{"id":90,"date":"2026-02-05T10:57:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/?page_id=90"},"modified":"2026-02-14T20:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:12:21","slug":"project-synthesis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/research\/total-devotion\/project-synthesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Synthesis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Total Devotion from Past to Present:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An Interview Synthesis* on Radical Religion in the Ancient World and What It might Teach us Today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauritz Holm Petersen, PhD<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWith the Total Devotion project, I wanted to create a space for thinking about both ancient and contemporary forms of radical religion and hopefully shed new light on contemporary forms by emphasising aspects that haven\u2019t received as much attention.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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*Based on interviews with Laura Feldt, Ingvild Gilhus, Christian H\u00f8gel, Klazina Staat, Esther Eidinow, Pieter Nanninga, and Jan Bremmer. Click here<\/a> for the full interviews<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Radical forms of religion<\/strong> \u2013 including extreme beliefs and behaviours as well as radical religious groups considered deviant in relation to a given social and historical context – have been the object of intense scholarly activity inan array of disciplines within the social sciences and humanities in recent decades, in particular since the 9\/11 terrorist attack in NYC. While crucial insights have been generated within focus areas such as marginalisation, radicalisation, and violence mobilisation, the field remains primarily focused on contemporary forms of radical religion \u2013 particularly within Islam \u2013 leaving historical cases and constituencies largely underexamined (Feldt 2023a). Additionally, recent contributions to the field have called for a heightened focus on group-internal dynamics and ideals of religiosity that shape radical beliefs and sustain group membership \u2013 \u2018staying-in\u2019 or \u2018pull factors\u2019 \u2013 in addition to the often prioritized \u2018push factors\u2019 leading to affiliation with radical groups and ideologies in the first place (Feldt 2023;  Juergensmeyer & Sheikh 2013; Nanninga 2014; Dawson 2018; Aran 2013).<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Total Devotion project<\/strong>, funded by the Danish Independent Research fund (2021-2025), has addressed these existing shortcomings by developing a new theoretical framework highlighting the role of narrativity<\/em> and emotionality<\/em> in the establishment of group-internal ideals of devotion that drive and sustain radical religious social formations. A core team of scholars of religion and ancient religions, spearheaded by PI Laura Feldt, Professor of the Study of Religion at the University of Bergen and previously Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, has applied this framework to historical cases of radical religion in the pre-Islamic ancient world. The result is a thorough historization of the phenomenon of radical religion that traces aspects of its emergence and development in the ancient world, and it shows how a focus on ancient narrative and emotional practices, mediation, and in-group dynamics, can help us move beyond conceptions of radical religion as a specifically modern phenomenon, while also enriching our conceptual apparatus to understand the phenomenon as such, past and present. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The following text seeks to synthesise the project\u2019s findings, based on a series of interviews with affiliated scholars. Below follows an outline of the project\u2019s theoretical framework, exemplified through concrete analytical findings from the project contributors. Lastly, these findings are discussed in relation to contemporary research trajectories, highlighting the utility of foregrounding narrativity, emotionality, mediation, and in-group dynamics in the study of radical religion today.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Total Devotion: A new framework<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The past couple of decades of interest in radical religion across social-scientific and humanistic disciplines, as well as in intelligence agencies and media cooperations, has resulted in a plurality of concepts, each highlighting specific aspects of the phenomenon \u2013 from fundamentalism and terrorism to radicalization and violent extremism \u2013 all with the common (and justifiable) ethos of unfolding a phenomenon thought to undermine democratic societies, civic order and public safety (Feldt 2023). Moreover, as noted by terrorism researcher and sociologist Gideon Aran, common Western conceptualisations of religion as a largely belief-centred phenomenon have skewed our understanding of radical religion as constituted mainly by radical beliefs<\/em>, at the expense of a theoretical sensitivity towards other forms of radical behavior such as all-consuming ritualistic behaviours, that are not necessarily undergirded by explicit beliefs (Aran 2013). Consequently, our current conceptualisation of radical religion tends to be both negatively valenced, belief-centric, and constructed around notions of group-society relations tied primarily to the political and cultural landscape of the 21st<\/sup> century. Yet, the factors shaping individual membership and behaviour, beyond historically specific \u2018push factors\u2019 such as alienation, marginalisation and\/or secularisation in modernity, relate to fundamental aspects of human sociality and identity, narrativity and emotionality \u2013 aspects that do not necessarily entail easily defined supernatural \u201cbeliefs\u201d.  <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As an umbrella term covering all of the established concepts related to radical religion, as well as conventionally overlooked, non-violent and ritualized forms, Total Devotion <\/em>highlights 1) the intensity of the relation between a deity and the devotee\/s and\/or the intensity of relations within the group\u201d <\/em>and 2) \u201cthe all-encompassing quality of the devotion that can be said to characterise these forms of religion\u201d, thus leaving the \u201csocietal and historical context empirically open\u201d (Feldt 2023). As such, the term facilitates a comparative analytical program by allowing cross-historical and cross-cultural comparisons, including distinctions between violent and non-violent forms, and between marginalised movements at the cultural fringe and radical tendencies at the heart of societies. This comparative applicability is further facilitated by a theoretical focus on narrativity<\/em> and emotionality <\/em>as social practices<\/em> that facilitate the construction of shared ideals of devotion and sustained group affiliation, past and present. Given this, the project asked: How do total devotion ideals and practices emerge? How do emotions and narrativity play together in concrete textual evidence for total devotion? And, finally, how can emotions and narrativity perspectives and analyses of emic perfection ideals and practices contribute to the broader study of radical religion?<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Competition, Status, and Other Group-internal Drivers of Emic Perfection Ideals<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Shifting the analytical focus away from group-society relations and towards group-internal dynamics yielded new perspectives on the establishment and drivers of radical religious ideals. Across the case studies, it has become evident that internal competition <\/em>between group members or group factions is an important factor that propels shared ideals of devotion beyond what is considered conventional in a given social and historical context: <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWhen we look across examples of ancient radical religion, we see this pattern everywhere: ascetics have specific ideals of perfect devotion, martyrs have others. These ideals create hierarchies and competition. Religious actors don\u2019t just scale devotion – they compete over who is most perfectly devoted. (\u2026) They judge who is \u2018perfectly devoted,\u2019 who is merely \u2018lukewarm,\u2019 or who is \u2018devoted in the wrong way.\u2019 (\u2026) That competition is a crucial in-group dynamic in radical religion.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

An illustrative case in point is the peculiar phenomenon of performative weeping in third- and fourth-century Pachomian monasticism in Egypt, treated by Professor of Religion and project affiliate, Ingvild S\u00e6lid Gilhus<\/a> (2023). In this context, excessive weeping became established as an ideal emotional practice,<\/em> indicating awareness of the imperfect nature of this world and thus a devotional orientation towards the next. Crucially, however, by looking at the group-internal dynamics surrounding this practice, weeping appears not only as an individual practice directed at imagined other worlds, but as a complex social phenomenon shaped by group-internal norms. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWeeping became a way of adapting to life in this world, a visible sign of one\u2019s inner struggle and repentance. But the sources also show an awareness that weeping had to be appropriate. If one wept too much, it could be embarrassing for others; yet if one didn\u2019t weep enough, it might suggest a lack of devotion. So, there\u2019s an inner dialogue in the texts about what constitutes the right way to weep – the perfect balance of emotional expression. (\u2026) The ideal wasn\u2019t to show the outside world how sad or penitent you were. It was directed inward\u2014towards the community itself. It was an in-group expression of shared ideals.\u201d (Interview, Gilhus 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Even in the context of asceticism – commonly understood as an individualised, inner devotional practice manifesting in withdrawal from society and \u201cthe voluntary abstention (\u2026) from physical goods that are central to the well-being of humankind\u201d (See Finn 2012) \u2013 the Total Devotion framework makes apparent constitutive social dimensions<\/em> relating to in-group dynamics. As noted by Professor of Ancient Greek and Byzantine culture at Lund University, Christian H\u00f8gel<\/a>, who has contributed with an analysis of the dramatic acts of fifth- century Byzantine pillar saint, Simeon Stylites (H\u00f8gel 2023):  <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cMost ascetics sought isolation, humility, and anonymity: living in the desert, hidden from the world. That\u2019s the classic story. But then we have Simeon Stylites. (\u2026) He began like other ascetics: joining monasteries, engaging in harsh ascetic practices. But then, at some point, he climbed onto a pillar. That act was radically different. He became immensely visible, physically elevated above the world. Symbolically, this was the opposite of humility. Yet, paradoxically, it worked: he attracted crowds, inspired mass conversions, and became a public spectacle. (\u2026) His performance had a dual dynamic: On one hand, his elevation, literally and symbolically, declared, \u2018I am closer to God than the rest of you.\u2019 That message would have been obvious to anyone watching him from below. On the other hand, his followers (\u2026) participated in constructing and amplifying this act of devotion. The performance happens in the eyes of others, creating a reciprocal relationship between the admired and the admirer. Devotion becomes an exchange: Those watching are moved and inspired, while the performer is motivated to sustain or intensify his radical commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

