Revisiting the Relevance of Religion in the Post-Covid-19 Pandemic: A Critical Analysis through the Lense of Religious Scholarship – Freud, James, and Dewey

Abstract

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic provides not only challenges the current states of economy, health, and society, but also the relevance of religion.  Some scholars observe that Covid-19 pandemic triggers the rise of religious beliefs and attitudes that tend to deny scientific explanation of the pandemic and its rational coping.  This unscientific religiosity is deemed irrelevant in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, others maintain that religious values and experiences are useful to cope with the consequences of the pandemic. In these two instances, religion’s relevance in the modern world is revisited, whether religion should be ignored or considered to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the lens of religious scriptural and scholastic tradition of Sigmund Freud, William James, and John Dewey, this paper weighs in the relevance of religion and shows which aspects of religion are irrelevant and which elements of religion are relevant to cope with the pandemic and its ramifications.