Introductory Concepts in Religious Studies

What Is "Religion?" What Does It Mean To Be "Religious?"

There are probably as many definitions for "religion" as there are people who follow or embrace any given religious path. It has been said that wherever people are found, there too is religion. Unfortunately, one can also make the same observation about fast food. It has also been said that the worst thing religion ever did was to get mixed up with people (again, not unlike fast food, both culturally and gastronomically!).

Traditional definitions of religion include the following, both pro and con (and in between):

• From the Latin religio, meaning "to have an obligation toward, or reverence for." How many things in your life do have obligations toward?

• Religion consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto" (William James). But how was/is the nature of that "unseen order" or that "supreme good" determined?

• Religion is that which is of "ultimate concern" (Paul Tillich). What is your "ultimate concern?"

• Religion is "the opiate of the masses" (Karl Marx). Is religion a tool of authority?  A means of power and control?

• Religion "consists in depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in a delusional manner. . . By forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism and drawing them into a mass delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many people an individual neurosis" (Sigmund Freud). Is religion about "guilt?"

• Where art is trivialized, religion is privatized. Indeed, religion suffers even greater losses than art by being the single subject about which many intellectuals feel free to be ignorant (David Tracy). Why is religion a "private matter" for many?

But regardless of what one may think of "religion"-- moral doctrine, civic institution, personal spirituality, or delusional wish, it is nevertheless "there" as an ever-present facet of human cultural expression, for good or for ill.

Ultimately, religion is about the ongoing lived experience of relation. Broadly speaking, the experience of relation-- to one another, to one's environment, to one's "ultimate concerns"-- constitutes an agenda that does not necessarily have to be "theological" (theos = "god") to be "religious." In the immediacy of the myriad paths of relational experience, all human beings are, in the broad sense of the term, "religious" beings.

In fact, in many Asian languages and cultural operations of experience, there simply is no discrete word or concept that points toward, or translates as, "religion" in the manner that we tend to think of it in the West.  For many cultures, religion is not about "textual doctrine" but rather about "praxis" (a technical word for "practice," or "what we do").  The idea of asking someone, "What is your religion?" doesn't make much sense to someone for whom "practices" are simply those things that are done in order to keep one's life in order and in equilibrium with the environment, the family, the neighbors, the ancestors, the local spirits/deities, etc., or as the Chinese put it wanwu-- "the ten thousand things."  It is all simply a relational whole.  By way of contrast, much of Western religion has centered on confessional statements, doctrines, theologies, i.e., "textual authorities," that often overshadow and even sever the given tradition's vital connection to the holistic immediacy of life-as-lived in relation.

• Example: The Wizard of Oz: what do Dorothy and her three cohorts learn about themselves?

With this in mind, why study the religious beliefs and experiences of other people or other cultures? One of the best reasons is that the consideration of the experience of another has a reflexive character to it-- by studying something different, we learn something new about that which is familiar to us.

• Example: Foreign language study.

Moreover, we can embrace the diversity of the global community, not by measuring the comparative worth of one tradition against another ("you must choose A or B"), but by seeing them each as possibilities for one another ("how can exposure to A enhance our understanding of B?").

• Examples: "insiders" and "outsiders;" bias vs. prejudice; complacency and parochialism;  do we see things as they are or as we are?

Myth, Ritual and Symbol

These important terms represent three interrelated modes of religious experience and expression. To put it ever so simply, a myth is what is told (story), a ritual is what is done (enactment), and a symbol is what is utilized (object). But we need to look at them in greater detail:

• A myth is often defined as a story that was created to explain something that "primitive" people did not understand. On the contrary, a myth is created to express something that its creators understand all too well! Often etiological or teleological in content, a myth is an oral or textual narrative that expresses the truth of "the way things are." A myth may have little or nothing to do with objective fact but it has everything to do with subjective experience. A mythology is primal but it is by no means a product of ignorance. We all embody cultural mythologies that reflect a cultural worldview and thereby shape our assumptions and perceptions to some degree.

  • Example: The Genesis story of the Fall of humankind: what is this narrative about? What is the role of the serpent? In a different cultural setting or experiential framework, could the serpent be interpreted as a positive image?
     

• The word ritual often has a negative connotation as a mindless, mechanical or even obsessive act. But not unlike a myth, a ritual is an enactment that expresses the truth of "the way things are" (or perhaps a vision of the way things ought to be, or once were). Ritual has been defined as "proximate acts in ultimate contexts" (Burkhart, J. Worship, 1980.) because it usually involves acts and/or objects that are quite ordinary and mundane, such as water (cleansing, drinking ), or a very basic food (cooking, eating). When placed in the context of formal enactment, the mundane activities of life often reveal something quite significant about how we understand ourselves as a human community.

  • Example: What does the Christian ritual of Eucharist (Communion) express about its participants as a community?
     

• A symbol is best understood when placed in contrast to the concept of "sign."

  • A sign points to, or "means," a particular thing or condition. It is "discursive," in that it has a direct relationship with that to which it refers. A stop sign at an intersection means "stop here and now." The nameplate CC338 means this particular classroom at this particular location, etc. In short, for a sign to "work," its object, or referent, must be immediately present in that time or place.

    • Sign - Object
       

  • A symbol, on the other hand, is more complex. A symbol, too, may have a direct (discursive) relationship with a person, place or thing, but it differs from a sign in that its referent does not have to be present in order for the symbol to have meaning. The referent of the symbol exists in the mind as a concept. Language is a prime example-- a person's name means that particular person even if he/she is not physically present because he/she exists in the mind as a concept or memory (assuming that you know him/her). So also with the names of objects and places-- through language we can conceive and imagine anything and everything without having it placed in front of us.

    • Symbol - Conceptualization - Object
       

    • Example: from Helen Keller's autobiography-- her experience at the water pump
       

  • But the most profound form of symbol is called "non-discursive," because it doesn't refer to an object, place, person, etc. Rather, it expresses a subjective "feeling." Examples of this include art, music, religious icons/objects, a particular place where one had a significant experience, etc. Use music as an example; ask yourself: why do we like to listen to old songs, i.e., from early in one's lifetime? What do they have the power to do? How are they symbolic?

    • Symbol - Conceptualization - Feeling
       

    • Examples from your own experience?

Ways of Approaching Religious Studies

Related to the theories above, a religious tradition may be approached through any or all of the following methodologies.

• Structuralism: how do the religious beliefs and/or ritual practices of a given community reflect the fundamental makeup of its values, its worldview? The focus is expressive.

• Functionalism: how does religious belief and/or ritual practice address the needs of a community in times of crisis? Transition? Celebration? Uncertainty? The focus is instrumental.

• Phenomenalism: how is religion experienced by the community? By individual persons? Are there objects, places or events that are held to be sacred and experienced as such? Why? The focus is experiential.

Important Terms and Discussion Questions

Religion (in comparison and contrast to "theology")
Religio
Theos
Monotheism
Pantheism
Polytheism
Anthropomorphism
Structuralism
Functionalism
Phenomenalism
Aetiology (Etiology)
Teleology
Myth/Mythology
Ritual
Sign
Symbol

1. What is  the difference between the concepts of "sign" and "symbol?"  Give an example of each and explain how it applies to the definition.

2. What does it mean to say that religious experience and expression are not about "text" as much as they are about "praxis?"

3. What does it mean to say that religious experience and expression have a "relational" agenda?

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