H\u00f8gel continues: <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe practicalities of such an ascetic feat are formidable. (\u2026) These figures are often portrayed as solitary individuals, lonely heroes of faith, but that\u2019s rarely accurate. The theme of seclusion makes such portrayals plausible, but in reality, they almost always had companions or helpers who made their practice possible\u201d. (Interview, H\u00f8gel 2025)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A similar observation is made by Klazina Staat<\/a>, Assistant Professor at Vrije University, who has analysed late antique Lives<\/em> of Christian ascetics as textual representations of total devotion. Here, she highlights the somewhat paradoxical relationship between ascetic withdrawal and the subsequent increase in social attention, fame, and status (Staat 2023; See also Brunert, 1994 on the \u2018Fama-effect\u2019): <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cOne\u2019s holiness should not become too well known, because that would lead to pride, which is obviously undesirable. If you boast about your holiness, that itself shows that you are not holy. So secrecy is crucial. But by withdrawing, the saints paradoxically attract attention. (\u2026) Their physical absence encourages people to tell stories about them; they become objects of rumour. Through this, their fame and charisma grow. (\u2026) Asceticism is not simply withdrawal. It becomes a way of claiming a place within a community through withdrawal.\u201d (Interview, Staat 2025)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Also outside the context of early Christianity and ascetic practices, examples indicate how totally devoted religious actors were invested with authority by the people around them, or the people who would subsequently come to recognize their actions. As laid out by Esther Eidinow<\/a>, professor of ancient history at the University of Bristol, the Greek nympholepts \u2013 <\/em>individuals engaged in devotional practices towards nymphs in desolated areas \u2013 too became invested with social authority despite what appears as attempts to escape the sociality of urban life (Eidinow 2023):<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWere they isolated and marginalised? This has been the argument in much of Greek scholarship. But I\u2019m not convinced. I think there are different ways of interpreting the evidence that help us understand the networks they existed within. (\u2026) I don\u2019t think they were isolated or marginalised. They may also have had particular gifts resulting from their relationship with the nymphs, for example, oracular abilities that allowed them to do prophecy. That would make them extraordinary. (\u2026) These individuals, because they have done all this work and have offered themselves, in a sense, to the gods – they\u2019re dedicating themselves within the space, physically inscribing themselves into it – seem to become invested, or at least plausibly invested, with some authority. (\u2026) They were not isolated or marginalised. If anything, they were moving in important ways within a group of people who relied on them, people for whom they had initiated or expanded a cult.\u201d (Interview, Eidinow 2025)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These historical cases suggest that Total Devotion is perhaps rarely a simple matter of individual piety or world-rejecting withdrawal but is continually produced and intensified within concrete social contexts marked by hierarchies and in-group competition. Ideals of perfection and totality, whether in the form of withdrawal from urbanity or bodily hardship, become benchmarks against which members measure themselves and one another, creating internal value hierarchies and escalating ideals of proper devotion. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, such dynamics, integral as they are to human group-living, are not confined to late antique contexts of monasticism or nymph cults: contemporary radical religious milieus, too, mobilise in-group competition as powerful mechanisms for commitment and even recruitment. Pieter Nanninga\u2019s<\/a> research on the Jihadi-culture and the media propaganda of Islamic State (Nanninga, forthcoming) shows how the construction of devotional ideals is facilitated by the display of individual willingness to sacrifice, and that such signals are aimed not primarily at intimidating members of a general outgroup, but constitute an emotionally charged recruitment strategy for drawing in peripheral or future in-group members:   <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cSacrifice is not only about suicide attacks. It is also a general narrative theme: people sacrificing their lives, their families, and everything they have in order to join the Islamic State, travel to Syria, and devote themselves to the “good cause.” This is emphasised repeatedly in their videos. A very concrete example is the videos they made featuring disabled fighters\u2014people who were blind or paralysed and sitting in wheelchairs. The Islamic State would say: \u2018These people have sacrificed so much for our cause. They were wounded or disabled because they sacrificed themselves.\u2019 The implicit message to the audience is: \u2018If even blind people are joining, what is your excuse?