As a religious scholar, Reza Aslan has a way with words. He’s written several religion-based books and countless articles, offered public commentary on everything from Islam to Jesus, and even had a viral war of words with a Fox News host. But for all that he’s said on the topic of religion, Aslan only needs one simple word to define it.
Identity.
As Aslan explains during a conversation with Oprah on OWN’s “SuperSoul Sunday,” the all-encompassing nature of “identity” is what makes it suited to serve as a definition for such an inherently complex, intricate topic.
“Religion is about who you are, how you view yourself in the world, how you understand your relationship to God,” Aslan says. “So, as a matter of identity, it encompasses everything else: your sexuality, your gender, your politics, your nationality, your ethnicity.”
Aslan then offers up an analogy to help one visualize how intertwined religion is with those factors.
“Think of all these things as cords making a single rope,” he suggests. “Religion is one of those cords, and it’s inextricable from those other things. That’s religion.”
Another intriguing spiritual definition:
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