Desacralizing Salvation in Straight Edge Christianity and Holistic Spirituality

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork in the punk scenes of the UK, USA and Australia, this article critically examines Christianity and holistic spirituality within punk’s Straight Edge subculture, a movement rejecting alcohol, drugs, and casual sex. Focusing on conceptualizations of salvation within Straight Edge Christianity and Straight Edge holistic spirituality, this article engages Heelas and Woodhead’s notion of the “subjectivization’”of contemporary religious identities to compare and contrast these forms of new religious practice. Straight Edge Christianity and Straight Edge holistic spirituality are shown to demonstrate the double movement of the ‘desacralization’ of religion in late modernity. Straight Edge Christianity illustrates the emergence of religion in traditionally secular cultural spaces, while Straight Edge holistic spirituality illustrates a movement away from the transcendent and supernatural, towards the location of salvation within wholly material concerns and therapeutic practices.