\u2019 This is a clear example of how they fuel internal competition. They present role models, whether suicide bombers or a man in a wheelchair, who have sacrificed everything. The implied challenge is: \u2018What about you? Why aren\u2019t you joining us?\u2019\u201d (Interview, Nanninga 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This point is further illustrated by the fact that, in ISIS propaganda, Nanninga notes, the material goals of sacrificial acts – whether, for instance, an attacker succeeds in reaching their target and harm or undermine the imagined outgroup \u2013 are seldomly a central part of the narrative, as illustrated in one particular propaganda video: <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIn that video, the suicide bomber says farewell to his family, gets into a vehicle rigged with explosives, and then we see an explosion from far away. But you don\u2019t see any aftermath; no victims, no destroyed buildings, none of that. The act itself is the symbol: a symbol of sacrifice, of piety, of honour. The meaning lies in the willingness to carry out the act, not in its tactical outcome.\u201d (Interview, Nanninga 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While a theoretical and empirical focus on group-society relations is central to explaining such cases of militarised radical religion, as well as the more general appeal of radical religion in contemporary contexts, a group-internal perspective on shared ideals and competition is better suited to explain such examples in which the production of cultural meanings is clearly aimed at other ingroup members. Moreover, it allows us to see such contemporary forms as related both phenomenologically and historically to past cases of total devotion, including the non-violent ones.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Role of Emotionality and Narrativity in the Emergence and Appeal of Radical Religion<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To further unpack the phenomenon of total devotion in radical religion and facilitate a move beyond the belief-centred conceptualisations of radical religion characterising dominant theoretical models, the project has centred on the conceptual nexus of emotionality <\/em>and narrativity: <\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cI see emotions as embodied assessments of social situations. Something happens in the body, but it\u2019s always interpreted through a cultural and social framework – how we name emotions, how we regulate them, how others respond. And emotions are always linked to narratives. That\u2019s one of the major points in my own research. Think about anger: you can\u2019t have the emotion of anger without a story – \u2018I\u2019m angry because he did that to me.\u2019 The emotion always implies a narrative structure: who did what to whom. Emotions are relational; they\u2019re about social situations. So from my perspective, there\u2019s no way to talk about emotions outside of sociality and narrative.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Referring to Sara Ahmed\u2019s work on affective economies (Ahmed 2004), Feldt continues, <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThis kind of regulation is even more pronounced in radically religious groups. (\u2026) The cultivation of devotion toward one\u2019s deity is often accompanied by the cultivation of disgust or hatred toward outsiders. These opposite emotions reinforce each other. They\u2019re connected through narrative frameworks that tell members who belong and who do not. For example, the cultivation of total devotion to Yahweh is intimately tied to the destruction of religious objects associated with other gods. Those objects are portrayed as disgusting or impure. And we can observe the same dynamic in modern examples, such as ISIS\u2019s destruction of ancient Mesopotamian statues in Nineveh in 2014.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Based on this conceptualisation of emotionality as both embodied, socially situated, and narrativised, Feldt argues that this focus can help us understand both the emergence of radical forms of religion as well as their continuous appeal throughout history, as the deeds of totally devoted actors became narrativised in texts and stories. For instance, the dynamic imperial milieu of the Near East in which Judaism of the Second Temple period (516 BCE \u2013 70 CE) was situated, a period characterised by instability, displacement, and cultural exchange, exemplifies how a particular socio-historical and geopolitical context has likely prompted a renewed emphasis on internality and emotionality in devotional ideals within ancient Judean culture:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIn this later period of instability and displacement, we begin to see new religious tendencies emerging, such as those expressed in Deuteronomy, that emphasise the internalisation of devotion (\u2026) an explicit focus on the inner self as the locus of religious life. Here, devotion is no longer primarily a matter of temple ritual or public sacrifice. It becomes a matter of remembering, loving, and training one\u2019s heart and mind to remain faithful to Yahweh\u2014even in exile. That emphasis on inward, emotional, and continuous devotion is something I have not found in earlier Mesopotamian material.