Material religion

Material religion is a framework used by scholars of religion to examine the interaction between religion and material culture. It focuses on the place of objects, images, spaces, and buildings in religious communities. The framework has been promoted by scholars such as Birgit Meyer, Sally Promey, S. Brent Plate, David Morgan, etc.

Definition
S. Brent Plate, scholar of religion, explains that material religion "must be understood as deriving from rudimentary human experiences, from lived, embodied practices". He states that "to learn about religion we have to come to our senses. Literally. We have to begin to discover... that we cannot know the worlds of any other culture, let alone our own, unless we get inside the sensational operations of human bodies."

History
In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Material Religion was launched. In their editorial statement, the editors described the journal as "a new project in the study of religious images, objects, spaces, and material practices."

Criticism
The anthropologist Simon Coleman suggests that the term "material religion" is tautological, in that "religion is inherently material in its very constitution."

Additionally, the scholars of religion Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson suggest that the material religion framework could be an alternative means to explore religion, in contrast to the dominant world religions paradigm which they regard as problematic. According to them, material religion represents "phenomenology by stealth". Some scholars within the study of religion have criticised the material religion approach for often seeking to reintroduce the phenomenology of religion into the discipline.