This article contributes to the growing subfield of research on religion and International Relations (IR) by discussing ways to take substantial andsui generisaspects of religion into account. It is argued that IR scholars need more critical methodological and conceptual reflection on how to integrate religion in order to navigate between two typical analytical positions: either focusing on the instrumental relevance of religion only or treating religion as an unchangeable meta-category and delinking it from its practitioners or context. The article first discusses why there is a need to be attentive to distinctive aspects of religion and then moves on to scrutinise three IR-relevant pathways to include these aspects of religion in analysis, namely religion as belief community, religion as power, and religion as speech act. It appears that future research along these lines can contribute significantly to the way IR scholars habitually think about key issues such as parameters of behaviour, standards of legitimacy, and the dynamics of conflicts.

This chapter tries to illustrate that there has been a “sociotheological turn” in contemporary scholarship which encourages social scientists to take stock of the religious justifications for social action, and theologians and scholars of religious studies to be more aware of the social significance of spiritual ideas and practices. Sociotheology takes religious thinking and social context seriously. The approximation of the fields of psychology and theology and sociology as poles in the same discursive dynamics contributes to eroding a stonewall dichotomy between theology and the social sciences. Guidelines for sociotheological studies include demarcating an epistemic worldview, bracketing assumptions about the truth of a worldview, entering into an epistemic worldview, conducting informative conversations, identifying narrative structures, and locating social contexts. The revival of religion in world politics and the rising value of transnational religious movements have offered an analytic dispute that sociotheology has risen to meet.

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This article deals with the definition of the religion sector of securitisation theory, and seeks to strengthen the contribution of securitisation theory to the study of religious violence and doctrinal conflicts. It is argued that the original elaboration of the security sector leans too heavily on a West-centric notion of religion as apolitical and of faith as a distinction between the sacred and the profane. These leanings limit the theory's global applicability, consequently leading to a challengeable formula for the desecuritisation of conflicts with religious dimensions. Two alternative ways of integrating religion within a securitisation framework are suggested, one of which is based on a multidimensional concept of religion that embraces the different dimensions of religion defended by religio-political actors around the world. The second way focuses on doctrines in order to embrace equally the securitisation of doctrines conventionally designated as secular. It is also maintained that convincing reasons exist for treating religion/doctrine as a separate sector, despite the fact that religion appears to have cross-sectoral relevance. A religion/ doctrine sector has strong defining characteristics that, in addition to the referent object(s), also include the criteria for survival and successful securitisation, the narrative structure of religious/ doctrinal securitisations and the proclivity of religion/doctrine towards macrosecuritisation.When religion reappeared on the International Relations (IR) research agenda more than a decade ago, the uncritical adoption of West-centric concepts of religion was called into question. Several contributions have since then pointed to the genealogical inclination of the IR discipline toward a secular bias, most notably due to the foundational narratives