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As a cultural response to displacement, the idea of totality<\/em> in individual emotional commitment is introduced as an imperative in devotional practices, in contrast to the locality-oriented ritual practices characterising archaic temple religion. This cultural innovation is mirrored in a similar emphasis on totality in second-century Christianity, a period characterised by Roman persecutions of the increasingly visible Christ followers. As described by project member, Professor Emeritus Jan Bremmer <\/a>(University of Groningen), who i.a. contributed to the project with an analysis of the Acts of Peter <\/em>and second-century martyrdom:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201c[The] emphasis on total devotion [in Acts of Peter] reflects the pressure Christians faced from the outside. For the movement to survive, believers needed to internalise their commitment. If persecution or social marginalisation threatened them, this inward, all-encompassing faith helped them resist apostasy. (\u2026) Totality, the involvement of the whole person, was a strategy for resilience.\u201d (Interview, Bremmer 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Relatedly, total devotion as a learned behaviour<\/em> – as something cultivated and sustained through training <\/em>and education<\/em> – appears as one of the project\u2019s major insights. As Bremmer continues:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cFor Greeks and Romans, religion was something you simply grew up with. There was no formal instruction. You accompanied your father or grandfather to sacrifices, you observed what they did, and eventually you took part yourself. In one of the speeches of the orator Isaeus, a young man recalls: \u2018We went with our grandfather to sacrifice; we were there when he sacrificed.\u2019 That\u2019s how religious knowledge was transmitted – by participation and imitation, not by systematic teaching. (\u2026) By contrast, in early Christianity, we begin to see organised religious instruction. (\u2026) That likely began in the second century, as communities realised that joining the group of Christ-followers required instruction, not only about doctrine, but about the meaning of love for Christ and what it entailed to live as a convinced believer.\u201d (Interview, Bremmer 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Feldt unfolds a similar observation in the context of Second Temple Judaism:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s a strong sense of vulnerability, a recognition that these religious traditions could easily disappear. That awareness generates what we might call training technologies: specific cultural techniques for maintaining and transmitting the tradition. For example, detailed prescriptions for how to teach, memorise, and practice devotion in everyday life. This, I think, marks a major innovation in the religious history of the region. You suddenly have a small, marginalised group worshipping a relatively obscure deity, Yahweh, in a land smaller than Jutland, surrounded by vast empires. Their elites, including scribes, are taken into exile. In that precarious situation, Deuteronomy\u2019s emphasis on teaching, remembering, and daily practice makes sense as a survival strategy.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As such, training and education become the primary socio-technological means for establishing shared ideals concerning emotional relations to deities, thereby bolstering social cohesion in the face of external pressures and, in some cases, physical displacement. A natural question, then, is what that training revolved around. The short answer is narratives. More specifically, training revolved around reading or listening to stories depicting totally devoted actors behaving in radical ways relative to their social context, and thus setting the bar for what, ideally, total devotion looks like \u2013 from pillar-sitting saints with rotting flesh to chronically weeping, tear-soaked zealots. A focus on the role of narratives presenting models of devotion <\/em>entails shifting our analytical focus on texts as historical representations to a focus on texts as didactic, devotional instruments shaping devotional practices throughout their reception history:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIn the study of ancient religion (\u2026) texts about martyrs, ascetics, and zealots [have] often been approached mainly in historical terms: \u2018when did this person live?\u2019 or \u2018which emperor was ruling?\u2019 Those are important, of course, but [the total devotion project\u2019s] approach is (\u2026) to complement it with a forward-oriented perspective. That means asking how these texts were intended to affect their audiences, how they functioned as instruments of devotion. We can\u2019t, of course, measure their exact impact on ancient readers (\u2026). But we can study how other ancient texts respond to them, echo them, or argue against them. That intertextual dialogue gives us valuable clues. We also know that many of these texts were explicitly devotional: they were read and recited in ritual contexts, reused year after year. For instance, the story of a martyr would be read aloud on the anniversary of their death. These weren\u2019t just historical chronicles; they were liturgical and pedagogical tools.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That narrative representations of total devotion were explicitly constructed for imitation becomes particularly evident in Klazina Staat\u2019s analysis of late antique Lives<\/em> of Christian ascetics. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201c(\u2026) these texts aim to connect with the world of the audience\u2014the listeners and readers outside the story, the extra-diegetic audience. They try to bridge the gap between the story world and the actual world. (\u2026) Hagiographers explicitly state in prologues and epilogues that these saints are models for imitation. By reading their texts, you can learn from them and begin this \u2018chain of imitation,\u2019 as some scholars call it.