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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
A comprehensive, visually rich introduction to the world's major religious traditions
Now in its second edition, Understanding the Religions of the World: An Introduction provides an essential framework for analyzing and understanding the world's major religions. Rather than simply presenting a series of facts, this innovative textbook provides an insightful lens through which students examine how and why religions appeal to their followers. Contributions from leading scholars who have conducted fieldwork in the traditions they discuss focus on the contemporary beliefs and practices of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Chinese Religion, and others.
Each chapter contains detailed analysis, up-to-date scholarship, review and discussion questions, and multiple informational boxes that discuss topics in greater depth across five analytical categories. More than 150 carefully curated images, diagrams, and maps that enhance student comprehension and retention are integrated throughout. This edition features two entirely new chapters on the development of the study of religion and indigenous religions of the Americas.
Helping students appreciate the complex systems of belief that shape human experience, Understanding the Religions of the World:
- Provides a current and relevant perspective on religion across the globe
- Analyzes how religions operate as systems for achieving human aspirations
- Helps students strengthen critical thinking skills and cultural awareness
- Draws on the latest research and academic insights in the area of Religious Studies
- Covers traditions not typically addressed in introductory texts, such as indigenous religions of Africa and Oceania
Supplying the tools necessary for exploring global faith traditions, Understanding the Religions of the World: An Introduction, Second Edition is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and elite high school honors courses on religious studies, anthropology, comparative religion, and theology.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Authors and Major Contributors
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface for Teachers
Chapter Features
Introduction
The Importance of Religion
Knowledge of Religion
Understanding Religions
Defining Religion and Religions
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 1: Hinduism
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 2: Buddhism
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 3: Chinese Religion
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 4: Japan's Lived Religion
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 5: African Religions
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 6: Religions of Oceania
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 7: Indigenous Religions in the Americas
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 8: Judaism
Overview
History
Beginnings
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 9: Christianity
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 10: Islam
Overview
History
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 11: Change in Religions and New Religions
Overview
Traditional Patterns of Change
New Patterns of Change
From Seekers to New Religions
Challenges for NRMs and New Religions
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER 12: The Study of Religions
Introduction
Early Universities
The What and How of Studying Religion
The Late Medieval Period Through the Enlightenment
Max Müller
Grand Theories of Religion
New Approaches in Sociology and Anthropology
The Experience of Religion
The Expansion of the University and Creation of Departments of Religion
Postscript: Further Defining the Field
Bibliography
Glossary of Key Terms
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 0
Figure I.1 Many foods at the grocery store bear a mark of religious certific...
Figure I.2 Religion is a human activity practiced by about 85 percent of the...
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 A map indicating the Hindu population of different countries as a...
Figure 1.2 Like the banyan tree, Hinduism has no center or main trunk.
Figure 1.3 This juxtaposition of swastikas and six‐pointed stars on adjacent...
Figure 1.4 Hanuman, the ruler of monkeys in the
Ramayana
, is a divine exampl...
Figure 1.5 Vishnu, as the boar
avatar
, saves the world from drowning during ...
Figure 1.6 Our earliest example of pages from a
Purana
(ca. eleventh century...
Figure 1.7 Disowned by their relatives, these widows in the city of Vrindava...
Figure 1.8 India's prime minister and leader of the Hindu nationalist party ...
Figure 1.9 The Gayatri Mantra written in Sanskrit.
Figure 1.10 Hindu cremation in Nepal. After the body of the deceased is puri...
Figure 1.11 Merchants outside a temple in India sell various offerings to wo...
Figure 1.12 Enwrapped in the joy of his cosmic dance, Shiva effortlessly cre...
Figure 1.13 The very popular
lingam‐yoni
image. Shiva's
lingam
is set ...
Figure 1.14 With a snake around his neck, a trident, a drum, and three horiz...
Figure 1.15 The Shri Chakra, a popular
yantra
design, with upward‐ and downw...
Figure 1.16 A diagram of the human body, showing the location of the six
cha
...
Figure 1.17 Topped with a red canopy, a cart for parading images of Krishna ...
Figure 1.18 Worshippers immerse a clay image of Ganesha at the conclusion of...
Figure 1.19 “Om,” the primal sound heard at the beginning of the creation of...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 A map indicating the Buddhist population of different countries a...
