Houses of Worship: A Conceptual Analysis

• In Event: Politics of Sacred Sites

Abstract

Houses of worship, defined here as a permanent physical space where individuals of the same religious denomination come together for the primary purpose of fulfilling devotional duties related to their religious practice, comprise an undertheorized yet deeply influential concept in the study of religion and politics. Most theoretical and empirical approaches conceptualize and define the worship space within a broader religious doctrine and set of specific ritual practices that overlooks their shared characteristics across religions. This practice can foster methodological problems in which variation across houses of worship within the same religious tradition is not fully considered in analyses. Similarly, this practice tends to limit the types of questions explored in cross-denominational research.

Yet, from a regulatory and legal perspective, individual houses of worship are often treated without concrete reference to the role they play within specific religions. Moreover, for the average worshipper, their particular house of worship usually provides the first and most direct access to religious community. While there is meaningful variation across religious denominations about the role of a house of worship within specific doctrinal practice, all houses of worship share a similar function in bringing together individuals for shared worship experiences. In sum, their existence as public spaces allow houses of worship to play a moderating role in the relationship between worshippers and political life more broadly.

This paper explores houses of worship as an organizational concept that can be employed productively for theoretical and empirical analyses of religion and politics by undertaking three tasks. First, it reviews the existing omission of houses of worship within the dominant theoretical frameworks that structure the study of religion and politics. Second, it maps out the conceptual space that houses of worship occupy in practice to demonstrate the utility of this concept for analysis. Third, it draws on empirical case studies from Muslim and Christian houses of worship in Indonesia to provide examples for how the concept can be employed productively for comparative analysis in the study of religion and politics.

Author

• Danielle Nicole Lussier, Grinnell College