Mark C. Taylor’s definition of Religion

Complexity, constitution and disfiguring

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Mark C. Taylor’s definition of religion. To do so, it presents this definition and proposes a structural reading of its meanings, dividing it into three parts. First, it verifies its meaning as an emerging complex network, pointing out the complexity theory foundations, from which the author takes ownership of some ideas, and applying the functioning of complex systems to religion. Then, it discusses the constitutive moment of religion and its function as a creator of schemes and patterns of feeling, thought and action. Finally, it observes how Taylor proposes a disruptive moment in his definition, in which religion breaks, displaces, and disfigures previously established schemes and patterns. Contrary to what one might think, the author believes these are not antagonistic moments in religion, but are intricately intertwined, in an almost dialectical alternating movement that constantly modifies the structures of religion. As a result, the definition of religion proposed by Taylor establishes a mutual dependence between history and structure in the theory of religion.