Figure 2.2 For Buddhists, life is a series of disconnected, ephemeral moment...
Figure 2.3 A Cambodian reclining Buddha, depicting the Buddha's
maha‐pari‐ni
...
Figure 2.4 The Buddhist community developed in several directions over its l...
Figure 2.5 The tradition of venerating relics has been important throughout ...
Figure 2.6 A map showing the spread of Buddhism from India into other parts ...
Figure 2.7 Amitabha Buddha descends with his two attendant
bodhisattvas
to w...
Figure 2.8 A depiction from Sri Lanka of suffering in hell. Those sentenced ...
Figures 2.9 and 2.10 The Buddhist Wheel of Life. Detail of hungry ghosts....
Figure 2.11 A novice with his parents in Thailand, just before he enters the...
Figure 2.12 Laity perform
dana
outside a monastery in Laos. They hope that t...
Figure 2.13 The feet of a large reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand, showi...
Figure 2.14 Tibetan monks engaging in ritualized debates. As they question o...
Figure 2.15 An inquisitive child looks on as a Tibetan monk begins to fill i...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 An elderly Confucius presents the baby Gautama Buddha to a middle...
Figure 3.2 Chinese emperors continued the elaborate burial practices of the ...
Figure 3.3 One of China's most famous landscape paintings, Fan Kuan...
Figure 3.4 The Silk Road was actually a series of roads through central, sou...
Figure 3.5 The political history of modern China is complex. In the twentiet...
Figure 3.6 An image showing the mutually engendering and mutually destroying...
Figure 3.7 A table showing how the Five Phases are reflected in our physical...
Figures 3.8 and 3.9 On the left (Figure 3.8), acupuncture needles are insert...
Figure 3.10 This Taiwanese restaurant advertises a warming entré...
Figure 3.11 A traditional depiction of the eight trigrams circling the Great...
Figure 3.12 A tradition at New Year's celebrations, the lion dance is perfor...
Figure 3.13 The horseshoe‐shaped gravesite is common in Taiwan and southern ...
Figure 3.14 Jigong is a disruptive Buddhist saint who eats meat, drinks alco...
Figure 3.15 The Eastern Peak Temple (Dongyue Miao), includes 76 replicas of ...
Figure 3.16 A man burns incense and bows at the entrance to a temple dedicat...
Figure 3.17 Jitong, or divination youths, are chosen by a god to demonstrate...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Two large, keyhole shaped
kofun
in southeastern Honshu. Note the ...
Figure 4.2 A map showing the four main islands of the Japanese archipelago a...
Figure 4.3 During the Heian period, Buddhist sects enjoyed the patronage of ...
Figure 4.4 When Christianity was suppressed under the Tokugawa regime, statu...
Figure 4.5 A depiction of Japanese workers melting down bronze bells looted ...
Figure 4.6 On the left, a torii with a
shimenawa
(straw festoon) and
shide
(...
Figure 4.7 Men and women in happi coats carry a
mikoshi
through the streets ...
Figure 4.8 During a
hadaka matsuri
, two men use wands made of pine branches ...
Figure 4.9 A man performs
omairi
, a ritual of memorialization, in front of h...
Figure 4.10 In preparation for a
mizuko kuyo
, small statues of the
bodhisatt
...
Figure 4.11 A Shinto priest uses a
nusa
wand to purify a car and bless it wi...
Figure 4.12 A woman ties a divination slip to a fence so that its ill fortun...
Figure 4.13 Wooden votive tablets (
ema
) with written requests hang on a disp...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 A cave painting from Zimbabwe, dated between 8000 and 3000
BCE
. I...
Figure 5.2 The upper map shows the relative numbers of those who practice Af...
Figure 5.3 Eshu, deity of the crossroads and spirit of trickery and chaos....
Figure 5.4 Wearing masks that embody the spirits of the Woman and the Young ...
Figure 5.5 The vèvè (line drawing) of Papa Legba, the lwa of...
Figure 5.6 A woman of the Suri tribe in Ethiopia displays the ritual marking...
Figure 5.7 An Ashanti fertility doll, portraying the Ashanti ideal of female...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 The many islands of Oceania are traditionally divided into Polyne...
Figure 6.2 In the 1860s, Rongorongo, the hieroglyphic script of Rapa Nui (Ea...
