Introduction: The World Religions Paradigm in contemporary Religious Studies

Abstract

The discursive nature of the term sacred will be discussed in relation to the annual Beltane event at Thornborough Henge in Yorkshire. Both Emile Durkheim and Mircea Eliade employed the binary sacred and profane' as an analytical framework for cross-cultural comparisons of social organizations often labelled religious. Eliade's sacred' emerges from a cosmic region that is ontologically real. Although Eliade employs the same oppositional terms, he ignores Durkheim's sociological usage and instead takes his cue from Rudolf Otto's Idea of the Holy. According to Veikko Anttonen, the theological argument for employing the term sacred' is that there can be no religion without it as it is the essence of religion, which he says is seen in the work of Otto, van der Leeuw and Eliade, among others. The triad of ritualization, reinterpretation and contestation of sacred space' is apparent at sites such as Thornborough Henge in Yorkshire during the Beltane festival.