Beyond the Eurocentrism of the Claim That Religion Is Western

Abstract There is now broad consensus in the academic study of religion that religion is Western. This article challenges that thesis by reframing it through a second widespread claim, namely, that religion is modern. If modernity is not Western, we would have reason to doubt that religion is Western. Indeed, global historians and sociologists challenge the Eurocentrism of the claim that modernity is Western, while global religious historians similarly challenge the Westernness of religion. I add to these empirical critiques two theoretical ones about how we imagine modern society. First, I suggest that a communicative theory of the social renders claims about the spatial origin of modernity incoherent. Second, I propose moving beyond the center-periphery model of modernity, which encourages the search for spatial origins, toward a model of society as a differentiated horizon. This model makes sense of the empirical evidence against the Westernness of religion while pushing beyond its lingering Eurocentrism.