Figure 6.3 The then Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, embraces member...
Figure 6.4 Tanna Island in Vanuatu is home to one of the last remaining “car...
Figure 6.5 The Queensland lungfish (Dala) of the Gubbi Gubbi people is one o...
Figure 6.6 The Rainbow Snake, here depicted on a wall mural, is both a benev...
Figure 6.7 In the highlands of New Guinea, periodic exchanges called pig‐kil...
Figure 6.8 Bark paintings are created on the inside of a strip of tree bark....
Figure 6.9 A drawing of a funeral platform, from a French first contact in N...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 An aerial photo of the Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio. The coiled...
Figure 7.2 An artist's depiction of the Cahokia site in southwestern Illinoi...
Figures 7.3 and 7.4 On the left (Figure 7.3) is an aerial view of the remain...
Figure 7.5 One of the lintels from the Maya city of Yaxchilan. On the left, ...
Figure 7.6 The Temple of the Moon at the north end of the Avenue of the Dead...
Figure 7.7 A map showing sites of ancient spiritual centers in the Americas,...
Figure 7.8 A line drawing of one of the many depictions of the Presentation ...
Figure 7.9 The condor geoglyph, 1 of over 80 Nazca figures drawn on the Pamp...
Figure 7.10 A mummy from the Chinchorro culture. Note the use of string to h...
Figure 7.11 An example of a
khipu
, a series of knotted strings arranged alon...
Figure 7.12 A map of the Americas showing the location of indigenous communi...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 A map showing Jewish populations as a percentage of each area's p...
Figures 8.2 and 8.3 On the left, columns of text in an open Torah scroll. No...
Figure 8.4 Masada, a fortress built on a plateau, as seen from the northeast...
Figure 8.5 Jews and others pray before the enormous stone blocks of the West...
Figure 8.6 When Christian rulers expelled Jews from Spain and Portugal at th...
Figure 8.7 According to Kabbalistic traditions, although God is unbounded, h...
Figure 8.8 The word in the middle of this text, underlined in gray, is the d...
Figure 8.9 The Spanish Synagogue in Prague.
Figure 8.10 A 100‐shekel coin from the 1980s, reflecting the hope of some Je...
Figure 8.11 An ark in the chapel of a Conservative synagogue. When closed, t...
Figure 8.12 A boy participates in games at a Jewish summer camp, his
tzitzit
Figure 8.13 A man prays the morning prayer wearing a
tallit
(prayer shawl) a...
Figure 8.14 A
mikveh
, or ritual bath. When more water is needed, rain water ...
Figure 8.15 A jeweled and gilded
mezuzah
reading “Shalom” (peace, well‐being...
Figure 8.16 A girl reads from the Torah at her
bat mitzvah
, using a gilded, ...
Figure 8.17 A fanciful
yad
on its ornate carrying case.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 A map indicating the Christian population of different countries ...
Figure 9.2 Maps showing the locations and relative population densities of t...
Figure 9.3 A map showing the location of Nag Hammadi, a town in modern Egypt...
Figure 9.4 Beginning in the second or third century, Christians used the dra...
Figure 9.5 Dedicated in Constantinople in 360
CE
, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom)...
Figure 9.6 A map showing the division of Christianity into west and east, wi...
Figure 9.7 A fourteenth‐century Bible depicts the Crusaders being led into b...
Figure 9.8 Martin Luther's legendary nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of...
Figure 9.9 John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, worked tirelessly ...
Figure 9.10 A depiction of the Trinity at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Ch...
Figure 9.11 In a church in Tanzania, a man receives the “laying on of hands”...
Figure 9.12 Catholic and Orthodox Christians keep eucharistic bread, once it...
Figure 9.13 In accordance with the Orthodox tradition, this Ukrainian church...
Figure 9.14 A child plays the part of one of the wise men, bearing a gift fo...
Figure 9.15 Station of the Cross 12.
Figure 9.16 Station of the Cross 13.
Figure 9.17 As in many eastern European countries, these Polish Catholics ob...
Figure 9.18 This icon of Saint Andrew, one of Jesus' original disciples, is ...
Figure 9.19 Since the 1950s, women clergy have become increasingly common in...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 A map indicating the Muslim population of different countries as...