\u201d (Interview, Staat 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In line with the project’s focus on the relationship between narrativity and emotionality, Staat continues by highlighting how textual cues enable readers to immerse themselves in the narrative reality of devoted actors, introducing the concept of emplotment<\/em>:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThese stories always aim to affect the audience emotionally by presenting events and characters in vivid ways, really bringing things \u2018before the eyes.\u2019 This relates to what ancient rhetorical theory calls enargeia: the vivid description of events as if they are physically present, as if you can see them with the eyes of your mind. Today, we would simply call this immersion. (\u2026) As an audience, and I always say \u201caudience\u201d because these texts were meant not only for readers, but also for listeners (\u2026), you can become part of the narrated events. The events do not remain confined to the story world (\u2026). There is a continuous line from A to Z that does not stop where the story stops; the audience is implicated as well. [Emplotment]refers to arranging the narrative in such a way that people can step into it – this is the \u2018em-\u2018 of emplotment. In contrast, a \u2018plot\u2019 is more descriptive: A happens, then B, then C, and the story ends. I found it important to use the more dynamic concept because it highlights how the audience is actively involved. And again, emotion plays a role. A simple ABC structure says nothing about emotional engagement. Emplotment, however, refers to how people feel about events and how they are drawn into the unfolding narrative.\u201d (Interview, Staat 2025).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As such, narrativity as an analytical concept in the study of radical religion entails a focus on how audiences are not only consuming narrative representations of total devotion, but actively learning to enact the behavioural ideals represented, ultimately shaping their understanding of their own place in history as an extension of the story-worlds consumed.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Then and now: Total Devotion, narrativity and emotionality in contemporary media landscapes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, this functional perspective on representations of total devotion as behavioural and attitudinal models for audiences entails a focus as well on common forms of mediation <\/em>and their affordances in a given historical and social context. Late antique narrative cultures relied primarily on oral and textual modes of mediation, as well as visual representations permeating public spaces, from monuments and mosaics to ritual performances. In contrast to the latter formats, textual and oral mediation forms afford long-formatted narrative representations, allowing religious specialists and orators to convey complex cultural knowledge to public audiences. Where the antique and medieval manuscript cultures were characterised by relatively slow distribution networks and cumbersome copying processes, the advent of the printing press in mid 15th<\/sup> century Europe revolutionised the European information economies. Mass-produced pamphlets conveyed controversial religious and political ideas to an increasingly literate (although still predominantly elite) mass audience, effectively disrupting the informational and narrative monopoly of the Roman church and creating the informational conditions for the age of enlightenment and the formulation of the new ideologies of the 19th<\/sup> century. Culminating with the advent of the internet in the 1990\u2019s and the subsequent emergence of participatory online spaces (often referred to as \u2018web 2.0\u2019) in the mid-2000s, the democratisation of narrative production and consumption has arguably altered the conditions for religious continuity and reproduction of devotional ideals. As H\u00f8gel notes:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cI think, fundamentally, human needs and behaviours haven\u2019t changed much – we\u2019re not so different from people in the ancient world. What has changed, and changed radically, are the means of communication. That\u2019s really the decisive difference. (\u2026) Information [in the ancient world] spread slowly, mouth to mouth, and the experience of distance was real. Today, social media has completely transformed the relationship between presence and distance. It makes people feel as though they are there, participating directly. Communication technologies now allow presence without co-location. (\u2026) I really think the media aspect is the single biggest difference between our world and that of the ancients. In many other respects, human dynamics are quite recognisable across centuries.\u201d (Interview, H\u00f8gel 2025). <\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As of 2025, nearly 70% of Earth\u2019s population (5.6 billion people) is present on social media platforms. In what ways, and to what extent, the massive democratisation and characteristics of contemporary information technologies have altered the conditions for radical religion compared to other historical contexts, such as the late antique contexts treated in this project, remains a question for future research. The Total Devotion project\u2019s conceptual focus on narrativity, emotionality, devotional training and ingroup competition offers a promising framework for such future endeavours. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe theoretical framework, emotionality and narrativity, can also be used today if we look at media. We approach the ancient texts as ancient media. Today\u2019s media are technologically different, but if we look at media that propagate, afford, stimulate, or mobilise radical religion today, we can also ask about form, technology, emotionality, the whole range of aspects we\u2019ve considered in the project.\u201d (Interview, Feldt 2025).