Popular religion refers to a general, global, and omnipresent cultural and social aspect of religiosity. The notion has a somewhat ambiguous character since it designates (a) traditional forms of religiosity of the “common” people, also known as “folk” religion, and (b) mass cultural and (c) contemporary forms of late-modern or postmodern religiosity, both in churches as well as among lay persons. Since in both cases the popularity of religiosity is defined in relation to “popular culture,” the apparent ambiguity can be explained by the historical transformation and global interspersion of popular culture.

Folk Religion

Popular religion includes forms of beliefs, actions, and material objects adapted, transformed, or created by lay people and sometimes seen as survival of more traditional customs. Examples of such forms in Western ...

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