Figure 10.2 Of the eight countries with the largest Muslim populations, only...
Figure 10.3 Muslims see the New Testament figure John the Baptist (Yahya) as...
Figure 10.4 By the time of the Prophet's death in 632, Islam was embraced by...
Figure 10.5 An example of Islamic art that combines geometric design with ca...
Figure 10.6 The al‐Aqsa Mosque (upper right) stands near the southwest corne...
Figure 10.7 Between the beginning of the sixteenth century and the early 192...
Figure 10.8 In the new, secular nation of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Tur...
Figure 10.9 The city of Mina, on the way to the valley of Arafat, houses mil...
Figure 10.10 During the Hajj, pilgrims participate in Abraham's defiance of ...
Figure 10.11 The origins of the crescent and star, widely used as a symbol f...
Figure 10.12 Astride a motorcycle, holding her twin girls, a woman in Turkey...
Figure 10.13 A map showing the location of major Shia populations (in millio...
Figure 10.14 A chart showing the rightful succession of Imams (inspired lead...
Figure 10.15 The entrance to the tomb complex in Mashhad, Iran, which contai...
Figure 10.16 During a performance of the
tazyia
passion play in Tehran, acto...
Figure 10.17 The distinctive
dhikr
of the Mevlevi Sufi order has earned them...
Chapter 11
Figures 11.1 and 11.2 Americans often encounter a fat, laughing Buddha in Ch...
Figure 11.3 Along with their innovations in Christian belief and doctrine, t...
Figure 11.4 While the Theosophical Society no longer commands the attention ...
Figure 11.5 The eclectic symbol of the Theosophical Society combines (from t...
Figure 11.6 The pentacle, circle, and three moons are common images in Wicca...
Figure 11.7 A page from the Heaven's Gate website announcing the opportunity...
Figure 11.8 Members of the Raelian movement plan to build a diplomatic embas...
Figure 11.9 Sculptures of devotees at the International Society for Krishna ...
Guide
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Authors and Major Contributors
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface for Teachers
Chapter Features
Begin Reading
Glossary of Key Terms
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Understanding the RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD
An Introduction
SECOND EDITION
Edited by
Will Deming
This edition first published 2025© 2025 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data Applied for:
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AUTHORS AND MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS
Gregory D. Alles, Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies, McDaniel College. (PhD University of Chicago)
Miguel Astor‐Aguilera, Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State University. (PhD University at Albany, State University of New York)
David R. Bains, Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies, Samford University. (PhD Harvard University)
Thomas Borchert, Professor, Department of Religion, University of Vermont. (PhD University of Chicago)
Maria M. Dakake, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, George Mason University. (PhD Princeton University)
Will Deming, Professor Emeritus, Department of Theology, University of Portland. (PhD University of Chicago)
Gary L. Ebersole, Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies, University of Missouri–Kansas City. (PhD University of Chicago)
Anna M. Gade, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, Center for South Asia, University of Wisconsin–Madison. (PhD University of Chicago)
Matthew B. Lynch, Instructor, School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, Oregon State University. (PhD University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
†Mary N. MacDonald, formerly Professor of Religious Studies and O'Connell Professor in Humanities, LeMoyne College. (PhD University of Chicago)
Jean‐François Mayer, Director of the Religioscope Institute Fribourg, Switzerland. (PhD University of Lyon)
Jennifer Oldstone‐Moore, Professor Emerita, Department of Religion, Wittenberg University. (PhD University of Chicago)
Paul R. Powers, Professor of Religious Studies, Lewis and Clark College. (PhD University of Chicago)
Joseph Schaller, Deputy Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Embassy Barbados. (PhD University of California at Berkeley)
Melvin Shaw, Aomori, Japan. (PhD University of Illinois in Chicago)
John W. Traphagan, Professor Emeritus, Department of Religious Studies, University of Texas at Austin. (PhD University of Pittsburgh)
Garry Trompf, Professor Emeritus in the History of Ideas, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, Australia. (PhD Australian National University)
Alan Unterman, former Honorary Research Fellow in Comparative Religion, University of Manchester. (PhD University of Delhi, India)
Mary Nyangweso Wangila, Professor and Peel Distinguished Chair of Religious Studies, East Carolina University. (PhD Drew University)
Robin M. Wright, Professor Emeritus, Department of Religion, University of Florida. (PhD Stanford University)
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
For this second edition of Understanding the Religions of the World, all the chapters from the first edition have been edited to remove mistakes, improve clarity, and treat important events that have taken place since 2015, when the first edition appeared. The one exception is the chapter on Japanese religion, which has been completely rewritten and renamed Japan's Lived Religion. This was necessitated by a growing consensus on the fundamental importance of the Meiji regime for the interpretation of Shinto. It also afforded an opportunity to expand the history section of this chapter and broaden and update the discussion of contemporary beliefs and practices.
