Peter J. Verhagen

1. One question

What is lived religion? One of the newest branches on the tree of the scientifcation of religion at the interface of practical theology, empirical theology and religious studies is the study of lived religion (Knibbe & Kupari, 2020). What do we mean by ‘lived religion’? As a concept, lived religion became popular at the end of the twentieth century. In a rather simple way one could say that lived religion is individual religion or individual religiosity, or to put it slightly diferent and more meaningful: lived religion is personalized or ‘personalived’ religion. It is not difcult to imagine within which cultural context this interest in lived religion blossomed. The decline of the monopoly position of institutionalized religion is obviously the background against which lived religion arose. And that background can be clearly heard in all terms that are used as synonyms for lived religion such as everyday religion, unchurched religion, invisible religion, implicit religion (Dillen, 2016). They all point at one and the same aspect of lived religion: its focus on individual spirituality and religiosity. Incidentally, this should not be interpreted as meaning that lived religion is purely individual oriented. On the contrary, lived religion is in a sense highly relational oriented. So, lived religion is highly personal, but not individualistic, in its daily manifestations and practices. And in its personalized meaning it is a reaction against a focus on institutionalized religion. Therefore it is sometimes called unchurched religion, but it is not necessarily unchurched.