Abstract

Starting with an account of some of the main elements that are constitutive of the contemporary approach to the phenomena of religion, whereby special attention shall be given to the phenomenological approaches to the phenomenon of Religion as such, this paper shall, in the following moment, proceed with a reflexive analysis of some of the crucial analytic aspects of religion on the basis of a philosophical study of one of its most universal manifestations, i.e., the phenomenon of Prayer. We shall analyze different forms of prayer, which have a span that goes from its manifestation in the Prayer of Silence to its manifestation in the Cultic expression of Prayer. Following this analysis, attention will especially be given to the need for an identification of some of the dangers and menacesattached to an ideological or fundamentalist approach to Religion. Finally, what we intend to show is the creative power of the tension that is given between what Jean-Luc Marion calls the Idolatric and the Iconic, since in this very tension we can explore the true dimension of what Religion is both in its essence and in its manifestations.