5 Anthropological approaches to study religion

Gulsan Khatoon

Contents

 

Introduction

1. The practice of religion

1.1 Supernatural being and power

1.2 Religious Specialists

2. The functions of religion

3. Explanation of Religion In Social Anthropology

4. Practice of religious beliefs

5. Religion as a cultural system

6. Causal and functional explanation of religion

7. Religion and culture change: Revitalization Movements

8. Spirituality, religion and the supernatural

 

Learning outcomes

After studying this module:

  • You shall be able to understand the Anthropological approaches to the study of religion
  • You will learn the functions of religion and revitalization movement
  • You will learn about the practices of religious beliefs
  • You will be able to understand the Causal and functional explanation of religion

It attempts

  • To give a basic understanding to the students about the Anthropological approaches to the study of religion
  • It also attempts to provide an informative background about the different types of religious practices, revitalization movement and also the different Causal and functional explanation of religion

INTRODUCTION

 

Anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace defined religion as “A set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man and nature”. Behind his definition lies a recognition that when people are unable to “fix” serious, anxiety- causing problems through technological or organizational means, they try to do so through manipulation of supernatural or spiritual beings and powers. This requires ritual, or “religion in action,” which can be seen as a basic expression of religion. Its major functions are to reduce anxiety and boost confidence, thereby helping people cope with reality. It is this that gives religion survival value.

 

With these aspects in mind, we offer a somewhat simpler definition of religion: an organized system of ideas about the spiritual sphere or the supernatural, along with associated ceremonial practices by which people try to interpret and/or influence aspects of the universe otherwise beyond their control. Similar to religion, spirituality is also concerned with the sacred, as distinguished from material matters, but it is often individual rather than collective and does not require a collective and does not require a distinctive format or traditional organization. Both are indicators that many aspects of the human experience are thought to be beyond scientific explanation.

 

Since no known culture, including those of modern industrial societies, has achieved complete certainty in controlling existing or future conditions and circumstances, spirituality and/or religion play a role in all known cultures. However, considerable variability exists here.

 

At one end of the spectrum are food- foraging peoples, whose technological ability to manipulate their environment is limited and who tend to see themselves as a part of, rather than masters of, nature. This may be referred to as a naturalistic world view. Among food foragers religion is likely to be inseparable from rest of daily life. It also mirrors and confirms the egalitarian nature of social relations in their societies, in that individuals do not plead with high-ranking deities for aid the way members of stratified societies do.

 

At the other end of the spectrum is Western civilization, with its ideological commitment to overcoming problems through technological and organizational skills. Here religion is less apart of daily activities and is restricted to more specific occasions. Moreover, with its hierarchy of supernatural beings- for instance, God, and (in some religion) the angels, saints, or holy people-it reflects and confirms the stratified nature of the society in which it is embedded.

 

Religious activity may be less prominent in the lives of social elites, who may see themselves as more in control of their own destinies, than it is in the lives of peasants or members of lower classes. Among the latter, religion may afford some compensation for a dependent position in society. Yet religion is still important to elite members of society, in that it rationalizes the system in such a way that less advantaged people are not as likely to question the existing social order as they might otherwise be. With hope for a better existence after death, one may be more willing to put up with a disadvantaged position in life. Thus, religious beliefs serve to influence and perpetuate certain ideas about the relationships, if not actual relations, between different classes of people.

 

  1. THE PRACTICE OF RELIGION

Much of religion’s value comes from the activities called for by its prescriptions and rules. Participation in religious ceremonies may bring a sense of personal lift- a wave of reassurance, a feeling of overwhelming joy, and even a sense of moving into a trancelike state- or a feeling of closeness to fellow participants. The beliefs and ceremonial practices of religions vary considerably. Yet, rituals that seem bizarre to an outsider can be shown to serve the same basic social and psychological functions as do his or her own distinct rituals.

 

1.1 Supernatural being and power:

A hallmark of religion is belief in supernatural beings and forces. In attempting to control by religious means what cannot be controlled in other ways, humans turn to prayer, sacrifice, and other religious or spiritual rituals. These presuppose the existence of spiritual forces that can be tapped into, or spiritual beings interested in human affairs and available for aid.

 

Beginning with spiritual beings, we may divide them into three categories: major deities(gods and goddesses),ancestral spirits, and other sorts of spirits beings. Although the variety of deities and spirits recognized by the world’s cultures is tremendous, it is possible to make certain generalizations about them.

