The Sacred and the Secular: Race, Gender, and Religion in Historical Context

Dear Colleagues,

Many classic texts have been written on the relationship of the sacred and the profane or the secular, including The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 2005), The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Eliade, 1959), The Clash of Civilizations (Huntington, 1996), and A Secular Age (Taylor, 2007). In lived experiences, the sacred is the secular and the secular is the sacred, especially for religious communities for whom the distinction between the two is often blurred. On the questions of race and gender, many scholars have interrogated them from “secular” perspectives, assuming these to be “socially constructed” and, therefore, not of divine or natural origins and, therefore, secular. However, many other studies have acknowledged the role of religion in the “social construction” of both race and gender. Indeed, it is plausible to argue that “the status of women in society is an outcome of the interpretation of religious texts” (Klingorova & Havlicek, 2015) and that the wave of anti-Judaism in Christianity laid the foundations for European/White racism (anti-Semitism), anti-black racism, anti-Muslim racism (Riedel & Rau, 2025). Among the many factors behind the creation of identities, religion has been instrumental in the creation of “races” and “ethnicities” (Prentiss, 2003). When approaching race and gender in most Global South communities, it is apparent that “both gender and race are motivated and justified by cultural [religious] responses to the body” (Haslanger, 2000). One of the dominant ways in which these elements have been approached is by treating them as mutually exclusive and distant cousins to be studied separately; hence, we have witnessed couplings of religion and race, religion and gender, race and gender, with very little being done to explore the intersections of religion, race, and gender as variables of equal or complementary import. Indeed, following in the footsteps of Kimberle Crenshaw (1991), this issue will seek to interrogate the mutual reinforcement of race, gender, and religion in history. While not pursuing these variables, this Issue will also acknowledge the work of Joerg Rieger (2022) in which he explores the intersection of theology, class, identity, and ecology. If adequate responses are to emerge on continuing instances of racial discrimination, systemic racism, gender inequality, an intersectional interrogation of religion, race, and gender (Potter et al., 2019) will be a critical tool for a fuller understanding of the problem and a strong basis for mitigatory interventions.

Focus of this Special Issue

The focus of this Special Issue of Religions is the complementarity and mutually reinforced complicitous relationship of religion, gender, and race in determining the outcomes of different groups of people globally. Using an intersectional and historical approach, this Special Issue seeks to investigate how these categories have mutually reinforced each other in different communities and how this intentional approach opens up opportunities for greater understanding and explanation. This Special Issue will publish rigorous, peer-reviewed research that spans chronological periods and geographical boundaries.

Scope of this Special Issue

The scope of this Special Issue of Religions is the width and depth of religious involvement in all spheres of human life, both personally and communal, including in those spheres that would normally be classified as secular or profane. Due to this broad scope, the Special Issue is designed to accommodate contributions from scholars from varied backgrounds and who use varied approaches to interrogate the subject matter. We welcome submissions from historians, scholars of religion, gender studies theorists, critical race theorists, anthropologists, and sociologists whose work is deeply historical and intersectional in its methodology. It is apparent that studies that avoid one of these categories end up producing results that are neither exhaustive of lived experiences nor explanatory of observed phenomena.

Purpose of this Special Issue

The past decade has witnessed an increase in the popularity of far-right social and political movements globally, especially in the Global North. This development has been accompanied by increasing visibility of gender disinformation, racially prejudiced social commentary, and political rhetoric that have increased the vulnerability of women, girls, and racialized peoples. In order to effectively contribute to reversing these developments, this Special Issue will serve as a platform to unmask how these developments are outcomes of historic and historical constructions that stood at the intersection of religion, gender, and race. This Issue will be a platform to interrogate how the categories of race, gender, and religion have been constructed, contested, and experienced as entities that do not acknowledge the distinction of the sacred and the secular.

