Aim of this paper is to propose a serviceable analytical distinction
between ‘urbanization’ and ‘citification’ of religion as two sets of
processes and states of affairs concerning the role of religion/s in
city-spaces. Inspired by both religious studies and political theory,
this distinction is pivotal for my ongoing research on early Christ
religion as an ‘urban religion’. In order to justify the differentiation
at issue, I will first embark on a brief ‘world tour’ across a
constellation of topics related to the deep history of both religion and
urbanism as cross-cultural, deep-rooted, and inextricably related
strategies of handling, enhancing, and buying into human sociality.
Browsing a century and a half of narratives on the rise of the earliest
cities, I will show that religion plays a rather standard and visibly
one-sided role in the scholarly plots of urbanization. A different story
needs to be told. Thus, once discussed a specific use of the verb ‘to
citify’ in contemporary religious studies, I will sketch out the short
and highly idiosyncratic history of the term ‘citification’ as a
technical category. Lastly, I will illustrate how I intend to use the
formula ‘citification of religion’ for re-describing the urban history
of early Christ religion according to a different perspective and
agenda. Some final reflections on the comparative character of the
concept will conclude the paper.
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