A critique of "religion" as a cross-cultural category¹

TIMOTHY FITZGERALD

Timothy Fitzgerald, a British scholar of religion and anthropology, has been a central figure in
questioning the very foundations of religious studies as a discipline. Educated at King’s
College London (BA and PhD in Religious Studies) and the London School of Economics
(MSc in Social Anthropology), Fitzgerald’s work has been shaped by his cross-cultural
research in India and Japan. His intellectual project has consistently focused on exposing
how categories like “religion” are not neutral descriptors but products of Western ideology,
carrying theological and political baggage. This background informs his influential article “A
Critique of ‘Religion’ as a Cross-Cultural Category” (1997), published in Method & Theory in
the Study of Religion.

Fitzgerald sets out three main purposes. First, he argues that “religion” is analytically
inadequate—vague, imprecise, and virtually useless as a cross-cultural concept. He
illustrates this claim with his ethnographic insights from India and Japan, where practices
often categorized as “religion” are inseparable from social, cultural, and political institutions.
Second, he examines how scholars in religion departments continue to deploy the term in
confusing ways—sometimes theological (as faith in God or the transcendent), sometimes
modernist (as private belief), and sometimes cultural (as values or symbolic systems). The
result is that “religion” becomes a catch-all for an incoherent range of institutions and
practices, from caste and witchcraft to Marxism and the tea ceremony, with little analytical
clarity.

Fitzgerald’s third purpose is to situate this confusion in the wider context of Western
ideology. He contends that the persistence of “religion” in scholarly discourse cannot be
explained as a simple category mistake; rather, it operates as a form of mystification tied to
liberal ecumenical theology and Western cultural assumptions. He proposes that what
scholars often label as “religion” should instead be reinterpreted as part of
culture—specifically as institutionalized values and symbolic systems, akin to Durkheim’s
notion of collective representations. In this view, “religion” as a separate analytical category
dissolves, leaving scholars with a clearer framework for studying culture and power without
the distortions imposed by theological residues.

Soteriology

In his critique, Fitzgerald stresses that while concepts like soteriology, the transcendent, and
the sacred are often used to define religion, they are also problematic if treated as universal
categories. He acknowledges that soteriology—understood as culturally produced beliefs
and practices concerning salvation or liberation—has some limited cross-cultural utility. Yet,
he cautions that even where such doctrines exist, as in monastic Buddhism in Sri Lanka or
among Dalit Buddhists in Maharashtra, they cannot be understood in isolation from the wider
cultural and political contexts that give them meaning. Similarly, terms like the transcendent
or the sacred are too vague and deeply influenced by Western theological assumptions to
provide a stable basis for defining religion across societies.

For Fitzgerald, the persistence of these categories reflects not only definitional confusion but
also institutionalized power. He argues that ecumenical theology, especially in the form of
phenomenology, has long exercised control over the meaning of “religion” and related terms.
Even scholars who claim a non-theological approach cannot escape this influence, because
“religion” as a category is too entangled with Western ideological projects—whether in
legitimizing social order, in managing relations with non-Western societies, or in shaping
minority identities within the West. Thus, the problem is not merely conceptual but political:
the very act of defining religion has historically served as a tool of Western dominance and
cognitive imperialism.

Fitzgerald proposes that the way forward is not to refine the term “religion” but to replace it
with a more precise focus on culture—understood as institutionalized values and symbolic
systems, and their relationship to power. In this perspective, what scholars often call religion
is better analyzed as part of the wider cultural fabric, including everyday practices, rituals,
and forms of meaning-making. By situating these within structures of power and legitimation,
scholars can avoid the mystifications generated by the theological baggage of “religion” and
develop a more critical and self-reflective discipline. For Fitzgerald, this shift from religion to
culture offers a more honest and analytically useful framework for the humanities and social
sciences.

3. The theological legacy of "religion"

Fitzgerald argues that while religion departments have often fostered creative
interdisciplinary work across history, anthropology, languages, and philosophy, their
intellectual legacy remains dominated by theology. Through the influence of ecumenicism
and phenomenology, theology has shaped and institutionalized the very category of
“religion,” often disguising itself as objective scholarship. This results in a confusion where
religious studies presents itself as a secular, humanistic discipline, yet its core analytical
framework continues to carry theological assumptions. Fitzgerald is not rejecting
metaphysics itself—since all paradigms rest on metaphysical assumptions, including his
own—but he is critical of theology masquerading as science. In his view, theology and
religious studies should be logically distinct, yet in practice the latter remains conceptually
and institutionally controlled by the former, creating mystification and reinforcing unexamined
presuppositions.

