Elements of Religious Traditions, Research Paper Example

While the forms of religion are diverse, as demonstrated by a look at the plethora of different number of faiths that exist in the world, it is still possible to discern some common elements of religious traditions. Through the identification of these elements, it can be understood what defines a religion as religion. This means that there are fundamental functions that religion necessarily possesses. One of the key features of religion, following the Romanian academic Mircea Eliade, is how it establishes a relation to the sacred and how it defines the sacred. For example, the sacred can be approached through many different means. Religious texts, ceremonies of prayer, and other rituals create a bond between what Eliade would call the »sacred and the profane.« In the following essay, we shall describe some of these basic elements of religion that allow for the identification of a consistent phenomenon such as religion. In support of this argument, we shall add examples from particular traditions to these definitions of religion.

There are many different definitions of religion that exist in the academic literature. For this reason, it is immediately problematic to suggest one unified and homogeneous meaning of religion. Nevertheless, many theologians and students of religious traditions have advanced their own definitions. One of the most influential of these theoreticians is the Romanian Mircea Eliade, who is a crucial figure in the study of comparative religion. As Kedar Nath Tiwari (1987) writes, “the subject of comparative religion as a scientific study of the various feature of the different religions of the world.” (p. 1) In other words, we can understand that this scientific study tends to emphasize what are some of the shared characteristics of the religious experience. From this continuity, it would be then possible to forward a definition of religion on a global scale. In Eliade’s book The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion the author examines many world traditions in a comparative style of analysis. Eliade relies on the crucial duality between sacred and profane as key to his version of the “nature of religion.” Eliade (1987) writes that “Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane.” (p. 11) Accordingly, for Eliade what is sacred is precisely what is radically opposed to what we understand in our common everyday lives. Using this definition, we can begin to understand elements of religious traditions as practices and beliefs that pay attention to the notion of the sacred in a thoroughly profane world. This can take various forms, such as sacred texts, which are claimed to be the word of a sacred deity; rituals that help determine the relationship between the sacred and the profane; and the importance of priests, shamans and other spiritual leaders, whose very presence as leaders create some type of link between the sacred and the profane worlds.

For example, we can consider the beliefs of the Igbo people in Africa. One of the crucial principles of Igbo religion is that an invisible universe is present and affects the visible universe. Thus, following Eliade’s definition we can understand this invisible universe as a counterpart to the profane or normal world. The various rituals of the Igbo then can be thought of in terms of this invisible universe. For example, funerary rites performed by the Igbo are indicative of an attempt to secure the safe passage of the deceased to the world of the invisible or the sacred. Thus, the Igbo view gives a crucial importance not only to the earthly world, around us, but thinks of this earthly world in relation to a sacred world. Many of their customs can be understood as attempting to consolidate these two different worlds.

In the Christian Orthodox tradition, there is a great importance given to ascetics. Ascetics are described by Archimandrite Sophrony (1973) as those who seek “communion with God…arrived at through prayer.” (p. 103) The point of prayer is to “progress from prayer which is intellectual meditation to the true prayer of the mind stationed in the heart.” (Sophirony 1973, p. 103) Thus, prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition means that one must not only pray in a profane or logical manner, as dictated by the laws of the world, but must evoke another type of prayer which is not common. This must be a prayer that is outside of the logic of the profane, and thus prayer helps connect the ascetic to the sacred word of Christ and God.

This connection is also evidenced by the importance of shamans in various communal groups. The shaman can be viewed as a type of spiritual advisor who allows the community to have an access to an invisible world that is not part of profane and mundane existence. The shaman can be one who heals or one who provides advice. In all cases, the shaman is necessary to the extent that there is a certain limit to human knowledge of the world, precisely because humans live only in the profane dimension. The role of the spiritually enlightened one, such as the shaman, helps break down these barriers, demonstrating that the reality we experience is not the only reality but there is another world that determines life in the profane world.

Accordingly, following Eliade, we can note that one of the key elements in religious traditions is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Religious rituals, beliefs and holy texts can be understood as processes by which everyday common reality may communicate with the sacred reality, a sacred reality that is the ultimate reality. Religions are therefore not only consistent in their use of such rituals and beliefs, but also in their conviction that there is a sacred world and not everything can be reduced to a merely rational or empirical type of logic. Religious traditions thus create a depth to our world by showing that our world is not the only world.

References

Eliade, Mircea. (1987). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Books.

Sophony, Archimandrite. (1973). The Monk of Mount Athos. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: Crestwood, NY.

Tiwari, Kedar Nath. (1987). Comparative Religion. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishing.