Isolating the Meaning of Religion, Essay Example

To seek to define religion in terms of its functions and meanings is, in a sense, to attempt the impossible.  The reality is that religion defies isolating or narrowing, which definition demands, because religion is itself the context in which other elements of life exist. When it is practiced at all in an authentic way, it is a vital part of living for the individual as well as the community. This being the case, then, it seems the only rational approach is that of understanding the relational quality of religion. As faith is inextricably tied to human existence and behavior on all levels, it may be then understood best in how it impacts on life.  As religion brings people together in a communal way, it goes to all social and societal practices, and the reality of religion then cannot be known without a sense of its inherently foundational nature.

This relationship between religion and virtually every aspect of living is noted as a part of the traditions of my own faith.  In the traditional Romanian village of centuries past, and even as there existed a hierarchy still largely feudal in essence and structure, the Orthodox Church bound all Romanians together.  Village officials and common people were united in an organic way, as the Church dominated life, and this was certainly due to the establishment of the Church itself as foundational for the community (Enache 114).  The institutional aspect of religion, then, is here clearly seen, just as it exists in multitudes of other communities, past and present, wherein worship is a commonality.  Secularization often seeks to minimize or eliminate this relationship, yet in most societies upholding a dominant faith, that faith in some way influences  policies and institutional practices. If the ancient Romanian village officials and peasants were uniformly obedient to Church policy and authority, the same may be said of the United States, which continues to manifest Christian practices, such as swearing on the Bible, in its judicial system.  As religion goes to the most deep-seated beliefs of a people, it is inevitable that it will influence, if not guide, the institutional life of the people as they evolve into a society.  Concerns arise and the validity of the influence as just is questioned, particularly as pertaining to those outside the dominant faith.  Nonetheless, and as evident in the example of the U.S., the impact is persistent.

Moreover, this presence of religion as bound to institutional life profoundly affects social dimensions as well.  As noted, and as must be reiterated, human affairs are not strictly compartmentalized; how a culture functions in a social manner must dictate how it establishes its institutions, and how it also responds to them.  Dimensions, in a word, overlap.  For example, institutions of any type tend to rely on ranks of authority, and religions of all kinds similarly depend upon such structure.  Degree is a factor, of course; in Romania, there is a watchfulness in place as to Church standing in secular matters, while the Reformation of the 16^th century in England was an extreme of religious authority being identified with the political.  Typically, however, leaders of the community’s religion take on aspects of enhanced authority; they guide spiritually, but they also stand as models of social and functional being for the people in a general sense.  As Smart observes, the Hebrew traditions reveal the religious prophet as often translating to a voice of the social order, just as such prophets become literary figures in the culture surrounding the faith (215).  Then, in Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity, it is ordinary for the religious instructor of the young to also teach secular subjects.  Here, the relationship between religion, institutions, and the social order is in fact perfectly represented.  With the faith as the foundation, the teachers of the faith are empowered to guide children into becoming the adults who serve the community resting on that foundation.

The above relationship is merely one within the arena of religious connections and influences, as it reflects the core value of religion as dictating the life of the community by guiding the life of the individual.  This is inevitable; humanity has no greater interest historically than in seeking to understand its own relationship with God, no matter by what name that God is called.  The drive is universal because it addresses the profound need to comprehend the reasons for existence, and to know how that existence should be lived.  What follows, of course, is how religion is linked to philosophy.  When, as in my own experience as Romanian Orthodox, the person is immersed in the religion from birth and chooses to accept it as a thinking individual, it is difficult to separate the ideological from the religious; belief in God supplies the answers to questions often troubling philosophers, just as that belief is a philosophy, or knowledge, in itself.  Mainstream Christianity in the West provides an ideological base because the faith translates to an accepted sense of ethics as guiding behavior and the law, a relationship explored by philosophers such as Kant.

When the religion is challenged, however, it becomes clearer how principles of morality and ethics are distinct components within a faith, and philosophy is more easily seen as relational to it. For example, Diana Eck notes that the first challenge to her own Christianity occurred, not when she became familiar with Hinduism, but when she became acquainted with Indians whose lives reflected philosophies unknown to her.  She was deeply impressed by J. Krishnamurti, a man of no declared faith at all, yet one exemplifying Hindu (and Christian) ideals of pursuing truth (Eck 8).  Here Eck confronted a worldview new to her and which, despite its distance from religion, somehow reflected religious principles to her.  The real challenge to Eck’s Christianity, it seems, was in how Hinduism had seemingly incorporated faith-based principles within daily life and thought, a process less strong in her Christian, U.S. background. No matter her dilemma, however, the point remains that religion encompasses philosophy, or is encompassed by it.

All of this is not surprising to me personally, because my own path from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, while still adhering to the Romanian religion of my birth, occurred precisely because religion defies boundaries.  In embracing the core faith, I was then empowered to rest on that confidence and consider how faith itself worked in the world around me.  As I first became interested in Catholicism, for example, it was not because I felt a lack in Orthodoxy.  Rather, I became aware of manifestations of the religion which attracted me emotionally and philosophically. That I have been able to undergo this process of discovery, beginning in early adulthood, then only reinforces how religion is inextricably connected to all we do in life.  I have previously referred to it as foundational, and this best describes the presence of religion for me and billions of others.  When we believe, we do not believe alone.  We build our cultures to express the shared faith, which in turn reflect the fundamental belief system.

Ultimately, religion is nothing more than a belief in God or a “higher power” beyond humanity or, as with Buddhism, a spirituality reliant on human focus on the soul’s betterment. In recent years, religion has taken on the meaning of how worship is practiced, or a definition of a complex structure. What occurs as well is that minority faiths act as challenges to the dominant, which then further challenges the social manifestations of the mainstream faith. With all these  processes is then a reinforcement of the relationship binding religion and society, because the culture’s ethics are seen as irrefutably tied to issues of faith.  Even when multiple faiths emerge as  gaining in standing, as may be said to be occurring in the U.S., commonalities are sought to supply the society’s ethical core because the people rely on a foundation of knowledge to guide accepted practices.  Whether religions in a society are marked by conflict, harmony, or the dominance of one, the reality remains that faith is infused in virtually every part of the society’s being.

Works Cited

Eck, D. L.  Encountering God.  Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. Print.

Enache, G.  “Christianity, Modernity, and Romanian Folklore.” Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies 4.7 (2012): 109-116.  Web.  <http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail? sid=38940eae-f54e-474f-8c09-30353436b55b>

Smart, N.  Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.  Print.