the observed failure to recognize the obligatory nature, not the truth, of what authority asserts. The medieval idea of heresy may thus be redefined as the interference with the sacred, because obligations that generate the sacred are at the heart of what Emile Durkheim called “religious phenomena.” The Durkheimian reconceptualization of the medieval idea of heresy serves to illuminate the mechanism of social exclusion in both religious and secular contexts. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfaa039 |