 
### Learning About Religion

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Volume 1 in the series "Learning about Religion"

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By Michel Clasquin-Johnson

Department of Religious Studies & Arabic

University of South Africa

Smashwords Edition

© Michel Clasquin-Johnson 2015

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### Table of Contents

Introduction 1: Getting started

Introduction 2: What is Religion?

Chapter 1: Where are we going?

Chapter 2: What is the date?

Chapter 3: Where and when did it start?

Chapter 4: Who started it?

Chapter 5: How many are there?

Chapter 6: How do they relate?

Chapter 7: How do we define religion?

Chapter 8: Deep thoughts

Chapter 9: The good life

Chapter 10: Feeling it

Chapter 11: How is it organised?

Chapter 12: Who is running things?

Chapter 13: Playing a role

Chapter 14: Living in harmony - Sources and the African experience

Chapter 15: Living in harmony - The Semitic experience

Chapter 16: Living in harmony - the Eastern experience

Chapter 17: Who is paying for all of this?

Chapter 18: How does religion approach topical issues?

Chapter 19: Women in the religions

Chapter 20: How do we study religion?

Chapter 21: How do we find out about it?

Chapter 22: How do we observe?

Chapter 23: How do we interview?

Glossary

About the Author

About this series

The material in this series was originally part of the OBE for FET (Religion Studies) series published by Nasou Via Afrika Ltd. When the OBE system of education was ended in South Africa, that series of books, as it was designed at the time, became obsolete and was taken out of print.

Some of us felt that this was good material, too good to just consign to oblivion. There were three years of our lives locked up in there, and it was some of the most accessible material ever to emerge from our department. There had to be a way to rescue it. The first four of the authors mentioned above requested that the rights to the material they had written be reverted and the publisher granted this request.

We then decided that, ten years after the fact, there was no realistic possibility of determining which of us had written which sections and that we would regard the material as our common property. This e-book series reflects what I have done with it. My colleagues may well have plans of their own.

Originally written for students in grades 10 to 12, this text has been amended, added to and rewritten for a general audience. It still reflects the old OBE curriculum in its chapter and section structure, but I have taken out the framework of Outcomes and Individual, Pair and Group activities.

About the original authors

As at the time of original publication: Proff Chrissie Steyn, Gerrie Lubbe, JS (Kobus) Krüger and Dr Michel Clasquin teach Religious Studies at the University of South Africa. Dr N Phaswana is involved with education in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Volumes in this series:

1. Learning About Religion - 2015 on CNX and other platforms.

2. Learning about Judaism - Forthcoming

3. Learning about Christianity - Forthcoming

4. Learning about Islam - Forthcoming

5. Learning about Hinduism - Forthcoming

6. Learning about Buddhism - Forthcoming

7. Learning More about Religion - Forthcoming

Although the numbering system above will be used, volumes will not necessarily be published in this order. There will probably never be a volume on "Learning more about African Religion". We were unable to obtain the rights to Dr Phaswana's part of the material.

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About this book

An Open Educational Resource version of this book was placed on Openstax CNX. It is licensed according to a Creative Commons license and you may use and adapt any part of that resource according to the terms of the license. Versions of this book obtained from commercial e-book providers are copyrighted freeware. Original cartoons for this book were created with toondoo.com

**License notes to Smashword Edition:** Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favorite ebook retailer to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Early versions of this book will reflect its origins as a school textbook for South African Grade 10-12 students. However, it is an ongoing project and as time goes by it will increase in scholarly density and decrease in South African parochialism. The aim is to produce a book readable by the general well-educated public, not one for subject specialists.

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### Preface

In this book you will learn about a variety of religions. You will be able to indicate where they can be found today, where they come from and how they came to South Africa and developed further once they were here. You will also be able to give a rough estimate of how many members each religion has and how people from different religions interact with one another. By the time you have finished reading this book, you will know the "what", the "where", the "when" and the "how many" of the world's religions.

You will be able to apply your knowledge to specific issues and you will have gained an appreciation for the wide diversity of religious thought. You will explore new worlds, from the fertile plains of Africa to the burning sands of Arabia, from the cathedrals of Europe to the pagodas of Asia.

Together we will walk alongside the acknowledged greatest of our species: Christ, Mohammed, the Buddha, Moses, Freud, Luther, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Marx ... you will already recognise some of these names, and the others too will become known to you as deep and profound thinkers. Some you will agree with, others not - but you will undoubtedly learn to appreciate how their efforts to understand and explain reality have influenced the history and development of humankind.

I will concentrate largely on the five main religions found in South Africa: African Religion, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. I am a South African writer and we all work within a specific context.

But we cannot be narrow-minded: there are other religions that do not have many followers in this country, but that play a major role elsewhere. Among these are Buddhism and the Baha'i Faith. There are religions that have played an important historical role, like Zoroastrianism. We also need to look at the emergence of New Religious Movements.

Some of the religions we will explore together will be well known to you already. In fact. you might even belong to one of them yourself! Others will be new and strange to you. Nevertheless, even if you think you already know a religion, try to approach it with an open mind and see if you can learn something new.

Prof Michel Clasquin-Johnson.

http://tinyurl.com/profmichelsbooks.

April 2015

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Introduction 1: Getting started

In this book, and in the rest of the series, we will spend a lot of time studying religions that really exist. But before we do that, we must be sure that we have an initial idea what that word "religion" means. Sometimes people tend to get very excited when one uses real examples of religions to arrive at such an understanding. So let us first cut our teeth on an imaginary example.

Let us suppose that we are faced with the following situation: an archaeological expedition to Siberia has come across the remains of a long-lost civilisation. In a tomb they found a rich hoard of objects: cups and bowls, statues, weapons and a mysterious scroll. The scroll was taken to the Linguistics department of the University of Inner Siberia, and with the help of linguists all over the world and after many hours logged on to a supercomputer in France, they have managed to decipher the words written on the scroll. But while the words may now be available, the meaning is still obscure.

You are working in a department of Religious Studies at the University of Central Africa and a linguist friend of yours asks you to take a look, saying, "We think this might be a religious text, but we're not sure."

"Sure", you say, "send it over."

A few days later a package arrives with a translation of the text on the scroll. You open it and start reading:

There was Eru, the One, who is also called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad.

And it came to pass that Ilúvatar declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed. And he said to them: Of the theme that I have declared to you, I now wish you together to make a Great Music.

Never since have the Ainur made music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the children of Ilúvatar after the end of days.

But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Ilúvatar. In the midst of this strife, the halls of Ilúvatar shook and a tremor ran out into the silences yet unmoved. Ilúvatar arose and his face was terrible to behold.

Then Ilúvatar spoke and he said: Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.

Then Ilúvatar arose in splendour, and he went forth from the fair regions that he had made for the Ainur; and they followed him. But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatar said to them: "Behold your music!" and they saw a new world made visible before them, and they perceived that they themselves in the labour of their music had been busy with the preparation of this dwelling.

And they saw with amazement the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar, the Elves and men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of the world, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the midst of the innumerable stars.

The following questions can now be asked:

• Would you regard this as a religious text? Why? Or why not?

• Where would you place it in terms of the historical phases of religion?

• To which "family of religion" would this religion belong?

Clearly, this is a religious text. It describes a supreme creator god called Ilúvatar and an unspecified number of lesser beings, who are however much more than human ("angels"), one of whom rebels against the creator and tries in vain to create a flaw in the creator's plan (a "devil"). It describes the creation of the world and how humans and other beings were created in order to live there. The themes are clearly religious.

We do not really know if this text was only an artistic creation or whether it really functioned as part of the religion of the Siberian civilisation. But perhaps we then found out that the archaeologists also found little statues arranged in a circle around a much larger central statue, with one place in the circle unoccupied. Now we are much more confident that this text was indeed part of a religion, for the statues seem to depict the events it describes.

We do some more investigations and discover that, until very recently, the people who live in the area today told very similar myths - even the names are more or less the same. Slowly, we can start to build up a picture of the beliefs of these people.

In terms of the historical development of religions, this religion would most likely fit into "Religion IV: the religions of early state societies with writing" (what this means will be described in a later chapter). We base this conclusion on the fact that it was written down on a scroll, and that it had been found in a tomb along with other objects that show evidence of a high level of civilisation.

In terms of the "families" or "clusters" of religions, we would probably have to say that this belongs with the "Religions of the Near East" (again, something we will explain later. For now, just go with it). The clear indications of monotheism (worship of a single God) and the creation of the world from nothing in our text allow for no other conclusion. The fact that Siberia is rather far away from the Near East is irritating, of course, but perhaps further excavations will show a historical link.

How would we introduce this new religion to our students? In reality, of course, we would want to know a lot more about it before we did such a thing, but since this is an imaginary example, let us proceed!

We would neither have to believe in Ilúvatar ourselves, nor would we need to denounce this religion as an example of "absurd heathenism". We would approach the subject with great sensitivity to the fact that these were once the dearly-held beliefs of people. To teach religion takes respect and open-mindedness, but also a tough-minded insistence on presenting the facts of the case.

We would try to help the students to understand this religion by pointing out similarities to religions they already know, but not hide the fact that there are also differences. Finally, we would refrain at all costs from trying to convert our students to the religion of Ilúvatar. We are human beings, of course, and if you had been studying this religion for many years, no doubt your students would pick up how enthusiastic you are, but the moment you say to them "... and this religion is true." you are no longer doing Religion Studies!

Years pass. Then one day, one of your colleagues bursts into your office with an exciting piece of news. A number of people in California have taken the ancient text and started up a new religion based on it. They call themselves the "neo-Siberians". Your colleague is planning to research these people during a year-long sabbatical.

When one of your students hears about this, she says "perhaps we can deduce something about the original religion from his findings". What would you say to this student?

One could study the neo-Siberian group very thoroughly indeed. And you could write a brilliant paper about them.

But you could only make any valid deductions about that group as they are now. It would be quite illegitimate to state that because these people today worship in a certain way, that must also be the way it was done in Siberia thousands of years ago.

And in the same way, if you knew something about the ancient religion, you should be vary careful not to deduce specifics about the modern religon from this.

You may think that those last statements are so patently obvious that it is almost silly to state it here. But in fact, this is a situation that we find in every single one of the major world religions that we will study in the rest of this course.

In every one of them, we will find people who insist that the way they worship is exactly the way it was prescribed in their scriptures, and exactly the way it was done in the early days of their faith. And every one of them can be shown to be wrong.

All religions are the products of encounters with others, reinterpretations and re-evaluations. This does not make them "wrong", or "false": on the contrary, it shows that religion is a living, vibrant entity that changes and evolves to meet human needs, without ever losing its essentials.

Not convinced? Let us leave the imaginary example, move into real religious history, and take just one example from Christianity.

You may or may not be a Christian yourself, but surely you know how Christians hold their hands when they pray? They either hold them flat against each other with palms facing, or they clasp them together firmly.

In many religiously conservative South African homes, you will even see a bronze plaque on the wall with two hands placed palm-to-palm, indicating prayer. We will not comment on the artistic merit of these plaques here, but the interesting aspect for us is how this position of the hands has become a visual shorthand for prayer.

One might be forgiven for thinking that this is the natural way for Christians to pray, that Christians had always prayed like that.

Praying hands (Public Domain graphic from pixabay.com)

In fact, this hand posture only dates back to the late Middle Ages. Christian paintings from the Roman period invariably show people praying with their arms stretched upwards towards the heavens.

The current Christian custom comes from a medieval ceremony in which a king would grant a nobleman a piece of land in return for taxes and military service. The nobleman would kneel with his hands together in front of him, and the king would then put his hands around those of the nobleman while reciting the formula for granting land.

In time, putting the palms of one's hands together like this itself became a symbol of subservience, and it became quite natural to adopt this posture while in church. Instead of the king, it was now God who put his hands around yours. And thus it has remained ever since .

A feudal lord accepts land from the king in return for service

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

"But wait", you say "In the last century some people, like the charismatic churches, have started praying and worshipping with their hands in the air. Does that mean that they are closer to the original Christians?"

In that one respect, yes, but then one can point to other aspects in which other churches are closer.

None of us, whatever our religion, believes and worships like a person from hundreds or thousands of years ago, for the simple reason that we are not those people. All religions have a history of change and adaptation. The rest of this book will teach us more about this process. When you reach the section on your own religious point of view, be sure to keep an open mind!

Now that we have completed this introduction, I really should tell you where I got that magnificent piece of text that we used for our imaginary religion. It is a drastically shortened version of the creation epic _Ainulindalë_ in JRR Tolkien's fantasy epic _The Silmarillion_ (1992).

And this proves yet something else. Even when highly imaginative authors like Tolkien set out to invent their own religions, they invariably end up with something that resembles one of the major streams of religious thought in existence.

This gives us confidence that the classifications of religion we use are more than just arbitrary systems. If even the most imaginative people are unable to escape from these patterns, then the patterns must actually, even accurately, describe religious reality. They must tell us something about what happens in the minds of religious people. This is similar to what is called an _archetype_ in Jungian psychology.

When we study religion, we are dealing with the deepest impulses of the human spirit. It is true that we cannot point to technological results of our studies, as, for instance, physicists and biologists can do. Nevertheless, finding out how people have answered the age-old questions "why are we here?", "where did we come from?", "what does it all mean?" has a value of its own. In studying religion, we study ourselves.

References Cited:

Tolkien, J R R 1992. _The Silmarrillion_. London: Grafton.

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### Introduction 2: What is Religion?

What is religion? If we are going to talk about religion, it might be a good idea to start out with a clear idea of what we are looking at.

It is only too obvious today that there are different religions, churches, denominations and sects. And it is equally obvious that they don't agree with each other very much. So let us ask ourselves, what is "religion", what does it mean when we say that a person is "religious" and don't all the religions worship the same God in their own way, in any case?

© John Christian Fjellestad/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2014.

One could argue that it is obvious what religion is. After all, I am religious, I believe this and that and I do such and such, therefore that is what makes something a religion and therefore what constitutes RELIGION itself. It may be so.

But let us try an analogy: Suppose you are a capitalist, and someone asks you what "economics" means. You might then define "economics" as "the interchange of goods and services in a free market." That would be an answer of sorts, but an answer that simply ignores Marx's analysis of class exploitation, Keynes's advocacy of state involvement in the economy, the experience of millions of people in rigidly-controlled command economies ... the list is endless. You are free to argue that economics as you understand it is the best kind, but you cannot claim that it is the only kind. And the same is true for religion.

There are many religions, and what they teach differs. Even so, might it not be possible to take one's own experience and beliefs, strip it down to its most basic essentials, see whether those same essentials also apply to other religions and create a workable understanding of religion from that?

Many have tried this approach, and have come up with answers such as "religion is the worship of a divine being or beings" or, more broadly, "religion is the human response to that which is considered sacred". However, if we dig a little deeper in the various religions of the world, we come up with a number of problems.

Let us first tackle some basic beliefs. Christians, Jews, Muslims and many others all claim to believe in the existence of a single god who created the world and everything in it (this is called monotheism). But they disagree strongly with each other (and among themselves) about the details, not to mention what He or She might require of humans.

Hindus respond that, in their view, a monotheistic setup is fair enough, but there is also something to be said for incorporating some aspects of polytheism, at least on a subordinate level. In the final analysis some of them might also agree with the Buddhists that the ultimate nature of reality is devoid of personality and that its beginning and end, if such things were to exist, are lost in the mists of time.

And that marvelously humanist Chinese sage Confucius once replied to this whole debate by saying, "You do not yet know how to serve people, why then worry about serving the gods?" One cannot regard basic beliefs as the common denominator of all things religious - to say that all religions worship the same God is just too simplistic, too easy. If we take religious people seriously, we have to learn to listen to what they are saying about their beliefs and recognise their uniqueness.

© Celestial Meeker/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2007.

But if basic beliefs about the world and its origin do not help us along in our search for the meaning of "religion", perhaps we can find something else that all religions have in common. I am not referring to acts like praying, lighting candles or prostrating - there the differences are all too clear and we will be discussing some of these in later chapters - but perhaps there is something uniquely religious about ethics. After all, don't all religions teach people not to go around killing, raping and robbing each other?

Well, in a sense they all do, but only in highly selective ways. Christians are told to "turn the other cheek", but Islam values a somewhat tougher attitude. Buddhists will extend, in theory at least, their nonharming attitude to all living beings, then indulge in endless debates among themselves whether this implies compulsory vegetarianism.

Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians disagree among themselves on the sinfulness of suicide and abortion. And hardly ever has any religion succeeded in preventing the miseries of war; to the contrary, almost all of them have had a hand, at one time or another, in starting wars against people who happened to be heretics, pagans, heathens, infidels or apostates, in other words, "not like us". The sacrifice of large numbers of human beings was an integral part of Aztec religion.

However devoted we are to our respective traditions, we must face up to the truth: "religionism", like racism and sexism, has caused suffering for millions of people. We might like to think that we have moved beyond all that, but the destruction of the World Trade Center, and before that, the poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway, was a rude awakening - religion as a destructive force continues to exist.

So, if there is indeed a common factor that not only unites all the religions but also helps us to understand what, essentially, it is, it is not plainly visible. We will have to dig a little deeper.

What about the structure of the word itself? The word "religion" is derived from a Latin source that means "to tie back" or more figuratively "to re-connect". But this does not help us much, either; the question immediately arises "reconnect to what?" and we are back in the interminable debates about the existence of God, the nature of reality and what human beings really are. Besides, that only works in some languages.

© dynamosquito/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2009.

We have a problem here. When we started out, we thought we knew what religion was, but now we are not so sure. The fact that religions are different from each other means that as we learn of more and more of them, the concept keeps getting fuzzier.

There are at least three possible reactions to this dilemma. **First** , there is the fundamentalist option. I can say that while all other traditions are man-made and false, my own is divinely inspired and true. In other words, my beliefs are the TRUTH, while all others are mere "religions". Their followers have been deceived by dark forces. I may tolerate their existence, but I do not accept that they have anything important to teach.

While this approach has the virtues of frankness and simplicity, it is also true that it leads to a fanaticism and a disregard for the rights of others that would no doubt have horrified the founder of the religion in question.

This strategy seems most common among monotheists, that is, Jews, Christians and Muslims. But is by no means restricted to them: Even in Buddhism, usually the most tolerant of religions, you will find schools of thought that deny that any other schools teach the true words of the Buddha. Also, many monotheists reject this approach - they cannot see how a loving God would allow deception on such a massive scale to happen, considering the results for all concerned.

© Michael Chan CC BY 2.0 2010.

A more subtle variation of this strategy is to declare that all religions have a certain amount of truth in them, but mine happens to be the completely fulfilled truth, which has emerged after a long evolution - the older schools have been corrupted by human misunderstanding of the initially flawless revelation. Alternatively, if this is not yet the case, my religion is at least the closest approach to this complete truth that will be revealed in the fullness of time.

This strategy has long been a favourite among Hindus and Buddhists, but it seems also to have taken root in certain sectors of twentieth-century Christianity: one thinks here of Raimundo Pannikar's phrase "The unknown Christ of Hinduism". One can also see elements of it in the Islamic concept of the "people of the Book".

But while this approach may be more refined and humane than the fundamentalist one, it is imperialistic in nature. It refuses to take other people and their beliefs seriously, preferring instead to remake them in its own image.

© Lawrence OP/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2014.

The Baha'i Faith refines the concept even further: they declare that each major religion was taught by its founder in a way appropriate to its time and place. Therefore, the most recent revelation is the one most appropriate to us, and those of us who prefer to cling to an older faith are not exactly wrong, but maybe a little old-fashioned in a "stick-in-the-mud" kind of way.

As a result, Bahai's tend not to evangelise their beliefs aggressively: as far as they are concerned the better fit of their own teachings to our times will eventually become so blindingly obvious that people will naturally turn towards it. Until then, those who stick to other religions will be saved by them, if with more difficulties than is really necessary. We have come a long way from a simplistic fundamentalism here, but there is nevertheless an evolutionary line from the one to the other extreme.

© Aikawa Ke/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2012.

The **second** major way to react to the problem of the differences between religions is to declare that the only true religion is _mysticism_. Mysticism may be defined as a process whereby the mystic plumbs the depths of the self and reality in a radical process of meditative self-discovery to discover the true nature of reality. And the sayings of mystics of all kinds of different traditions show that they have known very similar experiences. Therefore, the true unity of religion, they say, can be found in mystical experience.

In mysticism, we can find the "perennial philosophy", the common ground of all religious experience. All the rest of religion, the ceremonies, the scriptures, the deeply-held beliefs, are reduced to a kind of life-support system for mysticism.

There is a lot of evidence to support this train of thought. But mysticism is, was and probably always will be a minority interest among religious people. Where does this leave the rest of us?

Moreover, the mysticism approach and the fundamentalist attitude share one shortcoming: there is no way that they can be proven to a disinterested outsider. Instead, they require a leap of faith or a mystical experience that is itself religious. Thus, basing a definition of religion on them leads to arguing in circles.

© Erin Pempel/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2006.

The **third** reaction to the problem is to ignore it. This approach, which grows naturally out of the exclusivism of the first strategy, was perhaps possible in the past, when some religions dominated large geographical areas.

But today, it would imply shutting oneself up in a self-imposed ghetto, avoiding all contact with everyone who might possibly not share one's beliefs and never venturing outside. Surely an unacceptable "solution" to most of us. After all, most religions do believe that their message is valid for all people; how is this truth to be transmitted to other people if we ignore them?

Perhaps there is a **fourth** way, a way of approaching the differences between religions that will not deny the religious feelings and beliefs, and therefore the very humanity, of people of other faiths and that will not restrict us in the practice of our own religion.

If we cannot identify one common characteristic of all religions, perhaps we can devise a system of classifying them. Then, perhaps the way we classified the religions will itself show us what they have in common.

There are many ways to classify religions. One popular way is to distinguish between _local_ , _national_ and _universal_ religions.

The _local religion_ is limited in terms of both geography and missionary intent. Usually, one is born into a local religion; it is the faith of one's family, tribe or clan and one has little interest in extending it to others. On the contrary, since the religion is the source of the group's power, and therefore its means of survival, one should be careful not to divulge too much of it to outsiders. While this type of religion is most common among "primal" communities (hunter-gatherers, herders and premodern agriculturalists), remnants of it remain even in modern societies - witness the secrecy that surrounds groups such as the Freemasons.

© Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2009.

_National religions_ usually have to do with the common bonds of a shared language, culture, ethnic background or a shared history. Orthodox Judaism is a good example of this, traditional Hinduism another.

While it is not impossible for an outsider to join a national religion, to do so requires that one adopts, not only the religious precepts, but an entire lifestyle. As a result, national religions tend, after an initial flowering that is associated with the growth and political dominance of the associated community, to stop growing and only perpetuate themselves, or even to decline.

The _universal religions_ , on the other hand, have divorced themselves from a specific society to such an extent that they have become "portable". They can adapt themselves to almost any society in which they find themselves. Universal religions are clearly oriented towards converting people of other faiths. Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are the most often quoted examples of universal religions.

Keep in mind, though, that there are always "mixed" types. For instance, Hinduism contains aspects of all three these types, depending on whether one investigates it on the village, caste or philosophical level.

But there is a problem with this classification system, useful as it is, if we are looking for the essence of religion. It simply classifies traditions according to their missionary zeal, or lack of it. In terms of this system, classical Marxism-Leninism, with its drive to "world communism" would have to be classified as a "universal religion".

While there are some scholars who maintain that it was precisely that, it is problematic to call this philosophy, which denied the truth-claims of all religious systems, a religion. In other words, we cannot use this classification to define religion as something that tries to convert other people.

More fundamentally, conversion is mainly a concern of the universal religions; the other groups care much less about it. In essence, it says that there is a group of missionary religions and two kinds of non-missionary religions. But how can one use a defining characteristic of one group to set up a system that then goes on to define all the groups? In other words, isn't this like the old South Africa, where you were either "white" or some kind of "non-white"?

© Omar Chatriwale/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2012.

This shows us that we can never look at religious phenomena with a blank mind, ready to receive "what is out there". Our previous experience always colours our perceptions. Not that this is fatal to good thinking, as long as the reality of the influence of this previous experience is recognised and used positively.

Thus, classification systems, although useful, cannot give us the essence of religion, either. All they do is reflect our existing ideas about religion.

This shows us that we can never look at religious phenomena with a blank mind, ready to receive "what is out there". Our previous experience always colours our perceptions.

© Church by the Glades/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2011.

What can we learn from all this? Simply that religion is NOT A SINGLE THING. To understand religion, we must accept that it is a composite, something made up out of many things, any one (or even more!) of which may be present or absent without affecting the "religious" nature of the whole. We cannot isolate a single aspect such as belief or worship or prayer and set that apart as the "essence" of religion.

Consider the work of the philosopher Wittgenstein. As a young philosopher, he engaged in highly abstract work on logic, but as he grew older he became interested in concepts and ideas that seemed to defy definition.

Wittgenstein developed his philosophy using "game" as his first example. What, he asked, is a game? Many games are played with balls and sticks, but chess is a game, yet it involves neither. Games are played for fun, unless you happen to be a professional sportsman who does it for the money even when you are injured. Games can involve competition, but some others stress cooperation. And so on.

In the end, he decided that "game" could not be reduced to one single defining attribute. Instead, it was the sum total of all its attributes, a _family resemblance_. If one looked at a human activity and saw that the majority of its properties could be found in the list that together made up the definition of "game", then one would be justified in saying that that particular activity was a game. But it was not necessary for _all_ of them to be there.

Can you see how the same is true of religion? It is a big composite of ideas, customs and practices, all sharing a certain "family resemblance", but no single one being so dominant that it alone makes the whole thing "religious".

It is all those little things taken together that religion its identity, and if one of those little things falls out of place, this does not make the whole complex invalid.

For centuries, religious thinkers have been telling us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It turns out that this is equally true for religion itself.

In fact, this understanding of what religion is closely reflects the evolution of the concept. When the early European explorers set out on their voyages in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they already had some idea of what religion was. This notion was derived mostly from Christianity, but they were also aware of Judaism and Islam, even if they regarded these as false religions.

When they reached India, they encountered Hinduism. This ancient civilisation had systematised beliefs and practices that bore a sufficient resemblance to what they were used to at home for them to refer to Hinduism as the "religion" of the Indian people. The same was true when, later, they reached China and the Americas.

In each of these cases, there were separate social structures that were not necessarily identical to European religion, but which bore a certain "family resemblance" to it. With each discovery of a new "religion", the very term itself was widened and it became easier and easier to describe a newly-discovered social phenomenon as "religious".

© Lawrence OP/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2012.

Sometimes this process would break down, of course - some of the early Christian missionaries to Southern Africa would write in their letters home that the indigenous people of Africa had no religion!

Actually, what happened was that those activities that would be considered "religious" in western society were, in African communities, so tightly integrated with the rest of social life as to present a seamless whole to the observer.

To some extent, this is also true of Judaism and Hinduism, as we have seen. Even in modern western society, it is not always easy to say where religion stops and, say, politics begins.

If we stop looking for one small defining property that makes religion what it is, the problem of differences between religions immediately starts to fade away. It is no longer a problem, but rather in itself a glorious expression of the human capacity for making sense of the world.

Religion may or may not be divine in origin, but it certainly is human in execution. That people living in different times and places should have responded to their experience of life and death in ways different from mine, but still broadly recognisable as religious, is not a scandal of philosophy, but a celebration of human ingenuity and adaptability. I do not have to adopt another religious system in its totality, but I can still appreciate the beauty and grandeur of that system.

© Sokwanele - Zimbabwe/Flickr CC BY 2.0 2004.

And the same must then be true in our personal religious practice. My bona fide religious experience is completely valid within the framework of my religious tradition, and so is your religious experience within the framework of yours.

The fact that my religious experience is not the same as yours, or that our religious systems contradict each other on many specific points, does not change the fact that on the experiential level we have both experienced a life-altering event of the deepest possible meaning. All of us, the Catholic and the Copt, the Buddhist and the Baptist, stand before the Great Mystery, begging bowl in hand, dumbfounded by the greatness of what we can see only dimly.

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Chapter 1: Where are we going?

Later on in this book, you will learn more about the history of the various religions. But before we do that, you need to have an overview of where the various religions are to be found today, in other words, the geography of religions. You must be able to see the world in your mind's eye and be able to indicate where the major religions of the world are to be found. In this chapter the focal point is "place".

Where do we find the major religions? In following chapters we will discuss when they developed and where they developed so that you will be able to picture the beginnings and spread of religions in terms of a global unity. These religions did not all originate at the same time or place and they did not stay confined to the places where they developed. With a map of the world before you, you should be able to indicate the "where", "when" and "spread" of the religions of the world. We will discuss the religions one continent at a time, starting with Africa.

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1.1 Religion in Africa

In Africa, religion is particularly strong. We can see Africa as a continent that is divided into three distinct regions:

**Firstly** , there is North Africa. This region, which includes the vast Sahara desert, was conquered by Muslim forces between the sixth and ninth centuries and remains Muslim and largely Arabic-speaking to this day. Muslim influence also stretches down the east coast of Africa, down into Kenya and Tanzania, but there it has rivals.

On the other side of the continent, the Muslim region stretches across the borders of countries like Nigeria. This has recently caused a lot of conflict, since the northern, Muslim regions of Nigeria wanted to institute Muslim law, while the Christian regions in the south did not.

In the Central African Republic, the tension has gone the other way and Muslims have fled the country in large numbers. Sometimes the dividing line cut right through a country: In Sudan, a civil war between Muslim Northerners and mostly Christian Southerners raged for thirty years and led to the creation of the first new country in Africa in a century, namely Southern Sudan.

Islam flourished in North Africa: places like Cairo in Egypt and Timbuktu in Mali were great centres of Islamic learning, attracting students for hundreds of kilometres. Before the coming of Islam, the Mediterranean coastline was mainly Christian, while tribal religions were practised deep in the desert. Christian (and Jewish) communities remained under Muslim rule for many centuries, and even today there are many Christians in Egypt. But of the old tribal religions of the desert, little more remains than some old customs and sayings.

The three religio-political regions of Africa

Although Islam is strongest in North Africa, there has been a large Muslim population on the East African coast since the middle of the nineteenth century. They derive from the Sultanate of Zanzibar, which was part of Oman (in Arabia) until it became an independent country in 1861. Zanzibar is today part of Tanzania. Muslim traders travelled the continent from Zanzibar as far inland as the Congo basin. In fact, it is quite amusing to read the diaries of nineteenth-century European "explorers". No matter how deeply they travelled into Africa, they always seemed to find a Muslim trader's station to stay in!

**Secondly** , there is Ethiopia. Here we find that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the overwhelmingly dominant religious force, and has been since the fourth century. It is a very old form of Christianity, which has survived for centuries despite being surrounded by powerful Muslim neighbours.

Ethiopian Christians have retained several old Jewish customs, like circumcision, that were abandoned by Christians elsewhere at an early stage. Ethiopians also maintain that the original Ark of the Covenant is stored in a safe place in their country.

Ethiopian Christianity has become so dominant that we are no longer quite sure what the original religion of the country was like.

And that, **thirdly** , leaves us with the rest of Africa: Here we find that African Religion, in all its many variations, was the only tradition practised until late in the 19th century.

Then came colonialism, with Whites from Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal claiming huge tracts of land and ruling thousands of black people. Along with the colonialists came the missionaries, and we can see their influence today.

Where the missionaries came from Catholic countries like France or Belgium, the Catholic Church is strong today, as is the case in the Congo and in Mali. If they came from a Protestant country like Britain, then there will be a lot of Anglicans or Methodists in that area. Zambia and Kenya are good examples of this

According to _www.adherents.com_ , Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa grew from a mere 500 000 in 1875, to 5 million by 1925, to 100 million by 1980.

But Christianity and Islam never quite managed to eradicate African religion completely. All over sub-Saharan Africa, the old ways are still practised, sometimes in opposition to Christianity, more often alongside it. The African scholar Ali Mazrui has coined the useful phrase "Africa's Triple Heritage" to describe the way in which African Religion, Islam and Christianity exist side by side, and for the most part in peace, in large parts of Africa south of the Sahara.

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1.2 Religion in Asia

When we look at a map of Asia we see that it is an enormous continent stretching from Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia in the West, to Japan in the East, and from Russia in the North to India and Indonesia in the South. This is the continent on which all five the major religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) originated.

Let us start in the West with the area that is also known as the Middle East. This includes countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel. Israel is also part of Asia, and Jews regards it as their Holy Land. Today **Judaism** is the state religion and the faith of the majority of Israelis. But there have been Jews in other parts of Asia for centuries. In India, for example, there are synagogues that were built hundreds of years before the arrival of European explorers and colonists.

Israel was settled by Jewish people, most of them from Europe, in the twentieth century. It continues to maintain close cultural and political links with Europe and North America. But look at the map: it really is an Asian country!

Israel's ambivalent status can be seen in the fact that its artists compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, but its national football team used to play in Asian competitions. Israel hosted and won the Asia Cup in 1964, but has since been forced by security concerns to join UEFA, the European football federation.

**Christianity** also started off in Israel, and although forms of this religion spread as far as the borders of China and the South coast of India, it later died out in most of Asia. It was left to missionaries from Europe and the Americas, centuries later, to bring both the Catholic and Protestant types of Christianity to Asia.

Today, Korea and the Philippines are largely, though not exclusively, Christian countries. Christianity has not historically been as successful in the rest of Asia, but in recent years there have been reports of Christian advances in China.

Fact File

• There are approximately 300 million Buddhists in Asia.

• The world's largests Muslim country is Indonesia, where over 150 million Muslims live.

• Close to 900 million Indians are Hindus.

The distribution of religious traditions in Asia

**Islam** was founded in Arabia, which is also part of Asia. Since then, enormous parts of the Asian continent have adopted Islam as their major religion: almost all of Southwest Asia (the "Middle East", countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), West Asian countries like Iran and Turkey, and Central Asian countries like Afghanistan, but also in Southeast Asia, where Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Muslim countries.

**Hinduism** comes from India, and nearly a billion (one thousand million) people in that country are Hindus. Hinduism is also found in Nepal, where it is the state religion, and versions of it can be found in parts of Indonesia (A "state religion" is a religion that is recognized and/or supported by the state or government).

**Buddhism** comes from India too, but is no longer a major religion there. Instead, Buddhism has spread to other Asian countries. There are two main forms: Theravada Buddhism is an old, conservative faith that can be found today in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Mahayana Buddhism developed later on, and spread to the northeast of India. Today it is found in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

When we look at the Northern parts of Asia we see that Russia dominates that part of the continent. The part of Russia called Siberia stretches right across Asia. Russia is both a European and an Asian country. **Orthodox Christianity** is the most prominent Russian religion, but Islam and Buddhism are practised in Siberia too.

For a long time during the twentieth century, communist governments in Russia, China, Vietnam and other countries suppressed the practice of religion. When these governments fell or at least softened their hard-line stance in the 1990s, religion immediately made a comeback in all these countries.

There are many other religions in Asia, but you do not need to know them in detail at this stage. We will just name a few of them for interest's sake:

• _Shinto_ is a Japanese religion in which the appreciation of nature is very important

• _Confucianism_ is a Chinese religion that emphasises ritual, social conformity and orderliness

• _Taoism_ is another Chinese religion, but it emphasises magic, spiritual experience and longevity

• _Jainism_ is related to Hinduism and Buddhism, but is more strict in its ethical rules than those two. It is only found in India.

• _Sikhism_ was an attempt to combine aspects of Islam and Hinduism, and eventually it grew to an important religion in its own right.

• _Zoroastrianism_ was founded in Persia and was the first major monotheistic (believing in one god) faith. Today, most Zorastrians live in Bombay, India, where they are known as Parsees (i.e. Persians).

• The _Baha'i Faith_ originated in Iran and later moved its headquarters to Israel. Although it is not as big as the other religions, it is widely distributed across Asia.

In many remote parts of Asia, mostly in mountainous areas covered by thick forests, various people continue to practice the ancient religions of their ancestors.

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1.3 Religion in Europe

Unlike the other continents, Europe can be hard to define. Geographically speaking, there is no such thing, just a series of peninsulas on the western edge of Asia. Culturally, however, those peninsulas have an important place in history.

When we speak of Europe we refer to the countries from Portugal in the West to Russia in the East (but not Siberia, which is that part of Russia east of the Ural Mountains). It also includes the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland and all the Scandinavian countries.

Today all these countries are generally regarded as Christian and mostly Roman Catholic (with some exceptions). But this does not really reflect the state of religion in Europe at all.

Although Roman Catholicism is the denomination most prevalent in Europe, there are parts where the Orthodox Church (Greece, Russia) is most prevalent and others where the population is mostly Protestant (the Scandinavian countries). Christianity is still Europe's main religion, with about 550 million adherents. But the number of Catholic Christians in Europe, for example, has fallen by more than a third since 1978.

The truth about Christianity in Europe is however, that people might formally belong to Christian Churches but the church plays a very small part in their lives. Consider that while 82 per cent of Italians belong to the Roman Catholic Church, less than 50 per cent attend Church services on a regular basis. The Roman Catholic Church does not allow its members to use contraceptives, but the birth rate in Italy is one of the lowest in the whole of Europe.

The sociologist Grace Davie (1994) has pointed out that the link between "believing" and "belonging" just is no longer the automatic one it used to be, and nowhere is this more obvious than in Europe.

Any map of religion in Europe represents an idealised situation dating to about 1900. But a map that showed the entire continent as "mixed" would not be very helpful, would it?

The distribution of religious traditions in Europe

There are many who believe that Christianity is fast becoming a minority faith in Europe, as church attendance falls. Faith is, however, reappearing in unexpected places, some Christian, some not.

Across Europe churches are being closed and turned into theatres, pubs and supermarkets. In fact, there are a growing number of missionaries from places such as Uganda, South Africa and Brazil working in Europe among Europeans. Despite this there has been a remarkable increase of Christian faith among the youth. In Denmark the number of 18 to 29 year olds who believe in God has leapt from 30 per cent in 1981 to 49 per cent in 1999 and in Italy from 75 per cent to 87 per cent.

This brings us to a further notable characteristic of faith in Europe and that is that it grows best outside of religious structures. As many people rediscover spirituality they do not necessarily return to the church. People are more likely to construct their own religion and often take elements from different religions into their own belief system.

Although this worries some religious leaders, it does fulfil the spiritual need of many people who no longer want guidance from traditional institutions.

Another interesting development in Europe has been that other kinds of faith are blossoming in many places. Among recent immigrants to Europe, faith, Christian or otherwise, is particularly strong as people from Africa, the Caribbean and Muslim countries find support and comfort in faith congregations.

In France today there are about 5 million Muslims and their numbers are increasing steadily. Germany has more than 3 million Muslims and the United Kingdom more than 2 million.

These communities are amongst the most devout in all of Europe. Their way of practising Islam is, however, being adapted so that it differs from the ways in Morocco, Egypt and Turkey.

But not all European Muslims are recent immigrants. The Balkan areas used to belong to the Ottoman Empire and over the course of centuries conversions and resettlements created large Muslim populations in South-eastern Europe. Albania is a Muslim country and there is a large community in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There is even a Buddhist country in Europe! What we call "Russia" is actually a federation of regions with different levels of independence from Moscow. One such region is the Republic of Kalmykia, on the shore of the Black Sea, where a form of Tibetan Buddhism is practised.

References Cited:

Davie, G. 1994 . _Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging_. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

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1.4 Religion in the Americas

The Americas are divided in a Northern and Southern continent and comprise many different countries, the major ones in North America being Canada, the United States of America and Mexico \- and in the South, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela.

The major religions in these countries today are still the religions which were brought by colonists from Europe.

1.4.1 North America

In the _United States_ , with its history of British colonisation and immigration from all over Europe, half of the population belong to about 900 Protestant churches, and about a quarter of the population are Roman Catholics. No single Protestant church in the USA is larger than the Roman Catholic Church.

The Jewish adherents number less than ten per cent but this is the largest concentration of Jews In the world - by one estimate, there are as many Jews in New York City as there are in Israel.

Since the revision of immigration laws, which banned Asian immigration to the USA, in 1965, a steady stream of immigrants together with religious teachers and missionaries have arrived from Asia and has led to sizeable numbers of adherents to Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

The group that has grown the most in recent years is those who belong to no religion (this now stands at about 20 per cent) although these people are not necessarily atheists. Many still believe in God and think of themselves as spiritual despite avoiding organised religion.

When compared with European statistics Americans are more religious with 97 per cent saying they believe in God and about half of them reporting that they attend church services weekly, but only a quarter declared themselves "deeply religious".