He further emphasizes that this confusion cannot always be resolved by definitional clarity
alone, since power and institutional history shape the meanings of categories. The term
“religion,” for instance, carries semantic baggage from its Christian roots—faith, belief in
God, and soteriology—that continues to color its use even when scholars attempt
non-theological definitions. Phenomenology, which Fitzgerald regards as essentially liberal
ecumenical theology, has reinforced this by presenting religion and “the religions” as distinct,
sui generis objects of study. As a result, even critical scholars unintentionally reproduce
theological legacies in their research. For Fitzgerald, the task is to expose how the very
category of religion is historically and culturally constructed, carrying with it hidden
theological assumptions that distort both scholarly inquiry and cross-cultural analysis.

4. "Religion" as ideological construct

Fitzgerald argues that the very concept of “religion” and the academic field of religious
studies function less as neutral descriptions and more as ideological constructions shaped
by Western theology. He shows how, in non-Western contexts, “religion” itself was often
invented through processes of modernization and Western influence. For instance, during
the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Buddhism and Shinto were newly classified as separate
religions, and the very term “Shinto” was redefined in this context, as noted by Helen
Hardacre. Similarly, modern categories like “neo-Vedanta,” “World Religion Hinduism,” and
“Buddhist modernism” illustrate how the West’s categories reshaped indigenous traditions
into forms recognizable as “religions.” These constructs were often institutionalized at the
legal and political level, such as in Japan where shukyo (religion) became a juridical
category, conferring organizations tax privileges and constitutional recognition under
American influence after World War II. Thus, “religion” in non-Western societies often
emerged as a local adaptation or repackaging of institutions to fit Western categories.

However, Fitzgerald cautions that this does not demonstrate the existence of some universal
human experience called “religion.” Instead, the ways in which “religion” (or its local
equivalents) functions in institutional contexts must themselves be studied critically. He
contends that the confusion around defining religion is not accidental but rooted in cognitive
imperialism—the imposition of Western categories on other cultures—and in the dominance
of Western theological traditions, especially phenomenology, within academia. While
scholars like Jeppe Sinding Jensen suggest that concepts can be refined and reconstructed
for academic use, Fitzgerald argues that in the case of “religion” this is impossible. The
category is too ideologically loaded and bound up with power struggles between theological
and non-theological agendas. Therefore, instead of trying to salvage “religion” as a
cross-cultural analytical tool, scholars should recognize it as a theological construct and
relocate their work within the broader study of culture, values, and power.

5. The mystification of "religion" and the legitimating function of "religious studies"

Fitzgerald argues that the discipline of religious studies serves a legitimating function in the
social order by protecting Western concepts of transcendence, which claim universality and
objectivity but in reality defend dominant ideological interests. The resistance to
“reductionism” among phenomenologists, he suggests, is less about preserving scholarship
and more about safeguarding this theological notion of transcendence that separates fact
from value, thereby disguising ideological claims as objective truths. Ecumenical theology,
presented as interfaith dialogue, simultaneously reinforces imperialist ties between Western
powers, colonized elites, and minority groups, masking material inequalities under a veneer
of spiritual equality. Phenomenology furthers this mystification by representing “religion” as a
universal, empirically real dimension of human life distinct from the secular, even in cultures
where no such division exists. Consequently, debates about reductionism are not about
religion as a genuine universal phenomenon but about defending the Judeo-Christian
theological category of God from ontological reduction, exposing how the study of religion
often reproduces Western theological assumptions rather than analyzing diverse cultural
realities.

6. Religion as a sub-category of culture: Case studies

In this section, Fitzgerald critically engages with Jensen’s defense of Geertz’s semiotic
approach to religion, particularly the idea that religion is best understood as “interaction with
superhuman beings.” While Jensen, following Hans Penner, sees this as an analytically valid
distinction, Fitzgerald argues that such a definition remains inadequate and misleading. For
him, religion cannot be separated out as a distinct cultural sphere because interactions with
“superhuman” agents are always entangled with broader social values and institutions.
Using Japan as an example, he shows that rituals directed toward spirits or ghosts cannot
be analyzed apart from cultural notions of hierarchy, order, purity, and national identity. To
isolate “superhuman interactions” would reduce these practices to a sterile notion of
supernatural technology and fail to explain why even skeptics engage in them.

Fitzgerald further illustrates his point through his research on Ambedkar Buddhism in
Maharashtra. He emphasizes that the movement cannot be meaningfully explained using
the category of “religion” alone, since it is deeply bound up with caste identity, politics,
education, and social reform. Concepts like liberation and enlightenment acquire different
meanings across groups—ranging from revolutionary to transcendental—and must be
understood in this cultural context. For example, Ambedkar is venerated alongside the
Buddha, not only as a spiritual figure but also as the architect of the Indian Constitution and
as a symbol of literacy and empowerment. An analysis that reduces these practices to
“religious” worship would miss their socio-political and cultural significance.

