With this essay, which introduces a special collection of articles, we intend to invite scholarly reflection on the predicament of the study of religion in the contemporary period. We believe that a productive conversation on what happens when we engage religion for scholarly purposes forces us to reflect on the ways the very category ‘religion’ shapes our scholarly communities and research interests. A focus on engagements is furthermore useful as we seek a targeted yet open conversation on what is lost and found in the transitions and translations between empirical findings and analytical categories. We argue that the emphasis on engagements and what is engaging about the study of religion purposefully helps us to focus on the diverse forms of commitments, interests, desires and quests that spur us on in our explorations. It is our contention that we can learn a great deal by exploring what, exactly, is engaging us – and how we engage – in the study of religion. It is therefore the aim of this essay, as well as its related articles, to engage in joint interdisciplinary thinking about the means, ends, methods and results of academic analyses that in one way or the other deal with religions or religiosity.