In _Canada_ , where there were mainly English and French immigrants, about half of the population are Roman Catholic (from the French stream) and 36 per cent Protestants (from the English immigrants).

Once again. as in other Western countries, more Canadians than ever are reporting no religious affiliation Three quarters of the Canadians who list themselves as not belonging to any religion are under the age of 45 - but 40 per cent of these people actually believe in a God who cares about them personally.

_Mexico_ lies just south of the United States and was colonised by Spain in the early sixteenth century. Ever since that time, Roman Catholicism has had a strong influence on the country. Today 90 per cent of Mexicans belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and just a tiny group to Protestant denominations \- mostly of a Pentecostal variety.

1.4.2 South America

With regard to the countries of South America, the pattern is the same as in Northern America inasmuch as the religion of the colonisers (Spain and Portugal) have all but wiped out the traditional religions of the sub-continent, both the religions of great Andean civilisations such as the Incas and those practised by tribes deep in the Amazon rain forest.

In _Brazil_ , the largest country in South America, three-quarters of the population belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and in _Argentina_ , _Colombia_ and _Venezuela_ the percentages are even higher.

Lately Protestantism, particularly of the Pentecostal/Evangelical variety, has made some inroads, but still Protestants remain in the minority. The way evangelicalism is growing in Brazil, though, that might no longer be true by the time you read this.

One or two Brazilian pentecostal churches are even being exported: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, for example, has branches in South Africa, where it evangelises in inner-city environments.

An interesting development that has its roots in this part of the world is _Liberation Theology_ , which emphasises that the church should lead the struggle against oppressors for a better life on earth. A number of Catholic and Protestant theologians led the way in countries such as Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Argentina in protesting, on theological grounds, the way in which the poor masses of the rural and large urban slums were treated in these countries. The movement eventually brought people together in Christian-based communities, to study the Bible and to fight for social justice. This movement also had an influence on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

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1.5 Religion in Oceania

The term _Australasia_ refers to Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. Under the term Pacific is understood the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, scattered all over the Pacific Ocean. The best known of these islands are Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti and Hawaii. Another name that is often used for this entire region is _Oceania_. Today, this is the most religiously homogeneous of all the rmajor geographical regions.

The first people to inhabit the regions of Australasia and the Pacific arrived by boats or dug-out canoes from different parts of Asia. These arrivals took place more than 30 000 years ago. In fact, the oldest known boat on earth was found on the coast of New Guinea and is believed to be more than 33 000 years old.

Before the coming of British colonial settlers to _Australia_ during the nineteenth century, the country was inhabited by the Aborigines who had their own religious beliefs and practices. Today, approximately 70 per cent of Australian Aborigines indicate on census forms that they are Christians.

With the first immigrants, mainly coming from Britain, all the major Christian denominations found their way to "down under", as Australia is known. Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and members of the Greek Orthodox Church all made Australia their home.

In the period after the Second World War, adherents of other world religions, started entering the country. Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims together constitute less than 3 per cent of the Australian population, but their numbers are growing More than a million present day Australian Catholics were born overseas, with the largest group coming from Italy.

The Maoris in _New Zealand_ practised their own form of Polynesian religion until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Then a great number of Christian missionaries, who came in the company of the colonial powers or soon afterwards, actively promoted the Christian faith. The result was that most of the Maoris converted to Christianity.

The majority of islands in Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia have given up the worship of family and village gods in favour of Christianity. Some islands, such as Samoa for instance, appear to be one hundred percent Christian. Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists appear to be present in large numbers.

It is only on the island of _Fiji_ that we find a significant presence of people of other faiths. 38 per cent of all Fijians are Hindus, while Muslims account for 8 per cent of the population. But this is because of immigration from India, not because the native Fijians accepted those religions.

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Chapter 2: What is the date?

In the previous chapter, we discussed the distribution of religions in space. In this and the following chapter, we will see how they can be positioned in time. First, we will look at the way time is measured, any you will come to see that almost all calendars (and there are many of them) are somehow connected to religion. Once you are done with this chapter, you will be able to deal with calendars from a variety of cultures.

You will see that we use the abbreviations CE and BCE in this book. This will be explained a little later. For now, just remember that 2004 CE is the same as 2004 AD, and that 2004 BCE is the same as 2004 BC.

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2.1 Solar and lunar calendars

From the earliest times, people have felt the need to know what date it was. There were practical reasons for this: Crops had to be planted at the right time.

But as religion became established, it became necessary to know the date for another reason: Religious festivals were to be held at certain times at not others. One certainly did not want to anger the gods by celebrating their festivals at the wrong time!

Priests started to keep count of the days and to construct systems by which they could keep up.

How do you keep time in a world where clocks, wall calendars and so on have not been invented yet? You watch the movements of the sun and the moon. From such observations came almost all the calendar systems of the world, including those still in use today.

The calendar most commonly in use around the world today is called the Gregorian Calendar, and it uses the **sun** as its basic point of reference. This is why it is called a **solar** calendar, from the Latin word for the sun, which is Sol.

But the Islamic calendar, as we shall see, is quite different. It uses the phases of the **moon** to calculate the date, and we call it a **lunar** calendar, from the Latin Luna, which means "moon".

But there are very few purely solar or lunar systems. The solar Gregorian calendar still has months (the word "month" comes from "moon"), even if these no longer correspond to the actual waxing and waning of the moon.

In fact, within Christianity a lunar system is used to calculate the date of Easter, which is why every year it falls on a different date. Just to give you an idea of the many different calendars that have been used, let us take the date 19 June 2004. What would that be called in different calendars?

• Gregorian: Saturday, 19 June 2004 CE

• Mayan: Long count = 12.19.11.6.13; Tzolkin = 4 Ben; Haab = 16 Zotz

• Islamic: 1 Jumada 1425

• Hebrew: 30 Sivan 5764

• Julian: 6 June 2004

• Persian: 30 Xordad 1383

• Ethiopic: 12 Sane 1996

• Coptic: 12 Baunah 1720

• Chinese: Cycle 78, year 21 (Jia-Shen), month 5 (Geng-Wu), day 2 (Ji-Si)

_Calculations courtesy of_ <http://isotropic.org/uw//date/> _and see also_ <http://www.calendarhome.com/converter/>_._ Why not go to one of these web sites and type in the day of your birth?

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2.2 The Julian and Gregorian calendars

The Gregorian calendar system is sometimes called the "Christian calendar", because it starts counting the years from the birth of Christ. But its origins are much more complicated. We can trace it back to the Julian calendar, which was a reform of an old Roman calendar system supposedly deviosed by _Julius Caesar_. More likely it was developed by mathematicians and astronomers working for Julius Caesar.

Of course, Julius Caesar lived before Christ, so he could not really use that as his starting point. Instead, he counted the years since the founding of the city of Rome in our year 753 BCE. Only around the sixth century did the practice of dating time from the birth of Christ start to become common, and counting backwards from that point (the years BCE) did not really catch on until the seventeenth century.

Every calendar has a starting point, and the years before that starting point count backwards! The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria was born in 15 BCE. In what year would he be celebrating his twelfth birthday? 3BCE.

You know how the birth and death dates of a person are indicated? You will read in history books about Mr BB Brown (1910-1969), so Mr Brown lived for 59 years.

Let's return to Philo. He was born in 15 BCE and died 65 years later. How would you write his name together with those two dates? That would be Philo (15 BCE-50 CE).

The date of Christ's birth was first calculated in the year 527 CE by a monk called Dionysius Exiguus, whose Latin name means "Dennis the Short". Unfortunately, he made some errors, and most biblical scholars today agree that Jesus was actually born somewhere around the year 4 BCE or even a few years earlier.

The Julian calendar worked well for a long time, but every 128 years, it gained one day, and by the 1580s the calendar was 10 days ahead of the real time. In 1582, Pope Gregory XII therefore instituted calendar reform by simply dropping 10 days from the calendar!

A lot of people were furious with Pope Gregory. They believed that by changing the calendar, he had shortened their lives by ten days! He ensured that the error should not happen again by making subtle changes in the number of leap years.

Pope Gregory's system has been adjusted since then, but it is basically the system still in use today and is called the Gregorian calendar system in his honour.

Today, we keep time with atomic clocks that are so accurate that scientists occasionally put in a "leap second" to keep other clocks reliable. There are special programs you can download to synchronise your own computer with these atomic clocks across the Internet. Modern operating systems even have such programs built in.

The Orthodox Church continues to this day to use the Julian calendar to calculate the dates for its festivals. The Orthodox Easter and Christmas holidays therefore fall on different days than those celebrated by Catholic and Protestant Christians.

Russia and Greece were the last European countries to adopt the Gregorian system in the early twentieth century.

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2.3 A new system: CE and BCE

People have certainly invented a lot of different calendar systems over the centuries! And that was fine as long as everyone stayed in his or her own society, and had no contact with other societies and religions.

But by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was starting to become clear that the world needed a single calendar system that everyone could agree on. Business, politics and just the basic need to communicate demanded such a system as the world became more and more connected.

No decision was ever taken by the world at large: the Gregorian system became dominant simply because at the time it was the system favoured by the major economic and colonial powers such as Britain, America and France.

One by one, other countries adopted the Gregorian system. Sometimes it replaced their original calendar completely, while in other cases they learned to use two systems side-by-side

And so, today New Year is celebrated in Beijing and Tokyo on January 1, just as it is in Johannesburg or New York. But that still leaves a problem. Traditionally, the years in the Gregorian system are named either AD (Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord") or BC ("Before Christ").

Not only have we since learned that the date of Christ's birth was miscalculated, but can we really require Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and people of no particular religion at all to constantly have to refer to the Christian saviour when they just want to make reference to a particular date in history?

The new abbreviations that have therefore been put forward are CE ("the Common Era") and BCE ("Before the Common Era"). The dates themselves have not changed. The year 2004 CE is exactly the same as the year 2004 AD - but it is a more polite, culturally sensitive way of using the Gregorian system.

Sometimes you will see the claim that CE stands for the "Christian Era", but that is quite wrong, as we can see when we look at the abbreviations used in various languages - in Afrikaans, for instance, we use AJ: "Algemene Jaartelling".

In this book we will use CE and BCE throughout. If you see a date with neither CE nor BCE behind it, you can be 99 per cent sure that CE is meant.

"Common Era" is not a newfangled invention, by the way. The earliest English example of the term found so far dates to 1708, and there are even earlier attempts to do the same thing in Latin,

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2.4 Religious and traditional calendars

The Jewish calendar

Judaism uses its own calendar to calculate the correct days for festivals, and the Jewish calendar is also the official calendar of Israel. It is a complicated system that tries to do justice to both the lunar and the solar systems, and its year 1 dates back to 3761 BCE, which according to Jewish tradition is the date of Creation (not all Jews take this literally, but even for those who do not, it has a symbolic importance).

The Jewish calendar was established by Sanhedrin leader Hillel around the year 359 CE. The Jewish day also does not start at midnight, but when the sun goes down. This feature can also be found in the Islamic calendar, which we will consider next.

The Islamic Calendar

The Islamic calendar starts at the moment of the Prophet Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) in the year 622 CE. It is a purely lunar calendar and about 11 days shorter than the solar year used in the Gregorian system. This means that the Islamic calendar will overtake the Gregorian one about 19 000 years from now!

However, it is just as accurate in keeping up with the movements of the moon as the Gregorian calendar is in keeping up with the movements of the sun.

The Baha'i Calendar

The Baha'i Faith has created its own calendar as well. Uniquely, this calendar uses 19-day "months", which makes it one of the purest attempts to create a completely solar calendar. The Baha'i calendar takes no notice of the moon's motions at all. Its year of 19 "months" of 19 days only add up to 361 days, but this is solved by inserting special "intercalary" days (literally "between the calendars) at the end of the year.

Intercalary days were a feature of many ancient calendars. In the ancient Egyptian calendar, for example, these days were used to hold a feast to celebrate the end of the year.

The basic problem is that the earth goes around the sun in just less than 365 and one-quarter days. That is a number that just does not divide easily. Most contemporary calendars solve the problem by adding a leap day every fourth year.

The Chinese Calendar

In China, the Gregorian system is used for official purposes, but there is also a traditional Chinese calendar that is used to calculate festival days. Unlike other calendars, the Chinese one does not start at year 1 and keep on counting forwards indefinitely. Instead, it uses recurring 60-year cycles.

If we calculate back and translate this into the Gregorian calendar, we can see that the Chinese calendar starts in the year 2637 BCE. The 60-year cycles are broken up into five twelve-year cycles, with each year named after an animal. Most of 2004 was the Year of the Monkey, but the Year of the Monkey did not start on 1 January 2004!

The Chinese New Year falls on a different date every Gregorian year. So, if someone was born in 2003, that would be the year of the sheep. Except if it was before 1 February 2003, in which case it would still be the year of the horse!

The names of these years are bound up with Chinese astrology. Someone born in the year of the horse, for example, would be thought to have the strength and stamina of a horse. The Chinese would also refer to the reigns of emperors to indicate the passage of time, thus you would get references like, "... during the reign of Emperor Kao Tsu, in the year of the Pig ..."

Tibetan Buddhists adopted the basic idea behind the Chinese calendar and developed their own calendar with 60-year cycles and 12-year animal cycles. They use a different set of animals.

The Indian Civil Calendar

In India, a number of traditional calendars used to exist. Only in 1957 did the Indian government impose a single system. When they looked at existing systems, they found no less than 30 Hindu, Buddhist and Jain calendars in common use! The official Indian system is not the same as the Gregorian, but Indian authorities are trying to keep the two running at the same rate, while still doing justice to the variety of Hindu calendars.

Buddhist Calendars

Theravada Buddhists start their calendar from the moment of the Buddha's enlightenment. But they do not agree in which year, or even in what month, this actually happened. There are therefore a number of Buddhist calendars.

You can go to Sri Lanka and celebrate Wesak (the main Buddhist festival, celebrating the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha) in Late April or early May, and then go to Thailand and have the whole celebration all over again a month later, in late May or early June!

Mahayana Buddhists in places like Japan used to employ the Chinese calendar, but in recent years they have tended to adopt the Gregorian calendar and now use that to celebrate their festivals. Their Wesak festival falls in late October.

African Calendars

African societies also created their own calendars. For example, the Coptic Christians in Egypt and and Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia use two different calendar systems that are unique to those countries. Elsewhere in Africa, as well, careful note was kept of the passing of time and the coming of the seasons.

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2.5 Non-religious calendars

As we have seen, almost all calendars are religion-based. But there have also been calendars that were explicitly non-religious. The _Indian Civil Calendar_ , mentioned above, is not itself religious, but it honours tradition by retaining many month-names and so on from older, religious calendars.

Other calendars have been explicitly anti-religious. During the French Revolution of 1789, a new calendar was created that would have no religious overtones at all. It did not last long, but if it were still in use today, then 19 June 2004 would have been called 2 Messidor an 212 de la Révolution (the 2nd of Messidor in the year 212 of the Revolution). But today, the French again use the same (Gregorian) calendar as most of the world.

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2.6 Days of the week

In many European languages, the names of the days of the week recall the ancient European pagan religions that were replaced by Christianity long ago. In English, for example, some of these refer to ancient Roman gods, while others go back to the ancient Germanic religion.

• Sunday - The Sun god's day

• Monday - The Moon goddess's day

• Tuesday - Tiw's day

• Wednesday - Woden's day

• Thursday - Thor's day

• Friday - Frey or Freya's day

• Saturday - Saturn's day

The first three days of the week, as represented by a woodcut engraving from 1700 CE

In this system, Tuesday to Friday are named after old Gemanic deities, while Saturn is of course a Roman God. The moon and sun were worshipped in both religions, and it is hard to say from which one the names of Sunday and Monday are derived.

Frey and Freyya were the old Germanic gods of fertility, Woden was their chief god and Thor was the god of thunderstorms. Tiw was a war god. He was also the god in charge of the Germanic people's tribal assembly (called the "Thing"), which is why in Dutch it is called "Dinsdag".

These gods were common to all the Germanic tribes of long ago, but their names were pronounced differently by different tribes: Woden is also called Wotan and Odin, and Thor is also called Donar and Thunor.

In Roman religion, Saturn was a god they had taken over from the Greeks. His original name was Chronos (literally, "time") and he was the father of the Greek chief god Zeus.

If you look at the names of the weekdays in French, you will quickly see that the Germaic component is completely missing there: in French all days of the week refer to Roman gods.

Another three days of the week, from the same source. Thursday is not represented here.

Religions disagree on which day of the week should be a day of rest and worship. For Jews and some Christians like the Seventh-Day Adventists, it is Saturday, for the other Christians it is Sunday, and for Muslims it is Friday. There is also much disagreement between these groups, and even within these groups, over precisely what one is and is not allowed to do during these times.

Although the most explicit reference to a seven-day week is in the Jewish and Christian Bible, it is thought that the ancient Babylonians and Romans already had a seven-day week long before they came into contact with Jews or Christians. 7 x 52 almost makes up a full year, so it is a convenient way to arrange time.

The week has no particular significance in Eastern religions, but in many schools of Hinduism and Buddhism, the periods of the full moon and new moon (i.e. once every 14 days) are reserved for religious practice and acts of piety.

Baha'is celebrate at the end of each of their 19-day months.

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Chapter 3: Where and when did it start?

In the first chapter of this book we have looked at religion as we find it today in geographical areas of the world. In other words we "mapped" the religions of our world.

Then we stood still briefly to look at the different calendars that were developed by different civilisations throughout the ages. We therefore now also have a good idea of the time frames we are working with.

In this chapter we will look at the earliest beginnings of religion in the world as a whole as well as in specific parts of the world. The idea is to get a bird's eye view over religion through the ages and also see how religions originated (and in many cases died) in different parts of the world.

Together with the information in the previous chapters you will be able to see a global picture of the development of religion over the ages and the development of religion in specific areas of the world. This will give some idea of how we have come to the position we are in at the present time.

In following chapters we also explore the beginnings and development of religion in specific regions and then we will play the numbers game and try to plot the present number of adherents of the different religions. We will therefore not go into any detail on any specific time or place right now but simply cast our eye over the years and the world as a whole.

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3.1 Origins: Different stages of religion

When studying the following types of religion over the ages there are a few points you must remember:

• These types of religion overlap in time. In some places a certain type of religion started earlier than in others. For example the beginning of settled agriculture started around 8 000 BC in the Middle East, about 6 000 BC in Africa and India, 5000 BC in China, and about 3 000 BC in North America. The type of religion connected with settled agricultural societies therefore developed at different stages in different parts of the world.

• None of these forms of religion are completely extinct. We still find evidence of the mind-set that created them all in modern people today

• The progression does not imply superiority. Later religions are not "better" than earlier religions - they simply reflect the circumstances in which they developed. Mere age (whether oldest or youngest) is not an important factor

• While some dates (particularly the later ones) are accurate, many of the earlier dates are approximations

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Religion I - The earliest indications of religion

The story of religion is as old as humanity itself. Exactly when it started we do not know, but it would appear that it was an element of life and culture of even the prehistoric proto-humans in the Old Stone Age which lasted from about 500 000 to 10 000 years ago. Scholars believe that humans had their origin in Africa and from here spread across the rest of the world. They arrived in Australia around 60 000 years ago but in North and South America only about 20 000 to 12 000 years ago.

In caves near Beijing in China a collection of human skulls were found with indications that the content had been removed. Did these early humans cut off the heads of their enemies as trophies? And did they eat the contents in order to obtain the vitality of the person? Or was the human brain simply a delicious meal? We do not know. But all across Europe there are evidence of ceremonial burial practices by Neanderthal people (100 000-75 000 years ago) which would indicate that these early hominids had a complex understanding of life and buried their dead with implements presumably to serve the deceased in the after-life.

Border Cave in South Africa, one of the earliest possible site of a religious ritual.

© Wikimedia/MADe 2013 CC BY-SA 3.0.

Most scientist seem to agree at present that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) had their origins in Africa and from here spread to the rest of the world. The remains of a child who was buried around 100 000 years ago was found at a place called Border Cave in northern Kwazulu-Natal. A perforated shell was placed in the grave with the child. Did this mean that those long-ago people believed in some sort of life after death? Was the child given a favourite toy to play with in the afterlife? We will probably never know for sure. But it is clear that these early humans cared for their dead in very human ways.

Just as the earlier hominids took care to bury their dead so too did the first humans show a concern for the dead and scholars believe that this indicates that even today all religions will have certain features (e.g. rituals, myths) that are common to all humankind because we are all part of one biological species.

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Religion II - Hunter-gatherer religions

For most of human history people use to live in small groups and hunted small animals, scavenged, and collected eggs and insects for food wherever they could find it. Many of these people expressed their religious beliefs in art.

Santimamiñe cave painting

© Wikimedia/ETOR Entziklopedia 2014 CC BY-SA 3.0

Dotted across Europe there are examples of cave drawings which would indicate that the aim was to control events. For example; deep in caves there are drawings of animals being hunted. The inaccessibility of the paintings suggest that these were not for decorative use but were rather symbolic and ritual. In other words, by drawing a successful hunt scene on the cave-wall, they would have success with the hunt when next they went in search of game.

Zoomorphic pictogram on stone slab from the MSA of Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia.

© Wikimedia/José-Manuel Benito Álvarez, Public Domain 2006.

The oldest rock painting ever found in Southern Africa comes from the Apollo 11 cave in Namibia. It is estimated to be 27 000 years old.

In Europe, sculptures also appeared and these were often of pregnant females (today referred to as Venuses) which led scholars to speculate that people worshipped fertility goddesses in those areas.

The "Venus of Willendorf" is one of the most famous paleolithic scultures.

It was found in Austria in the year 1908.

© Wikimedia/Torunga Page CC BY-SA 3.0 2012.

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Religion III - Religion of early food producers

About 10 000 years ago humans started to cultivate the land and this resulted in larger groups living together in villages and society becoming more organised. Hunting became more organised and supplemented the diet of berries, grain and fruit which the women and children gathered. Fishing also became an option with fish being caught with bone hooks and fibre nets. For the first time weaving and pottery were being practised.

Modern people have built recreations of houses from this period.

This one is in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

© Wikimedia/Prof Saxx 2008 CC BY-SA-3.0.

Indications are that people continued to worshipped an earth goddess and that they were generally in awe of nature. There are also indications of religious specialisation in the form of the shaman, medicine-man or healer. The king or tribal head often played a major part in certain rituals such as blood sacrifices.

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Religion IV - Religions of early state societies

A number of crucial developments around 6 000 years ago led to revolutionary changes in society. The wheel was invented and this led to a multitude of new developments. Now people were tilling the soil and domesticating animals, they were collecting herds and started plaiting and sewing. The first evidence of pottery made on a wheel was found in Mesopotamia and dates to about 3 400 BC. Wheeled transport developed in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC.

A number of large cities and states developed in various parts of the world (Egypt, China, Greece and central America). People were travelling long distances and there was some contact between these civilisations with the resultant exchange of ideas.

Would you say the people who built this to bury their king were religious?

The Sakkara pyramid is one of the oldest pyramids, but

it was already the result of a long line of burial mounds.

© Wikimedia/Max Gattringer, Public Domain 2009.

Some societies developed writing and this was to have an enormous effect on religion. On the whole the cult of the mother-goddess seemed to spread, some societies developed elaborate burial ceremonies (e.g. the pyramids of Egypt) while in others the dead were cremated (e.g. in India).

Some religions of our time have their early roots in this time, for example, Hinduism in India, Shinto in Japan, and Confucianism in China.

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Religion V - Religion of systematised thought

Around 700 BCE and for about 1200 years on, there occurred such dramatic developments that the world has never been the same again. It is referred to as the Axial Age (the axle on which history turns) because it was so crucial in the history of the world.

Zoroaster

© Wikimedia/Dinebehi CC BY-SA 4.0 2010

In a number of different places on earth there arose persons who would have a lasting effect on the people of this planet. Firstly, in Persia, there was Zoroaster, the founder of the religion of Zoroastrianism which was to have a great influence on the other religions of the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

Socrates at the Fountain, by Wilhelm von Gloeden.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia, 2012.

Then there were the philosophers Socrates and Plato who lived and worked in Greece, at roughly the same time as the religious thinkers of Israel such as Isaiah. In India the great Upanishadic thinkers were developing the philosophical schools of Hinduism, and India was also the birthplace during this time of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.

Birth of the Buddha

© Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0 2005

China was the home of the philosophers Lao Tzu (the legendary founder of Taoism) and Confucius (the founder of the religion named after him, Confucianism). In the Middle East (Southwest Asia) Jesus was the person in whom this systematised thought manifested and early Christianity appeared.

Some five hundred years later Muhammad (the prophet of Islam) was to introduce this turn of mind to Arabia as well. Considering the influence these people have had on our world, it is no wonder that people had to come up with a special term to refer to this time.

Mary and Christ.

© José-Manuel Benito Álvarez CC BY-SA 3.0 2006

In time three of the religions which had their origin during this time (Christianity, Buddhism and Islam) were to spread far beyond the places of their origin and this became a characteristic of the time: that people no longer necessarily belonged to the religion in which they had been raised. For the first time, conversion became a possibility. The usual term for this development is _World Religions_. We will come across the term again later on in the book.

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Religion VI - Religion in the modern technological age

In the modern technological age society has changed dramatically from previous eras. In the field of religion, we see that religion has become a totally separate element of society - a phenomenon referred to as secularisation. While religion is still important it no longer has the claim on people or society that it had in the past and the rejection of religion is an acceptable worldview among many modern people.

Yazidis protest in Berlin against the genocide carried out against

their people by the ultra-Islamic forces of ISIS in Iraq.

© Wikimedia/An-d CC BY-SA 3.0 2014

There has been an enormous movement of people all over the world and many people no longer live in the areas of the world where their ancestors lived. This makes for societies where people from different cultures and religions live side by side with one another in pluralistic cities and countries.

Tolerance and pluralism are now important civic virtues because the people who make up society differ enormously on their views on culture and religion - and everyone has the same right to their own views. Although most people within a modern society are tolerant and accept this situation, there are still some strong reactions against this diversity from some quarters

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Religion VII - Beyond the modern age

There are scholars who study religion and culture who think that we are presently moving into a new era of development. They think that the modern era is being superseded by a "post-modern" era where people are reacting against certain features of the modern era.

These people see a new consciousness developing in which people are becoming more aware of the interconnectedness and interdependence of everyone and everything on earth and beyond. From this there flows a higher regard for nature and the environment and a new kind of spirituality. However, this is a popular usage of the term "postmodern". The genuine article is a direction in philosophy that can be quite difficult to understand and appreciate, and often leads to the reaction in the cartoon below!

Think back to what we said in chapter 2 on the status of religion in Europe. There we said that church buildings are being sold because people are not using them anymore, but simultaneously there seems to be a spiritual awakening among the youth as they join newer spiritual movements and go on pilgrimages and retreats all across the continent.

Many scholars also agree that the secularisation process that 30 years ago they thought would wipe out religion, did not materialise and that there are strong indications not only of new religious movements, but also of reinterpretations of old traditions. In some quarters there is also strong reaction against these new movements in the form of fundamentalism where people attempt to go back to the basics of their faith and in that way strengthen the religion

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3.2 Origins: Geographical development

In the next part of this chapter we will look at the origins of the major religions of the world. But not only will we look at when these religions developed, but also where they developed. This will clearly show that there are in fact "families of religions" - since the religions that developed in different areas of the world have very distinct features that characterise them, we can think of them as families.

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African religion(s)

If the earliest humans that we know of had their origin in Africa, then the San (or Bushmen) were probably their descendants who most closely resembled them physically and culturally. These people lived in the Southern parts of Africa as early as 25 000 to 10 000 years ago. Today their art still graces caves and rocks all over Southern Africa.

When European settlers arrived in South Africa in 1652, they found two distinct groups of people living in the Cape. The Khoi who were cattle-herders and the San who were hunter-gatherers. These two groups are often referred to as the Khoisan.

San hunters

© Wikimedia/David Barrie CC BY 2.0 2008.

San culture and religion centred on a close relation to the natural world and attempts to contact another, spiritual realm through the "trance dance".

With regard to African religion, it is estimated that the Bantu speaking people migrated throughout the area south of the Sahara over a period of two thousand years, starting about 3 000 years ago. This migration was one of largest in human history and the people eventually reached down to the most southern parts of Africa. During this migration the people split into two major language branches - the Eastern and the Western branches. The eastern group migrated through to present day Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, while the Western group moved into Angola, Namibia and Botswana. The Shona, Zulu and Xhosa are descendants of the Eastern group and the Herero and Tonga people descend from the Western language branch.

Five Zulu diviners.

© Wikimedia/Wizzy CC BY-SA 3.0 2008

There is much speculation about whether we can generalise about common features of African religion. It is certainly true that there are very distinct systems of religion in Africa, but scholars argue that on the whole it is indeed possible to speak of a cluster of religions called African religion because there are some very common characteristics that are not necessarily found elsewhere.

Some of these features that are found in most African religions are: the belief in the power of the life-force which is inherent in nature, the veneration of ancestors, the sanctity of the community (as opposed to the individual), and a belief in a realm of spirits. Today one of the most common features of religion in African is the belief in a Supreme Being.

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Indian religions

India has been one of the most fertile countries in the entire history of religions. Only the Middle East rivals it as one of the great areas where world religions (and smaller, local ones) have been created. The religions that had their origin in this part of the world are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.

A graphic representation of the doctrine of reincarnation.

© Wikimedia/Himalayan Academy Publications CC BY-SA 2.5 2007.

**Hinduism** is one of the oldest religions on earth and defies all attempt to describe it because it has so many forms. What characterises it, however, is the belief that one should live in such a way that one's next life will be a happier one than this. Hindus therefore believe in reincarnation - which means to be born into a next life over and over again.

The law that governs this rebirth is called the Law of Karma (which means The Law of Action). This means that every action has a consequence and in the same way every life will also have a next life that will be a consequence of this life. A good life will result in a better life after this, but a bad life will result in a worse next life.

Mahavira, the founder of Jainism

© Wikimedia/Jaina.org Public Domain 2008.

All the religions that had their origin in India have this belief in common - although with some subtle differences. Both **Buddhism** (founded by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha [566-486 BCE]) and **Jainism** (founded by Mahavira [599-527 BCE) were founded as reform movements in Hinduism during the sixth century BCE.

After about 1500 years, Buddhism died out in India itself, but by then it had already become well-established elsewhere in Asia. Although there are few Buddhists in India today, the religion has influenced the country deeply: on the Indian national flag you will see a picture of a wheel. This is, in fact, originally a Buddhist symbol.

Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

**Sikhism** is a classic example of a syncretistic religion because it arose as a synthesis of elements of Hinduism and Islam around 1 500 CE from the teachings of Guru Nanak (1469-1538).

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Chinese religions

Two religions of note originated in China - Taoism and Confucianism. Both of these grew out of what is usually referred to as Chinese Traditional religion.

**Confucianism** was founded in the 6th century BCE by the Chinese philosopher Confucius who taught that if people treated each other with courtesy and righteousness, all would be well with the country.

Confucius was not really called Confucius! He is commonly referred to by the Chinese as K'ung Fu-tzu which means "Master Kung". When Christian missionaries arrived in China, they found this too difficult to pronounce, and so they created the Latin-sounding form "Confucius".

Buddha, Lao Tzu and Confucius.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

At about the same time, **Taoism** was founded, supposedly by Lao-Tzu. Unlike Confucius, who is definitely a real historical character, Lao-Tzu probably never existed. The title means "the old teacher", and it was probably a general way of referring to a series of wise men from long ago.

As time went by, people started to think of these different thinkers as a single individual, who was supposed to have written a book called _Tao te Ching_ , which means "The Way and its Power".

Unlike Confucianism, Taoism was unconcerned with social etiquette and the correct performance of ritual. Instead, it taught that freedom and immortality could be found in conforming to nature's ways without thinking too much about it. People should strive to be free and spontaneous.

There was, however, a third religious tradition in China that should be noted. This tradition was never taken seriously enough by scholars to get a name that ends with "-ism", but it probaly has more followers than either Confucianism or Taoism.

Sometimes it is referred to as **Chinese Folk Religion**. This involves the worship of gods, some of them quite local, the veneration of ancestors to an extent that Confucius would have disliked, charms, amulets, and astrology.

This sort of unofficial religious undercurrent exists in many societies. Certainly in the West there have always been astrology, Tarot cards and so on. In China, however, it is a little more visible than usual.

**Buddhism** was imported into China long after the other two religions had established themselves. Unlike what happened in some other Asian countries, Buddhism never became dominant in China. It always had an image problem as the foreign, imported religion and during the Tang dynasty it was even persecuted. Even so, it eventually became established as the third main religion in China.

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Middle Eastern Religions

The region of the "Middle East" (or Southwest Asia) today comprises countries such as Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi-Arabia and Syria. This region is regarded as the cradle of three of the contemporary world's best-known and, to some extent, also largest and wide-spread, religions namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These religions are often referred to as Semitic religions.

**Zoroastrianism** arose in the 7th century BCE under the leadership of the prophet Zoroaster (although there is a group of scholars who think he lived as far back as the 15th century BCE). It had a significant influence on Judaism during the Babylonian exile, and is usually included in this group for historical reasons.

Noah, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

You may have come across the term "Semitic" in the context of "anti-Semitism" and think that it means "Jewish". This is not the case. The term "Semitic" is derived from the Biblical figure Noah's eldest son, Shem, whose descendents were called Semites. The languages spoken by these people (Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, and so on) are known as Semitic languages. Of course, the majority of people following these religions today no longer speak a Semitic language, but the term indicates where these religions first arose.

However, Zoroastrianism arose among the ancient Persians, who spoke an Indo-European language. It does not fit in this category very easily.

Abraham meets Melchisedech (Mosaic in Basilica di San Marco)

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

Another term you may come across is **Abrahamic Religions**. This usually means the same as Semitic Religions, but again, strictly speaking it cannot include Zoroastrianism, since Zoroastrianism does not base itself on the biblical character Abraham.

These religions have the following in common:

• they developed in the same geographical area

• they are all monotheistic religions (meaning that they believe in one God)

• they are religions of revelation (they believe that God reveals himself and his will to them via prophets and scriptures)

• they all have a strong moral code which must be adhered to

• they all maintain that at the end of time, God will judge between good and evil and reward the faithful and punish the wicked.

The last judgement, by Antonis Glinas

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

What are we to make of the fact that religions have common features and that there are strong parallells to be discovered in the history of religion? It seems unlikely that any of these religions would have intentionally "borrowed" or "stolen" from the others in order to concoct a new religion.

On the other hand, there was indisputably some influencing going on. For instance, Zoroastrianism appears to have exercised a definite influence on the other three religions as regards the doctrine of heaven and hell.

None of these traditions (or any other in the world) existed in a vacuum and there has always been influence and cross-pollination of ideas. This does not mean that you should preoccupy yourself unduly with where the ideas came from. Rather study and evaluate each tradition in its own right. They are each entitled to such an evaluation.

There are other, smaller and lesser-known religions belonging to this group, mostly in the Middle East. The **Yazidi** faith shows similarities to Zoroastrianism, while the **Mandaeans** base their beliefs on John the Baptist rater than Jesus. The **Druzes** are an interesting offshoot of Islam, while the **Samaritans** are the descendants of northern Jews who never participated in the change from a temple-based to a synagogue-based kind of Judaism.

The latest member of this goup, the **Baha'i faith,** originated in Iran on 22 May 1844 when Mirza Ali Muhammad (1819-1850) declared that he was the Bab ("Gate") of faith. He announced that he was the promised one in Islam, but that there would follow someone even greater than himself. The Bab was executed in 1850.

A Babi (a follower of the Bab) announced in 1862 that he was indeed the one for whom the Bab had paved the way. He was Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (1817-1892) and was known as Baha'u'llah ("the glory of God"). Those who followed him became known as Baha'is. Today the Baha'i faith has about 5 million followers worldwide and in South Africa it is estimated that there are in excess of 10 000 followers.

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3.3 Case Study: How did it all begin in South Africa?

The next step in our attempt to understand the origins, spread, and numerical significance of religions of the world, will be to look at the more recent history of the religions in a specific country. Any country will do, at a pinch, but ideally it should be one in which all the major and some of the minor religions, or at least a good sample of them, are present.

It would also be helpful if, however turbulent the country's past may have been, at least religion was never the main cause of the turbulence. The history of religion in Northern Ireland, for example, would not tell us much about the way religion grows and develops. It is just too deeply bound up with conflict and opposing factions.

And finally, it would be useful if this country was one of which the author had some knowledge! We turn now to the origins and development of religions in South Africa

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The San

The earliest evidence of religion in South Africa comes from the San people who lived on the continent long before the Bantu-speaking people migrated from the North and West Africa about 1 700 years ago.

It is believed that the San people lived in small groups across large parts of South Africa and that they may have been the first humans to occupy this region. The San left a lasting legacy of their early culture in thousands of beautiful rock paintings all across the country. The art is the only evidence we have today of what their lives were like in those far away days.

They obviously had an intimate knowledge of the veld and animal behaviour and these were the subjects of many of their paintings. Today scholars speculate that the hunting scenes which they drew were probably for magical purposes of helping them to kill the animals - much like the early Europeans also did. The rock paintings suggest that the San had shamans or diviners who gained special powers during trances so that they could call animals for the hunt.

San rock art.

© Public domain via Wikimedia, 2008.

We don't really know what the religion of the San consisted of in those days, but their more recent oral tradition tells us that they had a concept of both a greater and a lesser god and a spirit world where the spirits of the dead dwelled. They also had a deep regard and close connection with nature and animals play an important part in their mythology and art.

The San were gradually replaced in the Western Cape by the Khoi people. These people were from the same genetic stock as the San, but they had adopted a different lifestyle. They herded cattle and sheep and smelted iron for implements and weapons. Because of the relationship between the two groups of people we refer to them collectively as the Khoisan, a name none of them ever used for themselves.

San rock art.

© Wikimedia/Andrew Moir, CC BY 2.0, 2008.

When the Bantu-speaking people moved into South Africa they met the San people and seemed to have lived in peace with them. This is attested to by the many San rock paintings depicting African people.

However, their respective lifestyles were incompatible and the San were slowly pushed into marginal areas: the deserts of the interior and the high mountain ranges.

No San living the traditional lifestyle exist in South Africa today. Their relatives the Khoi live on in the Griqua and Nama people, and Khoisan genes survive within the wider South African population. In parts of Namibia, Angola and Botswana some San continue to try and maintain a link to the traditional lifestyle, but it is an uphill battle against the forces of modernisation.

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African Religion

Archeological evidence shows that the Bantu-speaking people had reached the eastern half of the country well into the first millennium CE. Depending on where they settled (east or west of the Drakensberg), they developed different lifestyles.

Despite the differences in lifestyle, the people had surprisingly similar religious beliefs and practices. The only way that we know what these beliefs were are through the oral tradition of the people and the writings of early anthropologists and missionaries. It is however also true that when these early missionaries and anthropologists described African religion they probably unwittingly allowed their own background to influence their findings. When African scholarship started to emerge after World War II, many of the ideas of Western scholars were challenged and their conclusions questioned.

The term "Bantu-speaking", by the way, refers to a group of closely related languages that can be found all over Africa. It does not tell us anything about people except that they speak a specific kind of language. The use of "Bantu" as a racial classification in apartheid South Africa, was quite simply, wrong on a number of levels.

Zulu sangomas (diviners) proceed to greet a local chietfain

© Wikimedia/Whizzy CC BY-SA 3.0 2008.

What seems clear is that all the tribes revered and communicated with their ancestors. They also believed in a spirit world to which one would go after death. Although the ancestors could and would sometimes send misfortune, this was never evil. Real evil only befell one through the agency of witches and sorcerers.

Whether African religion was characterised by the belief in a Supreme Being before colonial times is a debatable question with assertions for both sides being made very emphatically. What is clear is that today this is an important characteristic of African religion, but there are those who believe it was not always thus.

In African languages many names for the godhead are encountered. In the Zulu tribe we find names such as _Umvelingangi_ (the one who appeared first), _Unkulunkulu_ (the great, great one), _Umdali_ (the creator), _Simakade_ (the one who has been standing for a long time), _U Ba_ ba (father) and _Umenzi_ (maker). In the Sotho languages _Modimo_ is the widely used name for the godhead. The VhaVenda people call him _Ñwali_ , _Raluvhimba_ or _Khuzwane_. The Tsonga people call him _Xikwebu_.

Today, after many decades of Christian missionary work, only a minority of black South Africans will admit to belonging to the traditional African religion. But that does not mean that is has died out, not at all.