From this, Fitzgerald concludes that the category of “religion” becomes both unwieldy and
imprecise, picking out nothing distinctive in such complex contexts. What scholars need
instead are more precise analytical tools—such as ritual, politics, and soteriology—to
capture the diverse dimensions at play. The contradictions within Ambedkar Buddhism, such
as espoused egalitarianism alongside continued caste-based practices, further reveal that
“religion” as a category obscures rather than clarifies. For Fitzgerald, therefore, the study of
movements like Ambedkar Buddhism demonstrates the necessity of moving beyond
“religion” as a universal analytic and toward categories that better reflect the actual cultural,
political, and historical realities being studied.

7. The use context: Family resemblances and the over-extended family

Here Fitzgerald highlights the problem of how the term “religion” is actually used in religious
studies. He argues that within departments of religion, scholars employ the term in
inconsistent and often contradictory ways, sometimes even within the same text. The
dominant definition usually follows a theological orientation, framing religion as beliefs and
practices related to God or the transcendent. This is what Fitzgerald calls the theological
usage, closely tied to phenomenology of religion. To make this definition appear more
universal, it is often expanded to include “gods,” “the supernatural,” or “the superhuman.” But
such expansion generates boundary problems—blurring the lines between religion and
magic, witchcraft, totemism, ghost belief, or cultural practices like marriage and kingship.
What begins as a narrow, theological concept ends up overstretched and analytically
incoherent.

Fitzgerald stresses that this universalizing move is not limited to theologians; even secular
scholars who study values and culture often accept these definitional boundaries set by
theology. This leaves them with a concept of religion that is, paradoxically, both too narrow to
explain cultural diversity and too broad to pick out anything distinctive. In practice, religion
becomes an all-inclusive label under which virtually anything—Christmas cakes,
vegetarianism, amulets, rituals, political ideologies, or even motor shows—can be
subsumed. Such overextension strips the concept of analytical usefulness, since it no longer
excludes or clearly identifies anything. In this way, “religion” risks collapsing into a vague
catch-all that obscures rather than clarifies cultural realities.

One proposed solution, adopted by scholars like Ninian Smart, Peter Byrne, and Benson
Saler, is the family resemblance approach, inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy of
language. This method claims that religion cannot be defined by strict boundaries but rather
by overlapping features across traditions. Fitzgerald, however, is critical of this approach. He
argues that family resemblance theory does not resolve the problem but instead reinforces
the lack of definitional control. Ultimately, the only thing that prevents religion from dissolving
entirely into ideology or symbolic systems is the continued insistence on its association with
the supernatural or superhuman. Yet, even in these cases, disputes about boundaries
resurface, and the fallback definition often returns to “belief in God or gods.” For Fitzgerald,
this reveals the deep instability and inadequacy of religion as a cross-cultural analytical
category.

8. "Religions", "world religions", and the substantialist fallacy

Fitzgerald warns against the substantialist fallacy in the study of religion, illustrated through
the example of Buddhism. He notes that referring to Theravada Buddhism in South Asia,
Buddhism in Maharashtra, and Japanese Buddhism as different manifestations of a single
essence—“the soteriology Buddhism”—is misleading. While there may be historical and
philosophical connections, the lived realities and semantic universes of these communities
differ profoundly. Treating Buddhism as a unified entity alongside other “world religions”
ignores these contextual differences and imposes an artificial essence. For Fitzgerald, the
proper task of scholarship is to study such institutions in their specific cultural contexts
before cautiously drawing any cross-cultural comparisons.

9. Religious studies as an ideological construction

One of the key issues Fitzgerald raises is the need to interrogate the historical origins of the
substantialist notion of “religion” and “world religions,” as well as its connection with
ecumenical theology and phenomenology. He argues that these concepts are not neutral
descriptors but rather aspects of modern Western ideology that emerged in conjunction with
bourgeois capitalism, colonial expansion, and the development of disciplines like Oriental
studies and anthropology. The construction of “religions” as universal categories served
colonial and neo-colonial interests, helping local elites reinterpret their traditions in ways that
aligned with Western cultural dominance. This process was reinforced by Christian
missionaries and ecumenical dialogue, which sought to integrate non-European traditions
into a theological framework that assumed the existence of one transcendent reality
expressed in multiple cultural forms.

Fitzgerald highlights that this “myth of religion”—the idea that diverse traditions are all paths
to one ultimate truth—was perpetuated by figures like Vivekananda, Gandhi, Otto, Eliade,
and others, and has become embedded in religious studies departments that present
themselves as objective sciences. Yet, this supposedly universal model disguises its
theological roots in liberal ecumenicism and obscures its ideological role in mediating
relations between powerful Western nations and post-colonial societies. By portraying
religion as a timeless and universal human essence, the discipline hides the ways in which
the category itself is bound up with power, inequality, and cultural imperialism, while
legitimating itself as neutral scholarship.