Paper short abstract:

In religion, 'DNA' is a symbolic resource, the new 'blood', highlighting the relationship between tradition and innovation. 'DNA' is also used to construe community, continuity, authority, authenticity, and macrohistories, a form of contact magic that combines appeals to science and to tradition.

Paper long abstract:

The discovery of the DNA structure seven decades ago ignited a biotechnological revolution, which traces back to Darwin's theory of evolution, which influenced religious reactions like creationism and intelligent design. Biologically, DNA refers to our shared yet unique genetic material, and connects us to a lineage that spans past and future. In religion, on the other hand, DNA has become the new 'blood'.

This paper scrutinizes the role of 'DNA' technology as an emerging symbolic and material resource in religious discourses and practices, highlighting the dynamic relationship between tradition and innovation. 'DNA' molds religious practices and beliefs in different ways, for example through innovative Christologies or DNA tests affirming prophetic lineages. Appeals to 'DNA' are now present in many otherwise traditional religious discourses, intertwined with old religious questions about community, identity, and origins, body, sex and family, man, god(s), and nature, magic and science, purity, authority and charisma, legacy and legitimacy, destiny and free will, and life and death.

Often, 'DNA' arguments are used in appeals to science, and overlap with appeals to tradition and charisma. It also represents a form of contact magic. Religious interaction with DNA illustrates that even the most abstract religious ideas have a material aspect, and vice versa. Furthermore, it is a reminder that religions involve macro mythologies, imagined communities, and can be seen as traditions — social, symbolic, and invented chains of memory.