Traditional healers and diviners continue to do a roaring trade across the country. African religion has had to "fly under the radar" for a while, but it is increasingly emerging into the open as political power has passed from a white, Christian minority to a black majority with deep roots in the traditional ways.

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Judaism

Despite Dutch restrictions against immigration of non-Christians, there were Jews among the very first white settlers in South Africa. Evidence of this is found in church registers of two young Jewish men who converted to Christianity and were baptised in 1669.

It was, however, only after 1804, when religious freedom was introduced, that practising Jews immigrated to this country. The first Jewish congregation was founded in 1841 in Cape Town in the home of one of the Jewish settlers. Eight years later a synagogue called "Tikvat Israel" (Hope of Israel) was consecrated.

Jews came from Germany, Holland and England and although some settled in Cape Town, others moved inland and established trading centres in villages which served the local communities. They also pioneered developments in fishing, wool and sugar enterprises.

The original synagogue in Cape Town, today the SA Jewish Museum.

© Wikimedia/Discott CC By-SA 3.0, 2012.

When the ostrich feather industry boomed in the late 19th century the Jewish population of the town Oudtshoorn increased so dramatically that it was referred to as the "Jerusalem of South Africa". The first synagogue in the town was built in 1888 and was followed by another in 1896.

Towards the latter half of the nineteenth century, Russia started stamping its authority on the neighbouring country of Lithuania. The result was that the considerable Jewish population of Lithuania gradually began to feel the effect of political oppression and anti-Semitic persecution.

All this resulted in the reinforcement of the numbers of Jews in South Africa. Many different factors led to the immigration of Jewish settlers in South Africa, but the three most important were probably:

• the discovery of diamonds in 1867

• the discovery of gold in 1886

• the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.

With the lure of economic opportunities and the severe persecutions that were driving Jews from countries in Eastern Europe, the Jewish population in South Africa swelled from 4 000 to 40 000 between 1880 and 1910.

So many new settlers came from the Russian controlled province of Lithuania that South Africa was jokingly referred to as a Lithuanian colony. The forms of religious piety and learning brought by these "Litvaks" would give South African orthodoxy a distinctive character of its own.

The arrival of the Eastern Europeans Jews highlighted the differences between the earlier Anglo-German Jews (from England and Germany) and the "Russian Jews" as the newcomers were often called. In many places the newcomers were so uncomfortable that they established their own synagogues.

Barney Barnato.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

The poverty of many of the Litvaks were to influence the whole of South African Jewry in time. Although they were deeply religious, economic necessity did not allow these people to observe all the religious prescriptions of the faith, such as the laws governing the Sabbath and the kosher diet. This led to the phenomenon of the "unobservant orthodox" - people who fully accept the traditional Jewish values and belong to orthodox synagogues, but who do not necessarily follow the Halakah (the oral law).

Although individual Jews, such as Barney Barnato and Sammy Marks, became wealthy and others were very successful merchants and civic leaders, the overwhelming number of Jews from Eastern Europe scratched out a living in what were very rough living conditions. These largely unskilled labourers were despised and discriminated against by many in the community and pejoratively called "Peruvians" (nothing to do with the country Peru - but rather a short form of Polish and Russian Jews).

In 1903 leaders of the Johannesburg community formed the Jewish Board of Deputies of the Transvaal, with as one of its main aims the upliftment of the Eastern European Jews from their lives of poverty and squalor. In time, these efforts were hugely successful.

Sammy Marks

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

How then does the "unobservant orthodox" Jew differ from the reform Jew? Where the reform Jew rejects the oral Torah, the unobservant orthodox Jew does not - he or she simply does not consider it necessary to meticulously follow the many observances. Recently there has been an upsurge in ultra-orthodoxy in South Africa and this trend seems to increasing.

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Christianity

As we have seen above, religion of one kind or another has existed in South Africa for as long as there have been people living here. However, this very fact was disputed by the early Christian missionaries who made their way to the shores of Southern Africa. This is one of two main features of the early beginnings of Christianity in South Africa.

The other one is of course the very close association that existed between the missionaries and those whose primary interests were political and commercial in nature. But let us start with the story of Christianity in South Africa at the very beginning.

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company established a refreshment station at the Cape. Although this station was first and foremost a commercial, political, and military venture, its establishment was also seen as an opportunity to Christianise some of the indigenous people. In the charter of the Dutch East India Company it was envisaged that the name of Christ be extended and that the interests of the Company be promoted.

Jan Van Riebeeck, who established the refreshment station on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, was in favour of a settlement where colonists could be allowed to settle and establish themselves. All that the Company, on the other hand, wanted, was fresh water, meat, and vegetables for its ships from the Cape. The authorities therefore did not show much concern for the religious needs of its people at the Cape and for the first thirteen years there was no permanent minister.

The spiritual needs of the community were internittently served by whatever minister stopped by on a passing ship. Although officially it was expressly committed to expanding Christianity, the Company's missionary efforts were limited for the most part to setting up slave schools.

Slave owners, however, resisted providing their slaves with Christian education because the Dutch East Indian Company (following a rule of the Church) decided that a slave who had converted to Christianity must be freed. The slave owners therefore excluded their slaves from Christian conversion or baptism in order to retain property rights over them!

The Moravian Mission station in Genadendal

© Wikimedia/Suzi-K CC BY-SA 3.0 2004

Into this rather tense situation, the first real missionary arrived in South Africa. He was Georg Schmidt of the Moravian Church (part of the Lutheran Church at the time) who came to the Cape in 1737.

He settled in the area that is today known as Genadendal, the famous Moravian mission station, but was unable to master the Khoi language and returned in 1744 to Germany, having achieved no enduring success in gaining converts to the Christian faith. When Moravians returned to the Cape seven years later, they did build the famous mission station that still stands in the town.

When the British took possession of the Cape it opened the way for churches, other than the Dutch Reformed Church and the Lutheran Church, to arrive in South Africa. The Anglican Church came as the official church of the British Empire.

The Roman Catholic Church only really became well established after 1804. This was the year when, through the efforts of General Janssens and Commissioner-General de Mist, religious freedom came to the Cape.

Robert Moffat.

© Public Domain via Wikipedia.

A new era of Christian missions dawned in 1799 with the arrival of missionaries representing the London Missionary Society (LMS). These missionaries of the LMS were followed by American, French, German, and Scandinavian missionaries.

The nineteenth-century missionaries embarked on their task of preaching an evangelical Christian message. There were constant conflict between the missionaries and the local farmers with the missionaries accusing the farmers of mistreating their slaves and the farmers counter - accusing the missionaries of providing refuge to thieves and vagrants.

Prominent amongst these new missionaries were JT Van der Kemp, John Philip and Robert Moffat (David Livingstone's father-in-law). In 1857 Moffat, using a hand=cranked printing press brought over from Cape Town, printed the complete Bible in Setswana, which was not only the first ever Bible printed in an African language, but the first one ever printed in Africa in any language (Bradlow 1987).

When the colonialists arrived at the Cape, it was generally stated and believed that the indigenous people were not capable of religious belief. Eventually, however, the missionaries had to concede that Africans had a religion of their own.

By the 1850s, Christian missionaries had been forced by their engagement with African resistance to conversion to acknowledge that Africans did in fact have a religion. They then began to realise that they were not bringing Christian beliefs and practices to people who were eagerly sitting and waiting for these new teachings.

Members of African Initiated Churches

commonly identify themselves by

wearing badges such as this one.

© Wikimedia/Shaunsund CC BY-SA 3.0, 2013.

In time, Africans would reinterpret Christian teachings in terms of their indigenous beliefs and customs. The twentieth century saw the rise of African Independent (or Initiated) Churches, which today collectively make up the majority of the Christian population of South Africa.

References Cited:

Bradlow, F.R. 1987 _Printing for Africa: the story of Robert Moffat and the Kuruman Press_. Kuruman: Kuruman Moffat Mission Trust.

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Islam

The beginning of Islam in South Africa was directly linked to the colonial powers, albeit not as ally but as an enemy.

The name of the Dutch East Indian Company clearly indicates that its main area of interest was indeed the so-called "East Indian" countries rather than Africa. The Cape of Good Hope merely served as a refreshment station for Dutch ships doing the so-called spice route between Europe and the East. Countries included under the term "East Indian" were India, Malaya and the islands of Borneo, Java and Sumatra.

The desire to expand their political and commercial power brought the Dutch authorities into conflict with many of the small independent Muslim states in the East Indies. When Dutch annexation of many of these states took place, revolts were sparked off with many Muslims offering resistance to Dutch invasion of their territories.

When the dissidents were arrested, they were taken to the remote southern tip of Africa where they were jailed either on Robben Island or in the Castle in Cape Town. Without intending it, the colonial authorities were therefore responsible for the settlement of a third religious tradition in South Africa, in addition to African religion and Christianity.

These political exiles were however preceded by Malay slaves who appear to have been the first Muslims to arrive here. They were most probably brought to the Cape, if not simultaneously with the beginning of white settlement in 1652, then soon after that. When Jan van Riebeeck arrived here on 6 April 1652, there were in fact a few Asian servants in his party, but we do not know their religion.

However, it was due primarily to the presence of several well-known shaykhs or Muslim leaders, who attempted to resist Dutch dominion in the Indian Ocean, that Islam was able to establish itself and grow into an important community. One of the most important of these men was **Shaykh Yusuf** of Macassar .

Tomb of Shayk Yusuf near Cape Town.

© Wikimedia/Janek Szymanowski CC BY-SA 3.0, 1988.

Although not the first Muslim to arrive at the Cape, Shaykh Yusuf's arrival provided Muslim slaves and exiles at the Cape with a new spirit of devotion to the basic teachings of their own religion. His untiring zeal for the religion of Islam, certainly earned him the title of founder of Islam in South Africa.

Hailing from Macassar on the South East Asian island of Celebes (now called Sulawesi), Shaykh Yusuf was born in 1626. After several clashes with the Dutch colonial forces, he was captured and he and his followers were brought to Cape Town in 1694. He was confined to the farm Zandvliet near the Eerste River until his death five years later.

In spite of the attempts of the Dutch authorities to isolate Shaykh Yusuf,he became the focus of a gradually growing Muslim community. Zandvliet became the meeting place for the exiles and slaves who rallied around Shaykh Yusuf.

If Shaykh Yusuf was the founder of Islam in South Africa, Imam Abdullah Qadi Abdus Salaam, can certainly be looked upon as the person who consolidated Islam at the Cape. Known as **Tuan Guru** (Mr Teacher), he was apparently involved in a conspiracy with the English against Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.

He was arrested in 1780 and imprisoned on Robben Island for thirteen years. While in prison on Robben Island, Tuan Guru made three hand-written copies of the Qur'an in Arabic - entirely from memory! These copies were widely used by the early Cape Muslims.

After serving a sentence of thirteen years, Tuan Guru was released and brought to the mainland. Already eighty-one years of age, he immediately devoted his attention to the affairs of the local Muslim community.

Tuan Guru is remembered for his untiring efforts to have the first mosque built in Cape Town. Known as the Auwal Mosque, this building played a major role in the rapid spread and growth of Islam at the Cape.

The Grey Street Mosque, Durban.

© Wikimedia/Akidjoh. CC BY-SA 3.0, 2014

Islam also knew a second beginning in South Africa when Muslims from India arrived in Durban in 1860. These Muslims constituted seven per cent of a group of labourers brought from India in 1860 to provide labour for the growing sugar industry in Natal.

For our purposes, it is interesting to note that both India and South Africa were under British rule at the time and that once again a colonial power was unintentionally responsible for the establishment of a religious tradition in South Africa.

The Muslim workers who came under contract, were followed by immigrant Muslims. One of the first immigrants, Abubaker Jhaveri, bought a site in present day Grey Street in Durban. Assisted by other immigrant Muslims, a trust was established and by the end of the nineteenth century, the well-known Grey Street mosque was erected.

While Islam in South Africa has made African converts in the twentieth century, it remains largely an ethnic religion, with predominantly members of Malay/Indonesian or Indian descent.

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The Baha'i Faith

The first Baha'i meeting held in South Africa was in 1911 in the home of a Mrs Agnes Cook in Cape Town. In 1920 a Baha'i teacher from the United States settled in Cape Town and started teaching the message of Baha'u'llah and by 1929 there were three small groups in the Western Cape and three more in Johannesburg.

One Baha'i convert, Mrs Agnes Carey, did such staunch work among women released from prison in Pretoria that she was honoured with the title "The Mother of the Baha'i in South Africa". Another early Baha'i convert, Reginald Turvey, who worked among the African Baha'is, was given the title "The Father of the Baha'i in South Africa".

When a "Ten-Year Crusade" was announced by the Baha'i leaders, thirteen Baha'is left their homes in the United States and settled in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town. During the ten years, sixty-five more Baha'is settled in South Africa to spread the message The work was now concentrated on the black and coloured communities in the country.

In 1954 the first black person, Klaas Mtsweni, converted to the Baha'i faith. The first Baha'i National Assembly in South Africa was founded in 1956. All National Assemblies are governed by the supreme governing body of the faith, the Universal House of Justice, in Haifa, Israel. From here a series of statements of principle have been issued through the years. On the basis of these publications, Baha'is in South Africa are often consulted for their view on current social issues.

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Hinduism

British colonialists were responsible (albeit unintentionally) for bringing Hinduism to South Africa. A shortage of labour led to the decision by the British in 1860 to import contract workers (also known as indentured labourers) from India to present-day Kwazulu-Natal to work on the sugar plantations. The first known Hindus in South Africa were among the 342 contract workers who arrived from India by ship on the SS Truro on 17 November 1860. On 26 November 1860 a further 351 Indians arrived on board the SS Belvedere. Hinduism appeared to be the religion of 80 per cent of these newcomers whilst 12 per cent were Muslims and 5 per cent followed the Christian religion.

An indentured labourer contracted to work for a fixed period, typically ten years, and would then be offered a choice between return passage to India or a piece of land in Kwazulu-Natal. Many of them accepted the land offer, and this started the creation of the Hindu community of South Africa, one of the largest in the world outside India itself.

Inside a Hindu temple in Durban

© M Clasquin-Johnson CC BY-SA 2.0, 2014

Within a few years, the Hindus among these new immigrants started to build temples in which they could worship. The oldest among these date to 1864. But it was only by 1905 that the Hindu community started to form institutions and associations for the advancement of Hinduism.

By that time, Hindu religious leaders were also starting to visit the country. Indian indentured labourers were soon followed by "passenger" Indians. These were traders and artisans who migrated to South Africa to service the growing Indian community.

Deities at the Durban Hindu Temple in downtown Durban

© M Clasquin-Johnson CC BY-SA 2.0, 2014

Today most South African Hindus think of themselves as belonging to specific linguistic groups. There are four such groups represented in South Africa, based on the languages Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil and Telugu.

However, these languages have not been able to maintain their status as truly spoken languages: English is the most commonly spoken language in the South African Indian community.

Gandhi

No account of the beginning of Hinduism in South Africa will be complete without reference to Mohandas K Gandhi. He arrived in Durban in May 1893 to practice as a lawyer.

Gandhi encountered much racism in South Africa: he was famously thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, he was refused admittance at hotels, and a barber refused to cut his hair for fear of losing white customers.

Mohandas K Gandhi in 1906

© Public Domain via Wikimedia

Although he remained a Hindu, he came into contact with Christians whom he greatly admired. His personal relations with the Christians extended even to the point that he attended a convention in Wellington chaired by the famous reverend Andrew Murray.

After several campaigns on human rights issues, Gandhi finally left for India in 1914, where he led many peaceful campaigns against British colonial rule. He later became known as the Mahatma or "great soul". In 1947 he played a key role in gaining independence for India, but was forced to allow the separation of British India into India and Pakistan. A Hindu fundamentalist assassinated Gandhi in 1948.

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Buddhism

The South African Buddhist population consists of two clearly distinguishable groups: an immigrant Asian Buddhist population and a white convert group. Of these two, the immigrant group is the elder.

There was a large Chinese community in the Cape from the eighteenth century onwards: "Out of a total of 1 417 seamen at the Cape of Good Hope in 1792, for example, there were almost as many Chinese sailors as there were Europeans" (Wratten 1995:179). But these were mostly a transient community, and left no trace of their religious practices behind.

Lasting settlement of Chinese in South Africa did not commence until the early twentieth century. Among the early Chinese settlers, conversion to Christianity was frequent and what Buddhist practice existed among them slowly faded away. Until 1992, when the Nan Hua temple near Bronkhorstspruit was established, there was no clearly-defined Chinese Buddhist presence in South Africa. They have now been joined by Burmese and Thai groups scattered across the country.

Another interesting development was the conversion to Buddhism of low-caste Hindus in Kwazulu-Natal province in the 1920s and 1930s. Strictly speaking this is not an "ethnic" Buddhism, in the sense that these people's ancestors were not Buddhists. One of the factors that caused them to adopt Buddhism as an alternative to Hinduism was that, unlike Christianity and Islam, it was at least of Indian origin. Calling it an "ethnic Buddhism" is therefore not too far off the mark. In any case, most of this movement was eventually reabsorbed into Hinduism (Van Loon 1979, 1980).

The Nan Hua temple, outside Bronkhorstspruit.

© Public domain via Wikimedia.

That leaves the convert community, and this will be our main focus of interest. Little is known about the position of white South African Buddhists prior to about 1970. Most likely they were solitary practitioners, gaining some support from books and correspondence with institutions such as the Buddhist Society in London. Other may have found their spiritual homes within Theosophical lodges.

It is known, however, that literary figures such as Olive Schreiner and C. Louis Leipoldt were, if not practising Buddhists, at least highly sympathetic to the Buddhist cause. Later in the twentieth century, the poet, painter and activist Breyten Breytenbach continued this tradition of artistic involvement in Buddhism by expressing his identity as a Zen Buddhist. The involvement of artists and performers seems to be a common trend in western Buddhism Richard Gere is perhaps the best known international example.

From about 1970 onwards, small Buddhist groups started to spring up in the main metropolitan centres of South Africa, each one generally associated with one or two leading founder members, who in many cases are still leading figures in the Buddhist community.

Although many of these groups were in some way associated with the main streams encountered in western Buddhism, at this stage they tended to be open to practising Buddhists and sympathisers of all persuasions.

Only by 1985 would sectarian divisions start to harden and official affiliation to overseas institutions start to play a more important role. Similar small groups have come into being since then and many have disappeared, eventually to be replaced by others.

The range of representations on offer to South Africans did not differ much from those available elsewhere in western Buddhism. Seen from the sectarian level, they included Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism, Nichiren and Zen.

But South Africa was lagging behind the west where the transplantation of Buddhism was concerned, and by this time a new western understanding of Buddhism was starting to emerge, based largely on a modern interpretation of Theravada, but with large infusions from Zen and an outward- looking concern for social and environmental issues.

Informal observation suggests that, as elsewhere in western Buddhism, the South African form is characterised not only by a small number of committed Buddhists, but also by a much larger group of sympathisers, or what Tweed (1999) calls "night-stand Buddhists".

A stupa at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo

© Michel Clasquin 2003.

In each of these groups, activities have been going on quietly, with no active attempts to convert people, but with positive outreach to explain Buddhist ideas to society at large where this was thought appropriate.

Not all the "members" (or rather attendees) of these groups would call themselves Buddhists. Some continue to practise their original religion (mostly Christianity) in addition to practising Buddhist meditation.

Significantly, all the forms of Buddhism practised at these centres were introduced not from their original areas of origin (Thailand, Tibet, Korea), but through intermediary Buddhist organisations in western countries, where Buddhism is only slightly older and more established than it is in South Africa.

It was therefore not necessary for the founders of these groups to create new representations of Buddhism, as this had already been done in Europe and America and they could simply use the existing presentations.

The reverse side of this is that the Buddhism they have presented has appealed only to people whose demographic profiles mirrored those of existing western Buddhists: well-educated middle-class people, which, in the South African situation, meant mostly whites. Black South Africans have not really been affected by it, though this may change as affirmative action slowly creates a black middle class.

References Cited:

Tweed, T.A. 1999. Night-stand Buddhists and other creatures: sympathizers, adherents and the study of religion. In Williams, D.R. & Queen, C.S. 1999. _American Buddhism. Methods and findings in recent scholarship._ Richmond: Curzon.pp. 71-90.

Van Loon, L. 1979. The Indian Buddhist community in South Africa: its historical origins and socio-religious attitudes and practices. Unpublished research paper.

Van Loon, L. 1980. The Indian Buddhist community in South Africa. _Religion in Southern Africa_. 1:2 (July). pp. 3-18.

Wratten, D. 1995. Buddhism in South Africa: from textual imagination to contextual innovation. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town.

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New Religious Movements

Religious Movements are present in South Africa but in very small numbers. They are not necessarily Asian in origin, but some are, and the convention is to include them with Hinduism and Buddhism in textbooks on religion.

In the academic study of religion we do not normally use the word "cult" to refer to these movements because that term has a different, technical meaning.

Among these groups we find organisations such as the Unification Church (often referred to as "Moonies" after their founder the Reverend Sun Yung Moon), the Church of Scientology (who also do business under the title Dianetics), the Hare Krishna movement (the official name being ISKCON, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness), and TM or Transcendental Meditation.

Many of the larger cities in the country play host to such groups but none of these have numbers of great significance. Another grouping that has attracted some attention is New Age. This is a world view that is more prevalent than the more organised groups mentioned above - probably because it is such a wide definition that it can easily embrace many of the more established groups.

While there was much alarm about this movement a decade or two ago, the views that characterise this grouping are now so prevalent that one can almost say that parts of New Age thought have gone mainstream. The term itself is not heard as much as it once was, but it remains a useful concept when we study New Religious Movements.

Some groups that are associated with New Age (such as the Theosophical Society, the Arcane School and New Thought) have been in existence in South Africa for almost a hundred years. But it was only in the 1970s, when the new religious movements exploded onto the international scene, that some of the other groups were established in South Africa.

Jan Smuts, circa 1915.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

One South African, widely acknowledged to have had some ideas very similar to aspects of New Age thought today, was the famous general and politician Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950), who was twice Prime Minister of South Africa.

In 1926 Smuts published a book named Holism and Evolution in which he proposed that there is a principle or force in nature that tends to drive nature to organise itself into wholes. He called this "holism". This force was what drove the evolution process into higher and higher levels of spiritual creation. He wrote:

And the faith has been strengthened in me that what has here been called Holism is at work in the conflicts and confusions of men; that in spite of all appearances to the contrary eventual victory is serenely and securely waiting ... The groaning and travailing of the universe is never aimless or resultless. ... The rise and self-perfection of wholes in the Whole is the slow but unerring process and goal of this Holistic universe.

Although this is not entirely how New Agers see the concept of "Holism" today, they will agree that Smuts was one of the first people in South Africa to come up with very New Age thinking.

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Chapter 4: Who started it?

When we look at all the different religions in our world, we may well ask the question: who started them all? In some cases we know the answers, but in others not. We know, for instance, that Jesus was the founder of Christianity, that Muhammad was the founder of Islam, that Siddhartha Gautama (or the Buddha) was the founder of Buddhism and that Baha'u'llah was the founder of the Baha'i faith. In the case of African Religion and Hinduism we simply do not know who started it all. In the case of a religion like Judaism some people may say that it was Abraham while others may say that it was Moses.

Founders are then people who are regarded by their followers as the initiators of their religious community.

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4.1 What is a founder?

To "found" a religion is a different word than to "find" something that has been lost. Think of "founding" as laying the foundation. If someone has a religion named after him or her (Buddhism, Christianity), that is pretty much a give-away of who is regarded as the founder. In other cases, there is no direct link between the names of the founder and of the religion. Calling Islam "Muhammadanism", for example, is simply wrong.

In this module we will firstly present a brief profile of a hypetheitcal religious founder. This profile will outline some of the characteristics that founders of religion appear to have in common. With this profile as backdrop, we will consider four case studies, which will, to greater or lesser extent, reflect some of the features that the profile has presented us with.

General Context

A religious founder generally operates in a multi-cultural society. In such a society population groups with culturally different backgrounds live next to each other or intermingle with each other.

Over a long period of time these cultures may come into contact with each other on a permanent basis. In such a situation cultural change, that is the mutual influence between two or more cultures, may take place. Such a situation is known as acculturation.

A religious founder also operates in a crisis situation. The latter could emerge from a process of acculturation where different cultures are exerting influence on each other to such an extent that the entire society finds itself in a situation of transition. Under such circumstances cultural change cause people to feel insecure and uprooted.

Another possibility is that the crisis situation is caused by or is the result of oppression or war. A country's territory might have been invaded by hostile forces and the general population might suffer oppression and be forced into subservience to foreign powers. In the case of war, the constant or long term threat of enemy forces may cause great anxiety and uncertainty.

Religious Context

In a crisis situation individuals and groups experience feelings of dissatisfaction, injustice, uncertainty, anxiety and distress. These feelings can be so strong and intense that many would believe that the end of the world is near. Founders of religion always act in circumstances and times where strong end of time expectations are alive.

A further aspect of the religious context of religious founders is that the societies in which they find themselves are always characterised by religious pluralism. This means that two or more groups of believers of different religious persuasions will be living together in one society.

This situation can sometimes lead to a feeling of religious exclusivism where one group of believers close themselves off from other groups of believers because they see and experience their own religion as the absolute truth and the only way to salvation.

On the other hand it is possible that religious syncretism may prevail. In such a case a religious founder selects and join positive elements of the religions present in that particular society in order to form a new religion with its own set of beliefs, doctrines and practices.

If the general context and the religious context are taken together, one could then summarise by saying that a religious founder operates in a society that is pluralistic both culturally and religiously and finds itself in a crisis situation. This crisis may be felt so intensely, that many may believe that the end of the world is near and that a new world and a new era have dawned.

Personal background

When it comes to personal backgrounds there is no particular pattern that can be identified. Some religious leaders come from a royal background while others were part of the merchant class or earned their living through manual labour. What appears to be a common trend is that religious founders have had no theological training and no or very little formal school education.

Followers often lay great stress on the fact that their founder was either illiterate or semi-literate. This fact becomes important in verifying the divine origin of the message that their particular founder came to reveal. The fact of illiteracy on the side of the founder, increases for the adherents the divine nature and origin of the revelation concerned.

Calling

It would appear that religious founders often respond to a calling. This calling usually takes place either during puberty or early middle age. In the process of receiving and responding to the call, the recipient usually lives under harsh and lonely circumstances. A first reaction to turn the calling down because of unworthiness or inability appears to be common. Having received the calling, the founder-to-be goes through periods of intense doubt and subsequently withdraws from society to live in poverty and loneliness.

Living on the edge of society is of great significance and normally enables the founders-to-be to gain new insights into the religious and social circumstances of their own societies and to the need that their societies may have for the revelation that they as founders have received and are called to share. Especially during this formative period, founders often do not stay on one place. They either move around by own choice or are forced by their opponents to leave a particular area.

Message

A decisive factor in the career of the founder is the challenge to persuade others of the divine origin of their calling and message. Founders whose calling and revelation are to find acceptance, therefore need to possess much charisma and carry with them a message of much significance.

The understanding would be that the founder and his or her contemporaries are struggling with the same problems without being able to find satisfactory solutions. The claim by a founder to have been sent, therefore needs to be acknowledged by others.

The message of founders often reveal several common components. One such component is genuine empathy with and understanding of the spiritual and social circumstances of their constituencies.

Explanations for the suffering that people are enduring and an indication of how people could escape their misery and experience life with new harmony, would constitute another component.

A third component would be that the message contains a clear demonstration of human solidarity both from the side of the founder and of fellow adherents.

Two types of founder

Finally, we need to note that two types of founders can be distinguished. On the one hand, there would be **the mystic type of founders**. The careers of such founders are characterised by the fact that they, as teachers of wisdom, point the way for their followers towards enlightenment.

On the other hand there is the so-called **prophetic type of founder**. These founders see their activities as the result of a personal, divine assignment to proclaim the divine revelation. This revelation is presented as universal and of eternal truth. Normally these founders are strong critics of society and their messages inevitably lead to the establishment of a new religious tradition.

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Case Study 1: The Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad was born in Makkah about 570 CE into a respected merchant family of the Quraysh tribe.. Mecca was at that time a very prosperous trading and religious centre of the Arab world. His father died before he was born and he lost his mother when he was only six. Muhammad was thus orphaned at an early age.

He was brought up by his grandfather and then by his uncle Abu Talib, by whom he was adopted The Makkah of Muhammad's youth was of course Arabian, and yet, through trade it came into contact with Byzantium, Ethiopian and Indian cultural influence. These influences filtered through to other area of life and caused Mecca and surroundings to find itself in a period of economic and political transition.

By the time that he was forty, Muhammad increasingly isolated himself in the hills around Mecca for prayer and meditation.

In about 610 CE, Muhammad had the first of many remarkable experiences. In a cave on the Hira mountain, the holy scripture of Islam was revealed to him and he was called God. In his message to the people he had to denounce paganism and the polytheism of Mecca and preach the one God, Allah.

After a period in which Muhammad doubted his own sanity, he came to realise that the miraculous was happening: that God, already known to Jews and Christians, had chosen him to be his final messenger to bring his revelation to the Arab people.

In subsequent years he came into contact with adherents of the so-called mystery religions, with Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. He consistently proclaimed that Allah was the only God to be worshipped and that he, Muhammad, was Allah's messenger. By submitting to Allah, people would experience peace and a life totally dedicated to Allah's service.

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Case study 2: The Buddha

The story of Buddhism begins with the life and teachings of Siddharta Gautama. He was born somewhere in the region of 566 BCE in the northeastern corner of India (today the area is situated in Nepal) as a prince of the Sakya clan.

The so-called Ganges-civilisation, named after the river Ganges, that prevailed at the time of the Buddha's birth, was composed of different cultures and accommodated many religious traditions. Although the religious system was later known as Hinduism, it consisted of many different tradition with the main common feature the fact that they all originated on Indian soil.

At birth it was prophesied that Siddharta would become either a great king or a religious leader (a Buddha = enlightened one). Throughout his early life his father sought to protect him from the sorrows of the world. He grew up in delightful palaces, was schooled in the noble arts and married a beautiful princess who bore him a son.

The Buddha - a painting by Raja Ravi Varma

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

However, while his son was still a baby, Gautama began to be disturbed by his sheltered life. Eventually one day he got the chance to inspect the outside world. There he met, one after the other, and old man in the last stages of senility, a sick man afflicted by disease, a corpse being carried to the cremation ground and, finally, a shaven-headed, wandering religious beggar, clad in a simple yellow robe, but radiating peace and joy.

Siddharta decided to leave his wife and baby son to search for peace and joy. This is called the Great Renunciation. For six years he tried various prescribed ways, including the life of an ascetic, which, at the end of this period, left him ill and starved almost to the point of death. He left his companions and went to meditate under a fig tree, determined not to stop before he found the answer. It was there that he reached his Great Enlightenment, and became the Buddha.

Gautama's first disciples were his former five companions with whom he had spent most of his time during his quest. A few days later he had gathered a band of sixty-odd disciples. Thus was founded the nucleus of the Buddhist order of the monks (sangha). For eight months of the year they would travel from place to place preaching, and then for the four months of the rainy season they would live in bamboo huts in great parks donated by wealthy followers. Gautama died at the age of eighty, having received no calling nor divine revelation during his lifetime. In this, he differs from the general pattern of a religious founder.

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Case Study 3: Jesus Christ

For Christians, Jesus is the son of God, the second person of the trinity who became a man in order to save all humankind. Devout members of other religions, and even non-believers, admit him be one of humanity's greatest religious leaders, and it is from this point of view that we will consider him here.

Surprisingly little is known about his life. It would appear that he had little formal school education. He also had no rabbinical training although, according to the Gospel of Luke, he functioned as a qualified teacher at the age of twelve. The Gospels in no way constitute a biography of him, but rather are a justification of faith in the resurrection and the Messiah, whose coming had already been announced by the prophets.

Jesus and Nicodemus on a rooftop - painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia, 1899.

Of Jesus the Galilean we know only that his public career began after he had spent some time on the banks of the Jordan, in the company of John the Baptist who announced the imminent coming of the Messiah, and baptised Jesus.

After his baptism, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, in the manner of ancient prophets. Then, when he was about 30 years old, he began to preach in Galilee, accompanied by the 12 chosen Apostles.

Rather than preach in the synagogues, Jesus preferred the open air, where the lowly, humble people gathered around him. He declared that it was for them, neglected as they were by the official religion, that he had come, curing the sick and "casting out demons".

We do not even know how long this itinerant ministry lasted because, although the Gospel according to John speaks of three Passovers in a row, the other three gospels only mention one, which would shorten the length of Jesus's public ministry to one year.

Nevertheless, Jesus went to Jerusalem where people were discontented with his preaching. In Jerusalem his teachings aroused the hostility of the Sadducee and Pharisee priesthoods because Jesus denounced the hypocritical nature of their law.

During his last supper with the Apostles he celebrated the Passover. Then, accused of disturbing the peace and of blasphemy, he was arrested and brought before Jewish and Roman tribunals. He was condemned to the Roman punishment of crucifixion.

This took place on the day of Passover, when Jesus was 34 or 35 years old. After a period of understandable confusion, the apostles, some of whom saw Jesus after his death, announced the Resurrection. It is at this point that the history of Christianity begins.

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Case study 4: Isaiah Shembe

The Shembe Church, also called iBandla amaNazaretha, or the Church of the Nazarene, is well-known in KwaZulu-Natal. Isaiah Shembe, the founder of the movement, was born about 1867 and died on 2 May 1935.

It is not a "Church" in the Christian sense of the word. The real cornerstone of the movement is not Jesus Christ but rather Shembe himself, who attempted to revive and perpetuate certain aspects of the Zulu religion and culture. Shembe was in his very being deliberately and unapologetically Zulu.

Isaiah Shembe did not attend any school run by Christian missionaries. He therefore had no contact with Whites on an educational basis, with the result that he developed no sense of spiritual dependence on their culture. Although not a diviner (isangoma), healing was one of his major activities. He also had the qualities of a seer (oboniswayo).

About his contact with Christianity very little is known, except that he was baptised in 1906 by an African minister of the African Baptist Church, in which he was eventually ordained as a minister.

After Isaiah Shembe left the African Baptist Church in 1911, he established the Church of the Nazarene with the headquarters of the Church at Ekuphakameni, Inanda. In 1913 Shembe visited Nhlangakazi, a mountain at Kranskop, about 40 km from Ekuphakameni. This place became the Mount Sinai of the movement.

The Zulu nation was still relatively young when its solidarity was dealt a severe blow as result of the penetration of the Whites into Natal during the nineteenth century. The resulting wars, first against the Voortrekkers, and later against the British, seriously affected the power of the King and the chiefs and caused a crisis in the community at the time.

Into this vacuum of uncertainty came Isaiah Shembe, with his tidings about the restoration of the Zulu nation. At first, this message was of secondary significance, but slowly and surely he began to associate his ministry more closely with Zulu culture and heritage. Isaiah Shembe gave very emphatic recognition to the Zulu world view when he used _uMvelingqangi_ , one of the words for God which is not utilised in the missionary Bible translation. uMvelingqangi is the Zulu word for Creator.

Isaiah's son, Johannes Galilee Shembe, a University of Fort Hare graduate, became his successor in 1935. Control over the movement has remained in the hands of Shembe's descendants, who have, unlike the founder, all been highly educated people.

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Chapter 5: How many are there?

We have studied the present situation of religions in the world; we have looked at the times and the places where they originated. In this chapter we will look at their numerical spread. In other words we will try to get an overview of the numbers.

How many adherents are there of these religions and where do we find them? Are they on the increase or are they declining? Where are they increasing and where are they declining? It is vitally important that you realise that we do not expect you to know these exact numbers! If you have some idea of the percentages for the world (for example, approximately 33 per cent of the world population identifies with Christianity, and 22 per cent of the world see themselves as Muslims) you will know enough.

What you should know, however, is how to handle this information and how to arrange it in graphs, charts and tables. We will explore the different ways in which religions can be categorised, how statistics are obtained and how we can evaluate their reliability, we will look at problem areas in using statistics and consider how these can be avoided, and lastly, we will look at the most important statistical data for religions in South Africa and the world.

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5.1 An example

It is often said that you can prove anything with statistics. And this seems to be true. Let us look at a few examples to illustrate our point. Say for instance we wanted to know what the religious composition of South Africa was. A quick search on the Internet and one book gave me the following results (they will probably be different by the time you read this, but we are trying to establish a principle here):

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/8240/stats.htm

• Christian 72 %

• Hindu 2 %

• Traditional religion 20 %

• Secular 5 %

• Muslim 1 %

http://www.phrasebase.com/countries/South%20Africa.html

• Christian 68 %

• Muslim 2 %

• Hindu 1.5 %

• Indigenous beliefs and animist 28.5 %

http://www.southafrica.net/index.cfm?SitePageID=355

• Christian - 80 %

• Other major religious groups are the Hindus, Muslims and Jews

• A "minority" regard themselves as traditionalists or of no specific religious affiliation.

South African Christian Handbook (1999-2000)

• Christian 54 %

• Other faiths 11.4 %

• No religion 12.9 %

• Not stated 21.6 %

When we look at the above statistics from four different sources, we are not much the wiser. This, however, illustrates how difficult it is to get accurate statistics about religion (and for that matter about any phenomenon). Statistics should never be swallowed whole! One should always look carefully at the criteria statisticians used to obtain their data. If the manner in which the data was gathered is not reliable then the results should be discarded.

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5.2 Data sources for religious statistics

There are a number of sources that are generally used for statistical data on religions and religious affiliation.

• **Organisational reporting** : Religious organisations have different ways of keeping their own records. Some count as members only those who are actively involved in church (or temple, mosque or synagogue) activities. Others count all who were ever involved with the organisation even if they are no longer members, while some churches will count all who were baptised as babies even if they have subsequently left and joined other groups.

• **Census records** : Many countries conduct a comprehensive census from time to time and often religious affiliation is included. Experience with the South African data have however shown how unreliable such data can be. In the recent South African census the question was not compulsory so not everyone answered it and we now have a category "unstated". Also, according to the 1999 census there were more than 8000 black Buddhists in South Africa, but anyone with an interest in Buddhism would have been able to tell you that this was completely impossible - which casts a shadow over other statistics as well.

• **Polls and surveys** : When only a sample of the population are polled in order to determine religious affiliation one can also expect inaccuracies. The sample will have to be quite large and will have to cover large geographical areas in order to be of any use. Information on minority religions will not be accurate with this method.

• **Estimates based on indirect data** : Indirect data will include things such as circulation figures for magazines in the case of something such as New Age and neo-pagan groups, and size of ethnic group in the case of tribal religions such as for instance the Yoruba of Nigeria.

• **Field work** : When data is needed about some small scale or secretive groups, field work which involves interviews and participant observation at key activities will give an estimate of the numbers involved in the groups.

Imagine a person who was baptised in the Roman Catholic tradition, attended a Transcendental Meditation (TM) course as a teenager, subscribes to a New Age-type magazine, and eventually joins a Buddhist group. It is entirely possible that this one person will be included in the statistics of adherents of four different groups. Do not be surprised if the numbers for various religions in a country adds up to more than 100%.

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5.3 Presenting data on religious affiliation

While we bear in mind the conceptual and practical difficulties in gathering data on religions, let us now take a look at the global and local estimates of the number of people who self-identify with the major religious traditions of the world. These religions account for 98 per cent of the world's population and was gathered by _www.adherents.com_ from 34 000 statistical citations. The statistics for South Africa come from the 1999 census.

The first pie chart shows the percentage of the global population who belong to the major religions of the world. It also gives us a good idea of the percentage of people who regard themselves as non-religious.

The next figure shows the number of adherents of the major religious traditions of the world in a bar-chart. The information is thus the same as in the previous chart, but this time in number of people instead of percentage of the world population. These charts show that Christianity is the major religion of the world with more than 2 billion adherents, or 33 per cent of the world population, identifying with it. This religion is however divided into a number of branches as set out below. A bar-chart of the worl'd religious traditions that splits up the branches of Christianity will look as follows:

Amazing! "No religion" has suddenly become the single largest group! But wasn't Christianity the "winner" here? This shows that the way we conceptualise the question, the way we frame the question, determines the answer before we even start to gather data. Yet another way to present data is to impose it on a map:

§Distribution of Christians worldwide.

© Wikimedia/TheGreenEditor CC BY-SA 3.0, 2014

The second largest religion of the world is Islam with 225 of the world population or 130 million adherents. The major branches of Islam are the Sunni and the Shi'ite. The table below shows the estimated numbers of followers.

