TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Culture-free’ religion
T2 - new second-generation Muslims and Christians
AU - Kurien, Prema A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The turn to ‘pure’ Islam cleansed of the cultures of their parents’ homeland traditions by children of Muslim immigrants in Europe and North America has been widely discussed. Scholars have attributed this behavior to factors particular to younger Muslims in the contemporary period or to the nature of Islam itself. In this article, I challenge these arguments by drawing on research on children of Christian immigrants in the United States who support a ‘culture-free’ Christianity, in contrast to the ‘cultural’ Christianity of their parents, and turn to American non-denominational evangelicalism. By making this comparison, my goal is to show that the decoupling of religion and ethnicity by children of immigrants is a broader phenomenon, not just confined to Muslims. I argue that it is a consequence of larger shifts in the understanding and practice of religion and ethnicity as well as assimilative pressures, racialization, and intergenerational dynamics. The comparison also demonstrates that the religious traditions embraced by the children of immigrants are not truly ‘culture-free’, but involve shedding ethnic languages and worship cultures to adopt dominant modes of religiosity.
AB - The turn to ‘pure’ Islam cleansed of the cultures of their parents’ homeland traditions by children of Muslim immigrants in Europe and North America has been widely discussed. Scholars have attributed this behavior to factors particular to younger Muslims in the contemporary period or to the nature of Islam itself. In this article, I challenge these arguments by drawing on research on children of Christian immigrants in the United States who support a ‘culture-free’ Christianity, in contrast to the ‘cultural’ Christianity of their parents, and turn to American non-denominational evangelicalism. By making this comparison, my goal is to show that the decoupling of religion and ethnicity by children of immigrants is a broader phenomenon, not just confined to Muslims. I argue that it is a consequence of larger shifts in the understanding and practice of religion and ethnicity as well as assimilative pressures, racialization, and intergenerational dynamics. The comparison also demonstrates that the religious traditions embraced by the children of immigrants are not truly ‘culture-free’, but involve shedding ethnic languages and worship cultures to adopt dominant modes of religiosity.
KW - Culture-free religion
KW - Muslims
KW - ethnicity
KW - evangelical Christians
KW - second generation
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U2 - 10.1080/13537903.2021.1894742
DO - 10.1080/13537903.2021.1894742
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105069397
SN - 1353-7903
VL - 36
SP - 105
EP - 122
JO - Journal of Contemporary Religion
JF - Journal of Contemporary Religion
IS - 1
ER -