This might strike many as strange. After all, it is not as though recent scholars invented the idea that people pray, worship in churches or temples, or offer sacrifices to the spirits of ancestors. People throughout history have expressed beliefs in God or gods, have prayed and meditated, and have regarded various texts as sacred or divinely inspired. Kevin Schilbrack has helpfully delineated the “religion as a modern construct” discourse into three distinct claims. The first is that the term “religion”