• Sunni - 940 000 000

• Shi'ite - 120 000 000

The third largest religion in the world is Hinduism and the table below shows the main branches in this tradition.

• Vaishnavites - 580 000 000

• Shaivites - 220 000 000

• Neo-and Reform Hindus - 22 000 000

However, just because Christians make up 33% of the world's population does not mean that the same is true on a smaller scale. In your country, in your state or province, in your city or town, things could look very different. Let us take my country as an example. In South Africa (according to one source - the 1999 statistics) the main religious groups are:

• 54 % of South Africans are Christian,

• 12.9 % have no religion

• 21.6 % did not answer the question

• 11.4 % belong to faiths such as Islam, Hinduism and Judaism

Another way of looking at the religious affiliation in South Africa is by looking at the larger religious groupings

Does this mean that we now have the exact breakdown of religion in this particular country? No, these numbers still need to be approached with caution. Those 21.6% who did not answer the question are of particular concern. Are they actually non-religious, like the 12.9% who said they were that? Do they belong to obscure religions that were not on the list? Or was it something more subtle?

The census was run on a household basis, not on the basis of one census form per individual. If there are people practicing two or three religions in your household, which one do you put down as your household's religion? (I generally put down my wife's tradition - I know who the spiritual one in the family is).

Religious people like to trot out statistics. We all like to boast that our religion is "the largest" or "the most widespread" or "the fastest growing" religion in town. But I trust that this discussion has taught you to look beyond the bragging rights and enabled you to ask the hard questions. Who was counted? Who was not counted? Who was counted twice?

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Chapter 6: How do they relate?

In any given society where more than one religious tradition is present, interaction between different religions is bound to take place. In order to understand what religious interaction entails, we will now look at some of the fundamental concepts that characterise this process. We will look at the occurrence of religious conflict, at the concept religious fundamentalism, and the concept religious pluralism. We will also deal with the phenomena of religious propaganda and indoctrination as well as religious syncretism.

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6.1 Religious Conflict

People who live in a country where different religions are present can respond in a number of ways to the fact that their neighbours, colleagues, fellow students or business competitors who belong to different religions than themselves. Some respond in fear and alarm, others respond with curiosity and interest, whilst most are perhaps uncertain what to make of such a situation.

A response that has serious and negative effects on peace and harmony in society, is _intolerance_. It is a natural human inclination to view one's own religious, cultural and linguistic identity as something to be proud of. To be proud of one's own need not lead to prejudice against others but can form the basis for genuine tolerance.

However, it often happens that, when living in a society where a particular group is dominant in numbers, the members of that group have the feeling that those who belong to minorities should adapt if they wish to continue living in this particular society. The fact that these minorities prefer to believe and act differently, is being viewed as an unfortunate and inferior choice. Here pride and prejudice have gained the upper hand and can lead to intolerance.

The demonstration of intolerance towards people of other religions, can pave the way for religious conflict. Many examples of religious conflict around the world can be found in history and in contemporary society. This can happen when a power struggle takes place with the idea of controlling and manipulating others.

The true causes of conflict in many societies are sometimes difficult to determine. Political alliances, economic differences and ethnic battles often come into the picture. However, situations such as India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Pakistan and Palestine, have illustrated that religious differences were or are part of the conflict. Recent conflicts and wars

• Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast): Following the elections in late 2000, government security forces started a campaign of violence and repression against civilians on the basis of their religion, ethnic group, or national origin. The overwhelming majority of victims come from the largely Muslim north of the country. A military uprising continued the slaughter in 2002.

• East Timor: In this predominantly Roman Catholic country, about 20 per cent of the population died by murder, starvation or disease after they were forcibly annexed by Indonesia (mainly Muslim). After voting for independence, the situation is now stable

• Indonesia: After centuries of relative peace, conflicts between Christians and Muslims started during 1999 in the Ambon province of Indonesia. The situation now appears to be stable.

• Nigeria: Yorubas and Christians in the south of the country are involved in continuous battles with Muslims in the north. The most recent Muslim separatist groups is called Boko Haram, which means "western education is forbidden". The country is struggling towards democracy after decades of Muslim military dictatorships.

• Northern Ireland: After 3,600 killings and assassinations over 30 years between Catholics and Protestant Christians, progress has been made in the form of a cease-fire and a semi-independent status for the country

• Sri Lanka: Tamils in the north of the island constitute a mainly Hindu minority of 18 per cent.) Since 1983 they were involved in a war for independence with the rest of the country which constitutes a Buddhist majority of 70 per cent). An estimated 65,000 have been killed. The conflict took a sudden change for the better in 2002 when the Tamils dropped their demand for complete independence

• Iraq & Syria: the rule of technically Muslim, but in reality secular military dictators in these countries was disrupted by an American-led invasion of Iraq. This led to the creation of a number of Islamist reistance movements. The strongest of these calls itself the Islamic State and has shocked the world with its casual use of violence against civilians, most of whom were other kinds of Muslims.

• India: The partition of India caused riots between Hindus and Muslims in which thousands were killed. Violence between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs has recurred sporadically ever since.

The Hep-Hep riots in Frankfurt in the year 1819 serves as an example of religious intolerance and conflict. More than a century later the Holocaust would take antisemitism to unheard-of heights.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Not all scholars believe that religious conflict is a reality. They point out that there are always other causes: ethnic, economic, political and ideological, to name a few. Religion, they argue, is used as a convenient excuse for violence that has much deeper roots.

But that argument could go either way. One could argue that Nazi Germany, for example did not go to war with everybody else only for economic reasons (the need to control Russian oil fields) or historical ones (resentment the crippling reparations levied after WWI) but that there was something religious about the whole thing: Hitler as a Messianic figure who would lead his people into a brighter future.

A lot depends on what we do and do not define as "religion", but whenever you see someone claiming that "What everyone else says is X is really Y", you should approach with your eyes open. They laughed at Edison, they laughed at Einstein. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

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6.2 Fundamentalism

In 1910, two wealthy brothers in California, USA published a series of pamphlets entitled "The Fundamentals", which presented a defense of the main articles of faith of Protestantism. The viewpoints described in these pamphlets became referred to as fundamentalism and those Christians who endorsed the principles outlined by the pamphlets, became known as _fundamentalists_.

Although fundamentalism started off as Christian movement, the term has come to be used of all religious traditions, and we now also speak of Muslim dundamentalists, Hindu fundamentalists and so on.

For religious fundamentalists in a particular tradition, the sacred scripture of that tradition is the authentic word of God. Fundamentalists believe that since Scripture is the word of God, no one has the right to change it or disagree with it. People are thus obliged to obey the word of God.

Fundamentalists generally make two claims. In the first place they claim to practice their religion as the first adherents did.

Secondly, they believe that the way in which those early adherents practised their religion, is the way religion should be practised. In other words, a fundamentalist Christian ought to believe and practice as those who knew and followed Jesus during His time on earth. A fundamentalist Muslim ought to give the same consideration to the followers of Muhammad.

We have no quarrel with the second claim. To live exactly the way Christ's followers did, or the Buddha's followers, or the prophet Muhammad's, is likely to be difficult. What would those guys have said about cellular phones, for example? We don't know, but we can imagine what they would have said from other things they did say. But when we start doing this we are _interpreting_ the scripture, and no longer doing exactly what they did. Still, even just to make the attempt can be a praiseworthy effort. In 2007, A J Jacobs published the book _The Year of Living Biblically_ , in which he describes his earnest attempt to live according to a strict literal application of the more than 700 rules he found in the Bible and the hilarious contradictions that ensued. There is a TED talk about his lifestyle experiment here:  "A J Jacobs: My Year of Living Biblically"

But the first claim can be shown to be false in every single case. We know a lot about the early days of some religions, less about others. But in all cases the information we do _not_ have vastly overwhelms that which we do have. In other cases, fundamentalists are working with incomplete and outdated information.

Fundamentalism is then a movement aimed at maintaining strict adherence to those founding principles that can be found in all religious traditions. It represents resistance against modern trends and wants to protect the faith against secular influences.

One of the main points of criticism against fundamentalism is that fundamentalists do not admit the fact that modern life sometimes puts demanding challenges to religious ideals. According to their critics, they subsequently become selective in what they believe and practice. For instance, the book of Exodus in the Old Testament dictates that when a man's brother dies, he must marry his widowed sister-in-law. According to the critics, few, if any, fundamentalist Christians adhere to this doctrine, despite the fact that it is not contradicted in the New Testament.

References Cited

Jacobs, A J 2007. _The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to follow the Bible as Literally as Possible_. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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6.3 Religious pluralism

During the latter half of the twentieth century there have been tremendous _migrations_ of peoples from one nation to another, both as immigrants and refugees. The number of refugees is estimated at more than 18 million people. It is estimated that 2 per cent of the entire world population today lives outside its country of origin.

These migrations have also caused the religious landscape in many countries to change. In Britain, for instance, there are two hundred thousand adherents of the Sikh faith, more Muslims than Methodists and more Jews per kilometre in the town of Redbridge than in the state of Israel! Similar changes have taken place in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA.

South Africa, of course, is, and has always been, a country of great religious diversity. Besides migration, _conversion_ has played a role too. A hundred years ago, the only Buddhists in the USA would have been Chinese, and the only Muslims were of Middle Eastern origin. Today the same country has large numbers of white Buddhists and black Muslims. They did not immigrate from other countries. They (or their parents) converted to their new religions right there in America.

The term "religious pluralism" is ambiguous. It is sometimes used as a synonym for "religious diversity" to refer to the fact that many countries have a followers of many religions within their borders. Other times it is used to deal with the way in which different religions are co-existing in a particular society.

Let us now look at both these aspects, that is, referring to the quantity of religions in a particular society and to the quality of religious co-existence. When we say that a country is religiously _diverse_ , we refer to the fact that there are several religions present in that country and that the people in it belong to different religions.

One way of responding to religious diversity is _tolerance_. As an individual, religious diversity does not have to affect you. One can observe the fact that there are churches and mosques, synagogues and temples in one's home town or city, but it does not necessarily interfere with one's lifestyle. A person may be able to recognise adherents of certain faiths by the way they dress or by the rituals they practice, but it need not have any influence upon that person's life. One can acknowledge the existence of the other and even take some interest in him or her.

This however does not imply togetherness. If one tolerates another person, one does not have (or need) to know anything about him or her. Tolerance may express an attitude of "as long as you leave me alone, I will leave you alone!"

When we acknowledge that there are adherents of African Religion, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews present in a given area, we do not necessarily know whether the followers of those faiths have respect for each other's beliefs. The fact that there are many religions present in a given country, province, city or town also does not tell us whether there is harmony or disharmony between different religions in such a society or community.

In contrast to just knowing about and merely tolerating religious diversity, there is of course also another possible response and that is for people of one faith to relate to people of another faith. To relate to people of other faiths has to do with religious pluralism.

Religious _pluralism_ deals with mutual respect for and recognition of each other's faith as well as with joint cooperation and service. What we have said above means that, while religious diversity is a fact in a particular society, it is not necessarily the case with religious pluralism. Religious Pluralism, or good relations between different faiths, to put it in other words, is something that those who are so inclined, should work for. It does not happen overnight but involves a process.

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6.4 Propaganda and indoctrination

The terms "propaganda" and "indoctrination" are often used when attempts are made by a religious group to win people over to its cause. Critics of such attempts then accuse those involved of propagating its teachings and trying to indoctrinate others.

Religious propaganda can then be defined as an organised programme of publicity to propagate certain doctrines and practices. Critics of such programmes allege that it involves telling only one side of the story, while disregarding any arguments the other side may have. Indoctrination on the other hand, has to do with the persuasion of people to accept certain teachings or ideas. For this purpose the systematic teaching of such teachings or ideas take place over a long period of time.

Critics of the idea of indoctrination point out that the ultimate intention is the uncritical acceptance of whatever is taught. Consult a dictionary for the exact meaning of the concepts propaganda and indoctrination. Can you think of any example where religious propaganda and religious indoctrination took place in the past or is still taking place?

Still, if you really want to blacken a religious organisation's name, accuse it of "brainwashing". This refers to coercive techniques of persuasion that are supposedly so powerful that the individual's free will is erased completely.

In the end, however, all these are just words for one of the most normal processes in the world: people trying to convince other people. As long as no-one is forced at gunpoint to listen to the propaganda, as long as the listeners are not drugged or blackmailed, as long as anyone is free to walk out, these are all just instances of people talking to each other.

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6.5 Syncretism

The term "syncretism" has been coined to describe the mixing of elements from different religious sources. It is often viewed in a negative light and is alleged to have in mind the creation of a new religion by selecting the "best" parts from two or more existing religious traditions. Well, surely no one is going to select the "worst" parts!

Historically, speaking, all religions have adopted ideas from other traditions, so in a way, one could say that they are all syncretistic already. Christianity, to name but one, contains elements from Judaism but also a large amount of Greek philosophy. But in some religions, the process is more clearly documented than in others.

The Sikh faith, which is of Indian origin, is a classic example of a syncretistic religion, since it arises from two very different sources. It was founded more than five hundred years ago by _Guru Nanak_ (1469-1538). His parents were Hindus but in due time he also came under the influence of Islam. He went through a personal crisis, from which he emerged with the message that there was _no Hindu and no Muslim_. In the new religion which he proclaimed, the two were mixed. Its monotheism came from Islam and its devotion from Hinduism.

However, this does not mean that Nanak took these elements at random, even less that he cold-bloodedly selected a few ideas with the intention of creating a new religion. Nanak was a genuine religious genius, and the way he combined the different elements created a genuinely new religion. Sikhs today do not go around thinking "this is Hindu and this is Muslim". The elements have become completely integrated.

Christianity actually had a much harder time integrating its main ingredients, and it took a thousand years and the rise of two religious geniuses, _Augustine_ (354-430) and _Thomas Aquinas_ (1225-1274) before the job could be regarded as complete. How important were these men in Christian history? Well, the Catholic Church regards them not merely as run-of-the-mill saints, but as "Doctors of the Church".

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Chapter 7: How do we define religion?

By now you should have a solid understanding of the major religions of the world, where and when they started, where they are found today and how popular they are both in the world and in a specific country or region. But there is still more to religion than this. Next, we will explore religion from a different angle - the search for patterns common to many religious traditions.

Think of the religions as threads lying roughly parallel to each other. Note that the historical threads are not all of equal length: the religions did not all start at the same time, and some of them have ceased to exist. Some have been around for thousands for years, others only for a few decades. Now you will learn how to tie them together.

Think of a number of horizontal threads lying across the vertical ones above: This series of lines refer to those things that occur across religions. All religions seem to have them. In later chapters they will be studied in greater depth. But let's mention them now anyway:

• views concerning divinity, the cosmos, humanity, knowledge, the good and the beautiful

• sacred and normative tradition

• narrative and myth

• ethics

• ritual

• symbols

• spiritual experience/spirituality

• faith

• organisation

The vertical threads may be compared to the _warp_ of a woven piece of cloth; the horizontal ones, to the _woof_ (sometimes called the _weft_ ). Or to use another metaphor: a football field needs both sidelines along the sides of the field, and centre- and scoring lines going across. In the following chapters you will therefore learn how to relate various religions. This calls for high order thinking skills, including analysing, contrasting, comparing, synthesising, interpreting and reflecting. These chapters will help you with developing those skills. In addition, you will develop further the ability to accept, in the civic context, the ways in which fellow citizens of your country and the world are religious.

Obviously, an excellent starting point to explore cross-religious phenomena is the word "religion" itself. Think for a moment: if we say that Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Shinto, Taoism and so on are all "religions", we are saying that the word "religion" may be used for all of them, regardless of the many differences that are to be found among them. In this chapter we shall address the following issues:

• what does a definition do?

• a comparative look at various definitions of religion

• your own definition of "religion"

• how the word "religion" relate to other words that seem to be quite similar to it

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7.1 What does a definition of religion do, anyway?

The basic building block in Religion Studies is the word "religion". So we need to learn what the word means. Put differently, we need a definition of the word or concept "religion". Briefly, a definition provides a statement of the precise meaning of a word. That is what it does.

But before we begin to attach any specific meaning to the word "religion", it will be useful to first take a step back, and think about the role that words (definitions) such as "religion" play in scholarly work.

Is it necessary at all to have definitions? Yes. The reason for this is that in order to think clearly, express our views clearly and communicate them clearly to others, the words that we use need to have a clear, unambiguous and consistent meaning.

Even in ordinary life, being clear about exactly what we mean by words is important. A lot of quarrels can be avoided if people would simply make sure that they understand the same thing by the same word.

Often our lives depend on it. If the manual for the new piece of electrical equipment says "Do not touch the wire with the red coating with your bare hands", you want to be very sure that you and the manufacturer understand exactly the same thing by the word "red". If his "red" is your "brown" you may be in deep trouble!

However, the word "religion" is far more complex than the word "red". Usually it would be quite in order to just point to something to make clear what the word "red" refers to. But it is more difficult with "religion". One cannot simply point to something. What is more, many people (including scholars) have very different ideas of what the word "religion" means.

We could have just given you a definition of religion. But we deliberately do not do it. Let us rather investigate various kinds of definitions of "religion", take them apart and criticise them. This way you will be able to distinguish between good and bad, useful and useless definitions, and even come up with a good definition yourself.

First, let us distinguish various kinds of definitions before we try to arrive at a definition of "religion".

Narrow and broad definitions

As the word says, a narrow (exclusive) definition includes a limited slice of experience in the word "religion", and excludes a great deal. A typical narrow definition is: _"religion" means the belief in God_. A broad (inclusive) definition includes much more.

A typical broad definition would be: _"religion" means people's search for ultimate meaning_. The belief in God might be part of such a definition, but it would not be restricted to it. On the other hand, in such a wide definition it might be possible to even say that even when people do not believe in God, they may nevertheless be religious.

One should not right away jump to the conclusion that any one of the above two types of definition is "right" or "wrong". A definition is just an instrument, a tool, designed for a certain job, a tool that we need to learn how to use well. So it depends on what you want to do.

Under certain circumstances, a narrow definition might be more useful, in other circumstances, a wide definition. The great value of a narrow definition is that you can be very specific: certain things are in, and other things are out. The value of a wide definition is that cover such a wide spectrum.

If you use a narrow definition, then something like football would certainly not count as religion. If you use a wide definition, it could! Just look at the ritual dress that some fans wear to football matches, the ritual surrounding it, and so on.

Of course even a wide definition would have to draw the line somewhere. Somewhere there will be a cut-off point.

Remember: the great virtue of definitions is that they help us to think and speak clearly and consistently. So every useful definition, regardless of how narrow or wide, will have its clear boundaries.

In the subject Religion Studies a rather wide definition of religion is usually better than a very narrow one. To use a simile: for our purposes it is better to fish with a net that could capture a large number of fish, rather than with a line and bait that would catch only one fish.

Substantive and functional definitions

A substantive definition says what religion is. This kind of definition says: _there is a thing out there, and the word "religion" refers to that thing_. The implication is that your definition is right or wrong. The thing itself will tell whether your definition is good or bad. Just find the thing, and measure your definition against it.

A functional definition says what the word religion can do for us. This kind of definition says: _there are lots of things in life that somehow seem to be related and that we call "religion"_ ; our definition is a search instrument, a magnet. We move it over life and we pick up hosts of fascinating material that provide us with deeper insight into humanity. Here there are not really "right" or "wrong" definitions, rather "more useful" and "less useful" ones.

Of course not anything would go. Not any old definition would be as good as any other one. Here, definitions must have clear boundaries and must be clear and consistent. For example, if your definition includes both of the following statements at the same time, it is quite useless: "religion is always expressed in ritual" and "religion is not always expressed in ritual". Time to go back to the drawing board!

Note another distinction between the two kinds of definition: substantive definitions tend to say that they come _after_ the facts of religion. Religion exists before we try to define it. Functional definitions say that we must _first_ have an initial idea of the word "religion" before we will be able to pick up the facts of religion - you must first know what you are looking for before you can find anything. Functional definitions evolve over time.

Let us not overplay the distinction here. Any reasonable person would admit that we need both: real life out there, and our definitions, and that they are dependent on each other. Definitions do not define things into existence; neither do they just describe things.

To return to the grid at the beginning of the chapter: you need both the vertical and the horizontal strands to do good work. When you have a solid, good instrument (i.e. a definition) you will be able to relate the various religions and religious phenomena; and it is only when you have learnt a great deal about various religions that your definition will become a powerful instrument, capable of yielding a great deal of meaning.

Normative and descriptive definitions

The word "normative" comes from "norm", which means the same as "standard". So this kind of definition has a built-in tendency to distinguish between good or bad religion. Only "good" religion (usually: the kind of religion that I/we agree with) counts as real religion; the rest is inferior nonsense, not really deserving to be called "religion" at all.

This kind of definition does not necessarily coincide with narrow definitions, but sometimes it does. For example: it could happen that the definition _religion is belief in God_ is implying that Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism (which do not rest on a belief in God) are inferior, and should therefore be discounted as far as "real" religion is concerned.

A descriptive definition realises how easily bias can creep into our work, and tries to eliminate it as far as possible. It wants to maintain a scholarly stance. Whatever meets the criteria laid down in the definition that we use, will be counted as religion - whether one personally likes that phenomenon or not. Note that in Religion Studies normative definitions are to be avoided. We want to understand religion, not judge it from a religious point of view.

Denotative and connotative definitions

These terms come from the verbs "to denote" and "to connote". To denote means to give the most basic, primary meaning of a word. To connote means to mention the attributes that are usually associated with it.

Let us take the word "father" as an example. This word _denotes_ a male who has begotten a child - that is its simplest, most basic definition. It _connotes_ male sex, older age, existence before, physical strentgth, authority, affection, support, upbringing, financial security and so on.

Again, it is unnecessary to say that one is right and one is wrong. It depends on the context in which one wants to use a definition. Sometimes one type is better, sometimes the other.

A denotative definition has the advantage that it may communicate directly what the essence of something is. But, if it is too short or does not fit the context, it may run the risk of being witty but not really saying anything at all.

The world of literature abounds with pithy nutshell, one-line (or less) definitions of things, but they sometimes arouse the emotions rather than feed the intellect. Sometimes they may be quick and effective, but may also be a stark oversimplification of things.

A connotative definition on the other hand has the value of covering more aspects, but if it becomes too long and complex, it may also lose its value. The trick is to know what kind of definition fits the needs of a certain situation better. It comes with experience.

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7.2 Various definitions of religion

Your own definition of religion

At this point it would be very useful for you to experiment with drawing up a definition of religion. Before you do that, first warm up a bit by defining ordinary things in everyday life. To use examples, take "chair", "dog" or "mountain".

Don't jump to a dictionary right away. First come up with your own definitions. Not as easy as you thought, eh?

Develop a definition of religion. This does not exclude that you may eventually come up with one of the definitions below, or with another one held by other scholars. The important point is that you know how and why you came to that definition.

So what is required, is not only the definition itself, but a thorough motivation of your reasoning behind coming to it. One or two pages will do.

A comparative look at various definitions of religion

They will simply be listed. You are not required to learn them by heart. But read them very carefully, and make sure that you understand fully what each of them means. It would of course do no harm to remember some of them.

You will be required, however, to analyse and criticise them. It would be possible to go deeply into each one of them and to study all the ideas that lie behind them and are contained in them, but that would take us too far for now. However, some of them contain ideas (such as "ritual") that you may have not studied yet. In such cases, consult a knowledgeable person or literature to clarify the meaning of such terms.

According to the following authors, arranged in alphabetical order, _religion_ refers to:

• ... a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things ... beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them - Emile Durkheim (When Durkheim here speaks of "church", he uses a term that is derived from Christianity, but that is in certain senses used with reference to the organized, socially established forms of all religions. It happens quite often that a term originally at home in one specific religion, became useful to describe something in more religions. "Taboo" is another example.

• ... illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most insistent wishes of mankind - Sigmund Freud

• ... the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people - Karl Marx

• ... all people's serious concerns that go beyond their strictly biological needs - Thomas Luckmann

• ... whatever gives people a serious sense of identity - Hans Mol

• ... a way of entering into a relationship with the supra-empirical aspects of reality, be they conceived as God, gods, or otherwise - Thomas F O'Dea (The word "supra" means "beyond". "Empirical" means "what has to do with sense-experience". Together they refer to those aspects of life that go beyond, or lie outside, our ordinary sense experience.)

• ... what the individual does with his own solitariness - Alfred North Whitehead

• ... advice about, and training in, the steps necessary for salvation - Bryan Wilson

• ... a comprehensive and fundamental orientation in the world. This usually contains ideas of the ultimate nature of things and of divinity, transmitted in sacred traditions, requiring social and personal commitment, and expressed in rituals and morality. It includes, but is not restricted to organized forms of religions, world views, belief systems and indigenous knowledge systems - The South African Curriculum Statement for Religion Studies

The last definition rests on and applies the South African Policy on Religion and Education, which was issued on 12 September 2003 (Government Gazette Volume 459, No 25459). We just had to include something like this to show you the difference between definitions made up by scholars and those made up for legal and administrative purposes.

Note how this definition also breaks one of the first rules of definition-writing: never include the word itself in your definition! A definition of religion should not contain the word "religion" or "religious" itself.

Your own definition of religion, reconsidered

Has your understanding of religion changed by reading these definitions? Is there one, or are there elements of several, that have impressed you to the point where you would like to rewrite your own definition? Go ahead, do it now.

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7.3 Religion and associated concepts

Given the nature of definitions they should not be thought of as perfect set of pigeon holes as in, say, a Post Office. It would be nice if this was the case, actually. All the post office staff have to do is simply to sort the mail into one, and one only, little box, or into another one. One either is Mr BB Bodiba or one is not Mr BB Bodiba. No duplication, no overlap, no problem (this presents a somewhat idealised view of the postal system).

Alas, it is not quite that easy with religion and some concepts in its vicinity. Of course we must be very rigorous when it comes to criteria such as clarity and consistency. But even so we must allow for the fact that, in the Human Sciences, all definitions have somewhat fuzzy edges. To try and make the Human Sciences look like Physics or Chemistry would impossible and inadvisable.

Let us at this stage list a number of such concepts, and briefly indicate their meaning and how they relate to the word "religion".

World view

"World views" (sometimes written as "worldviews") share one feature in particular with religion, namely: views concerning the cosmos, humanity, knowledge, the good and the beautiful.

World views may, or may not, have ideas concerning divinity, but they would typically not have the elements typical of what we term "religions", such as sacred and normative tradition, narrative and myth, ethics, ritual, symbol, spiritual experience/spirituality, faith and organisation.

Sometimes exponents of some "world view" will demand quite adamantly that their "world view" should under no circumstances be confused with "religion". Usually, what they protest against is the element of belief in God/gods/divinity (that is, supernatural beings) that mostly occurs in religion. However, not all religions necessarily rest on such assumptions (examples: Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism).

It is, however, not excluded that some world views may come quite close to, or even include, other elements commonly found in "religion". Let us look at one or two examples. Most (but not all) forms of Marxism are heavily non-religious or anti-religious. Yet, as many scholars have pointed out, Marxism may display remarkably "religious" undertones. Karl Marx himself was sometimes venerated as a kind of prophet or saviour; his writings sometimes came very close to be treated as a sacred tradition; there were even elements of ritual (think of the marches in front of the Kremlin on Workers' Day); and sometimes it was seen as, for all practical purposes, a messianic movement, and organized in ways that did not differ that much from religious organisations; and so on.

Something similar was sometimes the case with the movement of psycho-analysis as launched by Sigmund Freud. So there are not really hard and fast rules of absolute division between "religion" and "world view". The famous scholar of religion Ninian Smart once suggested that we should stop calling our discipline Religon Studies and call it Worldview Analysis instead.

Remember that a sizable proportion of your fellow citizens are not "religious" in the usual sense at all. To this group belong many who refer to themselves as "secular humanists". They may not believe in God, but they may certainly take the issues of life and death, morality and so on very seriously indeed. That must be respected, and allowed for in this academic discipline as far as possible.

Belief system

This concept refers to one element that is of prime importance in all religions, namely a set of ideas ("beliefs") concerning the ultimate nature of the world, humanity, nature, divinity, and so on.

Ethical system

This concept refers to another element that is very prominent in most religions, namely ethics. There are ethical systems that do not have a religious framework in the narrow sense of the word, but mostly ethical systems do have some sort of wider framework saying what life is about. However, there is no religion without its ethical system.

Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS)

This concept refers to the knowledge that is part and parcel of an indigenous culture that has been transmitted over generations. In Religion Studies that heritage must be acknowledged and valued.

As is the case with the other concepts under discussion, religion and IKS do not coincide perfectly. Parts of IKS will be covered by the concept "religion", and parts of it (such as the medicinal aspects) will fall outside its boundaries.

Unfortunately, much of the discussion around IKs deals not so much with the knowledge itself, but with the question of who is making money out of it. International corporations will send their researchers out to discover from the local people which plants have medicinal properties, for example. They then proceed to take out international patents on those cures and the local people are locked out from the vast profits that are made. In fact, they may not even be able to afford the new cure!

In the light of these events, an increasing number of countries are enacting legislation to ensure that indigenous knowlege remains the property of the indigenous people, and that corporations need to take part in fair negotiations if they want to use it.

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Chapter 8: Deep thoughts

Religion asks the deep, important questions, and tries to supply the answers. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is our role in the great scheme of things? Are human beings, deep in their hearts, good or evil? How do we tell the stories that embody religious teachings? How can we take religious inspiration and create an enduring tradition from it? Here we are concerned with **cross-religious universals** , that is, with ideas that crop up in every religion.

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8.1 Human beings, the cosmos, divinity, good and evil

Religions all over the world have felt a need to address issues of meaning, life and death. From their thinking and debating, religions have developed a surprisingly small number of basic patterns.

These patterns give us a sort of checklist: If we find one of these patterns, then what we are looking at is definitely religion. If not, then it probably is not a religion, but may still be a world view that plays a similar role in people's lives.

Fact File: Varieties of religious thought concerning divinity and the cosmos

**1. Theism** : There are one or more gods, who created the world and look after people. Theism exists in two major varieties:

_1a. Polytheism_ : There are many gods. One should try to serve them all. This can be difficult, because sometimes they want us to do different things. Polytheism is not common these days, but can still be found, for example, among the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It was much more common in ancient times, for example among the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

_1b. Monotheism_ : There is one god, who created the world. People were created specifically to serve God. Most religious people in the world today follow one of the main monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i.

**2. Monism:** Everything is part of one great reality, of a single Whole. Divisions among people are an illusion. Human existence is miserable, and we should try to escape from it. This kind of thinking is found in some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism. A different kind of monism is sometimes called _animism_ : Everything in the world is alive, everything, even a rock, has a soul. Human beings are nothing special, they just form part of this great network of living existence. Here the network plays the same function as the single whole of monism. This notion is found in Taoism, Shinto and in New Age thinking.

You will have noted that we did not mention Hinduism in the list above. Why not? Because Hinduism includes them all. Hindus can be staunch monotheists, worshipping one god alone. They can worship various gods, which they understand to be, really, aspects of the one god. And they can be monists, seeing everything as part of a single reality. Even the animist idea that everything is somehow alive and conscious is not unknown in Hinduism.

Which one of these types of religion one belongs to will make a great difference to what one regards as good and beautiful. If you are a monotheist, then what is good and beautiful is to serve God. Knowledge is good, because it helps us to serve God even better.

But if you are a monist, then what is good and beautiful is to see through the illusion of being separate from the Whole. In that case, knowledge is even more important, because without knowledge of the Whole, we cannot reunite with it.

What about people? Are we good or evil? Religions disagree with each other on this, and even within religions, they disagree. Within Christianity, for example, Catholicism would say that people are basically good, but flawed. Some forms of Protestantism, however, say that people were created good, but that since their disobedience to God they have changed a great deal. Now they are largely evil, and only religion can make them good.

Buddhism and Hinduism would say that people are basically good, but are deluded and so unable to see clearly what is good and beautiful. No matter how we have been influenced by matters beyond our control, they say, we still have a limited amount of choice, especially the choice to accept or reject the teachings of religion.

Below are a number of statements from various religions, and from non-religious sources. For each one, decide whether it reflects monotheism, polytheism, monism or whether it is not a religious statement at all.

• _All that exists is One, but sages call it by different names. - The Rigveda_

• _I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant. - Hippocratic Oath_

• _In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth - The Bible_

• _There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. - The Qur'an_

The answers are monism, polytheism, monotheism and monotheism again. How did you do?

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8.2 Religion and myth

One thing all religions do is to generate stories. It is one thing to say "God loves us" in an abstract way. But if we hear a story about a specific person who experienced that love in his or her life, we are touched by it in a more personal and immediate way. Some of these stories are more important than others. We call these stories myths.

Now in common language, when we say of something that "it is just a myth", we mean that it is not true. But this is not what "myth" means in the study of religion. A myth is a story that tells us about important persons in the history of that religion, and about important events in their lives. Myths tell us how the religion believes the world was created, why there is evil, sickness and death, and how these things can be overcome.

They may describe things that really happened, or they may not. Or they may have happened, but not exactly in the way the myth describes them. That is not important. What is important is that the basic story became so important in the minds of the believers that it took on a central place in their lives. It became one of the most important reasons why they belonged to that religion at all.

Creation: one of the most important myths in western society

© Philip Medhurst/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0, 2012

Specialists have found that there are many different kinds of myth. We will discuss only three.

**Creation myths** tell us about the creation of the world. In Judaism, for example, there is a well known creation myth that the world was created by God in seven days. You will find it in Genesis 1 in the Bible. A variation of the same myth, which is read less often, is found in Genesis 2.

Most religions have creation myths: in ancient Scandinavia, it was believed that the world emerged from "a grinning gap" when three gods killed a giant and created the world from his body. In Hinduism, creation is the work of the god Brahma, who dreams the world into existence.

The Hindu trimurti

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Wikimedia Public Domain 2014.

Hinduism recognises three aspects of the supreme god Brahman (collectively called the Trimurti), and these are often pictured and worshipped as separate gods, even though technically speaking they are not. Brahma creates the world. Vishnu keeps the world going, and Shiva is responsible for the destruction of the world. This destruction is not seen as a bad thing: it is only because the old is destroyed that there is room for Brahma to create new worlds!

Creation myths usually start with the creation of the world, but they usually go on to tell how human beings were created soon afterwards. This is still considered to be part of the creation myth.

Not all religions take creation myths seriously. In Buddhism, there are a number such myths, but none of them is considered very important, because in Buddhism it is the present that matters, not the past. Buddhists don't really care who created the world, but they do care how they should react to the world in which they find themselves. So even though Buddhist creation myths exist and one can go and read them, they are not the central point of that tradition.

Other religions disagree: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for example, are unanimous that it makes a great deal of difference whether or not the world and everything in it was created by God. But let us take a look at the two other kinds of myth.

**Foundation myths** (or **origin myths** ) describe the foundation of the religion itself. In religions that have historical founders, this involves the founder's life and works. For Christianity, this is the life of Jesus, for Islam, the life of Muhammad, and so on.

Even in religions that do not have a single historical founder, certain individuals take on such an important role that we can see their life stories as foundation myths. In Judaism, for example, the story of the life of Abraham is central to what it means to be a Jew. In Hinduism, the life of Krishna plays the same role.

**End-time myths** (or **eschatological myths** ) are the other side of the creation myths. They describe the end of the world. Some religions, like Hinduism believe that ours is just one in an endless succession of worlds: As one world dies out, a new one is created to take its place. Such religions do not have end-time myths in the true sense of the word, though they may have stories that tell the details of the recreation of worlds.

Christian artists have long tried to depict the end of the world.

© William Blake/Wikimedia. Public Domain 2009.

Other religions, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, say that the world was created at a specific time, and that it will end at a specific time, and that this will be for keeps: no new world will be created afterwards. The details of this event vary from one religion's end-time myth to the other.

Myths are not always religious in nature: there are also secular and national myths. To give an example from South Africa, for Afrikaners the Great Trek of the 1830's serves as a foundation myth. It was from that event onwards that they started to think of themselves as a nation. For members of the African National Congress, on the other hand, the Great Trek was a historical disaster. For them, the great foundation myth is the Kliptown Conference of 1955.

Both of these events really happened. So they are not myths in the common sense of the word (remember, in the common sense of the word, a myth is something that is not true or did not happen).

But they are myths in the Religion Studies sense of the word "myth". In terms of the importance that they gained in people's minds, both of them serve as important foundation myths.

Examples

• _This myth of creation comes from the Boshongos of Central Africa: In the beginning there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving land. Still in pain, Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and then some animals: the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and, finally, some men._

• _This myth is told by the Mande people of Mali: At first Mangala was alone. Although Mangala did not have a physical form he was troubled by having matter inside him. After removing the matter he tried to turn it into a seed. This first seed fell apart, but instead of giving up, Mangala decided to try again. This time, he used two seeds and placed them inside of a womb. The seeds transformed into fish. One of these fish, Pemba, tried to escape and in doing so created Earth but almost destroyed the womb. Mangala used Pemba's brother Farro and salvaged his creation by turning it into the sun. Farro was turned into a human and populated the Earth with his followers._

• _And this is the creation myth of the Yoruba people of Nigeria: A long time ago, Olurun lowered a chain from the sky down to the Earth, which at that time was all water. He sent his son Obatala down to Earth with a chicken, some dirt and a palm nut. Obatala used the chicken to spread dirt until there was dry land. Obatala planted the seed and started the first kingdom, Ile-Ife. He was the kingdom's first ruler and all of the Yoruba are his descendants._

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8.3 Sacred and normative tradition

There is variation in just how sacred tradition itself is thought to be. Consider Islam: it has large collections of hadith. These are recollections of things the Prophet Muhammad said that are not written down in the Qur'an. In each one, there is a careful list of who heard it reported that one of the prophet's companions actually heard him say this. While the Qur'an is regarded as the word of God and is in principle untranslatable (a good Muslim should read it in the original Arabic), the hadith are the words of Muhammad and may be translated like any other text.

Excerpts from the Hadith

• Ali b. Muhammad and Muhammad b. Abdallah have related to us, on the authority of Waki, on the authority of Isma'il Abu Isra'il, from Fudail b. Umar, from Said b. Juba'ir, from Ibn Abbas, from al-Fadl, or one of them from the other, that the Apostle of Allah - upon whom be Allah's blessing and peace - said, "If a man wants to make a pilgrimage, let him make haste about it, for sickness comes to the sick man and error leads astray, and necessities may come to stand in the way".

• Suwaid b. Nasr has informed us, on the authority of Abdallah, from Yunus, from az-Zhuri, who said that Abd-ar-Rahman al-A'raj related how he had heard Abu Huraira say that the Apostle of Faith - upon whom be Allah's blessing and peace - once said, "The sun rises on no better day than on Friday, for on it, Adam - on whom be peace - was created, on it he was put in the Garden, and on it he was expelled therefrom.

Clearly, such traditions are human creations and cannot compete with revelations given to people from God himself. Nevertheless, these traditions are considered sacred at least to a certain extent: in Islam, the hadith take second place only to the Qur'an itself.

Elsewhere, the position of tradition varies. In Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, church tradition is not quite sacred, but still very important. In African religion, too, tradition plays an important role: it ties one to the long line of ancestors who have gone before one.

In Protestant Christianity, there is far less emphasis on tradition and much more on direct scripture interpretation. Indeed, Protestantism started out as a rejection of the role of tradition, and it only grudgingly adopted traditions of its own.

Tradition is **normative** : it prescribes how people should behave. Sometimes one will find a reason given why members of a religion wear certain clothes, why they eat certain foods, and so on. At other times, the original reason may have been lost over time, but the fact fact that it is traditional is enough to make people behave in a certain way.

Traditions can be very useful. They help us to live our lives by not requiring us to make a personal decision about every little thing that comes our way. But it must be admitted that sometimes traditions tend to stick around long after they have ceased to serve their original purpose, and they can even end up working against it.

For example, in mediaeval China there was a time when the government persecuted Buddhists and it was not safe to wear a monk's robe. The Buddhists cut up their robes and made small bibs (called _rakusu_ in Japanese) from them that they could wear underneath their normal clothing. When it was safe again, Buddhist monks once again started to wear full robes, and they now wore this rakusu on top of those robes.

This is a tradition that has lived on ever since in Chinese and Japanese Zen Buddhism, and it does no harm. But suppose some new tyrant made a law that all monks who wore rakusus should be imprisoned, and the monks continued to wear them just because it was a tradition? In that case, the tradition would be working against its original purpose, which was to protect people from harm. We should therefore learn to question tradition as well as obey it.

