Postnormal Religiosity in Pandemic Times: A Polylogue

Amjad Saleem,Jean Hon,John A Sweeney,Zarina Nalla,Saeed A Khan,Wei Ling Low

doi:10.1177/19467567211025749

Abstract

What constitutes a polylogue? What, in our pandemic times, makes for a meaningful gathering? Of the many and varied things affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, religiosity is one that has certainly garnered attention. How are individuals and communities adapting spiritual practice amidst our truly postnormal times? What challenges and opportunities face spiritual sojourners during a time of global upheaval? Bringing together a diverse array of voices to reflect on some of the many issues related to “postnormal religiosity,” this is not an article or essay but rather a polylogue in both approach and form. Authors, some of whom are unknown to the conveners, were asked to answer some questions and reflect on postnormal religiosity. The product, as such, is as much process as it is polylogue, which offers some insights on this under-theorized concept within postnormal times theory.

Highlights

Why Postnormal Religiosity?and the orthodox do not work anymore, and we enter the domain of the postnormal.If 2020 has taught us anything it is that it is hard to keep faith or trust in what we previously considered to be normal, conventional, or orthodox
The effects of the COVID-19 lockdown shows us that we are in postnormal times where the “conventions about how society is supposed to function have been undermined
Nothing describes the postnormal reality of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown than what has happened within the space of faith and religiosity

Summary

Introduction

The orthodox do not work anymore, and we enter the domain of the postnormal. If 2020 has taught us anything it is that it is hard to keep faith or trust in what we previously considered to be normal, conventional, or orthodox. Nothing describes the postnormal reality of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown than what has happened within the space of faith and religiosity. Even fewer forecasted a transformational change in faith practices and approaches to spirituality and by extension a change in the religiosity of people. The lockdown threatened existing business models for many faith institutions that had hitherto relied on face-to-face engagement to conduct religious worship but more importantly had democratized the space for spiritual practice. Postnormal religiosity is an attempt to sense-make the contours of expressing one’s religiosity and spirituality during times of radical uncertainty, various states of lockdown, and amidst societies requiring distancing. We use the concept of postnormal religiosity in an attempt to interrogate the ethical (and spiritual) implications of perpetual technological advancement amidst enforced lockdowns. What was the most challenging part of religious and spiritual experiences during the pandemic?

What would you do differently in hindsight?

Findings

A Time to Change