Conceptualizing diffuse religiosity and non-specific religion

Staf Hellemans

Chapter 5 in Understanding the Sociology of Religion, 2026, pp 113-145 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Given the lingering residues of the old religions among many religiously uncommitted people and the emergence of new, often unstable forms of religion, and given that people are also finding ultimate meaning in phenomena that at first sight seem non-religious, sociologists have proposed various concepts/perspectives that can shed light on these forms of diffuse religiosity and non-specific religion. Examples are ‘new religious consciousness’, ‘spirituality’, ‘believing without belonging’, ‘hyper-real religion’, ‘para-religion’, ‘secular religion’, ‘political religion’ ‘civil religion’, ‘the sacred’. This chapter will survey these concepts/perspectives and will discuss questions raised by these attempts to conceptualize this elusive, ‘outer range’ of religion.

Keywords: Diffuse Religiosity; Spirituality; Non-specific Religion; Religion Of Humanity; Invisible Religion; Hyper-real Religion; The Sacred And Sacralization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035312009
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