The Intersectional Roots of Complex Religion

• In Event: 50868 - Rethinking Boundaries, Practices, and Paradigms in Contemporary Religious Life

Abstract

Despite recent shifts in rates of belief and organizational affiliation, religion remains a comprehensive institution in society influencing micro-, meso-, and macro-level interactions. Despite its far-reaching impact on various groups’ beliefs behaviors, and sense of belonging, religion has received little attention among intersectionality scholars. As a result, the nascent “Complex Religion” theory which draws attention to the intersection of religion, politics, and inequality, has emerged to fill this analytic void. Using the Black Christian Millennial demographic as a case due to their distinct social location as simultaneously “privileged” religiously yet oppressed racially, I demonstrate how complex religion theory must reckon with its intersectional roots while also revealing how intersectionality theory can be strengthened by considering religion as a foundational power structure in society and thus a significant component of our intersectional identities.

Author

• Shaonta' E. Allen, Dartmouth College