The four papers on this panel engage with the important themes of enchantment, embodiment, and pluralism in contemporary religious and spiritual practices. “After Disenchantment: Modalities of Enchantment among Nonreligious Scientists” draws on 104 interviews with physicists and biologists in the US, UK, Italy, and India to examine how scientific practice elicits experiences of wonder, mystery, and “otherness”--and how these experiences can function as pathways into spiritual yearning, especially among nonreligious scientists. “Pluralism in Practice” examines critical questions about the benefits of religious diversity and the role of religious leaders in civil society, drawing on interviews and focus groups with a diverse group of religious leaders in Houston, Texas. “Prenatal Religion and Future-making” examines Taegyo, a traditional Korean prenatal practice, as a form of prenatal religion among Korean immigrants in the U.S. It reflects Korea’s historically hybrid religious traditions, including Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Shamanistic spirituality, and contemporary Christian devotional practices.
Max Weber’s “disenchantment” thesis casts science as a carrier of secularization, dissolving mystery and ultimacy. Yet theorists such as Hans Joas and Charles Taylor suggest modernity reconfigures transcendence rather than simply erasing it, generating “cross-pressures” and longings for “fullness” within the immanent frame. This paper draws on 104 interviews with physicists and biologists in the US, UK, Italy, and India to examine how scientific practice elicits experiences of wonder, mystery, and “otherness”--and how these experiences can function as pathways into spiritual yearning, especially among nonreligious scientists. We conceptualize enchantment as a relational mode of engagement marked by (1) encounter with alterity, (2) orientation toward the world as a meaningful cosmos, and (3) affective engagement. Comparing religious and nonreligious narratives, we show how immanent and liminal forms of enchantment enable yearnings for connection and higher meaning without stable doctrinal commitment, reframing science as a consequential site of contemporary spirituality.
The U.S. is becoming more religious diverse while trust in religious institutions and leaders is declining. And more Americans are growing reticent to connect across religious divides. These trends raise critical questions about the benefits of religious diversity and the role of religious leaders in civil society. Drawing on interviews and focus groups (N=81) with a diverse group of religious leaders in Houston, Texas, we examine their attitudes towards religious diversity. We found that nearly all see religious diversity as a benefit to the city. They argue that religious diversity provides an opportunity to appreciate religious difference, for reflexivity in one’s religious beliefs, for everyone to find a religious home, and it serves as a crucible for developing democratic capacities. Challenges include intolerance, polarization, and logistical challenges of connecting in a large city. Our findings illuminate how religious leaders appraise religious diversity and the implications for inter-religious collaboration, pluralism, and civil society.
This study examines Taegyo, a traditional Korean prenatal practice, as a form of prenatal religion among Korean immigrants in the U.S. Taegyo emphasizes ethical conduct and spiritual cultivation during pregnancy and reflects Korea’s historically hybrid religious traditions, including Confucianism, Buddhist ethical teachings, Daoism, Shamanistic spirituality, and contemporary Christian devotional practices. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with Korean immigrants in the U.S. who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth (target N = 30), this study analyzes how participants interpret pregnancy as a spiritually meaningful period during which religious values and moral environments may influence fetal development. Many participants describe Taegyo as a spiritual practice while also reporting social isolation during pregnancy due to the absence of extended family support networks. The paper argues that Taegyo functions as both prenatal religion and part of broader processes of reproductive religion through which immigrants reproduce cultural traditions, religious meanings, and intergenerational care practices in diaspora contexts.
This paper interrogates the rise of AI-mediated relationality in Black communities asking how such technological interventions may reshape relationships across the lifespan and how digital religion offers expanded discourse for exploring these new connections. Using autoethnography, qualitative data from both social media and digital religion participants, and sociological research on artificial intelligence and religion, this paper examines how AI engagement reconfigures embodiment, desire, and expectations of intimacy. The paper ends by critically situating AI intimacy within longer histories of racialized embodiment, moral regulation, and technological mediation ultimately offering insight on emergent technologies and Black religion.
| Joseph Blankholm | blankholm@ucsb.edu | View |