Material culture

While much of the early study of religions focused on belief and texts, the study of material culture and religions is relatively new. Indeed, the study of material religion itself is a recent development in the fields of archaeology and anthropology. The focus of such study includes folklife, cultural geography, landscape, decorative arts, and archaeological findings, though it should be noted that archaeology has, by definition, only limited contributions to make to the study of NRMs new religious movements (NRMs) as they are 'new'. For the study of this presents a valuable contribution to scholarly knowledge, for above all what material culture looks for is the intrusion of the human on the environment. Examples such as the temple architecture of the Baha'i, the candles and insence of the new age practitioners or reappropriated sites such as Stonehenge come easily to mind. However, the study of material culture and NRMs ought to seek more than such high visability markers. The fashioning, shaping, and arranging of the world that arises from an assumed distinction between nature and culture results in worldview being inscribed constantly and everywhere (Glassie 1999). Accordingly, the study of NRMs and material culture involves seeking objects that people have used in their lives broadly, not just in explicitly religious ceremonies or rituals, as they bear traces of the everyday articulation of worldview by religious practitioners.