RT Article
T1 Bourdieu and the Cult of the Saints as Cultural Theology
JF Religion & theology
VO 32
IS 3/4
SP 336
OP 362
A1 Eastman, David L.
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1951200608
AB Despite advancements by social historians in early Christian studies, the narrative remains heavily influenced by the writings of bishops and theologians. Practices of non-elites are often dismissed as "popular religion," implicitly contrasting them with "proper" theology. This paper employs Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus to analyze patron-client dynamics within the early Christian cult of the saints. Such an approach discursively reorients scholarly descriptions away from the pejorative "popular religion" toward a new nomenclature that I am proposing, "cultural theology," which more accurately reflects these practices as integral to the period’s working theology and cultural milieu.
K1 Pierre Bourdieu
K1 cult of the saints
K1 cultural theology
K1 Early Christianity
K1 Habitus
K1 Patronage
DO 10.1163/15743012-bja10098