Beyond Krishnacore: Straight Edge punk and Implicit Religion

Abstract

Considering and engaging with spiritual identity and practices, particularly within today’s modern Western societies, often seen as having a religious/secular divide, has rightly been at the fore of much academic consideration of late. For there are a number of newly emerging forms of spirituality (both in terms of practice and of identity) that are in many ways sidestepping that paradigm and creating a new approach to religion, the secular, and spirituality. Research amongst Straight Edge punks has revealed a specifically “post-secular” approach to these concerns and ideas. This is a spiritual identity located firmly within a secular (one could even argue, profane) subculture. Their wilfully syncretic approach to spirituality is deliberately mingled with secular practices and ideas, as they refuse to acknowledge distinctions or borders. This article aims to explore and locate the implicit and explicit approaches to religion and spirituality, both as it is found and practiced within Straight Edge punk and within the wider theoretical concerns of sociology of religion.