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Chapter 9: The good life

In this chapter, we will look at three more dimensions that most of the world religions have in common. These are ethics (or moral values), rituals (or religious practices) and symbols. These aspects are emphasised in varying degrees by different religion, but the promise of religion is that together, and with some religious experience to go with it, they add up to a good, well-lived life.

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9.1 Religious ethics

We can, in general, define ethics as the concern for what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. Although we are presently dealing with religion and with religious ethics, we need to say, that of course one does not need to be religious in order to behave in a responsible way.

To put it differently, religion does not have a monopoly on moral behaviour. People who do not adhere to a particular religion or who do not believe in a Supreme Being or in the Divine are quite capable of leading responsible lives. Their motivation to do so, may differ from those whose moral conduct is inspired by their particular religious beliefs, but their concern to be morally responsible people may in no way be less serious or well-intended.

We can therefore say that there is indeed something like secular ethics alongside religious ethics. However, here we are occupying ourselves with ethics as a dimension of religion.

Religious ethics are the moral principles that guide the followers of the different religions and that set the standard for what is and is not acceptable behaviour in accordance with their respective beliefs.

Particular features of religious ethics may be the concern over the causes or origin of evil and the concern over the consequences of evil behaviour. The ethical dimensions of religion refer then to the so-called religious laws that are to be found in the different religions. For instance, in Judaism there are, besides the ten commandments, more than six hundred rules ( _mitzvot_ ) that its followers should follow in obedience to the Almighty. Let's see a few examples:

27. Not to stand by idly when a human life is in danger

37. To relieve a neighbour of his burden and help to unload his beast

275. To restore that which one took by robbery

321. Not to hearken to one who prophesies in the name of an idol

482. To offer a sacrifice of varying value in accordance with one's means

584. That the King shall not acquire an excessive number of horses

603. Not to destroy fruit trees (wantonly or in warfare)

We find a slightly simpler system in Buddhism. The _Five Precepts_ serve as the basic ground rules for Buddhists:

• _I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living creatures (killing)._

• _I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not freely given (stealing)._

• _I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct._

• _I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech (lying, harsh language, slander, idle chit-chat)._

• _I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness._

These five rules apply to lay Buddhists. For Buddhist monks and nuns, there are many more rules to follow, hundreds of them, in fact.

In the case of Muslims, the Shari'a or Islamic Law, control their religious, moral and political behaviour. Islamic Law is quite comprehensive: it covers what Muslims are allowed to eat, how they should dress, and so forth. In some Islamic countries, this system of law serves also as the civil law of the land. But in countries where Muslims are in the minority, they have to obey both the secular civil law and the Islamic system.

In Christianity, the principle of love emerges from its teachings and controls the centre of life. In most churches, however, this has also become codified in terms of church law. This differs from one church to the next. Again, let us see some examples, these are from the Roman Catholic Church:

• _Canon 212, § 2. "The Christian faithful are free to make known their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires to the pastors of the Church."_

• _Canon 749, § 1. "The Supreme Pontiff, in virtue of his office, possesses infallible teaching authority when, a supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful, whose task is to confirm his fellow believers in the faith, he proclaims with a definitive act that a doctrine of faith and morals is to be held as such."_

• _Canon 1024. "Only a baptised male validly receives sacred ordination."_

Although the teachings of the respective religious traditions differ from each other, they have certain moral principles in common, even if the motivation for, or background assumptions of, these principles differs widely. We will now briefly look at a few of these common principles

Neighbourly love

In nearly all the world's religions, personal morality begins with this simple concept: treat others as you would like them to treat you. This concept is known as the so-called Golden Rule and is perhaps the most basic of personal virtues.

Of course, the different faiths all have their own version of this universal message, but in essence the same directive applies. See the accompanying fact file for some examples from both religious system and from some non-religious sources: (Most of these examples come from www.religioustolerance.com)

• _Ancient Egyptian : "Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do." - The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant_

• _Baha'í Faith: "Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself." - Baha'u'llah_

• _Buddhism : "...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?" - Samyutta NIkaya_

• _Christianity : "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." - Luke 6:31, King James Version._

• _Confucianism : "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you" - The Analects_

• _Hinduism : "This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you". - Mahabharata_

• _Islam : "None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." Number 13 of Imam "Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths."_

• _Jainism : "Therefore, neither does he [a sage] cause violence to others nor does he make others do so." - Acarangasutra_

• _Judaism: "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." - Talmud_

• _Roman Pagan Religion : "The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves."_

• _Taoism : "Regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien._

• _Yoruba (Nigeria) : "One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts."_

Some philosophers' statements:

• _Epictetus : "What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others." (circa 100 CE)_

• _Plato : "May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me." (Greece; 4th century BCE)_

• _Seneca : "Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors," Epistle 47:11 (Rome; 1st century CE)_

• _Socrates : "Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you." (Greece; 5th century BCE)_

In Southern Africa, our expression of this ancient rule lies in the concept of "Ubuntu". Ubuntu comes from an ancient African saying that "people are people because of other people". It is an expression of shared human-ness that is religious in the sense that it places the individual person with in a wider, meaningful community. But it is also religiously neutral: people from any religion can embrace the spirit of ubuntu.

Compassion

The word compassion means "to suffer with." Having compassion means that you can feel the pain of others. In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, showing compassion to others is how believers imitate the infinite kindness and mercy that God shows to them.

In the monotheistic religions, there is an important difference between the capacity that humans have for compassion and kindness and God's capacity for the same virtues, in the sense that God's capacity is limitless. Believers should nevertheless strive to nurture these abilities, even when doing so is hard, because it brings them closer to God.

In both Hinduism and Buddhism the ability to understand and identify with the suffering is regarded as one of the central virtues.

Humility

In the monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, humility is a sign of respect for God and shows awareness of the fact that all blessings flow from God and that He deserves our gratitude.

In Judaism, Moses is considered virtuous primarily because of his humility. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus implies that, in contrast to the secular world, God honours those who have been disregarded and ignored in the world: "Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised. " In Islam, the religion of submission, humility is a primary virtue. Muslims demonstrate their awareness of the greatness of God and of the weakness of humanity, by observing the Five Pillars of their faith

Hope

In the world's religions, hope is made possible by human limitations. Because human knowledge and understanding are incomplete, people don't know what the future holds. This inability to read the future causes people to fear it. Hope reduces this fear.

In religion, hope is closely linked with what comes after death. In Judaism, the hope is life or some form of existence after death. That belief in the world to come, sustains the believer with the knowledge that death is not the end and helps people believe that no burden is too great to bear.

For Christians, the hope that sustains them is the hope for the speedy second coming of Jesus as the Christ and eternal life in Heaven. This hope sustains Christians through what they often perceive to be the immorality of the earthly kingdom.

In Islam hope is the understanding that Allah knows all; what happens, happens for a reason, and the faithful will be rewarded in paradise and the irreligious punished in hell.

Of course, the monotheistic faiths are not the only ones that consider hope a virtue. In Buddhism, hope springs from the idea that any person can attain enlightenment. According to Buddhism, the vitally important goal of Enlightenment is attainable in this life.

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9.2 Religious ritual

In general, a ritual can be described as an action that is repeated in a regular and predictable way. A procedure regularly followed or the prescribed order of a particular ceremony therefore also qualify to be called rituals.

We are all familiar with our own personal rituals when rising in the morning or when going to bed at night. When starting the school day there are certain rules to obey and these becoming rituals which all follow automatically. Even in sport we can observe certain procedures that are regularly followed, for instance to start a game or a race or to control the observance of rules and regulations.

Some rituals are less formal than others but they nevertheless constitute an important part of religious life. Across the spectrum of organised religion, rituals serve different purposes and display certain common features.

Rituals constitute the order to be followed in the observance of religious worship. When one observes a worship service in a Synagogue or in a Christian church or cathedral, the order of worship follows a certain pattern. Prayers, reading from Holy Scriptures, singing of hymns and the preaching of sermons constitute regular parts of the service and often follow a fixed order.

During the Friday noon service in a mosque, there is also a particular pattern that is followed. The worship service is preceded by cleansing rituals and features collective prayer undertaken with different bodily postures. A sermon is also preached towards the end of the service.

Rituals are used to commemorate certain important historical event in the life of a particular religious tradition.

• _When Hindus light lamps during the festival of Divali, they commemorate the triumphant return of Rama and their lamps serve to guide him back from exile to the city of Ayodhya._

• _Jews commemorate the liberation of their ancestors from Egypt annually by eating the Passover meal._

• _During pilgrimage in Makkah, Muslims commemorate several important historical events, such as those that took place in the lives of Hagar, Ishmael and Ibrahim._

• _When Christians meet on Christmas eve, it is customary to tell, or read from Scripture, the story of the birth of Jesus._

Rituals also signify transition from one phase in life to another. In some traditions rituals are performed before, during and after the birth of a baby. Some religions also observe rituals that guide young people from their childhood to adulthood and serve to initiate them in this new stage of life.

Rituals demand that people behave and dress in a certain way, at a specified time and place

© Allan Ajifo/Wikimedia CC BY 2.0

When people make the transition from being single to getting married, definite rituals are performed. In the case of some traditions, there are already rituals to be observed at the occasion of the engagement.

However, it is during the actual wedding that rituals feature prominently. Things like entering into a formal marriage contract, the exchanging of vows and rings and the giving of gifts may be some of the rituals that take place.

It is quite often only the bridal couple and the officiating priest who are actively involved, although in some traditions close relatives also play an important role.

Weddings, in fact, show us how persistent rituals can be. People who long ago stopped believing in a religion may still look for a priest or minister to marry them. Even if they do not use a religious official to perform the actual ceremony, the order of events in the wedding (walking down the aisle, kissing the bride) are a shadow, a memory of the religious ritual it used to be.

At the time of death, many rituals are observed in the different religious traditions. The ideas of separating from a loved one and of cleansing in the defiling presence of death, are prominent before, during and after funerals.

Added to the idea of the funeral rituals, is also the idea that after this event has been properly experienced and the rituals properly performed, the persons concerned should be re-integrated in society so that life can go on.

Rituals are social events and they are often observed collectively. In several traditions, rituals also serve to create a sense of belonging. When the father in a Hindu home performs domestic religious rituals, he is doing it on behalf of his entire family. In observing the Jewish Sabbath, the family joins together in celebrating a scared meal. When Muslims perform the ritual prayer in the mosque or go on pilgrimage, they do so collectively as the umma or community of Islam.

Also important are other patterns of behaviour which, while they may not strictly count as rituals, fulfil a function in creating and developing spiritual awareness or insight. This is for instance the purpose of yoga in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, meditations that can help to increase compassion and love and so on. Such practices can be combined with rituals of worship and can count as forms of prayer.

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8.3 Religious symbols

A symbol is something that stands for or points to something else. The flag of a country, for instance, is a well-known symbol to all of us and when we see it, it reminds us of, and represents our country. Symbolism can therefore be called the systematic use of symbols to represent or refer to something.

It is of course true that all language is symbolic because we use words to refer to things, matters and ideas all the time. The word "dog" is not itself a dog, it is just a symbolic representation which English-speakers have agreed refers to the furry annimal that lives with us.

If we narrow it down though, we can say that symbols are words, images and figures that have special meaning since they refer to special things.

In religious language and usage several symbols can also be identified and symbols play an important in conveying information and messages of a religious nature. Religious symbols often serve as a binding factor in the sense that they create a feeling of solidarity between followers of that particular religious tradition. There are a few that will immediately be recognised as religious symbols:

✡ - The Star of David is a case in point because this symbol, recognised by all Jews as referring to the religion of Judaism, serves to create a sense of identity and belonging.

☪ - Religious symbols have come to represent certain things. When one for instance see a crescent with a star in it, depicted on paper, cloth or even on a wall, there is not the slightest doubt that that symbol represents the religion of Islam.

☸ - Similarly, a picture or drawing of the eight-spoked wheel reminds us of the Buddha and his teachings of the eightfold path and thus becomes a symbol of Buddhism.

ॐ \- The Aum sign, which is actually a written syllable in the Sanskrit and Tamil languages and which is used as a chant during meditation, has become widely accepted as a symbol for Hinduism.

✞ - In Christianity, the cross, whether on paper, made from wood in differing sizes, as jewelry and so on, serves as a symbol of the death of Christ. Jesus Christ, so Christians believe, died on the cross for the sin of humanity. In fact, the plain cross is a simplified version of the crucifix, which shows a more or less realistic representation of the crucified Jesus. In other words, a cross is a symbol of a symbol!

α ω - The letters Alpha and Omega, being the first and last letters respectively of the Greek language, have also become Christian symbols. According to the Christian New testament, Jesus Christ referred to himself as the "Alpha and the Omega".

PBUH - In the case of the Prophet Muhammad, one could also say that the letters PBUH behind his name, especially in Muslim writings, are symbolic because they refer to the words "Peace Be Upon Him" which is the English rendering of the original Arabic.

A religious symbol in a secular context

© dbking/Flickr CC BY 2.0

Symbols of a religious nature are of course not confined to formal religious acts or institutions. At the top of the building in Washington, USA, that houses that country's Supreme Court, a row of the history's lawgivers have been sculptured. with Moses and the Ten Commandments in the middle. In this case, Moses is depicted as a symbol of law and justice. A religious symbol has thus been used in a secular context

Symbols are of course not just represented in drawings, sculpture or wood but very much also by actions. From the adherents' perspectives, of course, these activities are more than symbolic: they are deeply meaningful activities that connect them to the most important aspects of their religion. However, when we look at them from the outside, we see their symbolic nature.

When Christians celebrate the Mass or Eucharist, it becomes a symbolic meal of the last supper that Jesus ate with his disciples and the sacrifice of his body and blood on the cross is remembered. To the Christians themselves, this is not symbolic. Most denominations teach that the bread and wine really is the body and blood of Christ, in a mystical sense that does not stop them from also remaining bread and wine.

However, from our perspective we can say that this is a symbolic action. The bread does not physically become a piece of human flesh that we can do a DNA test on! But religious people are generally not aware of the technical meaning of the term "symbol", and may become upset if you point out the symbolic nature of religious actions.

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Chapter 10: Feeling it

In recent years, there has been a tendency in the humanities and social sciences to de-emphasise the role of the individual and to analyse everything in terms of massive socio-historical tendencies. If you want to get a big laugh in academic circles these days, just mention the "Great Man" theory of history.

But this does not work when it comes to religion. If it had not been for the specific religious experiences of one man, the future prophet Muhammad, then some sort of religion might have come out of Arabia since the time and circumstances were ripe for that. But that religion would not have been Islam.

Or take the crucifixion of Jesus. The Romans thought so little of executing religious rabble-rousers that nobody in Rome was even aware of the fact until nearly half a century later. If Jesus had never existed, if his followers had not been convinced that they had seen their teacher risen from the dead, perhaps some other offshoot of Judaism would have take root and spread throughout the Empire. But that would not have been Christianity. Without Christianity, no Church, no papacy, no crusades, no Reformation ...

Religious experience is the very heart and soul of the story of religion. Like any experience, it is hard to explain to someone who has not had it. Nevertheless, we must try, and that is what we will do in this chapter.

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10.1 Spiritual experience

Spiritual experience lies at the heart of religion and without it religions cannot exist. Many of the traditions of the world are rooted in the religious experience of a single person. It was out of the experience of Muhammad that Islam grew and out of the experience of the Buddha, that Buddhism developed.

Without the overwhelming experience of the vision that Muhammad had in the desert cave when the archangel appeared to him, he would not have been inspired to teach those near to him. Without the experience that God was revealing his message through him, Muhammad would not have had the inner force and strength to lead his people through difficult times and even war.

In the same way the Buddha's experience of peace and brilliant emptiness under the Bodhi tree, when he became Enlightened, was what sustained him in order to teach his message for 40 years.

It is also his example that led people to follow him and attempt his path in order to secure the experience of Nirvana for themselves. These experiences changed the world and even today they still influence the lives of millions of ordinary people.

In the footsteps of these extraordinary human beings there followed other individuals who had unique spiritual experiences which became guideposts to people seeking deeper spiritual insight.

In our own time, several surveys of large sectors of societies have shown that a remarkable number of people report that they have had (what they would interpret as) "spiritual experiences". It seems that these experiences are much more prevalent than one would think when one considers things such as church attendance figures.

While these experiences are not of the depth and breath or intensity of those of a Muhammad or a Buddha, they are nevertheless interpreted as being experiences of spiritual significance. Some of these experiences are often had in communal settings, such as during prayer meetings or church rituals, but they are also widespread during other times that are in no obvious way linked to religion.

Many of these experiences are triggered by crisis circumstances or experiences related to illness and healing. Often it is also an experience of the awesome beauty of nature that can trigger such an experience. One can therefore describe a spiritual experience as a feeling or state of mind that people have when they come into contact with whatever they understand to be the ultimate dimension of reality.

The great religious figures of all the various cultures and traditions always start their explanations of their experiences by pointing out that these experiences are ineffable - meaning that it cannot be described in words.

The important thing here is to realise that when someone has such an experience it is not the experience that he or she will report on, but the interpretation of the experience. Scholars have categorised these interpretations and have found that there are three main categories into which these experiences fall.

These categories have to do with the relationship with the ultimate reality that people report on. These can be **transcendent** , **immanent** or a case of **mystic unity**.

Transcendence

In religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God is seen as transcendent - which means that God is outside this reality and separate from human beings. He is usually seen as the all powerful Creator and King of the Universe.

Although God is transcendent, he is also near and a believer can have a personal relationship with him. In these traditions a person who has a spiritual experience will often explain that she was intensely aware of the presence of God, that God was all around her, or that she felt that God held her in the hollow of his hand.

The usual pattern of experience of a transcendent kind will involve a person feeling acutely aware of her own insignificance before the Creator. This feeling is sometimes called a feeling of creature-consciousness. In other words, it is the feeling of a mere creature before the majesty of the divine Creator.

This leads to the second stage in the pattern, namely self-surrender. When a person surrenders to God she says as in the Bible "not my will, but thine be done'. This surrender to God also implies obedience to God and this often means living a transformed life or answering a call to service. A person might sometimes feel that she was called to become a nun or a missionary after such an experience.

There is some disagreement among followers of the transcendent path whether a person can initiate such an experience or whether it is from God alone that the experience comes. Some, in the Christian Protestant tradition will for instance say that this surrender is a gift from God and that one cannot compel it, while people in the Jewish tradition will maintain that a person has an active role to play in his or her own salvation.

These experiences are often called **theistic mysticism** \- "theistic" because they are experiences of God, and "mysticism" because of their depth and intensity.

Immanence

In the second category of spiritual experiences, a person who has a spiritual experience will interpret it in an immanent manner - which means that the ultimate will be experienced as within - in the depth of existence. Here salvation is not a gift from a transcendent God, but something a person should him- or herself pursue.

The Buddha, for instance, explicitly told his followers that they should work out their own salvation. This will often involve a rigorous path of spiritual discipline (mostly involving diligent meditation).

Just as in the category of transcendence there is disagreement about whether this path is an active or a passive path. While the Buddhist monk will constantly meditate, the Taoist believes that: _He who takes action fails He who grasps things loses them For this reason the sage takes no action and therefore does not fail; He grasps nothing and therefore he does not lose anything._ (Tao te Ching)

The pattern of experience in the immanence category of spiritual experience involves firstly a quest in which a seeker commits herself to seek enlightenment. She then embarks on a path in which the journey within begins with the practice of meditation in order to still the mind so that the truth which lies deeply within the person can arise to consciousness.

Although these experiences are more common in Eastern religious traditions where the Divine is seen to permeate this reality, there are also many cases where the insights of Christian mystics have appeared to have at least elements of the immanent as well. The mystic Meister Eckhardt, for example, said that "God is nearer to me than I am to myself".

These experiences are often called **monistic mysticism** because they are experiences that come forth from the inner person which is said to be identical with the Divine. Monistic refers to systems of thought that hold that the Divine is present within everything - even the human being.

Mystic unity

The term mysticism is often used quite loosely to refer to things that are not understood, to things that are strange and sometimes to things that are vaguely of a religious nature. It should, however, be reserved for those experiences where people feel that they have had a direct, immediate, and intimate contact with the Ultimate.

These experiences are of the kind where the person feels that the separateness between God and herself is an illusion and that they are One. This category of experiences is found in all the religious traditions of the world, those that are usually transcendent and those which are usually immanent.

While these are more acceptable in the religious systems of the East, many mystics in the Semitic religions have also had these experiences - although some of them have had to pay with their lives for speaking about these, such as the Muslim mystic al-Hallaj (d 922 CE).

These experiences of union can also be non-religious, as when a person has an experience of oneness with nature without interpreting it as oneness with God or a Divine force. This type of experience is described well in the poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Browning.

There is an ongoing debate on whether it is possible to have an experience that is not influenced by one's own beliefs and understanding off the world. Theorists who consider this question differ on the answer.

Some say that a direct experience of pure consciousness is possible and that great religious people have had such experiences and it is only when they try to explain the experiences that they fall back on their own beliefs and explain it by referring to religious symbols within their own tradition.

Others say that all experiences are influenced by our world views and our language and that one cannot have an experience of pure consciousness. That is why we won't find a Buddhist having a vision of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus or a Christian having an experience of opening the third eye. In other words, religious experiences are of the kind one would expect in one's own tradition and culture because they are already influenced by beliefs and customs.

Religions have developed their own ways of dealing with the problem: in Zen Buddhism, for example, if one goes to a religious teacher and tells him that while in meditation you have experienced a vision of the Buddha, he is likely to say, "That's very nice. But don't worry, if you keep concentrating on your breath it will go away"!

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10.2 Faith

Faith is not a religious or spiritual experience, but it is a phenomenon with a number of different aspects, such as belief, trust, commitment and passionate feelings. Usually the first aspect that comes to mind when one speaks of faith is that of an acceptance of a religious dogma - therefore faith is something that one believes intellectually without scientific proof. One might believe that the Bible is the Word of God or that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad as the final message of Allah to the world, or that the Buddha had attained Enlightenment, and that if one follows his example one can have the experience too.

These statements can never be proved scientifically but there are nevertheless millions of people who believe this on faith. Faith also involves a choice and trust. One has to make a choice and then commit oneself to follow a certain path, and this is done in trust while surrendering oneself in faith.

The Muslim surrenders herself to Allah and the Buddhist takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma (the teachings) and the Sangha (the community). In all of these acts the will is involved (the choice and commitment) but there is also a surrender in trust.

It is often said that there is no faith without risk. Faith also involves the emotions and when one comes to make the choice to surrender and accept the teachings as the truth and make the commitment to follow, there is usually an emotional response involved as well. People often speak of experiencing joy, bliss, peace or serenity when they speak of their faith.

It can be said that these experiences are the food on which other dimensions of religion feed: belief without a sense of awe before the majesty of the revelation is drier than dust, and ritual without the sense of the presence of the divine it honours must be a set of meaningless gestures.

The great scholar of religion, Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) described the feeling before the divine as a _mysterium tremendum et fascinans_ , a mysterious something which overwhelms you with apprehension but also with awe and fascination From the above it is clear that faith embraces the whole person - the feelings, the will and the intellect.

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10.3 Conversion

"Conversion" is a form of religious change that generally refers to individuals while religious change in general tends to refer to communities. Conversion is a phenomenon that occurs on different levels. We will concentrate on the most intense type, known as inner conversion.

Inner conversion means a change in identity or a shift in orientation. It implies not merely self-improvement, but a transformation that places the people involved in a more vital relationship to themselves. While a person's physical life is unchanged, the convert sees life in a totally different light than before.

One of the most famous conversions in history:

Saul of Tarsus converts to Christianity and will

become St. Paul. Painting by Caravaggio.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Inner conversion is often associated with structural conversion, that is, a change in religious affiliation from one group to another. Two types of structural conversion can be distinguished: a radical change in religious viewpoint or merely a change in affiliation.

An example of the first would be a person who leaves one religious tradition to join another, say a Christian who becomes a Buddhist. The second type refers to changes made within a given tradition, say an Anglican who becomes a Baptist.

Religious traditions vary in their attitude to conversion. Some promote "born-again" conversions within their own ranks and seek converts from without. The so-called missionary or universal religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism and Islam would fall into this category.

Other traditions promote inner transformations within their own ranks but do not actively attempt to convert outsiders. These religions, such as Hinduism and Judaism, tend to have a strong ethnic character. They incorporate outsiders, if at all, only by way of marriage, assimilation and other forms of contact conversion.

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Chapter 11: How is it organised?

Religion is part of human culture. Like other institutions, such as marriage, the state, the judiciary and education, religion has a specific role to play. In some societies religion may be more important than in other societies. However, wherever it occurs, the religion of a given group forms an integral part of that community's culture. It does not exist separately from the other aspects of that culture.

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11.1 Religion and society: mutual influence

Religious behaviour patterns influence whatever happens in the rest of a given community's cultural and social life. Let's think of an example in this regard: If religious leaders in a particular society should decide to embark on an intensive campaign against the consumption of tobacco and alcohol, one could definitely expect a response from the members of that society. While some may resist such a campaign, others may be persuaded on religious and moral grounds to lend their support. If the supporters of this campaign constitute a significant proportion of that society, then one could expect that this initiative will have real impact. Such a campaign can for instance make its influence felt in the commercial sphere with the sales of alcoholic and tobacco products being adversely affected.

On the other hand, it is also true that the behaviour patterns in society could exert an influence on religion. A religious group may for instance, in terms of its teachings, be strongly opposed to the use of any contraceptives by married couples. It is most likely that such a group will also oppose pre-marital sex. However, with the arrival of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the use of condoms have been strongly advised and appears to be one way of limiting the spread of the disease. The reality of this crisis in society may cause that religious group to re-think its viewpoint as far as contraceptives are concerned. It is also likely, perhaps even more so, that the religious group, while holding on to its teachings, will, for the sake of health in society, not oppose the use of condoms.

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11.2 Local, national and universal religions

Once the great religious figures have had their experiences and people started following them, forming religious traditions, there appeared individuals such as Ananda and king Asoka in Buddhism, and St Paul and Emperor Constantine in Christianity. These figures were instrumental in forming organisations that grew through the ages into the many different religious organisations we have today.

However, in some societies such as African traditional ones, religion has always been so interwoven with other aspects of life that there was no need for separate organisations - religion in such societies is mostly practised in the home in any case. It will be interesting to see how this will develop now that African religion is experiencing such a reawakening among African people that have been thoroughly westernised.

One way of classifying religious organisations (a **typology** ) is whether they are local, national or universal religions.

Local religions

These are practised in small local communities and one will be a part of this simply because one was born into the particular tribe or group. These religions are contained within the local group and they do not seek converts. A Zulu cannot convert and become a Xhosa and a Navajo Native American cannot become an Apache. Marriage will often influence the practises in which one partakes but can also lead to forsaking the tradition altogether.

These religions are usually found in parts of the world that are relatively untouched by modernisation and technology. They mostly do not have sacred scriptures and the tradition is passed on to the new generations by oral transmission. Authority lies with the male head of a household, the healer/diviner, and the tribal chief. It is estimated that there are more than a 1000 such groups in Africa alone, and many more in South America and other parts of the world.

National religions

These traditions are united by language and culture. They are specific to a national group and are not found outside the boundaries of their particular country or area. The ancient religions of Egypt, Greece and Babylon are examples of this type, but presently Shinto (the traditional religion of Japan) and Confucianism (indigenous to China) are examples of such religions. Hinduism and Judaism are generally regarded as national religions, too.

These national religions have their own organisations and often function as separate parts of society. They have specialists such as divine kings, priests and healers who are higher in status than the ordinary citizens.

In ancient Egypt there was a pharaoh who was not only the ruler of the country, but also a god and a priest. The Chinese emperor was called "the Son of Heaven" and apart from ruling the country, his task was to keep the orderly running of the world at large going by performing Confucianist rituals. Similarly, in Shinto the emperor was seen (until 1945) not only as the ruler of Japan, but as a god. When Japan and China's systems of government changed during the last century, these religions were weakened in significant ways.

Universal religions

These religions are not associated with one particular country or nation. Most of these are missionary religions that actively seek converts throughout the world. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are the prime examples of this type of religion. All three are religions in which the missionary impulse is very strong. Sometimes you will also see the term "world religions" used.

Christianity, from its small beginnings in the Middle East two thousand years ago has spread over most of the world and more than 1.5 billion people are estimated to identify themselves as Christians.

Similarly, Islam had within a hundred years of its beginnings already spread to most of the countries of the Middle East and today it has majorities in countries from Morocco to Indonesia. It also has almost one billion adherents and is the second largest religion in the world.

Buddhism has about half a billion adherents worldwide. It has historically been less assertive in its missionary efforts than Christianity or Islam, but it is nevertheless a universal religion that welcomes newcomers from all societies.

Problems in the local/national/universal typology

Judaism is a religion to which one basically belongs because you were born to Jewish parents. But it is possible (though not easy) to convert to Judaism, and Judaism has been known actively to look for converts, even if that was long ago. Is it a local, national or universal religion?

Above, we say that "a Zulu cannot convert and become a Xhosa". But what about Johnny Clegg, the musician known all over South Africa as "the white Zulu"? There are other examples of people who have endeared themselves to members of local religions and have been adopted by them. There are even white sangomas (African traditional healers)!

Does this mean that the local/national/universal classification scheme is invalid? No, it just shows that reality sees no need to conform to the schemes human beings devise to understand it. Typologies such as this are more or less useful, once we take note of all the exceptions. The relationship between truth and usefulness is a complicated one. In fact, this way of classifying religion is starting to look outmoded. But no replacement has been widely adopted yet and you still need to know the terminology.

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11.3 Social dimensions of religion

Since religion is part of human society, it will also, like all other institutions, display certain social dimensions. Below, we will be looking at three of these dimensions.

Religion belongs to the group

The group into which a child is born, includes religion as part of its accepted lifestyle. Centuries before the child was born, the group has already decided what type of supernatural being or beings is to be worshipped and how this worship is to take place. The group has also long ago decided what kind of behaviour has received supernatural approval or disapproval.

A simple example in this respect may be the issue of food that can be either permissible or impermissible to eat. To some religious traditions the consumption of all meat is forbidden, whilst to others only certain kinds of meat, such as pork, may be prohibited.

The same will be true of what ethical norms should be shared. In this regard it may be permissible in some traditions to have more than one wife or husband while in others monogamy will be strictly prescribed.

The group also plays a decisive role in determining religious symbols. For example, the symbolic meaning of elements like water and fire will greatly vary from tradition to tradition and from group to group. Such symbols only acquire meaning once the group has reached agreement on the matter.

Religion is learned

Although it is true that new religions are founded and that religious changes do occur, it is equally true that most people find themselves at birth in an established religious pattern. We should remember though, that no individual is born with fixed religious convictions.

The fact that most children follow the religious convictions of their parents, is due to social influence rather than to biological factors. Once the individual starts growing up, he or she begins to learn about religion and religious behaviour from his or her society. Examples of these include how to participate in religious activities, how to communicate with a divine being and how to undergo prescribed rituals and ceremonies. Love for or fear of one or more supernatural being, for instance, needs to be learned.

The individual must also learn to become familiar with the content and meaning of certain symbols. Nobody is automatically aware of the definitions of symbols such as "soul", "angel", "devil" or "god". It is only under the guidance of the group that these symbols become meaningful.

Religion can change

As time goes by, societies tend to change. Since religion forms part of society, it is only natural that it will then also be affected by social change. Religious behaviour and understanding are developed by humans in the way in which, in their opinion, harmony may be achieved with the wishes of the supernatural or with divine truth.

However, being part of an ever-changing society, religion is often confronted with the reality of and need for change. If the changes facing religion does not affect the basic principles on which a certain tradition is founded, the likelihood of that religion adapting to a changing society could be considerable.

An example that could be mentioned in this regard is the position of women. The position of women, particularly in Western society, has in certain respects undergone major changes from what it has been a century or two ago. Although in general still far behind the changes that secular society has brought to the position of women, some religious traditions have taken note of these changes.

Where it was before almost unthinkable to have women ordained as priests, this has happened in certain religious traditions - in 2015, Rev Libby Lane became the first female priest in the Church of England to be ordained as a bishop. Since these traditions did not have the submission of women as one of their building blocks, it was possible to adapt to a changing society. However, changes in attitudes towards women have not as yet filtered through to all religious traditions.

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11.4 Religious collectivities

It is normal for people to organise themselves into groups, organisations or associations. This happens in the area of commerce, labour, sport, culture, politics, education, social welfare and so on. Religion is no exception in this regard.

In order to express itself socially, the formation of organisations or associations within which people can enter into relationship with the holy or, more specifically, with the supernatural or divine, often occur. There are different types of religious organisations, of which we will discuss the following types briefly: denomination, ecclesia, sect and cult.

Although most of these terms have a Christian origin and connotation - the typology was originally thought out by the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) and the theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) - they are useful in the sense that each of them represents a certain type of structure. These terms will therefore be used to describe certain types of organisations that may, or may not, occur in other religious traditions.

Ecclesia

The most important characteristic of the ecclesia (Greek for "church") is that it covers a large geographical area, which is either national or international. We tend to use the Greek word because "church" is too ambiguous in English: it can mean a specific organisation, the collection of all Christians, or a building!

The area covered and the vast number of members involved, are responsible for a complicated administration. Authority within the ecclesia is normally centralised and moves along a well-established hierarchy. Since the ecclesia is sufficiently large and well established to accommodate internal differences, various kinds of sub-organisations and leaders exist within the larger group.

Today the Roman Catholic Church is a good example of an ecclesia. On the other hand, bodies like the World Council of Churches or the World Alliance of Reformed Churches cannot be regarded as ecclesiae because membership is totally voluntary and the member churches retain their individual identities.

Perhaps the Lutheran World Federation can in some ways be regarded as an ecclesia. All Lutheran churches all over the world belongs to this federation. However, it would be different from the Catholic church since the Lutheran Church in South Africa and, say, the one in Sweden are both separate denominations, each with its own autonomy.

As society changes, an ecclesia may gradually be reduced to the status of a denomination. In Britain, where the Anglican Church was in the ecclesia category for a long time, other denominations have increased in importance to such an extent that the influence of Anglicanism has decreased considerably.

Denomination

A denomination is a large group which has been well established and enjoys wide acceptability in the community. Usually a denomination is quite tolerant towards another denominations, but rather intolerant towards sects (see below), which are seen as narrow minded and reactionary.

The denomination does not oppose the secular world, but rather adopts an accommodating attitude. Although the ultimate objective is to win the entire world over to its point of view, the denomination endorses the general state of social affairs. By doing this, it assures its adherents or members that the society in which they live is moral and just.

A denomination usually counts a number of prominent, influential and wealthy individuals among its members. While working-class people may also belong to it, the greatest support for the denomination is to be found in the middle class. In line with this middle-class image, religious gatherings of a denomination tend to have an intellectual approach. Such meetings are formal and communal participation takes place along well-established lines.Great emphasis is placed on formal theological training for the leadership while educational programmes are organised for lay people.

The Methodist Church can be regarded as an example of a denomination. Outside of Christianity, we may regard the Ramakrishna Mission as an example of a denomination within Hinduism.

Sect

A sect is a small group which has broken away from a larger group because it believes that the latter no longer proclaims the "true religion". The sect is therefore hostile towards well-established religious groups such as the ecclesia and the denomination, but also towards other sects.

The sect justifies its attitude by insisting that all religious interpretations other than its own are wrong. Only the sect possesses the truth. Membership of the sect can be obtained by a voluntary change-over. In the denomination, on the other hand, one normally becomes a member through birth.

The sect sees itself as the community of the right-minded and therefore, in terms of their own self-image, sect members are the religious elite.

A sect often comes into being through the initiatives of people whose religious needs are not being fulfilled by other religious groups, whether denominations or ecclesiae, in their society. These disenchanted people break away to form new convictions of faith in order to give a new form of expression to their religious insights. Consequently sects tend to arise among socially marginalised people.

Christians in general will look at the Jehovah's Witnesses as a sect while Muslims will say the same of the Ahmadiyya Movement.

A sect is less highly organised than a denomination and the prophetic role of one or more leaders is particularly prominent. The sect rejects the established order of both the secular and sacral worlds and is in conflict with both the denomination and the secular world in which the latter flourishes.

The fact that the denomination so often appears to be quite at home in its secular environment often contributes to the formation of the sect. There are normally two options open for the sect. Its members can either withdraw from the "evil world" or they can remain within the larger society and attempt to initiate social change

A sect starts out as a community of dedicated people who are engaged in conflict with the world. But this attitude is hard to maintain in the long run, and eventually the sect begins to accept more and more inputs from the surrounding society. Eventually, the sect changes into a denomination.

This process gives us a very clear example of the kind of religious change that can occur in a community. Sometimes this change occurs after the death of a charismatic founder. The new successors then need to administer a fast-growing administration and in this process an institution with authority is created to replace the charismatic founder.

Another reality that promotes the transition from sect to denomination is the arrival of the second generation. This event implies that the congregation no longer consists solely of converts. There now adherents or followers who do not belong to the group for reasons of commitment or dissatisfaction with society, but who were born into the group. Once grievances against society start to fade away and the wealthier members start to play a more prominent role in the internal life of the sect, the hostile attitude the group once had towards the world also starts to diminish.

We can see this happening today in the Hare Krishna movement (more correctly known as ISKCON). When it started out, it was a militant sect within Hinduism, trying to convert not only other Hindus, but non-Hindus too. But since the death of the founder, Sri Prabhupada Bhaktivedanta, the movement has made peace with other Hindus, built magnificent temples, and has become much less aggressive in recruiting new members. It is well on the way to becoming a Hindu denomination

When such a group also starts to demand that its leadership undergo formal theological training, the erstwhile sect is well on its way to becoming a denomination. At this stage the process starts to repeat itself. On its way to becoming a denomination, the sect starts to lose those qualities which attracted the original members. Conflict arises and often some members break away to form a new sect.

The transformation of sects into denominations is one of the best known phenomena in the history of religions. Think of the most staid, respectable church you can think of. For argument's sake, let us say the Methodist Church. Now, if you go and read up on the founding of Methodism by John Wesley and his friends, you will be amazed to find just how radical and sectarian they were thought to be at the time!

Cult

Of the four types of religious organisations discussed here, the cult is by far the most difficult to describe. Individuals are not born into a cult and do not join the cult formally. Support for a cult varies widely and official proof of support may not exist at all. Association is completely voluntary and membership of the cult does not imply acceptance of group discipline nor does it necessarily cancel one's membership of more conventional groups. The leadership of a cult is charismatic and informal.

The convictions of a cult often centre on a single function, such as faith healing. Cult adherents are often uprooted individuals who join the group when they are confronted with loneliness or other frustrations. In Religion Studies, "cult" is a technical term only used in reference to this fourfold typology. When working with contemporary religious developments, it is preferable to use the term New Religious Movement (NRM).

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Chapter 12: Who is running things?

When religions form organisations and institutions several types of organisational structures can govern these. They can include structures in which power lies with one person (monarchies), with several persons (oligarchies or aristocracies), with many persons (democracies), or they can have a division of power between central and local organisations. When we use terms like democracy, monarchy and so on, we are basically borrowing these terms from the study of politics and statecraft.

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12.1 Monarchy

This refers to the rule by a single person and is usually applied to states where the rule is vested in one person who is the permanent head of the state. The best known monarchy in the world today is probably the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain. However, Britain is also a democracy, with a parliament and a cabinet of ministers, since the power of the king or queen of Britain is not what it used to be.

Absolute monarchies are rare these days: in most monarchies, even the king or queen has to obey the law. But a few absolute monarchies do still exist. At the time of writing, King Mswati III of Swaziland rules absolutely.

In religious governance the organisation that comes closest to this type of organisation is the (Roman) Catholic Church. It has at the top of the hierarchical structure the Bishop of Rome, better known as the Pope. Catholics look to him for authentic interpretation of the Christian teaching but he is also the full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church. The body of officials that assist him in the governance of the Church is known as the Roman curia.

Pope Francis

© Edgar Jiménez/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 2.0, 2013.

The Pope is elected by Cardinals (priests who are senior even to bishops and archbishops) from all over the world, but only those who are less than 80 years old. They are isolated from all outside contact (traditionally in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican) and they stay until at least two-thirds of them can agree on whom to choose. The ballot papers are burned in a fireplace, and depending on whether white or black smoke comes out of the chimney, the crowds waiting outside will know whether a new Pope has been chosen.

Under certain circumstances, such as when the Pope solemnly and officially as the pastor of the (Roman) Catholic Church defines a matter of faith or morals,he is considered to be infallible (no possibility of being wrong exists). This is called speaking _ex cathedra_ (from the cathedral). Normally this will, however, involve previous discussions and debates with the Bishops of the Church - not every chance remark a pope makes is infallible!

