“Experiences deemed religious”: Radical critique or temporary fix? Strategic ambiguity in Ann Taves' Religious Experience Reconsidered

Ann Taves has written an interesting, lucid and informative book. In particular, the author's suggested reformulation of religious studies as the study of “things deemed special” indicates a critical alternative to the dominant discourse. But such a reformulation implies that the 'secular' side of the mutually parasitic religion-secular binary also requires deconstruction. This in turn must surely lead to a critique of the representation of social psychology and related disciplines as 'natural science', a representation which itself is already dependent on the wider, globalizing, ideological religion/secular binary, and its supernatural/natural correlate. The author's ambiguous alternation between things deemed special and things deemed religious invites the discursive contours of 'religion' to re-enter through the back door, leaving the status quo substantially intact.