 

1.2 Religious Specialists:

All human societies include individuals who guide and supplement the religious practices of others. Such individuals are seen to be highly skilled at contacting and influencing supernatural beings and manipulating supernatural forces. Often their qualification for this is that they have undergone special training. In addition, they may display certain distinctive personality traits that make them particularly well suited to perform these tasks.

 

Within societies with the resources to support a full- time occupational specialists, a priest or priestess will have the role of guiding religious practices and influencing the supernatural.

 

Shamans are originally referred to medical religious specialists, or spiritual guides. By means of various techniques such as fasting, chanting, or dancing, etc, these shamans enter into a trance, or altered state of consciousness.

 

  1. THE FUNCTIONS OF RELIGION

Just as belief in witchcraft may serve a variety of psychological and social functions, so too do religious beliefs and practices in general. Here we may summarize these functions in a somewhat more systematic way.

  • One psychological functions of religion is to provide an orderly model of the universe, which plays a key role in establishing orderly human behavior.
  • A social function of religion is to prompt reflection concerning conduct. In this context, religion plays a role in social control, which does not rely on law alone. This is done through notions of right and wrong, good and evil. Another social function of religion is its role in the maintenance of social solidarity.
  1. EXPLANATION OF RELIGION IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

What do anthropologists attempt to explain? Of what do explanations consists? How do these explanations differ from each other? Once we penetrate beneath our jargon, it appears that always the phenomenon to be explained is (a) the existence of some social or cultural variable, and (b) the variability which it exhibits in a cross- cultural distribution. These statements of course are really one, because the variable exists in the range of values which it can assume. If a theory purports to explain the existence of religion, but its concepts are so general or so vague that it cannot explain the variability exhibited by its empirical instances, it is disqualified as a scientific, i.e. a testable, theory.

 

Existence is an ambiguous term. In asking for an explanation for the existence of religion, we might be asking how it came to exist in the first place- this is the question of religious origins-or how it is that it exists (i.e. has persisted) in some ethnographic present. In short, the existence of a socio-cultural variable means that any sense of behaviour – cognitive, affective, or motor- there occurs some behaviour in which, or by which, the variable in question is instanced. Hence, a theory of the existence of religion must ultimately be capable of explaining religious “behaviour”. In general, theories of the existence – in the sense of persistence- of socio- cultural variables are cast in four explanatory modes: historical(in the documentary, not the speculative, sense), structural, causal, and functional.

 

Typically, explanation for the existence of religion have been addressed to one or both of two questions. (a) On what grounds are religious propositions believed to be true? That is what are the grounds for the belief that superhuman beings with such-and-such characteristics exist, and that ritual is efficacious in influencing their behaviour? What is the explanation for the practice of religion? That is, what is the basis for belief in superhuman beings, and for the performance of religious rituals? These questions, though clearly related- religious practice presupposes religious cognitions –are yet distinct: and they probably require different types of explanation.

  1. THE PRACTICE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF

The religious actor not only believes in the truth of propositions about superhuman beings, but he also believes in these believes- their objects of concern: he trusts in god, he fears and hates Satan. Similarly, he not only believes in the efficacy of ritual, but he performs rituals. Explanations for religion, then, are addressed not only to the truth of religious propositions, but also – and more frequently – to certain practices. In order to explain the practice of religion, we must be able to explain the practice of any socio-cultural variable.

 

All human behavior is purposive: i.e. it is instigated by the intention of satisfying some need. If a given response is in fact instrumental for the satisfaction of the need, these reinforcement of the response ensures its persistence- it becomes an instance of a behavior pattern, then, is not merely the intention of satisfying a need, but the expectation that its performance will impact achieve this end. Institutional behavior, including religious behavior, consists in the practice of repeated instances of culturally constituted behavior patterns- or customs. Like other behavior patterns, they persist as long as they are practiced: and they are practiced because they satisfy, or are believe to satisfy, their instigating needs. If this is so, an explanation for the practice of religion must be sought in the set of needs whose expected satisfaction motivates religious beliefs and the performance of religious rituals.

  1. RELIGION AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM

Two characteristics of anthropological work on religion accomplished since the Second World War strike as curious when such work is placed against that carried out just before and just after the first. One is that it has made no theoretical advances of major importance. It is living off the conceptual capital of its ancestors, adding very little, save a certain empirical enrichment to it. The second is that it draws what concepts it does use from a very narrowly defined intellectual tradition. There is Durkheim, Weber, Freud, Malinowski and in any particular work the approach of one or two of these transcended figures is followed, with but a few marginal corrections necessitated by the natural tendency to excess of seminal minds or by the expanded body of reliable descriptive data, but virtually no one even thinks of looking elsewhere- to philosophy, history, law, literature or the harder sciences-as these men themselves looked, for analytical ideas. And it occurs that these two curious characteristics are not unrelated.