Pope John Paul II made such a declaration in his work Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in which he determined that women would not be allowed to become Catholic priests. Only another pope can now overturn this decision, and until then it is binding on all Catholics.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

© Minette/Wikimedia CC BY 2.0, 2014

In Tibetan Buddhism, we find a similar structure to Catholicism. Junior monks are superior to laypeople, but the smaller number of senior monks have authority over the juniors, and a very small number of _lamas_ (very senior monks) are even more powerful, but only within their own organisation.

And so it goes, until we come to the Dalai Lama, who is the supreme head of all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Unlike the Pope, however, he is not formally regarded as infallible.

Other monarchic arrangements can be found in new religious movements, where we usually find that while the founder is still alive, his every wish is obeyed.

In fact, this is also what we see when we look back at the history of many of the great religions. Even if a founder of a religion is a very kind and considerate person, we see that their strength of personality and the importance of their message allows them to rule the faithful like a monarch. When the founder dies, however, there is usually a crisis. Who will rule now?

Some founders manage to appoint a successor. Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith, for example, appointed his son Abdul-Ba'ha. And this arrangement can last a few generations, but soon enough the crisis of management tends to erupt.

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12.2 Oligarchy

What we usually find is that a small group of followers who knew the founder personally tend to take over. At this stage the new religion is an oligarchy - it is ruled by a few people. One thinks of Jesus' disciples, or the companions of Muhammad, or the 500 enlightened monks who gathered to encode the Buddha's teachings after his death. This oligarchic stage can last for a long time, as long as the religion remains capable of producing enigmatic people who are willing to lead.

Christ and the twelve disciples.

© Public Domain via LA County Museum of Art/Wikimedia.

In African Religion, one may receive a call from the ancestors to start the long training process to become a healer. This is not a matter for debate: the ancestors will keep on sending you dreams and visions until you submit to their will and start your training. And the ancestors can send their demands to anyone, at any time. To the extent that African religion is managed and directed by these healers, we may call it oligarchic.

Most theistic religions will maintain that God is the ultimate ruler of all human affairs. But in practice, they leave the day-to-day running of the state to human rulers and politicians. But in a few cases, religious institutions have actually taken over the running of the state.

This is called a **theocracy**. A bad choice of term, actually - the word theocracy is Latin for "rule by God", but in reality it boils down to "rule by the priests"!

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12.3 Aristocracy

In some cases, this task of leadership slowly becomes hereditary, being passed from father to son or from mother to daughter. The formerly oligarchic religion is now an aristocracy.

Hinduism is a good example of this. If you are born a Brahmin, you will lead the people in religious matters. If you were born anything else, you will not. You must belong to one of the families in the Brahmin caste if you want to become a priest. It is not an automatic process - you will still have to spend many long years in study and preparation. But being born to the right parents is the first step.

In Tibetan Buddhism, one important way to assume a religious role is by **reincarnation**. They believe that when their important religious leaders, like the Dalai Lama, die, they will come back in another body to lead them again. So, a few years after the leader's death, they send out a search party for the young boy who is the new appearance of the leader. He will then be trained to take up his position once again.

This is a variation on the aristocratic theme. Once the process is complete, however, the Dalai Lama will rule in a monarchic fashion.

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12.4 Democracy

It is tempting to think that **democracy** is the obvious next step and one towards which all religions are striving. But that would be wrong. In fact, democracy is rare in the religious world. It arises only in certain unusual circumstances.

Nor should we think that any one of these ways of organising a religion is necessarily "better" than any other. In the political world, democracy is certainly very desirable. But even within a democratic state, there are many organisations that are not democratic, and this is accepted by all. The military and business worlds, for example, are oligarchic in nature - what the generals or the company directors want to happen, happens.

Universities are also oligarchic. Some countries tried to democratise their universities back in the 1960s, with students setting standards and policies. All of those experiments have been quietly abandoned. They just did not work.

One should also consider that if a religion believes that it is ultimately under the rule of God, then in a way it will always be a monarchy, even if at a lower level it is structured in a democratic way. Christians, for example, pray "Thy kingdom come", not "Thy democracy come"!

Delegates during the meeting of the 176th

Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian

Church of North America

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Where we do find religious democracies, they are often structured in a way similar to that of political ones. Members at a low level elect members to represent them at a religious "parliament", often called a _synod_. At the synod, the representatives will then elect from among themselves a small number of people who act as the permanent "cabinet" of that organisation. They effectively rule the organisation until the synod meets again.

Why is this not an oligarchy, then? Because every couple of years the membership has the opportunity, if it wants to, to get rid of their representatives and elect new ones.

Hindus cannot elect a new Brahmin caste, nor can all the Catholics in the world decide to elect a new Pope. But in democratic institutions, this can and does happen.

Christianity probably has the largest number of democratic organisations, but it is also prominent in the Baha'i Faith.

In this religion, the Local Spiritual Communities in an area meet once a year to elect a representative to a National Convention. This convention then elects a National Spiritual Assembly for that country and for that year only. But every four years, the same process is repeated internationally to elect the Universal House of Justice, the highest authority in the Baha'i Faith, which meets in Haifa, Israel.

Many Protestant churches are of the _congregational_ type. They are self-governing local churches who are sometimes affiliated into a cooperative body so that they can work together on large programmes of shared concern. These include Baptists, Mennonites, Congregationalists (obviously), and many of the independent charismatic churches. The individual congregations remain independent.

Other Protestant churches such as the Presbyterians and the Lutherans have democratic participation at the local church, but they also send representatives to national bodies, where top-level decisions are made.

The Society of Friends, or the Quakers, as they are also known, are an example of an extremely democratic organisation. They have no leaders and anyone in their meetings is allowed to speak at any time.

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12.5 Mixed and transitional systems

Naturally, this neat system of ours does not always work out in practice. In many monarchic organisations, a certain amount of democratic practice is allowed at lower levels. And in some formally democratic systems, we see that the same individuals somehow get themselves elected again and again until the organisation starts to look more and more like an oligarchy.

There are also religions that seem to fall out of our system altogether. Islam is a good example. On some levels, Islam is extremely democratic. All Muslims are equal and pray together shoulder to shoulder.

One is not born an _imam_ , one cannot buy that status or get it simply by studying hard. You become an imam when the community at your local mosque decides that you are worthy of it. When that day arrives, they simply start calling you by your new title.

But Muslims do not elect representatives to a "parliament" of all Muslims to rule over them. Instead, Islamic law rules, and the interpreters of that law, who have studied it long and hard, serve as an oligarchic element that binds Muslims around the world together.

In Islamic countries where the majority of the population are Muslim, there is often a co-operative relationship between politics and religion. The life of the population is governed by the Islamic law (the Sharia) and this often forms the basis of civil law as well. This aspect is theocratic.

So, this tells us that there can be "mixed" forms of religious governance, in which monarchic, oligarchic and democratic elements combine in various proportions. If a religion used to have one kind of governance, and it is clearly moving towards another, then perhaps right now it is in a "transitional" phase.

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Chapter 13: Playing a role

In the previous chapter we looked at the different institutional forms that religion can take. In this chapter, we will look more specifically at roles played by individual people.

We all play different roles in life. If you are told that someone is a teacher, you would expect that person to dress, talk and behave in a specific way. If you were told that the same person was a bricklayer, you would have different expectations. Religion is no different in this respect. Different members play different roles.

Keep in mind that the roles we describe below overlap considerably. A Catholic priest's primary role may be to mediate between God and the people, but he will also deliver sermons like a minister, do church administration like an elder, and perhaps even perform healing ceremonies like a healer. The same is true for most of the other roles.

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13.1 The believer

The most basic role of all is that of the common believer, the so-called "person in the pew". In a way, this is the one role we all play if we belong to any religion. Even if we graduate into a more important position, we never stop just simply being a member of our religion.

Here are some terms that are used to describe the common believer in different religious traditions: layperson, lay member, adherent, congregant, devotee, disciple, parishioner, practitioner.

Although the terms in the above fact file are roughly equivalent, they are still not exactly the same. Use a good dictionary to find out the more exact meaning of each of these words. Also, some of these words tend to be used predominantly in one religion, or in one branch of a religion.

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13.2 Mediating figures

A very special function among religious people is that of the person who acts as an intermediary between the divine and the people. The most important role here is that of the **prophet**.

A prophet is thought to receive direct communications from God, and can then communicate God's wishes to the people. Prophets are most commonly found in religions that emphasise God's role as creator and divine king. You have already encountered the names of a few prophets: Muhammad, of course, and Moses and Isaiah in Israel.

But according to some, prophethood did not end long ago. The Baha'i Faith sees Baha'u'llah as the most recent prophet. In African Initiated Church circles, you may hear names such as Shembe and Lekganyane spoken of as modern-day prophets.

Another form of mediation is that of the **priest**. In this case the mediation is performed by means of ritual. In Catholicism, the mass is the central ritual by means of which God and people are reconciled, and this must be performed by an ordained priest. The priest is therefore the link between God and the common worshipper.

Similarly, Hindu priests offer worship on behalf of the people and mediate between them and the gods. In some religions, like Catholicism, priests must be celibate: they are not allowed to marry or to have sexual relations of any kind. In other cases, priests are expected to marry and produce the next generation of priests. This is the case, for instance, with the Hindu priests.

In many of today's religions, priests can only be male. But in ancient times, many religions also had priestesses. However, in those institutions like the Anglican Church that have recently (since about 1980) allowed women to take on priestly roles, the ordained women prefer not to use that title, and just call themselves priests.

Three religious role players and a politican walk into a bar ... First Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish leaders in Brussels, December 2010 - left to right: Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric - European Council President Herman Van-Rompuy - Rabbi Marc-Schneier - Imam Dr. Abdujalil Sajid.

© Michael Thaidigsmann/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0, 2010.

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13.3 Teachers and instructors

In other religions, the individual believer is expected to approach the divine directly, without an intermediary. But it still has to be done correctly! This means that in those religions it is very important that the correct information is spread about the expected relationship to the divine. In these religions, the role of the religious **teacher** comes to the fore.

In Protestant Christianity, this is the role of the **pastor** , **preacher** or **minister**. They deliver sermons in which they explain the meaning of scriptures and how scriptures can be applied to everyday life. In Hinduism the **guru** instructs people in the proper meaning of Hindu teachings, and in Tibetan Buddhism such a person is called a **lama**. In Islam this is the role of the **imam** , and in Judaism it is done by the **rabbi**.

Then there are people who also teach, but on a more academic level, and who are less directly involved with the practice of religion. In Hinduism such a person is called a **pandit**. In the western world we find the **theologian** and the **scholar of religion**.

Theologians research one religion (their own) intensively, while scholars of religion study religious thought and activity more widely.

Imams and rabbis also have another important task - apart from their teaching duties, they also have to interpret religious law. So they have to be both religious teachers and lawyers!

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13.4 Organisers

Every religion needs people just to run the organisation efficiently. In many cases, this is taken on as an additional job by the priest, minister or pastor. In fact, many of these people surely wish that there was less administration and more time for their real jobs!

But very often, there is simply too much work for one person to do. And in many religions, this leads to people who are not ordained (lay members) being drawn in to the running of the organisation. Different religious traditions may call them by different names, but we can collectively refer to them as **elders**.

Despite what the name suggests, you don't actually have to be very old to be an elder. But you should be widely respected for your sober lifestyle and your ability to work efficiently. Many elders are also successful people in their daily lives outside the religious organisation: they may be businesspeople, legislators or administrators (professors, not so much). In fact, most elders are not full-time religious professionals.

One religious organisation, a Christian church known as the Quakers, refuses to appoint any member to any role higher than that of elder. In other religious organisations, elders are formally placed below the minister or pastor, but in practice a strong-willed elder of long standing can have far more influence over the congregation than a young, inexperienced priest or minister!

In some religious organisations, you may also find a level of commitment greater than that of the elder, but not quite on the level of the ordained priest or minister. Again, let us borrow some Christian terminology and call such a person, in any religion, a **deacon**. Deacons' status and responsibilities vary greatly from one religion (and one denomination) to another, but wherever we find them, they seem to be taking on the organiser's role.

I hope you realise that we have been painting with a very broad brush here. What one church calls a deacon may be called an elder in another. Some organisations will have a kind of ordination for the people they call "elders", but have laypeople serving on a parish council that serve the same purpose.

The division into believers, mediators, teachers and organisers, however, seems to be fairly fundamental and we can find at least three of these four roles in all religions. Not all religions have mediating figures, but they all need to have the mass of common believers, somebody to keep reminding the believers what the religion is all about, and somebody who takes care that the lights in the group's meeting place stay on.

One last remark: in religious organisations that do not ordain women, the elder and deacon roles are often open to them, and many religious organisations would come to a complete halt if it were not for the organisational skills of their female members. Will the rule of priestly celibacy one day be regarded as something quaint that people did in the old days? Keep in mind that other rules once thought very important in specific religionsa, like Catholics not eating meat on Fridays, have gone by the wayside.

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13.5 Taking it to extremes

All the people we have discussed so far still have some sort of normal life. Some priests may be forbidden to marry. Others may dress slightly differently: perhaps putting on a clerical collar at times. But they can still take a day off to go shopping. They earn money for their religious work, they go on holiday, they relax with their friends. Even if they are personally always very religious, they are not necessarily always playing the formal religious role.

But there are also people who take religion even more seriously. Indeed, their faith is so strong that they decide to take on a full-time religious role. They "renounce the world" and live out their religious beliefs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for the rest of their lives.

These people are called **monks** if they are male, and **nuns** or **sisters** if they are female. Like Catholic priests, they are forbidden to marry, indeed to have any sexual activity at all. They often wear distinctive clothing, like long robes. Their daily life is regulated down to the last minute, with set periods of prayer, meditation and study prescribed for every day.

A group of Catholic monks of the Carmelite Order.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia, 2010.

Monks and nuns are not found in all religions. In Christianity, we find it in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but not so often within Protestantism. Islam, Judaism and the Baha'i Faith actively discourage their members from taking up such an extreme lifestyle.

However, it is still a major way of life within Buddhist and Hindu societies. Buddhist monks and nuns are called **bhikkhus** and **bhikkhunis** and wear robes that are yellow, maroon, grey or black, depending on which form of Buddhism they belong to.

In Hinduism, it is usually only men who renounce the world, and they are called **sannyasins**. They wear little clothing and practice self-denial, meditation and rituals. In both these religions, monks and nuns are not supposed to do any regular work, but to depend on the goodwill and charity of the community for their food, clothing and shelter. Monks live together in a building called a **monastery** (a monastery for nuns is sometimes called a **nunnery** or a **convent** ).

But there are a small number who decide that even this is still too much of a worldly life for them. They spend long periods, even years, by themselves engaged in solitary religious practice and are called hermits. The hermit lifestyle is now rare in Christianity and Buddhism - at most, a Christian or Buddhist monk may live this way for a month or two. But it is still highly prized in Hinduism in India.

An Indian ascetic wearing an iron collar, circa 1870.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

The hermit lifestyle often involves a degree of asceticism. This means that the hermit will ignore the needs of the body or even take steps to undergo deliberate trials of pain and deprivation, all in search of religious experience.

In Christian history, the hermit lifestyle started out in the deserts of the Middle East, centuries before monks started to live together. In fact, our word "monk" comes from the Greek word _monachos_ , meaning "one who lives alone".

Christian monks or nuns take vows that they will live the monastic life until they die. In principle this has always been the case and remains so today, but in practice, if you find out that becoming a monk was a big mistake, there is a way to get the church authorities to release you.

Much the same is true in Hinduism, but there it is not so much a question of religious authorities, but of whether your family and community will take you back. In Buddhism, vows have never been taken for life. A Buddhist may become a monk for a month, a year, or until he just feels like doing something else!

In the last century or so, Catholic monks and nuns have become far more active in society than they used to be. Instead of being locked up in their monasteries, they now go out and look after poor and sick people. One famous nun who did this during the twentieth century was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She was an Albanian nun who devoted her life to serving the poor people of India. By the time you read this, the Catholic Church will probably already have declared her a saint.

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13.6 Birth or merit?

In many cases, one takes on a religious role because of many years of study and because the religious community regards you as wise and holy. But there are also roles that are acquired by other means.

The first of these is by **birth** : some roles belong to certain families. In Hinduism, for example, you must belong to one of the families in the Brahmin caste if you want to become a priest. It is not an automatic process - you will still have to spend many long years in study and preparation. But being born to the right parents is the first step.

There are also important roles reserved within the family unit that are based on birth, at least in the sense of how one is related to everyone else. One can expect that a father and mother will naturally have a certain teaching role when it comes to religious matters, for example.

In traditional Chinese society, the relationship between older and younger brother is of great religious importance. In African society, one's relationship with your mother's brother can be as close as the one with your father himself. This uncle would play a significant role in initiations, marriages and so on.

It can be hard at times for outsiders to see the religious significance of such family relationships. But in a society where one relates to God or the world primarily through the family line, whether its members are still alive or whether they are ancestors, knowing one's precise place in that line is of the greatest importance. This is equally true in Africa and in China. It gives a new, and different meaning to the term "elder". In this case, an elder really is older than you!

In Tibetan Buddhism, a second important way to assume a religious role is by **reincarnation**. They believe that when their important religious leaders die, they will come back in another body to lead their followers again. So, a few years after the leader's death, they send out a search party for the young boy who is the new appearance of the leader. He will then be trained to take up his position once again.

Finally, a role may be assumed simply because of a **call** from the other world. Muhammad, for example, did not choose to be a prophet - he was chosen by God. In African Religion, one may receive a call from the ancestors to start the long training process to become a healer. This is not a matter for debate: the ancestors will keep on sending you dreams and visions until you submit to their will and start your training. And the ancestors can send their demands to anyone, at any time.

So there are a number of ways in which one can enter into a religious role, apart from merit and individual interest. But in all of them, study and preparation still plays a major role.

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Chapter 14: Living in harmony - Sources and the African experience

In this chapter we will start by taking a look at the general background of how we make ethical decisions, that is, on what basis we decide whether or not a certain action would be good or not. Then, we will look at how these sources have been active in African religion.

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14.1 Sources of ethical decision-making

Each religious culture has its own particular order. Each one proposes how our human actions should be regulated and each one has its own ways and structures to instruct its adherents to comply with its teachings and principles.

And yet, there are a number of sources that the religious traditions of the world make use of in order to reach their processes of ethical decision-making. The contents of these sources are of course not the same in the various traditions, but most of the types of sources that we will identify below can be found in the majority of religious traditions.

Sacred stories

First, there are sacred **stories**. One of Judaism's creation stories about Adam and Eve tells of a rib being taken from Adam's side and fashioned into a woman, Eve. Eve is then brought to Adam who recognises her as a very part of himself. Adam then says: 'This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh'.

The Hebrew text implies that the woman will co-operate with him in good times and support him in adversity. The story concludes that this is why men and women unite sexually in marriage and they become one body or person. The story justifies sexuality in marriage.

In the oral tradition of the Amazulu a different account is rendered with regard to the creation of the first human beings. According to this tradition a mischievous young man was sent to earth for his punishment by _iNkosi yezulu_ , "the Lord of the Sky". The young man was lowered to earth with an umbilical cord through a hole in the floor of the sky. The young man then cut himself loose form the cord by using a reed.

When iNkosi yezulu later observed the loneliness of the young man, he lowered the most beautiful young sky maiden to comfort him and to be his wife. At the sight of her great beauty, the young man cut her cord as he cut his own. iNkosi yezulu then withdrew the cord and closed the hole in the floor of the sky.

With this act, they were granted authority and decision-making power in their new environment. They could then on multiply on earth, establish social relations that would combat loneliness and they no longer needed to return to heaven.

Sacred texts

Linked to sacred stories are the second source, sacred texts. Written texts, accepted as divinely guided writings, may prescribe or forbid a certain behaviour. In this regard there is the Torah or Jewish Law, the New Testament form Christian side, the Qur'an, the sacred text of Islam and Buddhists texts such the Dhammapada.

In all of these writings the ethical demands to the followers of that particular tradition are clearly outlined. One example will suffice here and this is taken from among the sacred writings of Hinduism.

Hinduism has several sacred texts such as the _Vedas_ , the _Upanishads_ , the _Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_. One of the most important and influential of the Hindu writings is the _Bhagavad Gita_ , the Song of the Lord, that forms part of the much larger epic called the Mahabharata. Known simply as the _Gita_ , it relates the dialogue between _Krishna_ , an incarnation of the god _Vishnu_ and Prince _Arjuna_ , an important community leader in India many centuries ago.

Arjuna is at the point of engaging in battle, and the fact that some of the enemies on the other side of the battlefield are his relatives fills him with anguish. But Krishna admonishes him: Arjuna is a warrior, and it is his duty to fight.

One of the most important guidelines that the Gita conveys by means of this dialogue is that people should carry out moral duties regardless of whether reward or punishment awaits in a future life.

Sacred ritual

A third source is the sacred ritual practised by a particular religious group. It can indicate a dramatic turning point affecting behaviour or it can be of an on-going nature that is an integral part of a particular tradition.

A Buddhist is ordained as a monk and immediately thereafter has to obey 227 rules. A Christian is married in a Christian ritual and may have sexual relations with the partner, whereas such behaviour is forbidden to the unmarried.

In African religion cleansing and mourning rituals are performed at the death of a relative in order to communicate with the ancestors. These rituals are also designed to bring home the spirit of the deceased and to enable the latter to take his or her place among the ancestors.

The ritual purification in Islam, prior to ritual prayer, is clearly prescribed and practised with great care.

Ritual actions in the slaughtering of animals for human consumption are also clearly prescribed in Judaism and Islam respectively and are designed to ensure that food is fit for human consumption, that is, either Kosher or Halaal.

Social structures

Religions are socially constructed with a hierarchy of. authority and power. This social structure constitutes a fourth source of justification. In some religions women are regarded as inferior and so it is expected that they will obey men and be submissive to them.

A particular person may be elevated to a superior social status in the religion as a tribal elder or a Pope. Such persons, on their own authority, may be able to declare what is forbidden or permitted. In the Shona tradition in Zimbabwe, special messengers receive directions from the Voice of Mwari, the Supreme Being, speaking from a cave. These directions are then conveyed to the community.

In Islam a body of jurists, well-educated in the Shari'a or Islamic Law, normally gives guidance to the community on ethical matters. Their interpretation is particularly important in cases where the issue at stake is not explicitly addressed in the Qur'an or in the Hadith (Tradition). In South Africa , three such bodies serve the Muslim community, namely the _Muslim Judicial Council_ in Cape Town _, Jamiat ul- Ulama_ _of Transvaal_ in Gauteng and the _Jamiat-ul Ulama of Natal_ in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Religious experience

Religious experience is a fifth source. A religious founder may have had a profound religious experience in which a moral requirement has been communicated. The founder may have been told to avoid eating a type of food. Such a mandate then stands.

Or perhaps a religious devotee cannot decide whether a behaviour is forbidden or permitted. In prayer, an answer is received and the person is assured of the proper moral stance.

If, over time, a particular person's religious experiences become entrenched in the stories and texts of the religion, and if that religion maintains that religious experiences come from outside the person,it gains the status of **revelation**. This term is especially important in religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, where it is used to refer to the religious experiences of founders and prophets.

Religions like Buddhism, however, maintain that religious experience comes from within, and the concept of revelation does not exist there. Hinduism accepts both "within" and "without" as possible sources for religious experience.

Religious belief

A last source for ethical decision-making is justification from religious belief. All religions have beliefs about that which is beyond this world, about what is expected of them in obedience to the gods, the divine beings or the states of being. These beliefs shape and justify the way people behave.

An example of the demands of particular beliefs, is to be found in Theravada Buddhism. Followers of this school of thought believe that by mental concentration they can attain Nirvana, and they are forbidden intoxicants like alcohol which would hinder such an attainment.

According to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, a humble attitude in this life is necessary for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.

By now you will no doubt start to see that all six sources are closely related. Someone's religious experience is retold as a story. A religious story gets written down and becomes a text. Because of that text, people have beliefs about it, practise rituals and establish social structures. And so on.

This makes it difficult sometimes to distinguish what a person's source for ethical decision-making is. Is it personal religious experience? But didn't that experience come from having read a text, and isn't that text based on a story about someone else's experience?

But we need not worry too much. For now, let us just try to identify the most immediate source.

Secular sources

We have seen that there are a number of sources for ethical behaviour in the various world religions. But what about people who do not belong to a religious organisation?

We have said before that such people can - and do - act just as morally and ethically as religious people. But what are their sources? Do they have stories, texts, ritual, social structure, experience and beliefs that they can draw on? We maintain that they do.

Sometimes they are the same sources that religions use. A secular person may appreciate the ethical message of a religious story even while not believing that it comes from God.

There are also purely secular sources: for example, the writings of philosophers like Bertrand Russell or Jean-Paul Sartre.

A secular person's experience may also tell him or her that ethical behaviour is rewarded by society. They may also base their decisions on the behaviour of characters in books and movies. So, you can see that even if somebody is not "religious" in a narrow sense of the word, they still share in the same larger process of life and awareness as those who do belong to a formal religious organisation.

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14.2 Harmonious social existence according to African religion

When one travels through the rural areas of South Africa, the traditional round huts are very noticeable. One also finds that in a traditional village these round huts have been arranged in a circle. The idea of the circle conveys to us the important truth that, in Africa, society can only function well if there is harmony and unity amongst the members of that society.

An African rondavel, or traditional round house, in Lesotho.

© Public Domain via Wikimedia.

This idea of well-being and wholeness is also central to African religion. The Supreme Being, the ancestral spirits, the community, animals, plants and inanimate objects all form part of life and are all linked together.

Although God is regarded as the one who punishes offences, his mercy towards humanity knows no end. His care and concern for humanity are particularly demonstrated when people face crises such as drought, floods, famine and death. God rules over life.

Since human beings occupy the central position in God's creation, they are the ones who benefit most directly from the protective and sustaining actions of God.

All life flows from God and it is he who grants life to the ancestors. Because they have entered death, there is a closer bond between God and them than between God and those who are still alive. The life that they possess is therefore of a stronger quality than the life of those who are still living.

Although the ancestors are not worshipped, they are greatly respected. God has appointed them, not only as the main protectors of society, but also as the critics of society and as the ones who hand out punishment where punishment is deserved.

For the sake of harmony and stability in the life of the community, it is important that the ancestors are always well-disposed towards the community. This can be ensured by means of meaningful communication with the ancestors. The community is given the opportunity to communicate with the ancestors by means of rituals and prayers.

It is in particular during the so-called **rites of passage** that the community can ensure the blessings and protection of the ancestors. These rites occur during birth, initiation, marriage and death. To form an idea of the way in which the ancestors are involved in these rituals, we will now briefly look at two of these areas, namely birth and marriage

A sangoma (diviner) performs the ritual that welcomes a child into the community.

© Mycelium101/Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0.

In the event of a birth there are in particular two occasions where the ancestors are involved. The one is when mother and child make their first public appearance. In some cultures this event is celebrated with an animal sacrifice to give thanks to the ancestors.

The other event is the naming of the child. During this ceremony, the baby is anointed in order to strengthen it and put it under the protection of the ancestors.

A very important moment in the life of an African bride is the final separation from her own family and the incorporation into her husband's family. In some cultures the arrival of the bride at her new home, is celebrated with the killing of a sheep or a goat. The slaughtering of an animal to welcome the bride serves a double purpose. In the first place it should be understood as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the ancestors. Secondly, it serves as a request to the ancestors to grant the newly wed couple their support and protection. It is in particular the hope that children will be born from this marriage that motivates the couple to request the active participation of the ancestors.

A traditional dance at a Zulu wedding in 1905.

© wellcomeimages.org/Wikimedia CC BY 4.0.

It is by now clear that African religion is not primarily designed for the individual, but for the community of which he or she is part. African religion is created everywhere in the life of the community, and in traditional society there are no irreligious people. To be human is to belong to the whole community, and to do so involves participating in the beliefs, ceremonies, rituals and festivals of that community.

One cannot detach oneself from the religion of one's group, for to do so is to cut oneself off from one's own roots, one's own foundation, one's own context of security and the entire group of those who make one aware of one's own existence. African people do not know how to exist without each other, without their religion. Outside the circle are found danger and death, illness and chaos, solitude and decay. Within the circle there is comfort, life, well-being, order, community and growth.

African chiefs attend a Zulu wedding in 1905.

© wellcomeimages.org/Wikimedia CC BY 4.0.

The well-being of the community enjoys priority over that of the individual. Human actions are judged according to the benefit they bring to the community. All is aimed at the well-being and harmony of the community. All of this is achieved by means of respect for authority and seniority, charitableness, respect for property and the lives of fellow human beings, respect for marriage, aspiration towards sound human relations, a life in harmony with nature, and respect for the Supreme Being and the ancestors.

According to African religion, it is not enough to learn and embrace a faith, which is active once a week, while the rest of the week is virtually empty of religious and ethical concern. The whole environment and the whole time must be occupied by religious meaning, so that at any moment and in any place, a person would feel to be in harmony with the Divine, the ancestors, his or her community and with nature.

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Chapter 15: Living in harmony - The Semitic experience

In this chapter we will be looking at the principles behind ethical decision-making as these are found in the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

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15.1 Harmonious social existence according to Judaism

According to the great _Rabbi Akiba_ , the principle underlying all of the Torah is the commandment: Love your neighbour as you love yourself. And the great sage _Hillel_ , when asked to explain the Torah "while standing on one foot" (i.e. very briefly!), summarised: What is offensive to you do not do to others!

These very short replies on what Jewish ethics are about, are nevertheless good indications about what all the other commandments in Judaism are about. The Prophet Mica had only slightly more to say on the subject when he summarizes the commandments: To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

When we look at these summaries one is struck by the fact that all of these emphasise the relationship with other people. It can be said that the attainment of holiness in Judaism comes through good deeds as expressions of love to those who are unfortunate and disadvantaged. In Judaism the worth of the individual and the equality of all human beings before God is given high priority.

The preservation of life, social justice and charity towards the underprivileged are very important in Judaism. The Ten Commandments which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai gives a slightly longer version of what is required for a Jew to live according to the will of God.

God spoke all these words, saying: I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments. You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your Hod, for the Lord will not clear one who swears falsely by His name. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work - you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. Honour your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour's house: you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's. - Exodus 20: 1-17 (Tanakh)

The first five commandments show the duties of Jews towards God and the second five, their duties towards other people. These form the fundamentals on which all other commandments are based.

Careful study of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) has revealed that there are in fact 613 commandments. 248 of these are positive commandments of what should be done, and 365 are negative commandments on what should not be done. The 248 are said to correspond to the 248 bones in a human body and the 365 are said to correspond to the number of days in a year. Therefore, the devout Jew can honour God every day of the year with every bone in his body.

There are prescriptions and prohibitions in all areas of life and Jewish scholars have studied these in minute detail over the ages. There is, however, an exception for keeping the commandments and that is when a person's life is at stake. Any commandment may be broken if one's own or another's life is being threatened.

But under ordinary circumstances and in everyday life, there are many rules that govern the behaviour of the pious Jew. There are for instance special rules for the Sabbath when according to the Ten Commandments no work should be done. Many Jews interpret this strictly so that a devout Jew will not travel by car, or cook, or use any electrical appliance, or purchase anything, or smoke, or even write on the Sabbath (but let us stipulate that not every Jewish person is equally devout).

There are also many dietary rules and obligations for observant Jews. Torah prescribes that only mammals with split hooves and which chew the cud may be eaten - sheep would be suitable (kosher), but not pigs. Only fish with scales and fins are suitable for eating, therefore shellfish such as shrimp and crayfish are not. Bird are suitable, except for birds of prey.

Another prohibition is against the eating of meat and dairy products at the same meal. So one would not be allowed to eat meat and cheese together or to add cream to a meat dish. This has resulted in households also having separate kitchen utensils for meat and dairy products, and even separate fridges and pantries in households that can afford it.

If all of this sounds like a very difficult task, Jews are quick to reply that obedience to God is never a burden but is, in fact, a joy. When a Jew follows the commandments with a sincere heart, God is made present in the world and everyday life is sanctified.

Fact file

• The word _Torah_ literally means "revelation" but is used as a synonym for "The Law".

• It is also the term used for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (also called the _Pentateuch_ or the _Books of Moses_ ).

• The Books of Moses are also called the "written Torah"

• There is also an "oral Torah" which consisted of the interpretations and opinions of learned rabbis (the _Mishnah_ ) and the commentaries upon these which were collected in the _Gemara_ by the fifth century.

• The Mishnah and the Gemara together form the _Talmud_ \- a scripture with authority almost equal to the written Torah.

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15.2 Harmonious social existence according to Christianity

Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them! Happy are those who mourn, God will comfort them! Happy are those who are humble; They will receive what God has promised! Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them! Happy are the pure in heart; They will see God! Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children! Happy are those who are persecuted Because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!

Christian ethics are largely based on the so-called Sermon on the Mount. The above-quoted beatitudes form the introduction to the ethical teachings of Jesus and is designed to explain the distinctive lifestyle that Jesus expected of those who were following him. These followers, known as disciples, were, according to Jesus, like salt for all mankind and like light for the whole world.

In relating the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel according to Matthew informs us that Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where he sat down. His disciples gathered round him, and he began to teach them

Having grown up as a Jew, Jesus stressed the moral principles of what is known as the Old Testament, and built upon those teachings.

Negative teaching

In what can be described as the negative teachings of Jesus , he clearly condemned evil. Evil deeds and evil thoughts had to be avoided. In quoting the well-known commandment _Do not commit murder_ from the Ten Commandments, Jesus stressed that what were involved were not only real acts of murder or killing. He extended the commandment to include angry thoughts, slander or abusive speech and malicious acts of any kind. He thus emphasised that anything that could affect the other in a harmful way was condemned and not in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of God.

When dealing with relations towards the opposite sex, Jesus again referred to the Ten Commandments and quoted the commandment _Do not commit adultery_. Going beyond the literal act of adultery and stressing respect for the opposite sex, Jesus then interpret this commandment also to include lustful thoughts and desires.

Jesus also regarded as evil those attitudes that are aimed at harmful conduct and at depriving the other person of what is rightfully his or hers. Referring to these attitudes and motives as coming from within and making a person unclean, Jesus taught

For from the inside, from a person's heart, come the evil ideas which lead him to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride and folly. (Mark 7:21, 22)

Positive teaching

Summarising the Jewish law, Jesus provided also a summary of His positive ethical teaching.This is found in the command to love God and neighbour (Matthew 22:37-39) and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12).

Jesus specifically linked together love to God and love to neighbour but taught that the latter is no substitute for love for God. Love in the ethical teaching of Jesus is not sentimental but is something costly.

The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 6:38) and the instructions to do good without counting the cost (Matt 5:42), show that the essence of love is the performance of of good to others.

One manifestation of love emphasised by Jesus is readiness to forgive others their trespasses (Matt 6:12, 14, 15). This attitude of forgiveness is to be viewed as the result and the assurance of having received divine forgiveness. It is to be exercised without limitation of any kind. A forgiving spirit combines with the attitudes of humility, meekness, and service as characteristic of the true disciple of Jesus. The humble who will receive what God has promised (Matt 5:5), have a capacity to absorb evil and to overcome it with good (Matt 5:38-41).

Looking at the above, we could say that most of the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples, be grouped under two headings _: Do not press for your rights_ , and _Do more than your duties_.

In addition to the above instructions to his disciples, Jesus did give guidelines on specific issues, two of which we will briefly look at.

Duty to the State

When confronted with the question whether one should pay taxes to the state, (Matt 22:15-22), Jesus made it clear that his followers should settle the debts they owe to the state as well as those they owe to God. In this way, Jesus distinguished the secular and the sacred without dividing them, and explained to his disciples the two spheres they had to live in simultaneously.

Marriage and divorce

Another testing question prompted the teaching of Jesus on this subject (Matt 19:3-9). He simply took his questioners back to what God said when he instituted marriage (Genesis 2:24.) and showed that marriage is a lifelong union not to be dissolved by human authorities

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15.3 Harmonious social existence according to Islam

The most important principle in Islam is that God is one. The Arabic term for this principle is **tawhid**. It means that there is only one God in the entire universe and that He is the only one worthy to be worshipped.

Since God is one humanity is one. This means that all people are created by God as equals. It further implies that life in its entirety belongs to God and that he needs to be glorified in all aspects of life. In Islam there is no distinction between the secular and the spiritual. Life is undivided.

The Qur'an

The Qur'an is the principal source of Muslim ethics and gives specific guidelines in several chapters or suras. Below are some of the principles contained in Sura 17:

Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to your parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt nor repel them, but address them in terms of honour. Come not nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful deed and an evil. Come not nigh to the orphan's property, except to improve it. Give full measure when ye measure and weigh with a balance that is straight.

The Sunnah

Although the Qur'an is the main source of Muslim ethics, it does not cover all circumstances of life. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad several moral questions arose to which there were no answers to be found in the Qur'an. It then became clear that new source was required to give direction to the believers.

The source that came into existence was the **Sunnah** or custom of the Prophet. It comprised **hadiths** \- traditions that related the sayings and actions of the Prophet.

The consensus

Even after examining the two existing ethical sources, namely the Qur' an and the Sunnah, or collections of traditions, situations or questions were still emerging where there was doubt with regard to the proper way of proceeding in life.

In such cases the **ijma** or "consensus" of past generations of Muslims were resorted to. If public opinion of the Muslim community, as expressed by Islamic jurists, agreed on the rightness or wrongness of a practice then that opinion was upheld. However, such consensus should of course not be in conflict with either the Qur'an or the Sunnah.

Analogy

In extreme cases where all three of the above sources failed to provide a satisfactory answer to a particular moral problem, Muslims could turn to a fourth and final ethical source in Islam. This source is known as **qiyas** , or analogies.

The purpose of Qiyas is to establish a parallel between a moral teaching in the Qur' an or in the Sunnah and a new set of circumsltances. For example, modern drugs were not known during the time of the Prophet. However, the Qur'an prohibits the drinking of wine because of its intoxicating effects. By way of analogy or qiyas the use of other modem drugs are therefore forbidden because of their intoxicating effects.

The four ethical sources of Islamic moral teaching establish for the Muslim the **Shari'ah** ("Pathway") or Islamic Law. Since life is undivided, there is no aspect of life that is left untouched. The Shari'ah therefore lays down two two main spheres of duty.

The first is the so-called **Five Pillars of Islam** and the second are the duties to be fulfilled towards others. The Five Pillars represent five basic activities by which the Muslim demonstrates that he or she submits to the rule of Allah.

• The first pillar is the profession of faith which proclaims that there is no god but Allah that Muhammad is his messenger.

• Prayer is the second pillar. Five times a day the Muslim is expected to face towards Makkah alone or in a congregation and to express submission to Allah by going through a ritual of word and action.

• Almsgiving constitutes the third pillar. As yet another sign of submission to Allah, a definite proportion of each Muslim's income is given to support the Muslim community.

• The fourth pillar is fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. From dawn to sunset the Muslim should abstain from eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse.

• The final act of submission is the pilgrimage or Hajj which, if possible, should be undertaken at least once during a lifetime.

Besides the five duties towards Allah, the Shari'ah also lays down duties towards others. Individual, social and political behaviour are catered for in the Shari'ah. Justice, forgiveness, truthfulness, integrity and compassion are stressed by the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Since all human activities are believed to be covered, human actions are divided by Muslim jurists into categories. These are as follows:

• An action that is mandatory

• An action that is highly recommended

• An action that is permitted

• An action that is disapproved of but not forbidden

• An action that is absolutely forbidden

All Muslims have to adhere to certain dietary requirements. Certain prohibited categories of food may not be eaten, and alcohol may not be consumed. That which is permitted, is known as **halaal** and that which is forbidden is known as **haraam**. The rules for food are in some cases similar to those in Judaism (pork, for example is forbidden in both religions) but not always. Food that is kosher is not necessarily halaal, and vice versa!

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Chapter 16: Living in harmony - the Eastern experience

In this chapter we will look at the principles of ethical decision-making as these are understood by the great religions of Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism.

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16.2 Harmonious social existence according to Hinduism

Hinduism has spent a lot of energy into thinking about the principles of harmonious social existence. Indeed, it is one of the most striking aspects of this religious tradition just how intricately it is woven into the daily lives of its followers. To understand this, we first need to understand the concepts of varna, jati and karma.

Varna

The first important concept in Hindu thinking about harmonious social existence is **varna** (literally, "colour"). According to this concept, society can be divided into four distinct classes according to the work that various people do.

