Sacred but not holy: Awe, spectacle, and the heritage gaze in Danish religious heritage contexts

This study reveals that the heritagisation of religious sites, such as Jelling Mounds, Runic Stones and Church in Denmark, transforms them from places of religious awe into spectacles for a secular audience. It demonstrates how these sites, when designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, shift from inspiring piety to evoking ontological pride or vicarious nostalgia among tourists and cultural experts. The research argues that this 'heritage gaze' inadvertently frames religion as cultural heritage through a secular lens, hybridizing religious experience with heritage values. The study employs an ideal-typical distinction between the 'holy' and the 'sacred' to analyze this phenomenon across three Danish World Heritage sites: Jelling, Roskilde, and Christiansfeld.

Salemink, O., Rask Poulsen, R., & Isager Ahl, S. (2020). Sacred but not holy: Awe, spectacle, and the heritage gaze in Danish religious heritage contexts. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4604148