Religion at Play: A Manifesto

- Is a powerful position a guarantee that a religion will continue? - Does God take sides in religious power struggles? - Can God survive religious exclusivity and diversity? - Is God migrating from out there to in here? - Is religion sustainable in the long run? In seeking answers to these questions this book explores the possibilities afforded by playful religion. Religion has playful origins but this aspect is forgotten as soon as institutional power becomes self-serving instead of subservient. Power changes the very essence of religion. Virtually all religions are distorted versions of a playful original. Institutionalization is religions curse not its blessing. Apparent success hides the failure of religion to be faithful to its original intent. This book helps find the way back from bordering to inclusivity and openness. Religion at Play is a work of love a passionate call for us to let imagination and openness guide religious experience. Visionary and movingly written the book affirms peoples capacity to thwart power and to make religious experience a vibrant element in more just world-making projects. --Joao Biehl author of Vita Play and playfulness are not often associated with religion especially in its institutional forms. In this book a distinguished anthropologist of religion reexamines the relationship between power and play asking . . . whether the ludic makes the human animal lucid or ludicrous? Whatever we conclude this generous and deeply personal essay is full of wisdom. We should indeed make it a habit to look for possible inversions. We should not however make this our daily bread. Put differently we should most certainly interrogate our convictions but we should think twice before we abandon them. --Grace Davie author of Religion in Britain since 1945 Designed as a personal manifesto challenging to both faith believers and atheists Andre Droogers book Religion at Play combines creatively experiences in various continents in which he lived and rigorous scholarly research. A shift of perspective from a powerful to a playful religion is advocated. Thus it also invites each reader to playfully venture that very same shift in relation to his or her assumptions regarding religion and life. --Walter Altmann author of Luther and Liberation Andre Droogers is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His other books include Play and Power in Religion: Collected Essays (2012) and (with Anton van Harskamp) Methods for the Study of Religious Change: From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies (2014). at www.andredroogers.nl. Read more