Religious matters transform, sometimes rapidly, sometimes almost imperceptibly; still others resist change and accentuate their permanence in back-and-forth processes that challenge explanations that were thought to be settled.

Modernity predicted the end of religion through secularization processes, but rather than an end, it has encountered a plurality of beliefs and practices (Parker, 1993; Tec-López, 2021). Especially in Latin America, we are witnessing a revitalization of the symbolic-religious (Parker, 1994). In this sense, secularization in the region had lesser impacts (Frigerio, 2018), or rather, different/multiple impacts (Mallimaci, 2008). Religion found itself in a scenario of readjustment and reconfiguration (Hervieu-Leger, 2004). These processes have allowed us to glimpse the level of pluralization of the religious field as a sign of Latin American religious modernity, rather than a re-enchantment of societies (Cox, 1994; Berger, 1999). Religion never disappeared; instead, it fragmented and became deinstitutionalized (Mardones, 2003): “instead of making it disappear, [deinstitutionalization] has led to its diffusion” (Parker, 1994, p. 247). Thus, we find the most varied forms of intersection of religion with different spheres of life.

We observe how religion sustains a complex network of interactions with different fields of social reality. With the political field, this occurs through leadership (Fediakova, 2013; Murillo, 2018; Mazariegos, 2020; Paz-González, 2021), social movements (Vera-Belanzario, 2018), and public policies and political-electoral participation (Pérez and Grundberger, 2019; Tec-López, 2020, 2022; Ulloa Gómez, 2022). In this sense, the current debate surrounding sexual and reproductive rights has been important, positioning gender and sexuality as fields of contested meaning in which religion has played a significant role (Araujo, 2008; Blancarte, 2015; Barrales, 2020; Tec-López, 2021). In the field of economics, this is evident in the face of reconfigurations and mercantilist approaches (Donatello, 2011). In the social sphere, it is observed in the struggles for the defense and promotion of human rights (Levine, 2015; Irrazábal, 2019), attention to vulnerable groups (De León, 2021), violence (Wild, 2015; López-Pérez, 2018; Delgado-Molina, 2020), inequalities (Vilchis, 2022), and sociodigital presence (Bárcenas-Barajas, 2019; Sgró, 2021; Paz-González, 2022; Castellanos, 2022). In the cultural sphere, it is seen in customs and traditions (Juárez-Huet, 2017), values ​​and morality (Mazariegos, 2018), and cultural products (Wright and Messineo, 2013; Frigerio, 2018). Even geographical factors are involved: mobilizations, geographies, and spatio-temporal configurations that influence religious processes from a historical perspective (García-Ruiz, 2010; Carpio, 2021). These spheres, while not new, do consolidate their own dynamics, demanding different perspectives, methodologies, methods, theories, positions, fieldwork, and processes of reflexivity.

In response to this, the Working Group "Religions and Society: Tensions, Diversities, and Mobilizations in Debate" seeks to encourage the production, dissemination, connection, and interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, intergenerational, and horizontal social intervention of knowledge, where the dialogue of knowledge allows us to construct and approach our inherently diffuse object of study in diverse ways. From this perspective, we examine a complex field of tensions, antinomies, flows, and becomings that compel us to consider religion from intersectional perspectives.

We seek to understand the religious field in the region as a diverse field, in constant interaction with others and among its own diversities, within the complex dynamics of modernity (Berger, 2015). We are referring to a dimension of social life that demands an analysis of its intersections with fields whose relationship, conflict, or transformation, and even less so its future problems, are not necessarily visible.

To explore these changes, we emphasize 4 dimensions:

Religious change in Latin America.

In terms of institutionalized beliefs, this religious shift has been measured primarily by the decline in the number of Catholics, but this is not the only dimension. In the Working Group, we seek to delve deeper into macro data, analyze the processes, and understand, in an articulated and complex way, the religious dynamics of Latin America. The region possesses diverse dynamics that allow for a variety of beliefs, which may or may not be framed within an institution, which may respond to specific circumstances, drive social change, and are all part of the Latin American configuration that characterizes us as a geographical, historical, political, social, cultural, and, of course, religious space.

That is why we delve into religious diversity and pluralism (Berger, 2005), the processes of secularization and laicization (Capdevielle and Arlettaz, 2019), the subjectivation of beliefs (Tovar-Simonic, 2019; Morello, 2021), the varieties of believing and practicing within a religious institution (De la Torre, 2006), hybridizations, intercultural dynamics and inter- and intrareligious dialogue (Luckmann, 2013; Panotto, 2018), the presence (or absence) of the religious in the community, the extrapolation of the religious to sociopolitical stages, among others that allow us to explain how all of this is transformed.

The institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and reinstitutionalization of religion

Beliefs are not necessarily formed within an institution; however, at the same time, beliefs can transform a part of the institution that frames them. These interplay of meaning and conflict reveal transformative practices or beliefs. The increase in people without religion is not synonymous with an absolute rejection of religion, nor does it mean that people without religious affiliation renounce a faith fostered within the institution. Rather, it means they do not necessarily fully subscribe to it, or that they seek to transform it, contradict it, discuss it, or engage in dialogue with it; they create and recreate it. Likewise, different groups and churches reformulate their beliefs and practices in response to diverse social realities, in accordance with contextual or specific theological proposals. Given this diversity, we understand that religious institutions can provide frameworks for interpretation and meaning, but they are not the determining factors in people's beliefs and practices, although their influence operates on multiple levels.

The importance of beliefs lies in the fact that, however contemplative a religion may be, however much it focuses on the afterlife, doctrinal convictions have repercussions in the social environment where they develop (Blancarte, 1996). Furthermore, the dimension of beliefs is the one most affected by what has been termed "institutional deregulation," that is, the formation of a framework of beliefs independent of what the institution teaches (Hérvieu-Leger, 2005). This institutional deregulation, arising from the crisis of legitimacy of clerical authority and the decline of parochial civilization, has led to the cessation of the "imaginary of continuity," that is, the "symbolic framework" that provides meaning. For a long time, the parish embodied this imaginary, as it was around the parish that the community's memory was articulated, its space was defined, and its members were identified, all under the influence of the clergy. Its fall signified the break with the tradition that rigidly governed the dogma.

In this way, the contemporary believer constructs their own belief system in a manner of "collages and bricolages," creating tensions with tradition, to which they may feel a sense of belonging, but not of being regulated by it. However, in this new world of beliefs, there is also room for "the return to tradition," which usually occurs among those who have rediscovered their own tradition, a process from which young people are not exempt (Hervieu-Leger, 2004).

Non-hegemonic religious proposals

As a consequence of the aforementioned points, various religious proposals have consolidated, though for different reasons they do not achieve hegemony over others. Here we can study those emerging, situational, dissident, and alternative beliefs and practices within a specific spatiotemporal dimension, but which are not perceived as such by the believers who live, nurture, and position them. According to Morello (2022), it is necessary to emphasize the processes through which believers experience religion; that is, how they accept, reject, negotiate, intersect, and reinterpret the religious elements found in religious and social institutions, in daily life, and in the political sphere. Therefore, we propose focusing on the believer's perspective, on understanding the religious experiences and transformations of those who live through the diverse processes of faith and spirituality.

We find two aspects: 1) beliefs and practices that have become institutionally established, but for various reasons do not acquire hegemonic status, such as evangelical churches, Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and migrant spiritualities, which, although they consist of a whole historical tradition and established elements, are not considered hegemonic by those in power. This same category includes various manifestations of popular religiosity, legally constituted religious organizations, and cultural institutions that are not necessarily religious but incorporate religious characteristics; 2) beliefs and practices that arise in response to more specific situations, communities, or problems—the entire religious world not regulated by institutions, but which does not necessarily conflict with them: devotions to Santa Muerte (Hernández, 2016), San Cayetano, San La Muerte, or San Malverde exemplify this aspect. Also, those beliefs and practices that have gained global presence, such as manifestations of New Age or Mexican identity (De la Torre, Gutiérrez and Dansac, 2021).

The influence of religion on social life

A key aspect that emerges from the three points mentioned above is the manifestation of religious practices and beliefs beyond the traditional spheres where classical studies situate them. We are referring to how religion manifests itself, engages with, and clashes with the various social problems of the region. This includes migration, inequality, the electoral environment, public programs and policies, the configuration of the body, gender and sexual diversity, discrimination based on ethnicity, class, and religion, the defense and promotion of human rights, religiously inspired organizations, social movements, activism, leadership development, and cultural mediation, among many others that explicitly and implicitly demonstrate how religion intersects with different spheres of social life.

In this way, we bring into play the theories, methodologies, methods, and processes of reflexivity developed in different parts of the region. Although the approach is based on religious change and its consequent diversity, its interaction, changes, transformations, and continuities, we do not intend for this to be a limitation to horizontal work that responds to different realities, based on an approach grounded in interdisciplinarity and complexity as articulating points.