Delimiting religion : from religious experience to relational research

Religion is a word that is commonly used in everyday language uncritically by simply assuming that everyone knows what the term means. In like manner, the phrase “to be religious” frequently is employed without explanation to refer to people who practice religion. A prime example is found in the recent television program featuring British television presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle in the BBC production “Scotland’s Sacred Islands.” The description provided by the BBC states that Fogle “is on a very personal pilgrimage” and explains that “travelling across Scotland’s remotest islands, he discovers that their spiritual legacy still resonates today” (BBC 2021). Throughout the four episodes, Fogle repeatedly refers to “religion,” “religious,” “spiritual,” and “sacred,” while taking for granted that his audience will know immediately what he means by these terms. In various interviews with people living on the islands, Fogle discovered that islanders frequently associated religion with the church, religious with those whose Christian faith seemed to mean a great deal to the way they live their lives, spiritual to a sense or feeling of something greater than an individual (as demonstrated by the beauty of the sea, the islands, and the awe-inspiring power of nature), and sacred as something that somehow, inextricably, is evoked by the islands themselves.