The viability of religion: contemporary methodological challenges to knowledge and measurement
The article focuses on analyzing the key methodological challenges to the scholarly understanding and measurement of the phenomenon of religious vitality, set against the backdrop of religion’s active “return” to the public sphere and the recognition that religion is not merely “surviving” but actively mutating, changing its forms of presence, adapting, migrating into new social niches, and finding new sources of energy. The central thesis of the work is that it is within this intellectual context that the concept of “vitality” has evolved from a metaphor into a serious analytical concept, one that requires both theoretical reflection and empirical operationalization. However, it is precisely the attempt to turn this intuitively clear notion into a rigorous research construct that exposes a whole cascade of methodological challenges – ranging from basic problems of definition to the epistemological limits of knowledge. The author systematically examines these challenges at three levels: conceptual (the problem of the 'elusive object of study' and the operationalisation of 'fluid' religiosity), instrumental (the limitations of quantitative methods, the effect of 'false religious congruence', and the potential of qualitative approaches), epistemological (the problems of incommensurability, American and Eurocentrism, 'Christian' templates, the methodological turn towards the East, and the limits of applying the secular scientific apparatus to the sacred sphere). The concept of 'religious vitality' is analysed through three key interpretive lenses: the anthropological (lived religion), the macrosociological (post-secular vitality) and the institutional-managerial (vitality of religious communities). The conclusion points to the necessity of moving from rigid measurement models toward multidimensional, qualitative measurement strategies and processual maps of religious life that are sensitive to indirect forms of its expression, triangulations of methods and theories. The article is saturated with an analysis of the contributions to the outlined problematic by leading Western and Russian sociologists of religion.
Kargina, I. G. (2026), “The viability of religion: contemporary methodological challenges to knowledge and measurement”, Research Result. Sociology and Management, 12 (3), 188-204. DOI: 10.18413/2408-9338-2026-12-3-1-2.
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