<\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Media scholars, psychologists, and social scientists have already extensively documented how the current participatory media landscape favours action-mobilising emotional content through algorithmic curation, ultimately driving echo-chamber and \u201ctrench warfare\u201d dynamics and outgroup animosity (Wolleb\u00e6k et al. 2019; Adelmund et al. 2024; Rathje et al. 2021). Linguists have documented how the affordances of social media platforms have shaped a culture of narrative fragmentation and continuous co-creation, forcing us to reconsider how narratives are established and function today, compared to previously (Page 2018; Georgakopoulou 2017). Finally, social media platforms often constitute low-effort, relatively low-risk environments. Participation is frictionless and can be partially decoupled from immediate social repercussions, which helps information, including controversial or misinformative content, circulate rapidly and persist even in contexts marked by weak or unstable ideological commitment (Halupka 2022; Suler 2004; Vosoughi 2018). <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

All of these factors arguably shape the characteristics of radical religion in contemporary societies in ways that are likely to both accelerate and inhibit its cultural persistence: Growing empirical evidence on the relationship between social media and political participation suggests that algorithmic content curation fosters epistemic isolation and political extremism (Rodilosso 2024; Michiels et al. 2022; Geschke et al. 2019; Mogdil 2021), which likely include radically religious positions as well, mobilized in response to algorithmically distorted representations of \u201cthe other\u201d. In addition, intensified affective milieus arguably favour and incentivise \u201ctotalizing\u201d online behaviours and rhetoric, whereby individuals and social formations learn to signal devotion (whether secular-political or religious) as a means to gaining the upper hand across competitive participatory online milieus. In conjunction with algorithmic curation, narrative fragmentation likely supports this tendency, offering easily digestible and often humorous ideological fragments carefully adapted to reflect, as well as being seemingly supported by, ongoing societal and cultural developments, over time nudging users into radical positions (for a systematic review of radicalisation and recommender systems, see Yesilada & Lewandowsky 2022).On the contrary, the sheer availability of vast amounts of information and cultural phenomena within easily navigated, low-risk online environments may facilitate \u2018de-<\/em>totalized\u2019 forms of devotional practice and ideological commitment. One of the defining characteristics of counter-cultural milieus, as described by sociologists in the 70\u2019s (Campbell 1972; Tiryakian 1972), is the ease with which individuals navigate the space of \u2018deviant\u2019 culture and ideology without truly and \u201ctotally\u201d committing to one particular dogma. As recent research has shown, many of the politically and culturally consequential social movements of the last decade have emerged as hybrid ideological products from both fringe and mainstream online milieus in which users are confronted with a plurality of perhaps previously unrelated world views (see the concept of \u2018HYPE (hybridized prefatory extremism<\/em>) spaces\u2019, Petersen & Johansen 2025). But importantly, as recently argued by Anton J\u00e4ger, these movements have proven notoriously disorganised and short-lived, often unable to sustain public support in the accelerated attention milieu of contemporary information landscapes (See J\u00e4gers concept of hyperpolitics<\/em>,  J\u00e4ger 2023). Thus, while making radical and extreme positions ever more available, such milieus, characterised as well by a highly dis<\/em>embodied engagement with information, could also be imagined to hinder the \u201ctotalization\u201d of radical ideology and religion. The particular ways in which total devotion is currently being reshaped by contemporary media and information technologies, whether facilitated or inhibited by information abundance, fragmentation, acceleration, epistemic isolation, and disembodiment, constitute a key question for future research. To such ends, the Total Devotion framework offers a strong vantage point for conceptualising the mechanisms that drive the formation and sustainment of radical religion, and for placing contemporary developments in dialogue with the longer history of the phenomenon.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Read the full scholar interviews here<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Lauritz Holm Petersen, PhD<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

PhD in the Study of Religion from Aarhus University; expert on religion, extremism, and digital counterculture; Research associate on the Total Devotion Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adelmund, M., Hahn, J. E., & Grochowicki, S. (2025). The unifying anger in social media: On the symbiosis of” humans and algorithms” and its effect on fear, anger and hatred. Polizei & Wissenschaft<\/em>, (1), 2-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahmed, S. (2004). Affective economies. Social text<\/em>, 22<\/em>(2), 117-139.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aran, G. (2013). On religiosity and super-religiosity (I): measures of radical religion. Numen<\/em>, 60<\/em>(2-3), 155-194.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brunert, M. E. (1994). Das Ideal der W\u00fcstenaskese und seine Rezeption in Gallien bis zum Ende des 6. Jahrhunderts<\/em>. Aschendorff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campbell, C. (1972). The cult, the cultic milieu and secularization. SOCIOL. YB. RELIG. BRIT<\/em>, 5<\/em>, 119-136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dawson, L. L. (2018). Debating the role of religion in the motivation of religious terrorism. