Drawing on the scholarship of Critical Religion, this article shows how the modern category “religion” operates through a gender code which upholds its discursive power and enables the production of religious—and therefore racial—hierarchies. Specifically, it argues that mentioning religion automatically makes gender present in discourse. Acknowledging religion as an inherently gendered category in this way gives further insight into the discursive power and functioning of the religious label. With the example of the Westphalian production of the “myth of religious violence” and the employment of “religion” in colonial contexts, I demonstrate how a gender code upholds and enables the discursive power of religion. Religion is both gendered (as part of the Western public/private binary) and gendering (in colonial contexts vis-à-vis non-Christian, non-White religions). Acknowledging the multiple ways in which religion is gendered and gendering, then, has important bearings on the analysis of religion’s racializing function which is upheld and aided by the gender code through which religion is spoken.

本文以“批判宗教”的学术研究为基础，展示了现代类别的“宗教”是如何通过性别代码来运作的，而该性别代码则维持了其话语权，并使宗教等级制度（因此是种族等级制度）得以产生。具体来说，它认为提及宗教会自动使性别出现在话语中。通过这种方式将宗教视为一种固有的性别类别，可以进一步洞悉宗教标签的话语权和功能。以威斯特伐利亚时期“宗教暴力神话”的产生和在殖民地背景下“宗教”的使用为例，我展示了性别规范如何维护并促进宗教的话语权。宗教既有性别区分（作为西方公共/私人二元法的一部分），也有性别区分（在相对于非基督教徒的殖民地背景下，非白人宗教）。因此，承认宗教被性别化和性别化的多种方式，对分析宗教的种族化功能具有重要的意义，而宗教的种族化功能则受到了通过口头表达宗教信仰的性别准则的支持和帮助。