For an anthropologist, the importance of religion lies in its capacity to serve, for an individual or for a group, as a source of general, yet distinctive conceptions of the world, the self and the relation between them, on the one hand- its model of aspect- and of rooted, though less distinctive mental dispositions-its model for aspect on the other. From these cultural functions flow in turn, its social and psychological ones.

  1. CASUALS AND FUNCTIONAL EXPLANATIONS OF RELIGION

The acquisition of religious beliefs is to be explained casually, and that the practice of these beliefs is to be explained in terms of motivation – which means that it is explained both casually and functionally. Religion persists because it has functions- it does or is believed to, satisfy desires: but religion persists because it has causes- it is caused by the expectation of satisfying these desires. Both are necessary, neither is sufficient, together they are necessary and sufficient. The causes of religious behavior are to be found in the desires by which it is motivated, and its functions consist in the satisfaction of those desires which constitutes its motivation.

 

Finally, the integrative (real) function of religion, in allowing the disguised expression of repressed motives, serves a number of sociological functions. By providing a culturally approved means for the resolution of inner conflict (between personal desire and cultural norms),religion (a)reduces the probability of psychotic distortion of desires , thereby providing a society with psychologically healthy members, (b) protects society from the socially disruptive consequences of direct gratification of these forbidden desires, (c) promotes social integration by providing a common goal(superhuman beings ) and a common means (ritual) by which desires may be gratified.

  1. RELIGION AND CULTURE CHANGE: REVITALIZATION MOVEMENTS

No anthropological consideration of religion is complete without some mention of revitalization movements-movements for radical culture reform in response to wide spread social disruption and collective feelings of great stress and despair. Many such movements developed in indigenous societies where European colonial exploitation caused enormous upheaval.

Revitalization movements are by no means restricted to the colonial world, and in the United States alone hundreds of them have sprung up. These range from Mormonism, which began in the 19th century, to the more recent Unification Church led by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the branch Dravidian led by Seventh – Day Adventist prophet David Koresh, and the Black Muslims led by prophet Elijah Muhammad. Recent U.S. revitalization movements also include the American Indian revival of the Spectacular Sun Dance ceremony, now held each summer at various reservations in the Great Plains.

 

Among the various types of revitalization movements is the cargo cult- a spiritual movement (especially noted in Melanesia in the Southwest Pacific) in reaction to disruptive contact with Western capitalism, promising resurrection of deceased relatives, destruction or enslavement of white foreigners, and the magical arrival of Utopian riches. Indigenous Melanesians referred to the white man’s wealth as “cargo”. In times of great social stress, native prophets emerged, predicting that the time of suffering would come to an end, and a new paradise on earth would soon arrive. Their deceased ancestors would return to life, and the rich white man would magically disappear- swallowed by an earthquake or swept away by a huge wave. However, their cargo would be left for the prophets and their cult followers who performed rituals to hasten this supernatural redistribution of wealth.

 

Anthropologists, Anthony Wallace outlined a sequence common to all expressions of the revitalization process. First is the normal state of society, in which stress is not too great, and sufficient cultural means exists to satisfy needs. Under certain conditions, such as domination by a more powerful group or severe economic depression, stress and frustration are steadily amplified; this ushers in the second phase, or period of increased individual stress. If there are no significant adaptive changes, a period of cultural distortion follows in which stress becomes so chronic that socially approved methods of releasing tension begins to break down. This steady deterioration of the culture may be checked by a period of revitalization, during which a dynamic cult or religious movement grips a sizable portion of population.

  1. SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION AND THE SUPERNATURAL

From an anthropological point of view, spirituality and religion are part of a cultural system’s super structure, earlier defined as the collective body of ideas, beliefs, and values by which a group of people makes sense of the world and their place in it. In their studies of different religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, anthropologists seek to remain unbiased regarding any particular cultural tradition. Instead they examine spirituality and religion in terms of society’s world view-the collective body of ideas that members of a culture generally share concerning the ultimate shape and substance of their reality.

 

Among people of all cultures, particular spiritual or religious beliefs and practices fulfill numerous social and psychological and needs, such as the need to confront and explain suffering and death. Religion gives meaning to individual and group life, drawing power from spiritual forces or beings and offering continuity of existence beyond death. It can provide the path by which people transcend their burdensome and moral existence and attain, if only momentarily, spiritual hope and relief.