Reconceptualizing Houses of Worship to Advance Comparisons across Religious Traditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has skillfully argued the case of the role of the places of worship to provide religious causal variables to political articulation in Abrahamic religious traditions. He/she begins with the premise that the study of religion and politics has struggled to find concepts, methods, and approaches that advance productive comparisons of phenomena across religious practices and traditions. His/her main argument rests on the lacuna in scholarship about the role of the houses of worship in this analysis. He/she wants to fill this gap by offering a theoretical framework with regard to Abrahamic religious traditions. He/she advances inclusive arguments not only of the physical space where worship takes place, but also the consistent group of common believers who use it  and the leaders who tend to them. The author's analysis of three-level model of the Houses of Worship Ladder of Abstraction at #402 (p. 10) is convincing. This is indeed a theoretically sound model to be followed. 

My only criticism is that the scope of this article is limited to Abrahamic religious traditions only in the global context of diverse religious traditions from both east and west, encountering each other in a pluralistic world. Maybe the author could find the comparable data only from the Abrahamic traditions. I would suggest that the author must expand the focus in his/her research work so that the model that is offered here can be applied in the future to include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism from India and Chinese and Japanese religious landscape as well as African traditions. The reason is that in Sikhism, for instance, religion and politics go hand in hand, and the houses of worship frequently address political issues effecting the Sikh community. Sikh doctrine of "secular-religious domains" (miri-piri) affirms that religion and politics are bound together, therby allowing religious issues to be defended in the political arena and political activity to be conducted in accordance with the religious values of truth and social justice. This intersection between religion and politics directly opposes the distinction between the public and private spheres since religion can be both public and a player in the game of political power, where the conventional cliched assumptions about religion being this so-called "spiritual" and "internal reality" do not always square with facts.

At this stage the author does not have to make any changes in his analysis. The comment is made only for future research. If a brief note is added in the conclusion that will be great.     

Author Response

Original Comment:

The author has skillfully argued the case of the role of the places of worship to provide religious causal variables to political articulation in Abrahamic religious traditions. He/she begins with the premise that the study of religion and politics has struggled to find concepts, methods, and approaches that advance productive comparisons of phenomena across religious practices and traditions. His/her main argument rests on the lacuna in scholarship about the role of the houses of worship in this analysis. He/she wants to fill this gap by offering a theoretical framework with regard to Abrahamic religious traditions. He/she advances inclusive arguments not only of the physical space where worship takes place, but also the consistent group of common believers who use it  and the leaders who tend to them. The author's analysis of three-level model of the Houses of Worship Ladder of Abstraction at #402 (p. 10) is convincing. This is indeed a theoretically sound model to be followed. 

My only criticism is that the scope of this article is limited to Abrahamic religious traditions only in the global context of diverse religious traditions from both east and west, encountering each other in a pluralistic world. Maybe the author could find the comparable data only from the Abrahamic traditions. I would suggest that the author must expand the focus in his/her research work so that the model that is offered here can be applied in the future to include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism from India and Chinese and Japanese religious landscape as well as African traditions. The reason is that in Sikhism, for instance, religion and politics go hand in hand, and the houses of worship frequently address political issues effecting the Sikh community. Sikh doctrine of "secular-religious domains" (miri-piri) affirms that religion and politics are bound together, therby allowing religious issues to be defended in the political arena and political activity to be conducted in accordance with the religious values of truth and social justice. This intersection between religion and politics directly opposes the distinction between the public and private spheres since religion can be both public and a player in the game of political power, where the conventional cliched assumptions about religion being this so-called "spiritual" and "internal reality" do not always square with facts.

At this stage the author does not have to make any changes in his analysis. The comment is made only for future research. If a brief note is added in the conclusion that will be great.      

 

Response:

Thank you for this helpful review. The conceptualization articulated here is meant to begin a discussion for refining our comparative toolkit. It is my hope that the ideas presented here will be taken up by scholars of other religious traditions and further enhanced. I have added a statement to this effect in the conclusion.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is well written and offers what it promises to offer. There are several challenges to this study, and the author seems to be aware of many of them. However, generalizations are necessary if we want to develop a comparative toolkit. If you think comparing worship spaces among different religions is not possible (I happened to hold this opinion,) then this article is not for you. If you think a comparison among them is possible, then this article is useful. It is consistent, well-written, easily accessible, and provides a reasonable toolkit for researchers who want to pursue such a comparison.

Author Response

Original comment:

The article is well written and offers what it promises to offer. There are several challenges to this study, and the author seems to be aware of many of them. However, generalizations are necessary if we want to develop a comparative toolkit. If you think comparing worship spaces among different religions is not possible (I happened to hold this opinion,) then this article is not for you. If you think a comparison among them is possible, then this article is useful. It is consistent, well-written, easily accessible, and provides a reasonable toolkit for researchers who want to pursue such a comparison.

Author response:

I appreciate your honest assessment of the article and the tools it offers for comparison across religious traditions. Whether comparison across religions is a useful strategy to gain analytic leverage depends largely on the research question at hand. Not all comparisons are useful or productive.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an excellent paper.

A few minor comments:

1. The decision to only focus on mosques and churches could be explained more clearly - the notion of focus on Abrahamic houses of worship is slightly disingenuous as synogogue worship is not really discussed.

 2. What about house churches / house mosques?

3. What about outdoor worship, such as forest church?

4. What about use of premises for activities other than prayer / worship?

Author Response

Original Comment:

This is an excellent paper.

A few minor comments:

1. The decision to only focus on mosques and churches could be explained more clearly - the notion of focus on Abrahamic houses of worship is slightly disingenuous as synogogue worship is not really discussed.

 2. What about house churches / house mosques?

3. What about outdoor worship, such as forest church?

4. What about use of premises for activities other than prayer / worship?

 

Author Response:

Thank you for these helpful comments and questions. I have incorporated them into my revised essay in two ways:

1) Revising the references to Abrahamic religions to more accurately convey the substance of the article.

2) Revising Section 4 to more directly state that the conceptualization of houses of worship I propose brings together a permanent physical space, a community of believers, and religious leadership. I more directly distinguish the physical houses of worship from organized communities of believers, which do not always have permanent physical spaces of worship.

I decided not to address question 4 directly in the essay. The definition I propose intentionally uses the language "the primary purpose of fulfilling devotional duties related to their religious practice," which leaves open the possibility that the houses of worship can be used for other purposes, but their primary purposes is for worship.