• Brahmins: Priests, writers, thinkers

• Kshatryas: Soldiers, rulers, organisers

• Vaishas: Merchants, bankers, manufacturers

• Shudras: Labourers, small-scale farmers

Some scholars believe that in the beginning, the system of four varnas was not a hereditary one. People just showed a talent for a certain kind of work and from there on, they would be classified accordingly. Other scholars disagree.

In any case, the fairly simple system of four varnas eventually did become hereditary and splintered into thousands of small, specialised family groups.

Jati

These small groups are called **jati** (literally, "birth"), and for thousands of years they dominated Hindu society.

In Classical India, one would be born into a certain jati, for example, into a family of shoemakers. Your father and grandfather would therefore have been shoemakers. If you were male, you would be a shoemaker, and if you were female, you would marry a shoemaker. In either case, your sons and grandsons would become shoemakers too one day. Together, varna and jati make up what is often called the **caste system**.

There were also people who were completely outside the caste system, commonly known as the **Untouchables**. In the twentieth century, they were renamed **Harijans** by Mahatma Gandhi, or **Dalits** by themselves. They occupied the bottom rungs of society.

Karma

But why? Why are some people born with all the gifts they need to become warriors, while others seem to be born tradespeople from a very early age?

The Hindu answer is that we do not live just once. We are born again and again into new bodies (reincarnation) and what we have learned and done in a previous life will determine the kind of person we will be in this life. This process is called karma.

If this is the way the universe works, then it stands to reason that the most harmonious society will be the one in which we don't fight it, but work along with it, and so if we are born into a family of shoemakers, then it is because our karma has placed us there. We should not want to be something else, but strive to be the best shoemakers we possibly can become. In that way, society will run smoothly, with everyone doing the things they are destined to do.

The _Bhagavad Gita_ (the most important Hindu holy book) is quite clear about this: better to do one's own duty imperfectly than to do someone else's duty really well.

In the last two hundred years, contact with other civilisations has weakened the strict interpretation of the caste system, and many educated Hindus today think of it as something from the past. But in India's millions of villages, it all seems to be taken much more seriously, even today.

The four stages of life

According to Hinduism, a well-lived human life should naturally divide into four phases:

• In the first phase, one should spend all one's efforts in learning, preferably under the guidance of a wise teacher called a guru.

• In the second phase, one starts a family, establishes a home and does one's job. During this period, it is perfectly acceptable to aim at physical pleasure and wealth, but even then, religious duties must be observed.

• In the third phase, a man and his wife will allow their children to take over the household and gradually withdraw from active participation in society, devoting more and more of their time to religious observances. The search for pleasure and wealth now starts to make way to the search for religious understanding.

• Finally, in the last phase, which applies only to men, one will withdraw from society completely, severing all ties with friends and family and devote one's time completely to religious practice and the search for truth. The man now becomes a solitary wanderer (sannyasin), living on charity and owning nothing.

Of course, things have not always worked out this way. Many Hindus never quite made it out of the second and third phases. And the opposite has been known to happen too: young men full of religious enthusiasm have been known to skip phases two and three and enter the life of the solitary hermit at a young age. Nevertheless, Hinduism maintains that society would be best served if most people kept to this scheme.

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16.3 Harmonious social existence according to Buddhism

Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism has not made the maintenance of harmonious social existence its main focus. Buddhism is essentially a religion of escape from the pain of existence: it teaches that life is, by and large, unsatisfactory and that the wisest thing to do is to get out.

In a way, Buddhism took the fourth life-stage of Hinduism, that of the solitary wanderer, and made that into its entire religious philosophy. Nevertheless, as Buddhism became more and more popular, it found that it needed to spend some thought on social relations.

Like Hinduism, Buddhism accepts reincarnation as a reality (Buddhists prefer to call it **rebirth** ). But the Buddha rejected the caste system from the beginning and accepted members of all varnas and jatis as his monks and nuns. One of the most important monks had even been a notorious robber and murderer before the Buddha converted him.

According to Buddhism, it may well be so that you are born where you are because of what you have done in a past life. But you do not need to accept your lot passively. Instead, you can rise above your present conditions, whatever they are, and become something better, perhaps even a Buddha!

As we have suggested above, the Buddha started a movement that was primarily for the benefit of monks (and later on, nuns). The Buddhist monks and nuns are collectively called the **sangha** , an old Indian word that simply means "a gathering of people". Eventually, Buddhist thinkers recognised that the idea of sangha had to be broadened to include normal people as well, from which we get the notion of the "fourfold sangha".

• Monks

• Nuns

• Male laypeople

• Female laypeople

The Buddha spoke out on the duties of kings to provide their subjects with enough food, so that they would not be lured into a life of crime. Rulers have attained their position because of good karma from a previous life, but if they abuse their power, their next rebirth will be much less fortunate.

Elsewhere, he spoke of the employer's duties towards his or her servants, children's duties towards their parents, and so on. Ideally, the monks and nuns should spend their entire lives searching for release from suffering (nirvana). This is quite a time-consuming business, and they did not have time to keep a job or raise a family. This is why the Buddha asked them to "renounce the world". This means that they would leave home, family and work and become full-time religious professionals. The laypeople would supply them with food, clothes and shelter, but always in moderate amounts.

To this day, in Buddhist countries you can see Buddhist monks going on their alms-rounds every morning. This is not exactly "begging": the villagers who give food to the monks also benefit. By doing such good deeds, they increase the likelihood that they will be reborn into a better situation in the next life.

Apart from that, monks and nuns were not supposed to interfere in worldly life. In Buddhist countries, for example, marriages are an entirely civil matter: you would not be married by a Buddhist monk, although they might be invited to sit in on the ceremony and bless it by their presence.

The Buddha's last words were "work out your own salvation diligently", and this was supposed to be what Buddhism was all about: a small handful of determined professionals searching for the truth on a full-time basis.

Again, as so often in the history of religions, the ideal turned out to be unattainable. In many countries, monks and nuns were just about the only people with an education, and their skills were in demand. So, many of them ended up writing books, doing monastery administration, becoming village teachers and advisors to various kings.

In other countries, like China, there just was no tradition of people supporting monks, and the Buddhist monks in those countries had to start their own farms and grow their own food.

In Tibet, the government collapsed in the seventeenth century CE, and there was no-one else to take over but the Buddhist monks. An energetic monk called the Dalai Lama ended up as the ruler of the country, a position his successors have claimed ever since.

And so, the Buddhist establishment of Tibet, which was supposed to devote itself entirely to religious practice, ended up as the government of the country! This situation lasted until 1950, when Tibet was taken over by China.

In the last century, Buddhism has spread to western countries, and Buddhists in traditionally Buddhist societies have also become aware of the social upliftment programmes (both religious and non-religious) that have been going on elsewhere in the world. A call went out for Buddhists to become more responsive to the needs of the people and the environment and to become more politically active. This has become known as "Engaged Buddhism".

There are many variations of this new development, but all agree that the old ideal of a solitary Buddhist who works out his or her own salvation in silent meditation is no longer viable. Engaged Buddhists have protested against nuclear power, against deforestation and against war. They believe that they are not going against the message of the Buddha, but are just extending it in a new direction.

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Chapter 17: Who is paying for all of this?

Religion has always formed a part of society and will continue to do so. Even as society becomes more industrialised and experiences an explosion of scientific knowledge and technological expertise, religion will persist. Religion is concerned with fundamental questions about human existence, and in a way that differs radically from the rationalism of modern, industrialised society. Thus, in society there will always be an affinity for religion and its basic functions while religion, in turn, will continue to influence our behaviour.

Having stated the above, one should at once concede that the dominant component of our society, and of all present-day societies, is the economy. Anyone who is familiar with the strain and stress of modern society is aware that economics is the pivotal institution of the whole system. By far the greater part of anyone's life centres around work and wages, food production and food consumption, providing and acquiring housing, insurance and investments. Even the educational system is aimed at preparing school-leavers for finding and creating employment.

The same goes for the political system. Government is constantly called upon to protect and stimulate business and industry in order to create and guarantee a sound economic environment. Without the latter, many vitally important development projects will have to be terminated.

When we think about the economy, we normally think about money, jobs and property. The link between religion and the economy is not an obvious one and it is at first thought, difficult to understand what religion has to do with the economy. Religion is after all concerned with spiritual matters such as prayer, meditation and preaching. The economy on the other hand is all about earning, spending and profits.

However, when we give it another thought, it becomes clear that religion has much to do with the economy, because concepts like employment, income, inequality, consumption and so on also feature in the business of religion.

The extent to which religion influences the economy will depend on the place of religion in that society. If there is a state religion, and if that religion has much to say about economic matters, then that influence will be large. In some Islamic countries, for example, "Islamic banking" is just about the only kind of banking you can do.

In countries where Islam is a minority religion, or where Islam is a majority but existing within a secular framework, we would expect Islamic Banking to have a far smaller impact. The same applies to the other religions.

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### 17.1 Religion and money

Although organised religion, as part of human society, cannot escape being involved with the economy, and cannot really function without money, we need to understand that there has always been an uneasy relationship between the world of religion and the world of material things. We will give just a few examples.

For religion, hand in hand with the problem of money, has always been the question of increasing one's money. The problem of lending money at interest, especially at an exorbitant rate, occurs in several religious traditions. This practice is known as **usury**.

In Islam, the term used for usury is **riba,** which literally means "increase". Riba is regarded as the opposite of zakah or the giving of alms, and is regarded as unacceptable individual profiteering at the expense of one's fellow human being. Islamic banks have been established to allow Muslims to store their capital safely while not gathering interest.

This does not mean that Muslims cannot invest their money in, for instance, a building, and sell it at a profit later. That is acceptable. What Islam objects to is "money making money" just by sitting in an account and not demonstrably helping the community.

The question of usury has long been a thorny issue for relationships between Christians and Jews, because Church or Canon Law prohibited Christians from charging each other interest in 1179 CE. However, it said nothing about Christians borrowing money from Jews and paying interest. Jews, on the other hand, were permitted to charge interest from Gentiles (non-Jews) if no other means of survival was available. At the same time, the Christian authorities refused to allow the Jews to farm or trade for a living. Thus, Jews became the money-lenders of Europe, and were much hated and persecuted because of it.

Fact File: Religious attitudes towards money

• Christianity: The Christian New Testament tells us that the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil (I Tim. 6:10). Jesus also referred to the problems that material riches can bring and said, with reference to the hereafter, that it will be a terrible time for rich people because they have had their good times in this life (Luke 6:24).

• Judaism: According to the Hebrew Bible one should not charge a fellow Israelite any interest on money lent to him or her (Leviticus. 25:36). The Hebrew Bible also says that the wealth of rich people can cause them to imagine that they are protected against everything.

• Islam: When the rich people of Makkah felt that their income was being threatened by the new religion that the Prophet Muhammad brought, they started making life difficult for him. Perhaps this explains the ambivalent attitude towards money we find in Islam.

• Buddhism and Hinduism: The Buddha turned his back on the riches that could have been his, in his quest for enlightenment and deliverance. In this, he was acting in terms of an ascetic tradition that was then already ancient, and that survives today in Hinduism.

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17.2 Organised religion as employer

The extent to which adherents of a particular religious tradition devote their time and energy to the cause that they are committed to, greatly varies. The majority of people probably only render voluntary service in part-time capacity. Such people are normally refer to as lay people, which means that their involvement in a particular tradition is not of a professional nature. Lay people will then by and large be those who are involved in secular employment, who serve the cause in their spare time and who receive no monetary rewards for doing so.

The first category of employees in the service of organised religion, are professional clergy who are employed full-time and paid by religious institutions. There are ministers, pastors, priests, bishops and archbishops attached to Christian churches and cathedrals and who are in full-time employment. Likewise synagogues employ rabbis, and Hindu temples employ priests.

The duties of such employees will first and foremost be to continue with the official work of their particular religious traditions, such as organising regular religious worship, ensuring that places of worship are accessible and executing or overseeing the teaching of the basic doctrines of a particular tradition. The duties of such employees will first and foremost be to continue with the official work of their particular religious traditions, such as organising regular religious worship, ensuring that places of worship are accessible and executing or overseeing the teaching of the basic doctrines of a particular tradition.

Figures that are certainly far outdated by now, and supplied by the National Council of Churches in the USA, indicated in 1987 that full-time members of the clergy (presumably only from the Christian side) totalled half a million. Even so, that gives us an idea of the size of the sector.

The second category is made up of those who may not be part of the clergy but who are nevertheless also full-time employed. Here we think of caretakers, cleaners, administrative personnel and maintenance people.

To ensure that there are future generation of clergy available to replace those who retire, many religious institutions own and run theological seminaries. Such institutions add to the number of fulltime paid employees, in the form of teaching and support staff.

A third category of employees come to mind when religion is looked at as an agent of compassion. Although secular organisations are also involved in caring for the needy and the destitute, religion and religious people are often closely associated with works of compassion. Much time, effort and money is spent by religious groups to alleviate pain, poverty and other forms of deprivation. Organised religion owns and runs orphanages, old age homes, hospitals, hospices, schools and feeding schemes. In these institutions doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, dieticians, radiographers, chaplains, psychologists and others are employed and do excellent work.

Religion therefore makes a considerable impact on the economy as an employer. In the case of the charitable and compassionate institutions, it is possible to argue that if the churches did not provide these somebody would have to provide it, most likely the state. But when we look at the full-time clergy, this argument does not hold.

Let us do a little thought experiment. Suppose that in your country a new law is introduced that bans professional religious workers. You are still allowed to be religious, but you can no longer work for a salary doing religious work. What would the economic consequences be?

Well, a lot of money that now goes into clerical salaries would be set free to spend on consumer gadgets and so on. The priests and ministers would be unemployed and if there are unemployment benefits in your country, they would be standing in the dole lines. But eventually, some of them would find other work. And religions would still be able to employ lawyers and accountants, who would find ways to support a professional clergy that did not involve paying a salary.

The Catholic Church, for example, already does this. Their priests receive very little spending money, but they get housing, transport and medical care free for life. So in the end, we have to say that while there is a lot of money involved in religion's role as employer, its effect on the economy is neutral.

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17.3 Religion as property owner

In most countries where religious freedom exists, religious institutions will erect buildings. There are churches, temple, mosques, synagogues, retreat centres ... Then one still has to add the buildings that house religious schools, hospitals and so on.

The land on which these buildings have been erected, have been bought and the buildings have been paid for or are being paid for, and are maintained. We can therefore rightfully talk of religious institutions as property owners.

We have no recent statistics available regarding the value of property belonging to religious bodies. The only figure available is again of United States origin. In 1957, that is more than sixty years ago, church property and endowments in that country were valued at $13.7 billion. Today one will probably have to multiply that figure many times to reach a realistic figure.

Under normal circumstances these properties will be exempted from rates and taxes as long as the institutions are registered and run as religious non-profit making concerns. This implies a loss of income for the state that will have to be made up from other sources. Those other sources are the taxpayers, including those taxpayers that do not belong to that particular religion, or to any religion at all.

This is acceptable if one believes that religious organisations of any kind are a force for good. But what if you belong to a strict, small group which teaches that all other religions are false and idolatrous? What if you are a committed atheist and you believe that organised religion is a force for evil? Are you willing to pay extra rates and taxes so that religion can carry on its activities?

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17.4 Religion as consumer

In the process of operating and maintaining their activities, religious institutions become consumers of basic services and provisions. The consumption of water and electricity, usage of telephone facilities and refuse removal are some of the services that organised religion makes use of in order to maintain its places of worship and its institutions of care and learning.

In the process they obviously run very high bills for services. In these buildings used by different religious groups things like water, electricity and telephone services are used In places like hospitals, old age homes and orphanages owned and run by religious groups, much food is cooked and consumed. Organised religions can therefore also be seen as a large consumer of goods and services.

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17.5 Religion as income generator

If one considers the fact that in many religious traditions, the giving of money is considered a religious duty, it becomes clear that organised religion is a very large generator of income.

In Judaism the term tithing is used to indicate the giving of one tenth of produce or property for the support of the priesthood or for other religious objectives. Tithing was an ancient and general practice in the Near East and other religions and cultures also practised it. During the time of Moses the giving of tithes and additional gifts, known as freewill offerings, was a general practice and the money and goods had to be brought to the sanctuary in Jerusalem.

In the early Christian church there was for several centuries no support of the clergy by a regular giving of tithes. In time, this practice came to be adopted after the pattern of the Jewish synagogue.

In the case of Islam, there is the third pillar or duty, called **zakaat** , that prescribes the regular giving of money to be used for the poor and the needy.

Although probably not counting for much of the income of religious institutions, there are of course also things like the sale of religious books, of religious music and of religious artifacts that generate some income.

Religious sites are also important tourist destinations and indirectly this also contributes to the generation of income. The pilgrimages to Makkah in Saoudi-Arabia, Assisi in Italy, and to Lourdes (in France) or the river Ganges (in Varanasi, India) with their alleged healing waters, also contribute much to the local economies of those cities.

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17.6 Religion influences the economy

Around the middle of the twentieth century, it was still fairly common, when approaching a city or big town in South Africa by car, to see church steeples standing out as landmarks. Today, however, even the tallest steeple has been dwarfed by buildings that represent finance, commerce and industry.

This may also to some extent be what has happened to the influence of religion in our society. Whilst the economic system is certainly increasing in importance and prestige, more or less the opposite seems to be true of religious institutions. However, there are a number of ways in which organised religion can contribute to the economy.

In the first place religion stresses important values like honesty and integrity. These values are certainly of much importance in business and other economic ventures. If religion can promote the honouring of commitments and honest economic practices, then it has already made an impact on the economic life of our country.

The attitude of religion towards work represents another potential contribution to the economy. If a religious tradition stresses the need for secular work and regards it as a "calling", then it has made a major contribution to make to the general attitude to work. By being assured by their religious institution of the importance of their work, ordinary workers are bound to regard it with pride and develop self-esteem. Such an attitude in turn can lead to increased productivity.

A German scholar named _Max Weber_ once theorised that this was the process by which the mainly Protestant countries of Northern Europe became rich and influential. He coined the phrase "Calvinist work ethic" which one still hears from time to time.

It is in the interest of a country to combat poverty and to ensure that more and more people share in its economic growth. In this respect religion can play a major role, but it also faces certain dilemmas.

In a certain sense, religion has discouraged the acquisition of material goods and has treated poverty as a virtue. On the other hand, economic prosperity has also been seen as a sign of divine blessing. This ambivalence can be found in most religions.

It is clear from what we said above, that religion is, among other things, an economic institution in the sense that it participates in the economy and is an economic force since it buys and sells goods and services, it employs people at many levels and contributes to the value system of society and of the economy.

It is important to realise, however, that the economic influence or impact of religion is seldom radical or revolutionary. It is also unlikely to send the economy in new directions. The role that religion has in stimulating the economy by buying and selling, is normally fairly stable and predictable. It does not really create new markets and nor does it demand new products on the market.

As an employer, religion certainly does not count amongst those institutions that pay high salaries, but it is a relatively stable employer.

Case study: The halaal controversy in South Africa

During the 1980s South Africa experienced something in this regard. Some conservative Christians took offence at the availability of food marked as halaal on the shelves of supermarkets. In at least one case, Christians went into a supermarket and threw all the halaal foods from the shelves. It was speculated at the time that these Christians were influenced by local political developments.

Regardless, the leading supermarkets in the country were faced with a dilemma. On the one hand they could not ignore the demands of the Christians, but on the other hand they also could not face losing their Muslim clients, to whom halaal foods were very important.

Some supermarkets found a solution by separating all the food items that contained the halaal sign, from other items on the shelves, thus creating so-called "halaal shelves". This anti-halaal campaign certainly had an impact on the economy, but fortunately, also for the sake of good relations between Muslims and Christians, it did not last long.

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17.6 The economy influences religion

It is most probably true to say that the economy tends to have more influence on religion than the other way round.

Perhaps the most extreme view of the influence of the economy on religion was that of _Karl Marx_ , the father of socialism. He made the statement that "religion is the opium of the masses." By that he meant that the elite of the society in which he found himself, was using religion to pacify the masses and to keep the workers in positions of subservience. He believed that religion, because it was used to legitimate the suffering of the workers, would decline and eventually disappear.

Although Marx's views were extreme, it appears to be true that religion tends to support the economic norms and patterns of the society in which it finds itself.

For example, in spite of the stress that the New Testament places on communal ownership, sharing of wealth, and giving to the needy, Christian churches, particularly in the West, usually support capitalism.

In summary, we need to say that although religion is definitely involved in, and a part of, the economy of the society in which it exists, it does not have much impact on the economy. It mainly supports the economy as one of many buyers and sellers.of goods and services.

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Chapter 18: How does religion approach topical issues?

We now turn our attention to the relationship between religion and some of the most important issues facing the world and its people today. It is all well and fine for religion to exist, but does it really do anything, does it actually face up to the crises that confront us all? Is religion part of the problem, or is it part of the solution? Or, perhaps, is it a little bit of both?

In this and the following chapter we are going to analyse one topical issue that we can relate to religion. We will analyse the problem to see how it manifests itself in our society and then we will seek out the causes and study the consequences. You have already astudied the ethical principles in a variety of religions and you will now be able to apply them to the problem we have studied in this chapter.

Although we have chosen only one topic to study in this chapter, there are many, many more. The following are a few from which we could have chosen: abortion, poverty, HIV/AIDS, euthanasia, gay rights, ecology, and so on. We have, however, chosen to discuss the matter of gender (in-)equality in society.

There is a difference between "sex" and "gender". "Sex" refers to the biological attributes of a person, while "gender" refers to the roles and behaviours that are culturally defined as being appropriate for a female and a male. Gender roles will therefore differ in different cultures and may be more limiting and oppressive in some societies than in others.

For most of history women's lives have been controlled by their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. Although they have an honoured position because of their ability to have children, they have always played their part mostly in the private sphere and not in the arena where culture and history were shaped. They have always been in the background and virtually invisible in the public sphere.

The oppression and disempowerment of women is the result of the thousands of years of patriarchal rule.

Women and society - case notes from south Africa

While South Africa has one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world, gender discrimination, sexual violence and oppression of women continues unabated.

In spite of some very positive signs (e.g. more than 30% of members of parliament are women), South Africa has the highest incidence of rape for any country that is not in a state of war, but available statistics are regarded as underestimated due to the high level of under-reporting.

Women bear the brunt of poverty and have the least access to resources. They are also most often unpaid caregivers of children, the elderly, and the terminally ill. Women are most vulnerable to infection with HIV and least empowered to negotiate safer sex.

Women and religious structures

In a survey done by the South African Gender Commission it was found that women were almost completely absent in leadership positions in all religions in the country.

While some Christian groups have allowed women to be ordained as ministers during the last twenty to thirty years, there is still a lack of representation of women and in some cases even a resistance at parish level to the appointment of women ministers.

In the large African Initiated Churches (such as the Zionist Christian Church) women are excluded from the higher leadership roles, but in some of the minor churches women sometimes fulfil the role of prophet and healer.

In the Roman Catholic Church women are completely excluded from leadership structures because they may not be ordained as priests.

In South Africa most of the Jewish communities are Orthodox, and they don't allow women to be ordained as Rabbis.

With the exception of a few communities (Arya Samaj and Brahma Kumaris) Hindu women are generally not allowed to become priests and therefore they are severely under-represented in the decision-making structures of Hindu religious organisations .

In Islam there is no organised priesthood, but leadership and the decision-making roles are the exclusive domain of men. These observations come from South Africa. But they could have been duplicated in almost any country on Earth.

Religions, more than any other social institution, have been persistent in denying women the opportunity to develop to their full potential.

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Chapter 19: Women in the religions

In many religions across the world there are movements to liberate women from oppressive religious structures but there is also resistance from traditionalist sectors in each religion since they see gender roles as divinely sanctioned.

If we consider the way in which gender roles are assigned to women and to men in particular religions we should investigate the sacred scriptures and the tradition of these religions. Without exception we will find that the sacred scriptures - even of those religions where women are assigned a relatively high status - contain passages in which women are relegated to an inferior status.

Judaism

In Judaism the two versions of how humans were created in Genesis 1 and 2 have to be reconciled. While Genesis 1: 27 states that God created male and female in his image, and implies their equality, Genesis 2 tells the story of how God created Eve from the rib of Adam as a help for Adam, which implies Eve's inferiority. When Eve eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and also gives the fruit to Adam (which he eats) the result is that as a punishment women are forever relegated to an inferior position.

The Tenach (the sacred scriptures of Judaism) has countless texts that illustrate the subordination of women and in the Jewish tradition women are never seen as on a par with men. The attitude is clear in the daily prayer that was common among Jewish men in the first century: "Praise be to God that he has not created me a woman!" and the famous phrase "Happy is he whose children are sons and woe to him whose children are daughters".

The Reform movement which emerged in the nineteenth century has called for full equality for women. Since 1972 women can be ordained as rabbis and this movement has also instituted a rite of passage for girls to become members of the community (in the same way that boys have done for centuries). The Orthodox tradition, however, has continued in the traditional practices and the role of women remains a secondary one.

Christianity

As in Judaism, Christianity also has to contend with the two versions of creation, and as in Judaism, this has also had an adverse effect on women for millennia.

During the life of Jesus he broke with tradition in many ways by allowing women to participate in religious life, even though none of his disciples were women.

In the same way, St Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28 "In Christ there is neither male nor female", but then also prescribed very submissive and limiting roles in for instance 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5 and 6. Bear in mind that Paul also had much to say about how slaves should be treated - but today none of us think that implies that keeping slaves is morally acceptable.

All of this set the scene for the Church Fathers to warn against the dangers posed by women and to limit their role in Church structures severely. Many of these limitations continue into our time with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and some Protestant denominations still denying women the right to ordination as priests and pastors.

What is so ironic is that in all of these churches women far outnumber men in membership and in active participation in the faith.

Among Christian women in the West, there has developed a movement called Women-Church in which many of these women feel more comfortable than in the traditional churches. Some women have also left the faith completely and have created their own Goddess-oriented religion ( **Wicca** ).

Islam

It is clear that the position of women was changed for the better when Muhammad came to power. This, however, says more about the deplorable conditions under which women lived in the Arabian peninsula than about the rights women gained under Islam.

Nevertheless, the Qur'an does make provision for women's rights which they did not have previously, such as the right to own property. The Qur'an implies a complimentary relationship between male and female (with female being created as a mate to the male), but also states "Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient" (Sura 34-35). It also states that rebellious women are to be confined to their beds and beaten, but should then be treated well again if they mend their ways.

Many practices in Muslim societies seem to be culturally, rather than religiously, based. One such practice is the veil, which many Muslim women wear. While the Qur'an dictates that both men and women should dress modestly it says nothing about veiling.

In different cultures, different styles of veiling developed over time and today women in some regions cover only their heads, while in others they cover their entire bodies with tent-like robes.

In Islam there has been very little in the way of feminist critique of patriarchy and this can mean that women in Islam are generally satisfied with their position, but it can also mean that the oppression is so complete that critique is not possible.

Hinduism

Hinduism has traditionally been severely patriarchal and throughout a woman's life, she always had a male relative who was in charge of her - first her father, then her husband and lastly her son. She was taught that her way to salvation lay through her husband and that he should be regarded as her god - even if he was unfaithful and abusive.

According to tradition only a son can light a parent's funeral pyre and the Laws of Manu (a collection of ethical and religious guidelines) teaches that only a son can save an ancestor from hell so that they can continue their spiritual journey. This virtually forces parents to have at least one son and over the years this has lead to female infanticide in Hindu communities. Today, in India, one can have medical tests to determine the sex of a fetus and even now some parents will have abortions if the fetus is female.

The practise of **sati** (sometimes written as "suttee") has been outlawed in India and has all but ceased, but still summarises the plight of women in Hinduism thorough the ages. Sati (the literal meaning of the word is "good woman") refers to the practise whereby a woman would be cremated (alive!) along with her husband when he died.

This practise was said to be voluntary because when a husband died, the life of the wife would be all but over in any case. A widowed woman would be shunned socially by family and friends, and she would have to live a very lonely life indeed. The other rationalization was that the woman was so distraught over the death of her husband that she volunteered to die with him. It needs to be asked though, why five thousand years of Indian civilisation has not recorded any instances of a Hindu man being so upset over the death of his wife that he volunteered to be burnt alive ...

Buddhism

Buddhism is said to be the religion that is the most tolerant of women, and men and women are usually regarded as spiritually equal. Nevertheless, the Buddha was reluctant to allow women to enter the monastic life, and when he eventually relented, he remarked that the life of the sangha (the community) would be shortened because of this move.

Even so, he did allow the female order to be established.This should however not lull one into thinking that Buddhism is not also traditionally male orientated. The monastic orders for men have always been very strong while those for women have usually had an uphill struggle. Monks have also always been regarded as superior to nuns. In any situation the most junior monk is still regarded as superior to the most senior nun.

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Chapter 20: How do we study religion?

Religion Studies is not a large basket full of things that must be known and remembered. It is, first and foremost, a discipline, or craft, that must be done. Like all crafts, it requires certain tools that need to be understood and certain skills that can only be acquired through exercise and practice. In this chapter you will be introduced to some basic tools in the toolbox of this discipline, and some skills that need to be developed.

In more formal language, you will make a start with some important aspects of the methodology of Religion Studies. The word "methodology" contains the Greek word for "way". The word as a whole therefore refers to the way to get to one's destination, which in our case is knowledge and understanding.

"Methodology" can be a very intimidating word. Sometimes it looks as if scholars spend more time debating methodology than actually doing the job!. But it really comes down to one simple rule: If you ask a stupid question, you will get a stupid answer. Luckily for us, the opposite is equally true: If you ask the right question, you will get a good answer.

It is therefore worth our while to spend some time ensuring that the questions we ask about the world of religious beliefs, institutions and behaviours are the right ones.

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20.1 Establishing the facts

The most basic level of work in Religion Studies is to get to know the historical "facts" concerning religions right. Basic as it is, it is extremely important. It has to do with the questions of WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN?

Why do I say "facts" in scare quotes? Because facts are never simply "out there" to be discovered. We constantly develop new ways of looking at things, and when that happens, the facts themselves change.

For example, when was Jesus born? If you said Christmas Day in the year 1 BCE you would be right - if you lived three hundred years ago. Since then, we have discovered that the medieval monk who worked out the date and established the year numbers we still use today made a small error. In fact, we now think that Jesus was born a few years earlier. And probably not in December.

But that is just one fact. Here is another one: "On December 25, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus". This is true. It is a fact. But the relationship between these two facts is a complex one. You should respect the facts. You should also suspect them.

One way of seeing the importance of this aspect, is to think of a map. If one comes to a big town or city for the first time, one feels completely lost. Fortunately there are maps that one can use to find one's way in the maze of unfamiliar streets. But as time passes, one discovers and gets to know the city. You develop a map in your head, a mental map. At that stage one will be able to locate various places in relation to one another: the gym is here, the sports field there, the most important religious buildings here and here, the various schools there and there, and so on.

It is the same with the world of religions, except that the world of religions is vastly larger and more complex. It is not only about places (where), but also about times (when), people (who) and many kinds of things and events (what).

One can of course learn those things in various ways. For example, one can read them in books, or pick them up from other people. The development of one's mental map of the world of religions is something that continues throughout one's entire life.

Again, even this most basic dimension of Religion Studies must not be understood as a merely passive thing, as the mere receiving of information. It is, more importantly, the active search for and the finding of information, even of information that has not been known before. Then search becomes re-search, that is, the intensive and systematic attempt to discover new facts.

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20.2 Correlations and patterns

Let's take the analogy of a map to illustrate what this aspect is about. As you get to know a village, town or city, the various places are no longer just haphazardly strewn around. One gets to know blocks, streets, parks, dams, perhaps a mountain, and one discovers how all these places are situated in relation to one another. In other words, one discovers all sorts of patterns.

We might say, you start to get "the big picture", as if you were looking down upon the place from an aeroplane, or inspecting a satellite photo of it. What do you see now? You see how your little home down there fits into the village, town or city as a whole. Of course, when you look down from that altitude, you no longer see details or individual facts (like the little bench in the park). But what you lose in detail, you win in grand inclusive perspective. It is the same with the world of religions - only on a vastly more complex scale.

For example, water may play an interesting role in religion A. But hang on, water also plays an important but somewhat different role in religion B. And then there is religion C, which has its own remarkable take on water. Not to mention religion D, where things really seem to hot up as far as water is concerned.

It is at this stage that the discerning student starts wondering: "Aha! Am I imagining it, or do I start seeing very interesting patterns emerging here, in spite of all the differences between religion A, B, C and D? Might there be a common feature here: that water is seen as a symbol of cleansing in all these religions?"

Now at such moments of discovery people shout with joy like the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes "I have found (it)!" So this aspect is not about "facts" as isolated chunks of information. It is all about relationships (or correlations) in and among the facts and the religions of the world. It is about getting all sorts of bigger pictures.

For example, what sorts of patterns emerge when we place the various systems of ethics in various religions alongside each other? Likewise, what interesting kinds of patterns might pop up if we start looking at social forms and institutions in different religions? Relationships do not only occur within the world of religions.

To take the analogy of the map another step further: when you are really into a high altitude, you start seeing how city A and city B, say London and Birmingham, are related. Carried over to our interest in religion: you start seeing how the city of religion and the cities of economics and politics hang together. In more abstract language: you learn to see how religion and other aspects of life (art, economics, and so on) are mutually dependent and how they influence each other. To be able to do such comparative work is a most important skill.

A term often used in Religion Studies to clarify the kind of activity we are engaged in here, is **explain** (the verb) and **explanation** (the noun). Thus, to "explain" something in Religion Studies means to make clear how it hangs together with something else. Such relationships may be of several varieties.

One (not the only) very important type of correlation is when one thing causes another thing. Then we are answering the question why? For example, why is Johnny sulking? Because his sweet fell into the water. Two things (Johnny's bad mood, and the fact that some red little object fell into the water) are related, in such a manner that one led to (is the cause of) the other.

It is the same sort of activity when we try to "explain" large-scale social phenomena where religion is involved. For example: Why did modern capitalism arise? Because of the attitudes towards work stimulated by early Calvinism.

Of course when it comes to things at this level, there is a lot of debate and disagreement between scholars, and one cannot claim that what you come up with, is as evident as some or other "fact". This is largely the case because we have to try and relate many factors. It is never a simple one-on-one relationship.

This shows how important this skill of seeing connections and making linkages is. It calls for a well-developed ability to relate things. The same applies to doing research. Good research means that one has the ability to move between various religions and between religion and other aspects of society.

This skill does not apply to Religion Studies only. It applies to how we conduct our lives in a broad sense. The high order intellectual skills that are developed in our subject (contrasting, comparing, synthesising and so on) will prove to come in good stead as you move into society.

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20.3 Understanding the adherents' perspective

Religion is not only about places, times, things and events, but also about people. Where do religions exist in the first place? In the hearts and minds of those who follow the various religious paths. So a vital aspect of doing Religion Studies is to enter into other the minds of adherents of various religions, as far as that may be possible.

When we do this, we are in fact asking the question **how?** We want to know: how does religion occur in the minds of people? We mean by that: how does a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian and so on see their own religions? And how do they see the world from the point of view of their religions? One might even ask: how would it feel to be a Muslim, Jew, Christian and so on?

We are also asking the question **why?** This "why" refers to the reasons why people think as they think, do as they do, feel as they feel. Put differently, we become interested in what people intend in their many religions. Or, exactly what do they mean?

There are many things in all religions baffling outsiders, who would want to ask: "Now why on earth would anybody want to do that?" Religious things to which one is accustomed appear as perfectly normal to those who have been doing or seeing it for years. But to outsiders such things may appear as utterly incomprehensible. That is, until one has learnt the skill of entering into what people mean by such actions or beliefs.

Another way of making this point, is to say that in Religion Studies we learn the skill of **understanding** people. The word "understand" has a very wide, general meaning. But in some of the Human Sciences, such as Religion Studies, it also has a very specific meaning. It refers to what we have explained above: to the ability to make sense of the sometimes strange things that people of different religions do or believe.

For example, when a non-Muslim for the first time sees a Muslim praying outside a mosque, one might wonder: "Why is it so important to face in a certain direction when you pray?" And when you have spoken to a Muslim and found out why, you could say: "OK, now I understand - I know why they do it". You have then entered into the mind, the thinking, of someone from a different religious world, if only to a limited extent.

Let us introduce you to an important technical term used in connection with this kind of understanding: the term **phenomenology**. Often this is also referred to as "the phenomenological method" or "the phenomenological approach".

Literally, "phenomenology" comes from two Greek words that we have taken over in modern languages: _phenomenon_ , and _logos_. The _logos_ (-logy) part is easy. It simply means something like "account", or even "science". "Socio-logy" therefore means "account/science-about-society". There are many similar words. You might be interested to know that at some universities Religion Studies is called "Religio-logy", which simply means "account/science-about-religion". Easy so far.

The _phenomenon_ part needs a little more explanation. Here, it means: a religious idea as it exists in the minds of those who entertain it. Read this a second time, and very carefully.

So when we use the "phenomenological approach" in Religious Studies, we stick to what adherents think and say and act out in their religions.

Let's take as an example the idea that is the most central idea in most religions: the idea of God. In Religion Studies we stick to what adherents say about God. That is what we want to understand. We do not go into whether what they believe, is good or bad, right or wrong. We are not judging it. We are merely describing it correctly and understanding it clearly.

The judging may be done elsewhere and by others. But in the Religion Studies classroom we do NOT judge from a religious point of view.

Now, sometimes the following two problems are raised by people who do not quite understand what this is about: The first problem sometimes raised is that it is very difficult, perhaps even impossible to do that. We can say at least this: it has been done for generations, even centuries and millennia, by people of goodwill, who are prepared to listen carefully to others. Of course there are depths that only the believer, or insider, have access to, and that the outsider will not fathom. But "understanding" in the sense that we use the word here is not a matter of everything or nothing; there are many degrees of understanding. What is necessary in a pluralistic society, is that citizens have an understanding of their fellow citizens as far as that may be possible.

The second problem sometimes raised is that it is wrong to attempt such understanding. The only way to deal with others, it is implied, is to judge and condemn them and make fun of them at every opportunity. Needless to say, that attitude is utterly against the grain of this discipline. Here, attitudes and social skills come into their own. It is about humans meeting other humans in a human society.

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20.4 A more critical view

Once we have established the facts, spotted correlations and made sure we understood things from the adherents' point of view, is there anything left to do? Yes, there is. We can now take a more critical view.

At this stage, you may be feeling confused. Did we not just tell you to respect the religious beliefs of adherents? Yes we did. But that was for a specific reason. If we do not make that effort, we are likely to accept or reject things based on purely emotional factors.

Suppose you are researching a group that practices polygamy. One man, many wives. You may personally find the idea repugnant. But you still need to make the effort to understand that to these people, polygamy was commanded by God, and your feelings of disgust are not going to change their minds on the matter. You need to know what is going on in their heads before you can do anything with the data. _Then_ you can critique that religion, calmly and without excessive emotion.

The critical approach, if we use the same example, goes something like this: "Let's suppose that polygamy was not, in fact commanded by God. Let's ask instead what social, psychological, historical or even physical factors could have caused this behaviour?" Critical scholarship emphasises theory over data. It tends towards functional rather than substantive understandings of religion, whereas phenomenology goes the opposite way.

But one would normally not just start off by criticizing religion randomly. You could do that, but your efforts would largely be wasted. It is more useful to critique religion from a specific existing theoretical perspective. This is like having a set of differently coloured sunglasses. If you wear the blue sunglasses, the whole world appears in shades of blue. If you take them off and put on a green-tinted pair of sunglasses, suddenly everything looks green! But the world did not change - only the way we looked at it.

In the same way, if you use, for example, feminist theory to look at a problem, everything about that problem will look like it is gender-related, and there is nothing wrong with that. But now step out of that and use a theoretical lens that focuses on race, or class, and everything looks quite different.

Of course, every existing theoretical approach was created by somebody. It is possible to invent one's own theory of religion and use that as a lens to look at a phenomenon. We give out an award for that sort of thing: it's called a PhD in Religion Studies! Until then, let's look at some existing "lenses" one can use.

Class

The first lens with which we can look at religion critically is also one of the oldest: social class. This approach is usually associated with _Karl Marx_ , but he was by no means the first to note that social stratification was a major factor in society. Marx's negative view on religion was largely influenced by the work of the philosopher _Feuerbach_.

But you do not need to be a Marxist to recognise that there are different classes in society and that they react different to the message of religion.

