Identity Politics as Secular Religion
Academic Level at Time of Presentation
Junior
Major
Psychology
Minor
Religious Studies
List all Project Mentors & Advisor(s)
Dr. Sean Rife
Presentation Format
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Description
The CRS-POL is a modified version of an existing measure - Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) - commonly used to examine the significance of traditional forms of religion in individuals’ personalities, beliefs, and transcendent experiences. This scale is prevalent in the field of the Psychology of Religion and has been validated cross-culturally, so that it may be utilized for interreligious studies, and has rendered itself the principal measure in most research assessing the salience of religiosity in the individual. The CRS, however far-reaching, does not measure an emerging type of religion that is becoming more prevalent by the day; secular religion. Eminent sociologists such as Peter Berger predicted in the 1960s that as societies evolved, they would become increasingly secular and eventually dispose of religion altogether. This concept would be coined the Secularization Hypothesis. This hypothesis served as the theoretical framework on which our CRS-POL was constructed; a new measure of religiosity that discards traditional religious terms and replaces them with language relevant to the particular ideology that is suspected to have a religious type of architecture (in this case, Identity Politics). Through our modifications, the goal was to preserve the fundamental structure of the five dimensions of the original CRS: Intellect, Ideology, Public Practice, Private Practice, and Experience. It is hypothesized that pervading left-wing ideologies concerning social injustice and intersectionality, have emerged as a collection of ideas that can be classified as a secular religion.
Keywords: centrality of religiosity; measurement; dimensions; secular religion; Peter Berger; secularization hypothesis
Spring Scholars Week 2021 Event
Psychology: Projects In-Progress
Identity Politics as Secular Religion
The CRS-POL is a modified version of an existing measure - Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) - commonly used to examine the significance of traditional forms of religion in individuals’ personalities, beliefs, and transcendent experiences. This scale is prevalent in the field of the Psychology of Religion and has been validated cross-culturally, so that it may be utilized for interreligious studies, and has rendered itself the principal measure in most research assessing the salience of religiosity in the individual. The CRS, however far-reaching, does not measure an emerging type of religion that is becoming more prevalent by the day; secular religion. Eminent sociologists such as Peter Berger predicted in the 1960s that as societies evolved, they would become increasingly secular and eventually dispose of religion altogether. This concept would be coined the Secularization Hypothesis. This hypothesis served as the theoretical framework on which our CRS-POL was constructed; a new measure of religiosity that discards traditional religious terms and replaces them with language relevant to the particular ideology that is suspected to have a religious type of architecture (in this case, Identity Politics). Through our modifications, the goal was to preserve the fundamental structure of the five dimensions of the original CRS: Intellect, Ideology, Public Practice, Private Practice, and Experience. It is hypothesized that pervading left-wing ideologies concerning social injustice and intersectionality, have emerged as a collection of ideas that can be classified as a secular religion.
Keywords: centrality of religiosity; measurement; dimensions; secular religion; Peter Berger; secularization hypothesis