Living Religion Collaborative
Annual Vaisakhi ceremony at San Jose Sikh Gurdwara. This historical and religious celebration, observed by both Hindus and Sikhs, marks the beginning of the solar New Year. [Photo by Jason Josephson, 2018]
Explore Living Religion in Silicon Valley with the LRC
Living religion is an approach to studying religion that focuses on the religion, spiritual, and nonreligious experiences of ordinary people in the contexts of their everyday lives—their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, parks and other natural sites as well as houses of worship. The Living Religion Collaborative at Santa Clara University applies this engaged academic approach in the classroom, in research on the local religious landscape, and with local religious communities and practitioners.
[Photo by Elizabeth Drescher, 2020]
This mural in the St. Leo’s neighborhood by artist Lauren Napolitano was completed for the first annual San Jose POW! WOW! Music, arts, and culture festival in October 2017. The mural reads, “Rise Above,” and uses Indigenous imagery and tinwork techniques, connecting back to Napolitano’s Mexican-American heritage. The mural, one of several in the neighborhood, highlights the creative presence and spiritualities of resilience and strength of Californians of Mexican and Indigenous ancestry in Silicon Valley.
Locating Living Religion
Living religion is an approach to studying religion that focuses on the religious, spiritual, and nonreligious experiences of ordinary people in the contexts of their everyday lives--their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, parks and other natural sites as well as houses of worship.
Locating Living Religion
Religion lives in different places throughout the everyday lives of people and communities, shown here as categories of living religious sites or locales. But the categories shown here with distinct images and implied boundaries, helpful though they may be, can be misleading, for religious locales often overlap, with, for example, religious service taking place in worship sites or domestic religion relying commercial religious resources. Click on the boxes shown here to learn more about each category, but do bear in mind that they influence and interact with one another in important ways as individuals and groups practice religion throughout their daily lives.