I once noted a pattern. It seemed that post-medieval Christianity and Buddhism were both able to spread into new territories, but they did so in different ways. Christianity spread from below, by mission work among the poorer classes of society. Buddhism invariably grabbed the middle classes first. Trying to explain this pattern got me my PhD.

The mind

Another lens is psychology, the study of the mind. _Sigmund Freud_ , one of the founders of this site, was famously dismissive of religion, which he regarded as a childish illusion.

Other famous psychologists, including Freud's own student _Carl Jung_ , were far more positive. There is even a branch called Transpersonal Psychology that attempts to blend psychological therapy with religious meditative practice. So there is not a single psychological approach to the study of religion.

Gender

A gender theorist (which is subtly different from a feminist or womanist) looks at religion and asks how power relations between men and women has influenced, and been influenced by, the evolution of religious traditions.

Within this broad field of studies, sub-fields of Women's Studies and Men's studies exist. More theoretically radical points of view within gender studies are called, in order of increasing radicality, feminism and womanism. A few points to understand: (1) "Male" is a gender too, and (2) you do not need to be a woman to agree with the feminist analysis that traditional religions have been part of the problem of a patriarchal system in which women's voices have been suppressed. All researchers need to understand that this is a valid theoretical lens with which to view religion, even if it is one you choose not to use yourself.

Sexuality

The same applies to the theoretical approach that challenges our view that religious history existed entirely of heterosexual actors.

This perspective, usually called Queer Studies, or, in a more technical application, Queer Theory, focuses on gay, lesbian intersex and other sexually unconventional categories that have been suppressed in the past and tries to restore them to their proper place in religious history.

It differs from Gender Studies in one respect: while it is generally accepted these days that men can study gender issues, even call themselves feminists, Queer Studies tends to remain restricted to researchers who are themselves members of the communities in question. It remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself and we will see non-LGBT professors of Queer Studies. In any case. the very existence of this discipline calls our attention to the many blind spots we may have when we research a social phenomenon like religion.

Biology

There are two ways in which biology has become relevant in Religion Studies. First of all, it is involved in the data collection method generally known as the Cognitive Approach to religion, which asks questions like "what are the brain activities associated with specific religious activities?"

But it also figures in a critical sense, when researchers consider that, since religion has survived all this time and even thrived, there must be some evolutionary advantage to being religious. What could that be?

History

One can also use the study of history as a lens through which to look at religion. This is by now an old methodology called Historical Criticism, or sometimes Higher Criticism.

This one is a little unusual: many of the people who do this are in fact professional theologians in their respective religions! A good example of this was the Jesus Seminar in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This is often portrayed in the media as a search for "the real, historical Jesus".

In fact, Historical Criticism is usually concerned with the historical context of texts, rather than people. It is not a question of what Jesus really said, rather one of what people in the first century meant when they wrote down things they remembered, thought they remembered, or just plain imagined that Jesus said. When you have worked through all that, you may come to conclusions about the man himself, and these will always be couched in terms of historical probability.

There are many other critical lenses that can be used, and no doubt new ones are waiting to be developed. One final aspect shared by many critical approaches is its activist nature. These approaches to studying religion (and everything else) do not merely wish to explain the world, they want to improve it.

To analyse religion in terms of gender is to pave the way for a more equal role for women in the church. To investigate the way religions support or undermine class-based exploitation is to show which tendencies can be used to support a specific political platform. And so on.

While phenomenologists of religion are happy to describe the religious world over and over again, critical scholars emphasise the important role played by religion in society, and how this can serve the interests of either the few or the many.

Does every scholar of religion have to do all of this? Not at all. There are academics who spend their entire professional lives carefully cataloging religious beliefs and practices. There are others who take the data discovered by the first group and use them as the raw material for their critical examinations of religion. Most of us do a bit of both. The constant interplay and tension between descriptive work and critical appraisal is one of the things that keeps this discipline lively and exciting.

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20.5 Self-discovery

We now come to the final methodological pillar of Religion Studies. The question here is: what about me, the student of Religion Studies? Where do I stand in all of this?

Know and affirm who you are. After all, you will be the one doing the study. So there is no point in forgetting or denying who you are. This is a crucial aspect of the subject. Who one is, will inevitably colour how one perceives things. That must quite simply be acknowledged.

The fact that one is an adherent of African religion, a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or whatever, will influence one's observations. You are not expected to make-believe that you are some kind of empty, blank, disembodied mind! There is nothing wrong in being who you are. But that must be brought in balance with the previously mentioned pillars. While knowing who I am, I have to ...

• respect the facts of religion, and not distort them to suit my preferences • Be open to the discovery of new connections across religions

• respect those whom I study, listen extremely carefully to them, understand them as well as I can, and never under any circumstances make fun of them

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20.6 Postscript

Which comes first , observation or theory, the chicken or the egg? To theorise we need some data to serve as our raw material, but when we look at the world to find our data, we must already have some (thoretical) idea of what to look for!

There is no need to get caught up in this dilemma. Observation and theorising just happen. Whichever one starts the ball rolling, more observation of data will lead to more theory, and more theory will lead to more data, and so on indefinitely. This view of the research process is formally known as **Grounded Theory**. But whatever it is called, just keep in mind that we need both to do research into religion or anything else

Note that the subject does not require any specific religious convictions. It is open to all, regardless of their religious persuasion, or lack of it. It is a public undertaking in the public space of our pluralistic world.

One need not be religious at all oneself to be a good student of Religion Studies. In other words, one may count oneself among, for example, the adherents of a world view such as humanism. Or not even that. Remember that we use a very wide, inclusive definition of religion in this discipline.

The subject will enrich you at a personal level. Experience has shown over and again that the study of the religions of the world is a very rewarding journey from a personal point of view. How can it be otherwise? For, in spite of the many wrong things that have been done and are done today in the name of religion, religions nevertheless contain some of the loftiest sentiments of humanity. Studying them is an enriching experience, as you may already have started to discover.

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Chapter 21: How do we find out about it?

In this chapter we will look at the most important principles that govern any type of research and will also explore the ways to communicate our research results.

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21.1What is research?

Research can be defined as the process whereby the researcher discovers valid answers to questions by using systematic procedures. Although "research" sounds like a very complicated procedure that only professional people with advanced degrees can conduct, it is in fact something that is done by ordinary people engaged in everyday life.

When the municipality recently instituted a bus service in our neighbourhood we quickly realised that the route was particularly inconvenient. One of the neighbours drew up a short questionnaire and distributed it to passengers one morning when the bus was full. He asked them to indicate where they lived and where their nearest bus stop was. Passengers simply left the completed forms on their seats when they left the bus and he collected them again.

With this information in hand he quickly proved to the municipality that the majority of passengers would prefer an alternative route and to the delight of the bus-users this was soon instituted. In the same way there are many ways in which each of us conduct little research projects during our lives. So, whether it is a small scale survey to change a bus route or a massive project to find out what thousands of people feel about a topic, the same important principles will apply.

**Fun fact:** The French word for research, _recherche_ , refers also to detective work.

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21.2 Two types of research

Broadly speaking, there are two main types of research, namely the **positivistic** and the **interpretive** \- also called the **scientific** and the **humanistic** approaches.

Many books have been written about these approaches and the philosophies which underlie them, but in this introduction to research methodology we will not go into the detail of these approaches. The following broad summary will suffice.

In the positivistic or scientific approach the researcher assumes that the world is a fixed reality outside of people and this reality can be measured. People who do research from this standpoint seek for causes and explanations for human behaviour. This approach requires the researcher not to be involved with the research subjects so as not to influence the research in any way. It makes use of methods such as experiments, surveys, statistics and demographic data.

If this type of researcher were to investigate mediation and spiritual experience for example, he would probably hook the meditator up to an EEG machine that measures brain waves or scan the brain to detect which areas show activity during meditation.

In the interpretive or humanistic approach, the researcher proceeds from the assumption that the world is constructed by human beings and that it is complex and ever changing - it is therefore not at all possible to measure it with any accuracy.

To understand the world of those being studied, one will have to talk to them and join them in their worlds and their activities. It will also not be possible to generalise and say that this world is the same for all other people, so the researcher seeks to understand the world the participant is showing to him.

Such a researcher cannot be detached from the person who is being studied, but is rather personally involved and tries through empathy to understand the life-world of the other. If such a researcher had to study meditation and spiritual experience, she would not measure brain waves, but would talk to the meditator to find out what the meditation experience means to him.

In general, one can say that when something in the area of religion is being researched, one would use the positivist approach only if you were interested in statistics on, for example, church attendance, numbers of adherents in certain areas, locations of building connected to a certain religion, etc. The interpretive approach is the one usually used in religion studies and is effective when seeking to understand the beliefs, practices and meaning of religion in the life of a participant.

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21.3 A word about ethics

It is absolutely crucial that the researcher takes into consideration what the effect of his study will be on the participants. Have their rights and interests been considered? And their emotional well-being? Has their anonymity been protected? Were they truthfully informed of the purpose of the research? Was the researcher honest and truthful in his reporting of the findings?

These questions are not something to be asked only at the outset or at the end of the research project, but are questions that have to be kept in mind by the researcher all through the process of the research.

One has to remember that in conducting research on the topic of religion one is dependent on the goodwill of the participants and deception and dishonesty will close the doors to many future researchers.

There are some researchers who believe that **covert research** is not justifiable and others who accept that it is sometimes the only way to get information. This is not a clear cut issue. It is certainly not unethical for you to attend a religious meeting that is open to the public and then write a report about it.

Similarly, for you to ask a religious individual for an interview in order to write a report for class discussion is acceptable practice. However, for you to imply to a religious leader that you are thinking of converting to his religion and then to report on your conversation will be highly unethical.

We would urge you not to use deception but to be upfront about your intentions with all your participants. If someone is unwilling to speak with you under the circumstances, you just have to find someone else.

Case study

As we have said, here is disagreement among researchers on whether covert research is always unacceptable. One of the most fascinating studies on a new religious movement was done in the 1950s, by a psychologist who pretended to be a convert to a UFO group. It is difficult to see how this information and the theory that grew from it would have been obtained without this study.

The researcher was Leon Festinger and the book that he wrote about the project is called "When prophecy fails". The book became an instant classic and the theory (cognitive dissonance theory) that resulted from the study is still taught to psychology students today. The study was conducted among a group who believed that they would be picked up by flying saucers at a specific time and place.

Festinger and his co-workers predicted that when this did not happen the group would not immediately collapse, but believers would find reasons to explain why this did not happen, and that these explanations would be supported by the group. The researchers were right but the study and the methods employed, led to heated debate among social researchers.

References Cited:

Festinger, L, Riecken, H & Schachter, S. 2009. _When Prophecy Fails._ Eastford, CT: Martino.

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Chapter 22: How do we observe?

So far, you have learnt a lot about religions, religious people, the things they believe and the things they do. But learning from books can only take you so far. There is no substitute for actually going out and seeing religious activity for yourself. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about this. In this chapter we will show you the right way.

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22.1 Identifying religions and rituals

You should be able to compile a list of religious groups and institutions in your area. It should also be possible for you to make a list of the activities that these groups and institutions conduct - the groups' websites would be the first place to look. The list might look something like this:

• Catholic Church - Mass said daily at 3 pm

• Orthodox Synagogue - Saturday service

• Presbyterian Church - Sunday Services at 9 am and 5 pm

• African Orthodox Church - Sunday morning services

• Buddhist Centre - Retreats at irregular intervals, next one in 3 weeks

• Mosque - Prayer 5 times daily, Fridays most vital

Once you have a list, the question becomes, which one will you go and visit? If possible, attend one to you do not belong to! Remember, you will be going as an observer, not as a worshipper. You will be there to learn, not to take part. Therefore, going to a church service if you would have gone there anyway as a member is not the way to do this activity!

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22.2 Establishing contact with relevant persons

You now need to make contact with the leaders of the religious group and ask for permission to attend one of their ceremonies. It is probably best to make an initial appointment by phone, and then follow that up with a personal visit to confirm your observation session.

Now the situation is reversed: before, we said that you should not be a members of the religious group you will visit. But now, if you _are_ a member or you know somebody who is, use that position to gain access. Contact the priest, imam, minister, rabbi etc. and make an appointment to attend a forthcoming service.

Checklist

• Was the religious leader happy to hear that you wanted to attend?

• Could you make it clear that you would be there as observer, not as a participant?

• Was that acceptable to him or her?

• Were any special requirements set for your visit?

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22.3 Observing protocol

"Protocol" really just means polite behaviour. In some religious traditions, you are expected to take off your hat when you enter the building. In others, you will be expected to put something _on_ your head!

This is the sort of thing you need to find out beforehand, and double-check with the religious professional when you speak with him or her. By and large, you should be all right if you observe what the congregation does and do the same. When they stand up, you stand up. When they sit down, you sit down. When in doubt, stay quiet.

Remember, you are there to observe. Even if this group is a congregation of your own religion, try to look at them with fresh eyes. Bring a notebook and jot down what is happening, as it is happening.

In some religious organisations, men and women are seated separately. You may not agree with that, but this is not the time or place to voice your disagreement. For now, just go to your side of the building.

If all of this sounds very complicated and intimidating, don't let it be. In our experience, the overwhelmingly vast majority of religious organisations welcome strangers, will overlook minor gaffes if it is clear that you are trying, and will not try to convert you if you make it clear that you are there for research reasons. Well, they will try to impress you in more subtle ways, hoping you will come back.

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22.4 Presenting an observation report

When you return from your visit, you should consult the notes you made and compile the report. Below, we will use the example from a visit to a Catholic Church, but the process remains the same regardless of which group you visited.

There are three steps to writing a report: You should be able to put down exactly what you saw happening. It might be better to do this in pairs: four eyes see more than two. At this stage, don't interpret or evaluate, just state what you saw happening. You simply want to say something like "The priest dipped a wafer into a glass of wine and gave it to one of the people to eat and drink".

Now consider how the people reacted, what this seemed to mean to them. This gives us something like the following: "The priest dipped a wafer into a glass of wine and gave it to one of the people to eat and drink. The other people solemnly lined up to receive their small piece of bread and a sip of wine".

Finally, you now need to think about how this ritual is connected to everything you know about that religion. This gives you something like:

The priest dipped a wafer into a glass of wine and gave it to one of the people to eat and drink. The other people solemnly lined up to receive their small piece of bread and a sip of wine. This ritual is the Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper, in which bread and wine stand for the body and blood of Christ, and in which Christians remember Christ's sacrifice.

Note how we say "in which Christians remember", and not "in which we remember". Never forget, even if this is your own church, today you are here as an observer, not a participant.

Of course, the process does not always work as clearly in three steps as we have set out above. Even while you are observing the events, you will no doubt understand some things from your studies and this understanding will enable you to notice other things that you might have missed otherwise. But in your report writing, try to separate them even if it feels artificial.

If you follow this procedure for the whole ceremony, you will almost have finished the report! Now all you need is a good introductory paragraph in which you state clearly which religious group you visited, how many of you were there and when this visit happened, and a closing paragraph in which you can now say what your personal experiences of this visit were.

Do you think you have a better understanding of that particular religion now? If so, you can say so briefly right at the end of your report. If not, then you can say that too, and briefly say why not.

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Chapter 23: How do we interview?

The interview is an essential tool in doing qualitative research and it is important that you learn this skill at the outset of your study in this discipline. You should not be too concerned if at first you find it difficult. Given time and practice there is no reason why you cannot develop into a skilled interviewer.

The reason for choosing the interview as a method in your research project will almost certainly be because you are seeking more than just information. This tool is used because researchers are seeking **understanding**. You might be well acquainted with the facts about Islam, but are seeking to understand what the faith means to a devout follower. Then this instrument is a particularly useful one.

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23.1 The interviewer

It is often said that the researcher _is_ the research instrument. This refers to the qualities that one would like to see in a skilled and experienced interviewer.

As we have said before, you should not be too concerned if you feel that you do not measure up to these ideals - you are a researcher in the making and by starting early you have a lot of time to develop these commendable qualities.

Respect

It goes without saying that you will treat your participants with respect, but this means that you will also treat their beliefs (with which you might not agree) with respect. You are not diminishing your own religion by respecting other people's faith.

Remember that the participant has exactly the same rights as you do - to believe what he or she chooses.

Acceptance and understanding

Acceptance comes with respect. If you respect the person's right to believe as he chooses, you will also accept that there are many different ways of finding meaning in the world. The person you are interviewing either grew up in a specific tradition and learnt his beliefs from his parents (as you probably did) or has come to his beliefs by discarding what was taught to him through a difficult process of seeking for meaning. Both these avenues are worthy of your respect.

In the in-depth interview in Religion Studies the aim is to arrive at some understanding of the life-world of the person whom you are interviewing. The Native Americans have a saying "Don't judge a person before you have walked a mile in his moccasins", and this is exactly what you are aiming at - walking in the shoes of another. I once interviewed a person who believed that he was an extra-terrestrial and I managed to build good rapport with him - although I still believed that he was probably not an alien. The fact that we stayed in touch long afterwards also showed that he trusted that I respected his views even if I believed differently.

Confidentiality

It is customary in research projects in Religion Studies to keep the names of the participants confidential. But you may find that some participants do not really require this and that they would rather like you to use their names in your report. There are no hard and fast rules in this regard, but it is good practice to leave out the names of respondents.

What is non-negotiable is that anything they tell you in confidence should be kept that way. If necessary, you will also have to change some details in your descriptions in order to ensure their anonymity. It is also a good idea to tell participants that you will allow them to see sections of the draft report which concerns them directly. If they do not agree with your description, you can either change the description or incorporate their objections in the final report. This usually sets the participant's mind at ease.

Honesty

From the outset of the project you should be completely honest with your participants about the aims of the project. Although there are some researchers who will advise you to be vague about the aims of the project or to use terminology that the participant will not understand in order to intimidate them into agreement to do the interview, we cannot urge you strongly enough not to make use of such deceptions. You are asking for the participant's honesty and openness and they are worthy of yours. If they do not want to participate in your project, it is their prerogative to refuse.

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23.2 The structured interview

In this type of interview the questions have been formulated carefully and will be asked in a strict order. The questions are always asked exactly the same and in the same order. But the answers are open, since the participants are allowed to elaborate on their replies. The structured interview is not just the equivalent of someone reading a questionnaire and recording the result. That actually is a different kind of research, but we would not call it an interview. So instead of _How often do you go to church?_

• _Every sunday_

• _Twice a month_

• _Once a month_

• _Never_

a structured interview would have on its list the question "How often do you go to church?" and the respondent will be allowed to determine the correct frequency.

In the multiple-choice questionnaire method, for example, the respondent was forced to choose between "once a month and never". In a structured interview, the question will be asked, but now the respondent is able to say "every three months" or even "daily"!

This type of interview allows the information to be gathered in a very systematic manner and the interviewers will not have to be as skilled as for the other types of interviews. The great weakness of this method is that you will not really get to know the world of your participant because you cannot follow up interesting leads and ask more questions. In this way valuable information will not be gathered.

Example

Many years ago I was part of a research project on marriage and was interviewed three times over a period of six years. More than a thousand people were interviewed and there were therefore many interviewers who put the same questions in the same sequence to all the participants. We as participants could, however, elaborate on what aspects of marriage we found the most difficult to adjust to and what irritated us most about our spouses!

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23.3 The semi-structured interview

This type of interview is slightly more structured than the in-depth (unstructured) interview, and it requires you to have a schedule of questions at hand to put to the participant.

This is often used in a group interview where a number of people are interviewed at the same time. It is very useful to stimulate conversation and it enables you to check that all the relevant topics are covered.

The benefit of this type of interview is that the data are collected in a systematised way which will be useful when it comes to analysing the information. You have a schedule of questions to be asked, or issues to be covered, and at the end of the interview you quickly look at your checklist to see if you have covered them all.

However, while in the structured interview you simply ask your questions and that is the end of it, in the semi-structured interview you regard the formal question list as the start of the process, not the end.

You must ask these questions, but you can ask _more_ questions to deepen your understanding of the matter. New and exiting avenues that might open up during the interview will now be explored because, although the main theme for the interview has been predetermined, The interviewer is able to see that the respondent is trying to express something that the formal question did not quite cover. This could be something important. We won't know unless we ask.

The semi-structured interview is one of the most commonly used research methods in Religion Studies.

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23.4 The unstructured interview

In interviews of this type it is usually said that questions should not be formulated beforehand and that the questions will present themselves as the interview unfolds. This seems a bit too unstructured.

You as researcher will have informed the participant beforehand what the reason for the interview is, and you must at least know which areas you want to cover.

For instance, imagine that you have arranged to interview a devout Muslim about her faith. You have decided that the questions will present themselves, so you start off with a request such as, "Please tell me about yourself". The participant replies "What would you like to know?". Now, if you do not have any idea of what you want, you will be stuck!

So even in the most unstructured of interviews you should know what the focus of your interview is. Are you interested in the beliefs of Islam? Or in a particular practice, or values, or ethics? The participant is the expert and you should allow her to lead you into her life-world, but you are still the one in control of the interview and should gently bring her back to that area (her faith) which you are interested in if she strays too far away (and for instance, talks about her children).

This type of interview is often called a guided conversation and that is a good description. But do not be lulled into thinking that this is an ordinary conversation - you are the listener and the participant is the one who has to do the talking. You are the one doing the guiding.

The great benefit of this type of interview is that you will have the opportunity to enter into the participant's life world and will get to know something of what it feels like to stand in her shoes. The disadvantage of this type of interview is that you will get masses of information that has to be sifted, ordered, analysed and interpreted.

These days there are software packages to help us with this, but people were doing this work long before there were computers. I did my Master's degree with nothing more than a collection of index cards in an old plastic ice cream container!

It is also a method that requires a skilled interviewer. But don't despair, everyone has to learn and if you don't succeed at first, you will have more opportunities to hone your skill.

In Religion Studies,we use all three kinds of interview. However, it is the unstructured kind that we will examine in greater detail.

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23.5 Phases of an unstructured interview

Preparation for the interview

For some types of interviews one would not consult the literature on the subject beforehand, but these types are quite rare. On the whole, it will be necessary to do a thorough study of the literature in order to know which questions you would like to raise during the interview.

This first step will also include the selection of the people to be interviewed. This can be done in a number of ways. Imagine that you would like to interview someone about astrology. If you do not know about an astrologer in your vicinity you can ask around for someone who lives nearby. If you plan to interview several astrologers, you can simply ask the first person whom he or she would recommend you speak to next. The second person can be asked to recommend someone again and in this way you might easily find enough persons for your study. This is called "snowball sampling".

Alternatively, you might want to research the growth or decline of organised religion in your town. Then it would be a good idea to contact the local pastors of the various religious organisations in your town. Once again they will be a good source (or perhaps not) of names and telephone numbers of their counterparts in other religious organisations in the town.

There are other ways of selecting the people you want to talk to (sampling methods). You can find them on websites, in telephone directories, and so on.

If you were going to do a more structured kind of interview, you would need to use a more randomised selection of people. But for the unstructured interview, we find snowball sampling to be an excellent way to find your respondents.

You will also have to prepare yourself emotionally. Interviews such as these very often lead you into lives of people that are very different from your own and you must be prepared for this and always remember that these people are doing you a favour to allow you to interview them.

They might also be sharing very confidential information with you and your only reaction to this should be one of gratitude for what they are doing for you (more about this later).

There are a number of very practical guidelines to bear in mind. Firstly, you will have to explain yourself and convince the participant that you are serious, honest and worthy of his or her time. You will do everything you possibly can to convince the person of your respect for him and your appreciation for his time. You will, for instance, not arrive in inappropriate dress (not in a mini skirt and a top with spaghetti-straps, or in boardshorts and sandals).

You will explain what your project is about and that you are also bound by the ethical code for researchers and the interview will be confidential. Explain that you might discuss the interview, but that the participant's name will not be mentioned.

Ask the participant if you may use an audio recorder. This is an invaluable tool and without it a beginner will probably be lost. If the participant agrees, you will be amazed how easily both of you will forget the machine.

If you don't have a recorder, you will have to make notes as the interview proceeds. It will also be necessary to write notes immediately after the interview when the information is still fresh in your mind.

Partnership and trust

At this stage of the interview you will be looking for a partner relationship between yourself and the participant. You will do everything in your power to set her at ease so that she can reconstruct her world for you. What is expected from you is to be a good listener.

If the participant feels that you are respecting her views and are interested, a relationship of trust will develop. When this is achieved the participant will open up more and share her feelings with you. The relationship of trust is however a mutual one, and at this stage it is not uncommon for a participant to ask about your views and life.

Although you are primarily the listener in the interview, you may want to share something of yourself to show that you trust her too. But be careful not to take over the interview - this is about the participant - her views, feelings, life and perspective.

Sometimes when you interview someone whose world differs drastically from yours, you will be required to keep a strong reign on your feelings. Remember that nonverbal communication is just as effective as verbal communication. You will need to frame your questions carefully as not to influence the participant's answers or to put her on the defensive because she can see that you are shocked or disapprove of something she has said. Be worthy of her trust and respect her views.

Closing of the interview

In-depth interviews can last anything between two to four hours and depends mainly on what has previously been agreed upon and, of course, the concentration span of the interviewer and respondent.

If your project requires that you gather a substantial amount of information, you will probably need to return for further interviews. But the closing of a three hour interview should be done with just as much sensitivity as a series of interviews over a period of time.

After even one interview in which a participant has discussed deep feelings there will be a bond between you and the participant. This should never be broken abruptly. You might also find that you are particularly drawn to the person and do not really want to part entirely.

A good way to handle this is to promise to keep the participant informed of the findings of the project - and then to do so! Remember to thank the participant for her willingness to share her experiences with you and by all means send a thank-you note when you get home as well.

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Glossary

**African Religion** \- The religious practices and beliefs of the African people before the arrival of Christian and Islamic missionaries. Also, the contemporary practice of this religion.

**Androcentrism** \- The theory that the male sex is primary and the female secondary in nature.

**Animism** \- The belief that everything in the world is alive and has a soul.

**Antisemitism** \- Hatred for, and persecution of, Jewish people.

**Aristocracy** \- Power concentrated in a few persons, and handed down within a small number of families.

**Axial Age** \- The period from approx. 700 BCE to approx. 500 CE, during which the main patterns of all the major world religions were laid down.

**Baha'i Faith** \- A religion that originated in Iran in the nineteenth century and later moved its headquarters to Israel.

**BCE** \- Before the Common Era, cf. CE.

**Belief system** \- Set of views about ultimate reality or divinity.

**Bhagavad Gita** \- The most important Hindu holy book.

**Bible** \- The Christian scripture, consisting of the Old Testament (roughly equivalent to the Jewish Scriptures) and the New Testament.

**Bronze Age** \- The period in a civilisation's development in which they developed the techniques of making weapons and tools of bronze.

**Buddhism** \- The religion founded by Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha) in the sixth century BCE.

**Calvinism** \- A branch of Protestantism started by John Calvin, emphasizing human powerlessness before an omniscient God and stressing the idea of predestination

Caste \- see Varna

CE \- Common Era, cf. BCE.

**Charisma** \- A strong, attractive personality that leads others to regard one as a leader.

**Christianity** \- The religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Chrisat, who lived in Palestine in the first century CE.

**Colonialism** \- The conquest and subsequent administration of one country by another, esp. the conquest of non-European areas by European countries during the nineteenth century CE.

**Compassion** \- Feeling the pain of others.

**Confucianism** \- A Chinese religion that emphasises ritual, social conformity and orderliness.

**Connotative definition of religion** \- A definition that attempts to list all the attributes (properties) of religion.

**Conversion** \- Changing from one religious affiliation to another.

**Covert research** \- Research in which the fact that research is being done is hidden or kept secret.

**Creation myth** \- Story about the creation of the world.

**Cross-religious Universals** \- Ideas that crop up in every religion.

**Cult** \- A very small religious group that teaches religious doctrines very different from those held in wider society.

**Deism** \- an Enlightenment-era belief in the existence of a supreme being - specifically, a creator who does not intervene in the universe - representing a rejection of the belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind

**Democracy** \- Power concentrated in many people in a society or community.

**Denomination** \- A large religious group which has been well established and enjoys wide acceptability in the community.

**Denotative definition of religion** \- A definition that attempts to describe the essence of religion in a single short phrase.

**Doctrine** \- Religious teaching.

**Ecclesia** \- A very large (possibly international) religious group with a strict hierarchical division of power.

**Ecumenism** \- The fostering of positive relationships between sectors of one religion, and between religions.

**Empathy** \- Having great insight into and compassion for the problems of others.

**End-time myth** \- A story about the eventual fate of the world and its inhabitants.

**Enlightenment** \- an eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural movement that emphasized reason and science over superstition, religion, and tradition

**Ethics** \- Set of principles directing good living.

**Faith** \- Experience of believing; religious trust and commitment; also used as synonym for religion.

**First Great Awakening** \- an eighteenth-century Protestant revival in the North American British colonies that emphasized individual, experiential faith over church doctrine and the close study of scripture

**Foundation myth** \- A story about the foundation of a religion.

**Founder** \- A person who is regarded by his or her followers as the initiator of their religious community.

**Freemasons** \- a fraternal society founded in the early eighteenth century that advocated Enlightenment principles of inquiry and tolerance

**Functional definition of religion** \- A definition that attempts to describe what religion "does".

**Fundamentalism** \- A form of conservatism, selectively utilising elements of an old tradition, blending such elements with elements of modern society with a view to promoting the interests of a religious group.

**Gender** \- The roles and behaviours that are culturally defined as being appropriate for a female and a male.

**Golden Rule** \- Universally-held ethical prescription, found in nearly all religious and other ethical systems.

**Gregorian calendar** \- The most commonly used calendar system in the world today.

**Hadith** \- Recollections of things the Prophet Muhammad said that are not written down in the Qur'an.

**Halaal** \- Food that is fit for human consumption under Islamic religious law.

**Haraam** \- Food that is unfit for human consumption under Islamic religious law.

**Hereditary** \- Passed on from parent to child.

**Hierarchy** \- A distribution of power in which one person is at the top and has most of the power. Below him or her are a few trusted lieutenants who have some power, and so it goes on until we find the mass of the people at the bottom with almost no power at all.

**Hinduism** \- A collective name for the variety of religious beliefs and practices of the people of India.

**Ideology** \- A set of ideas utilising religion with a view to the attainment of non-religious, such as political or economic, aims.

**Immanence** \- The belief that the ultimate lies within, in the depth of existence.

**Indentured labourer** \- A worker from a foreign country who was contracted to work for a fixed period, typically ten years, and could then return to his or her native country.

**Indigenous Knowledge System** (IKS) - The knowledge that is part and parcel of the indigenous culture that has been transmitted over generations.

**Indulgences** \- Documents for purchase that absolved sinners of their errant behavior

**Institution** \- Religious group, with relatively permanent procedures and specialised roles, through which major religious functions are performed.

**Interpretive research** \- An approach to research in which the researcher proceeds from the assumption that the world is constructed by human beings and that it is complex and ever changing, and it is therefore not at all possible to measure it with any accuracy.

**Iron Age** \- The stage of development in which people used iron to make implements as tools and weapons.

**Islam** \- The religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad in the sixth century CE.

**Jainism** \- A religion related to Hinduism and Buddhism. It is only found in India.

**Jati** \- In Hinduism, thousands of small, specialised family groups that pursue specialised tasks and do not marry outside their own ranks.

**Judaism** \- The religion of the Jewish people.

**Julian calendar** \- Forerunner of the Gregorian calendar, still in use by the Orthodox Church.

**Karma** \- The belief that every action has a consequence, which may only show up in a later reincarnation.

**Kosher** \- Food that is fit for human consumption under Jewish religious law.

**Liberation Theology** \- A movement among Christian (mainly Catholic) theologians to reinterpret Christian teachings in the light of the suffering of poverty-stricken communities.

**Local religions** \- Religions that are practised in small local communities and into which one can only be born, not converted.

**Lunar calendar** \- A calendar system that is based on the movements of the moon.

**Makkah** \- Preferred spelling of "Mecca". The holy city of Islam.

**Megachurch** \- a Christian church that has a very large congregation averaging more than 2,000 people who attend regular weekly services

**Messianic movement** \- A religious movement that expects a Messiah to arrive soon and solve all problems. In some cases, this "messiah" may be seen as a general set of conditions, rather than a single person.

**Methodology** \- The way in which people approach problems and their solutions; the study of such ways.

**Middle East** \- The common name for Southwest Asia. The term is regarded as unacceptably Eurocentric in some circles.

**Millennialism** \- The belief that the Kingdom of God would be established on earth and that God would reign on earth for a thousand years characterized by harmony and Christian morality

**Mitzvot** \- The 613 rules observed by observant Jews.

**Modernity** \- The era starting at roughly the seventeenth century, with a specific set of presuppositions, attitudes and so on.

**Monarchy** \- Power concentrated in one person.

**Monastery** \- Building in which monks live.

**Monism** \- The belief that everything is part of one great reality, of a single Whole. .

**Monotheism** \- Belief in one god.

**Muslim** \- A follower of Islam. Also: a synonym for "Islamic".

**Mysticism** \- The experience of unity with what is taken to be ultimate reality or divinity.

**Myth** \- A type of sacred story, mainly about the origins or the end of time, or key events in time.

**National religions** \- Religions that are united by language and culture. They are specific to a national group and are not found outside the boundaries of their particular country or area.

**Nirvana** \- In Buddhism, release from suffering; the highest goal of Buddhist practice.

**Norm** \- A standard, rule, prescription.

**Normative definition of religion** \- A definition that tries to distinguish "good" from "bad" religion.

**Normative source** \- A source used in religion, acting as a norm for belief and action.

**Oligarchy** \- Power concentrated in a few persons.

**Organised religion** \- Religion in which identifiable organisations and institutions have been established to which people can belong, as opposed to one's private religious beliefs and practices.

**Patriarchy** \- A society which is ruled by the father or the eldest male. By extension it also refers to societies in which men are dominant to the detriment of women.

**Perennial** \- Occurring through time in all religions.

**Phenomenology** \- A methodology in which the researcher is primarily interested in finding out what adherents themselves think of their religion.

**Pluralism** \- The situation of members of many religions living in the same area.

**Polytheism** \- Belief in many gods.

**Positivistic research** \- An approach to research in which it is assumed that that the world is a fixed reality outside of people and this reality can be measured.

**Postmodernity** \- The era which, according to many interpreters, may be in the process of replacing modernity, with a specific set of concomitant presuppositions, attitudes and so on.

**Protestant Reformation** \- The schism in Catholicism that began with Martin Luther and John Calvin in the early sixteenth century

**Puritans** \- A group of religious reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who wanted to "purify" the Church of England by ridding it of practices associated with the Catholic Church and advocating greater purity of doctrine and worship.

**Qu'ran** (or Koran) - The Muslim holy scriptures, containing the pronouncements of the Prophet Muhammad, believed by Muslims to be divinely inspired.

**Reincarnation** \- The belief that beings are born into a next life over and over again.

**Religion** \- A comprehensive and fundamental orientation in the world. This usually contains ideas of the ultimate nature of things and of divinity, transmitted in sacred traditions, requiring social and personal commitment, and expressed in rituals and morality. It includes, but is not restricted to organised forms of religions, world views, belief systems and indigenous knowledge systems.

**Religion Education** \- Education about religion that is neither done from the point of view of a specific religion, nor is it done to promote any particular religion. In the South African school system, this is presented within Life Orientation.

**Religion Studies** \- In South Africa, the optional high school subject. It is an extension and further development and specialisation of the general Religion Education. At university level the more common term is Religious Studies.

**Religious discourses** \- Religious ways of thinking, speaking and writing.

**Religious Education** \- Education that is done in accordance with some or other specific religion.

**Research** \- The process whereby the researcher discovers valid answers to questions by using systematic procedures.

**Revelation** \- A religious experience that is believed to come from God and becomes highly important in, even central to, a given religion's belief structure.

**Revitalisation** \- A phase in the history of a religion, marked by the rediscovery of ancient treasures and their adaptation and application to a new cultural situation.

**Ritual** \- A religious observance, intended to remind of a sacred occasion or to bring a sacred presence about.

**Saint** \- In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, someone who, while still alive, showed themselves to be very pious and holy. It is thought that saints can plead on one's behalf with God, and once someone has been declared a saint (after the saint's death), believers can pray to that person and ask him or her to do so.

**Sangha** \- In Buddhism, the community.

**Sati** \- The practise (now outlawed) whereby an Indian woman would be cremated alive along with her husband when he died.

**Second Great Awakening** \- A revival of evangelical Protestantism in the USA during the early nineteenth century

**Sect** \- A small religious group that has broken away from a larger group because it believes that the latter no longer proclaims the "true religion".

**Secular myth** \- A story that serves the same purpose as a religious myth, but does it outside a religious environment.

**Secularisation** \- The process in which religious structures and organisations lose their influence upon the wider society.

**Secularism** \- The conduct of life independent of religious institutions and symbols.

**Self-discovery** \- Finding out what one's own presuppositions are and how these derive from one's cultural and religious background.

**Semi-structured interview** \- This type of interview is slightly more structured than the unstructured interview, and it requires you to have a schedule of questions at hand to put to the participant.

**Semitic** \- A term used to denote a group of languages widely spoken in the Middle East.

**Shari'a** \- Muslim law.

**Shinto** \- A Japanese religion in which the appreciation of nature is very important.

**Sikhism** \- A religion that attempts to combine aspects of Islam and Hinduism.

**Solar calendar** \- A calendar system that is based on the movement of the sun.

**Spirituality** \- The religious sensibilities, experiences and insights of an individual or group.

**State religion** \- A religion that is supported by the state or government.

**Stone Age** \- The period in the history of a civilisation in which people made use of stone to fashion objects of use.

**Structured interview** \- In this type of interview the questions have been formulated carefully and will be asked in a strict order.

**Sub-Saharan Africa** \- That part of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. The term is not always used very precisely, but it serves to separate the northern parts of Africa, which are Arabic-speaking and culturally oriented towards the Middle East, from the central and southern parts that are dominated by people speaking various Bantu languages.

**Substantive definition of religion** \- A definition that attempts to say what religion "is".

**Symbol** \- A word, gesture or object that stands for a religious reality, or brings its presence about.

**Syncretism** \- The process of integrating elements from one religion into another religion. It may occur in various degrees, from the introduction of fairly peripheral items to the creation of a new religion.

**Talmud** \- A Jewish scripture with authority almost on a par with the written Torah.

**Taoism** \- A Chinese religion that emphasises magic, spiritual experience and longevity.

**Theism** \- The belief in one or more gods, who created the world and look after people.

**Theocracy** \- A system of government based on the assumption that God is the prime governing agent.

**Tithing** \- The giving of one tenth of produce, income or property for religious objectives.

**Torah** \- In Judaism, this term literally means "revelation" but is used as a synonym for "The Law". It is also the term used for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

**Transcendence** \- The belief that God is outside this reality and separate from human beings.

**Transcendentalism** \- The belief that all people can attain an understanding of the world that transcends rational, sensory experience

**Typology** \- A way to classify things, such as religions. In Religio0n Studies, the question whether a religion is local, national or universal constitutes a typology.

**Universal religions** \- Religions which are not associated with one particular country or nation. Most of these are missionary religions that actively seek converts.

**Unstructured interview** \- In interviews of this type it is usually said that questions should not be formulated beforehand and that the questions will present themselves as the interview unfolds. In practice, this is too extreme and the researcher should still have an idea of where the interview ought to be heading.

**Usury** \- Lending money at interest, especially at an exorbitant rate.

**Varna** \- The Hindu concept this concept according to which society can be divided into four distinct classes according to the work that various people do.

**Wesak** \- The main Buddhist festival, celebrating the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha.

**World view** \- A conception of the world; it may overlap with religion.

**Zoroastrianism** \- A religion that was founded in Persia and was the first major monotheistic faith.

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**About the Author**

Michel Clasquin-Johnson is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Africa. He lives in Pretoria, South Africa with his wife, son and two motorcycles. The wife and kids are fine. The motorbikes are suing for divorce.

Michel likes to think that he practices Buddhism (in his own way) as well as thinking about it. The entire Buddhist world disagrees, but is too polite to say so.In his spare time, he writes what can loosely be called science fiction. Not a lot of science involved, and a fine disregard for the rules of fiction. He will now stop referring to himself in the third person. It is just too painful.

If you enjoyed this book, please visit my website: <http://tinyurl.com/profmichelsbooks> and see what else I have available, both fiction and non-fiction.

Please feel free to leave a review for this book at your favorite e-book retailer or at Goodreads.com.

