Modernity anticipated the end of religion through secularization processes; however, rather than leading to the privatization or irrelevance of religion, these processes have given rise to a plurality of beliefs and practices (Parker, 1993). From the Global North, studies have reported spiritual processes marked by the individualization of the religious phenomenon, where individuals act as spiritual seekers (Wuthnow, 1998) within a free and competitive religious market (Roof, 1999). Nevertheless, research conducted in the Global South, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, has challenged these interpretations (Morello, Rabbia, and Da Costa, 2017).

In this sense, secularization in the region has had minor impacts (Frigerio, 2018), or rather, different and multiple ones (Mallimaci, 2008). We have witnessed a revitalization of the symbolic-religious (Parker, 1994) where religion has 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). In this sense, religion never disappeared; instead, it has been reconfigured, blurring the boundaries with other spheres of life and generating varied forms of intersection between religion and society (Parker, 1994).

In this way, 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), the reconfiguration of secularism (Da Costa, 2011; Gaytán, 2018), public policies, and political-electoral participation (Pérez and Grundberger, 2019; Tec-López, 2020, 2022; Ulloa Gómez, 2022; Gaytán, 2025). 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; Vaggione, 2018; Morán Faúndes, 2019; Barrales, 2020; Tec-López, 2021)

In the field of economics, in the face of reconfigurations and mercantilist approaches (Donatello, 2011). In the social sphere, in the struggles for the defense and promotion of human rights (Levine, 2015; Irrazábal, 2019), attention to vulnerable groups (De León, 2021; Orellana, 2024), violence (Wild, 2015; López-Pérez, 2018; Delgado-Molina, 2020), inequalities (Vilchis, 2022), and socio-digital presence (Bárcenas-Barajas, 2019; Sgró, 2021; Paz-González, 2022; Castellanos, 2022). In the cultural sphere: customs and traditions (Juárez-Huet, 2017), values ​​and morality (Mazariegos, 2018), and cultural products. (Wright and Messineo, 2013; Frigerio, 2018) Even with the geographical: mobilizations, geographies, and spatiotemporal configurations, which influence religious processes from a historical and political perspective (García-Ruiz, 2010; Carpio, 2021). Spheres that, while not new, do consolidate their own dynamics that demand different perspectives, methodologies, methods, theories, positions, fieldwork, and processes of reflexivity.

In response to this, the Working Group on Religions and Society: Tensions 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, dynamic space in constant interaction with other fields, as well as with its own internal diversities, within the complex dynamics of modernity (Berger, 2015). It is a dimension of social life whose relevance demands an analysis of its intersections with areas where its presence, conflict, transformation, or future impact are not always visible. In this sense, and to substantiate and analyze the theoretical, social, and intellectual importance of the phenomenon in the context described above, we highlight four central dimensions:

Religious change in Latin America.

Religious change is often measured by the decline in the number of Catholics, but this is only part of the phenomenon. At the Working Group, we seek to go beyond macro data to understand, in an articulated and complex way, the diversity of Latin American religious dynamics, marked by institutional and non-institutional beliefs, specific circumstances, and processes of social transformation.

Therefore, we delve into religious diversity and pluralism (Berger, 2005); secularism and secularization (Zavala-Pelayo and Góngora-Mera, 2016; Da Costa, 2018; Gaytán, 2018; Capdevielle and Arlettaz, 2019); the subjectivation of beliefs (Tovar-Simonic, 2019; Morello, 2021); the ways of believing within institutions (De la Torre, 2006); as well as hybridizations, intercultural dynamics and inter- and intrareligious dialogues (Luckmann, 2013; Panotto, 2018), and the presence or absence of the religious in the community and the sociopolitical, to explain how all these dimensions are transformed.

The institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and reinstitutionalization of religion

Beliefs do not always originate within institutions, but they can transform the frameworks that institutions establish. The growing proportion of people without religion does not imply a rejection of religion, but rather forms of distancing, reinterpretation, or recreation of faith (Da Costa, Morello, Rabbia, and Romero, 2021). Likewise, different groups reformulate beliefs and practices in dialogue with contextual theologies (Santos Meza and Córdoba Quero, 2025). Thus, although institutions offer frameworks of meaning, these do not entirely determine the practices of believers, who maintain diverse and nuanced relationships with the institutional.

The importance of beliefs lies in their social impact, even in contemplative religions (Blancarte, 1996). This dimension is also the one most affected by institutional deregulation, that is, the formation of belief systems independent of clerical authority (Hervieu-Léger, 2005), associated with the decline of the "imaginary of continuity." In this context, contemporary believers construct collages and bricolages that are in tension with tradition, although returns to the religious legacy are also observed, including among young people (Hervieu-Léger, 2004).

Non-hegemonic lived religious proposals

The transformations described have given rise to diverse religious proposals that, for multiple reasons, have not achieved hegemony. This includes emerging, situational, dissident, or alternative beliefs and practices, which acquire full meaning for those who experience and nurture them. As Morello (2022) points out, it is necessary to emphasize the processes by which believers accept, reject, negotiate, intersect, or reinterpret the religious elements present in institutions and in social and political life. From this perspective, we propose focusing on lived religiosity (Da Costa, Pereira, and Brusoni, 2019; Juárez Huet, De la Torre, and Gutiérrez Zúñiga, 2022) to understand the experiences and transformations of those who undergo diverse processes of faith and spirituality.

Within this framework, we distinguish two strands. The first encompasses institutionally consolidated but non-hegemonic beliefs and practices, such as evangelical churches, Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and migrant spiritualities, along with expressions of popular religiosity and non-hegemonic religious or cultural organizations. The second comprises beliefs and practices arising from specific situations or communities, part of a religious world not regulated by institutions but not necessarily in conflict with them. Examples include devotions such as Santa Muerte (Hernández, 2016; Yllescas, 2016), San Cayetano, San La Muerte, and San Malverde, as well as global manifestations such as New Age and Mexican identity (De la Torre, Gutiérrez, and Dansac, 2021).

The religious phenomenon in intersectionality

Considering intersectionality in the study of religious phenomena allows us to understand how faith experiences are shaped at the intersection of axes such as gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and generation. This perspective reveals that religion operates within power structures that affect individuals differently, producing specific experiences of exclusion, participation, or agency, as well as internal inequalities within the religious field and tensions in the processes of belonging (Cantero-Sánchez and Ramírez González, 2023).

Furthermore, intersectionality reveals how religious institutions shape and are shaped by broader social dynamics. Doctrines and practices can reinforce hierarchies or generate spaces of resistance and identity reconfiguration. Analyzing the religious phenomenon from these intersections allows us to understand both the reproduction and the questioning of forms of domination, and to recognize the diversity of trajectories and experiences that shape contemporary religious worlds.