Religion, aesthetics and moral ontology

This article argues for a broader sociological conception of religion. Religion includes practices that engage with this world in rich and complex ways alongside experiences of transcendence. Religion encompasses a broad palette of aesthetic and emotional experiences that include, but are not confined to, solemnity and beauty. Religious moral ontologies can be both pluralist and dualist. The aesthetic turn in contemporary religion is described, noting associations with individualism, and pluralistic moral ontologies. The concept of pluralistic moral ontology is developed drawing on Nietzsche's analysis of aesthetics, Carl Einstein's examination of the relationship of aesthetics to myth and ritual, and a discussion of tragedy in classical Greece. Empirically, the role of aesthetics is manifest in a number of contemporary ethnographies of religion that emphasise the centrality of practice and performance to religion. The film trilogy The Lord of the Rings provides an example of the link between aesthetic experience of myth and pluralistic moral ontologies.