Introduction: Making it (all?) up - 'invented religions' and the study of 'religion'

The editors of the special issue 'Invented Religions: Creating New Religions through Fiction, Parody and Play' outline the aims of the collection and place it in the context of debates on 'invented religions' and the 'invention of tradition'. We introduce key concepts employed by contributors, place the category of 'invented religion' in a wider constructionist context, contrast it with the seminal notion of 'invention of tradition' and note some of its specific features which reward analysis as a separate category. We argue that the category of 'invented religions' is descriptively interesting and theoretically useful, and we suggest that developing the latter aspect in particular can encourage this new area of enquiry away from an exotic niche and into the mainstream of explanatory theorising in the academic study of religion/s.