Intellectual Contribution

Without claiming to open up a totally new area of study, this Special Issue seeks to complement studies that have consistently and constantly acknowledged the power of intersections and mutual reinforcement of different social categories that define groups of people. While most of the studies in circulation have tended to approach the intersections from a binary perspective–masculine and feminine, sacred and profane, white and black, men and women—this Special Issue seeks to challenge these binaries by treating the categories of race, gender, and religion in a sustained and balanced conversation, in which all three have constitutive and mutually reinforcing roles in the construction and entrenchment of inequalities and injustices, as well as in sustained counter-narratives. This Special Issue will promote a trifocal analytical approach, bridging disciplinary divides, as well as globalizing the conversation. Similarly, while secular and sacred have been treated as mutually exclusive categories, history has had plenty of examples of how secular and religious (sacred) forces have profoundly influenced each other, especially in the historical creation and construction of modern identities, power structures and social movements.

Key Areas of Inquiry for this Special Issue:

1. Theologies of Difference – It will be critical for this issue to interrogate how religious texts, authorities, and traditions have been used to construct, justify, or challenge racial and gender ideologies.

2. Bodies and embodiment – How have religious traditions been used in the regulation, exploitation, affirmation of bodies (racial and gendered) and how have religious and secular institutions collaborated and/or conflicted around the value of human bodies.

3. Empire, Mission, and Conversion – This Special Issue will also seek to interrogate the role of religion in various imperial economic and colonial projects. In what ways were missionary activities informed by racial and gender dynamics of the missionaries’ backgrounds. In what ways were conversations around conversion and syncretism constitutive of the secular institutions?

4. Law and Governance – The history of “whiteness” shows the intertwining of secular and sacred ideas that this Special Issue will do well to investigate how religious laws, beliefs, and texts contributed to the creation of secular laws governing gender and racial identities, marriages, families, and citizenship.

5. Resistance and Liberation – History is replete with religious resistance movements that contributed to liberation and freedom for many communities. From the ancient societies like Israel to modern empires, like the European enslaving and colonial powers, there have been voices of resistance that nurtured an alternative consciousness. How have the categories of race, gender, and religion collaborated in producing and sustaining resistance and liberation?

In all these key focus areas, the role of material and visual culture will need some special attention, in terms of how these forms of media embraced the intersection of the three categories and reinforced them to a degree of normality. It will also be important to constantly interrogate the implications, successes and failures of the political project of secularization on religious, racial, and gender ideologies, especially as they relate to minorities.

Owing to the present overt political and cultural entanglements of race, gender, and religion, an in-depth interrogation and understanding of their historic entanglements is not merely an academic exercise; it is, rather, a scholarly imperative not only for the understanding of the past but for an informed contribution towards sustained liberation, freedom, and justice for victims of historic injustices committed at the intersection of these three categories.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor Masiiwa Ragies Gunda (masiiwa.gunda@wcc-coe.org) or to Genealogy editorial office (genealogy@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purpose of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

References

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299.

Eliade, M. (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Translated by Willard R. Trask). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

Haslanger, S. (2000). Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be? Nous, 34(1), 31-55.

Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Klingorova, K., & Havlicek, T. (2015). Religion and gender inequality: The status of women in the societies of world religions. Moravian Geographical Reports, 23(2), 2-11. DOI: 10.1515/mgr-2015-0006

Potter, L., Zawadzki, M. J., Eccleston, C. P., Cook, J. E., Snipes, S. A., Sliwinski, M. J., & Smyth, J. M. (2019). The Intersections of Race, Gender, Age, and Socioeconomic Status: Implications for Reporting Discrimination and Attributions to Discrimination. Stigma Health, 4(3), 264-281. doi: 10.1037/sah0000099

Prentiss, C. R. (2003). Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York and London: New York University Press.

Riedel, M., & Rau, V. (2025). Religion and race: the need for an intersectional approach. Global Studies in Culture and Power, 32(3), 388-408. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2025.2476300

Rieger, J. (2022). Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Taylor, C. (2007). A Secular Age. London: Belknap Press of Havard.

Weber, M. (2005). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Translated by Talcott Parsons). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

Dr. Masiiwa Ragies Gunda
Guest Editor

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• race
• gender
• religion
• intersectionality
• historical