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society<\/em>, 31<\/em>(2), 98-117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eidinow, E. (2023). I-Thou-Nymph: a relational approach to ancient Greek religious devotion. Religion<\/em>, 53<\/em>(1), 24\u201342. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2022.2150401<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feldt, L. (2023). Total devotion in the ancient world: emotions and narrative in radical religion. Religion<\/em>, 53<\/em>(1), 1\u201323. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2022.2150405<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finn, R. (2012, January 11). Asceticism<\/em>. Oxford Bibliographies: Biblical Studies<\/em>. Oxford University Press. https:\/\/www.oxfordbibliographies.com\/display\/document\/obo-9780195393361\/obo-9780195393361-0110.xml<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgakopoulou, A. (2017). Small stories research: A narrative paradigm for the analysis of social media. The SAGE handbook of social media research methods. London: SAGE<\/em>, 240-252.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geschke, D., Lorenz, J., & Holtz, P. (2019). The triple\u2010filter bubble: Using agent\u2010based modelling to test a meta\u2010theoretical framework for the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers. British Journal of Social Psychology<\/em>, 58<\/em>(1), 129-149.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilhus, I. S. (2023). \u2018Tears flowed from his eyes unceasingly\u2019: weeping and total devotion in Egypt in late antiquity. Religion<\/em>, 53<\/em>(1), 116\u2013134. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2022.2150406<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halupka, M. (2022). Clicktivism, slacktivism and connective action. In Elgar Encyclopedia of Technology and Politics.<\/em> (pp. 5-9). Edward Elgar Publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H\u00f8gel, C. (2023). The pillar saint seen as a totally devoted emperor: the in-group around Symeon Stylites the elder. Religion<\/em>, 53<\/em>(1), 161\u2013175. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2022.2150403<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juergensmeyer, M., & Sheikh, M. K. (2013). A sociotheological approach to understanding religious violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J\u00e4ger, A. (2023). Hyperpolitik: extreme Politisierung ohne politische Folgen<\/em>. Suhrkamp Verlag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michiels, L., Leysen, J., Smets, A., & Goethals, B. (2022, July). What are filter bubbles really? A review of the conceptual and empirical work. In Adjunct proceedings of the 30th ACM conference on user modeling, adaptation and personalization<\/em> (pp. 274-279).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modgil, S., Singh, R. K., Gupta, S., & Dennehy, D. (2024). A confirmation bias view on social media induced polarisation during Covid-19. Information Systems Frontiers<\/em>, 26<\/em>(2), 417-441.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Page, R. (2018). Narratives online: Shared stories in social media<\/em>. Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petersen, L. N., & Johansen, M. B. (2025). Spaces of Hybridized Prefatory Extremism (HYPE) on Social Media. Social Media+ Society<\/em>, 11<\/em>(2), 20563051251340145.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rathje, S., Van Bavel, J. J., & Van Der Linden, S. (2021). Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences<\/em>, 118<\/em>(26), e2024292118.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodilosso, E. (2024). Filter bubbles and the unfeeling: How AI for social media can foster extremism and polarization. Philosophy & Technology<\/em>, 37<\/em>(2), 71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staat, K. (2023). Emplotting total devotion: secrecy, fame, and imitation in late antique Lives<\/em> of Christian ascetics. Religion<\/em>, 53<\/em>(1), 135\u2013160. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/0048721X.2022.2150407<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & behavior<\/em>, 7<\/em>(3), 321-326.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiryakian, E. A. (1972). Toward the sociology of esoteric culture. American Journal of Sociology<\/em>, 78<\/em>(3), 491-512.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. science<\/em>, 359<\/em>(6380), 1146-1151.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolleb\u00e6k, D., Karlsen, R., Steen-Johnsen, K., & Enjolras, B. (2019). Anger, fear, and echo chambers: The emotional basis for online behavior. Social Media+ Society<\/em>, 5<\/em>(2), 2056305119829859.Yesilada, M., & Lewandowsky, S. (2022). Systematic review: YouTube recommendations and problematic content. Internet policy review<\/em>, 11<\/em>(1), 1652.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Total Devotion from Past to Present: An Interview Synthesis* on Radical Religion in the Ancient World and What It might Teach us Today Lauritz Holm Petersen, PhD \u201cWith the Total Devotion project, I wanted to create a space for thinking about both ancient and contemporary forms of radical religion and hopefully shed new light on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":80,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-90","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions\/206"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proflaurafeldt.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}