Beyond this, three major additions have been made to the original text. First, a discussion of African‐based religions in the American diaspora has been added to the chapter on African religions, providing an analysis of Candomblé, Umbanda, Vodou, and Santería. Second, a new chapter on the indigenous religions of the Americas has been added. This is a true innovation for texts of this kind, for not only does it cover North, Central, and South America, but it also moves away from an anecdotal approach of treating one or two widely practiced rituals by providing a comprehensive analysis of these religions—to the extent that this is possible in an introductory textbook. This chapter brings to light previously neglected religious traditions and completes the original design of the first edition, which at the time of its publication proved to be too ambitious. Third, a chapter on the study of religions has been added, with the goal of giving students a glimpse into this relatively new and heterogeneous discipline. It begins with the creation of the modern research university and ends with a consideration of the Cognitive Science of Religion, treating major figures, from Marx to Eliade along the way. It is concise and accessible to students in a manner that other treatments are not.
I would like to thank my wife, Lauren Wellford Deming, for her help with proofreading the drafts of this text, and my son, JD Deming, for his advice on clarity and style.
PREFACE FOR TEACHERS
Dear Colleague,
This text offers a new approach to the study of religions. Its goal is to help students understand how religions work—what makes them appealing, why they “make sense” to their adherents, and how we can study them as symbolic systems that orient people to things they regard as supremely important in their lives. As systems, each religion operates according to its own logic. This is simply another way of saying that religious people do not act at random. Yet a religion's particular logic can mystify outsiders, which is why members of one religion often find it difficult to empathize with members of another, and why students can experience unfamiliar religions as bizarre or confusing.
This book attempts to demystify religions for our students by first identifying each religion's own internal logic, and then explaining how this logic guides adherents into encounters and experiences with transcendent ideas, beings, relationships, and realities. This approach enables students to see why members of a given religion prefer their particular rituals, images, and beliefs over a multitude of alternatives, and why religions have developed so differently from one another. It also helps students understand why religious adherents invest so much of themselves and their resources into a religion.
What to Expect: The Specifics
Each chapter is written by or in partnership with an area specialist, and reviewed by other area specialists. This guarantees the latest scholarship and provides students a taste of the distinctive approaches that these specialists use in their respective fields. The study of Islam, for example, has developed quite differently than the study of Indigenous American religions.
The presentation of the material in Chapters 1–10 is guided by an understanding of each religion's particular logic. This is true not only for the sections on contemporary beliefs and practices, but also for the sections on history. The advantage for the historical sections is that each religion's past is organized with an emphasis on how it has changed over time as a dynamic system of meaning. The sections on contemporary beliefs and practices, in turn, move beyond the usual descriptive or thematic approaches by involving the reader in analysis. These sections are much longer than those of a typical textbook, in most cases comprising well over half the chapter.
Chapter Structure
Each chapter, with the exception of Chapters 11 and 12, has four principal sections: Overview, History, Contemporary Beliefs and Practices, and Conclusion.
The
Overview
provides a brief description of how large the religion is, where it is practiced, something of its distinctive nature, and its major divisions or denominations.
The
History
section summarizes past practices, doctrines, and organizational structures of a religion and gives an account of important developments and changes. The length of this section varies from chapter to chapter and sometimes includes an account of the western “discovery” of a religion. The chapter on the Religions of Oceania, for example, has a relatively short historical section and discusses the importance of European first contacts.
Contemporary Beliefs and Practices
is the heart of each chapter. This section begins with a thesis statement outlining a religion's basic premises and logical structures, and then explains what adherents do and why they do it in light of these premises and structures.
The
Conclusion
provides a short summary with final insights.
Each chapter ends with questions for review and discussion, a list of key terms, and a short bibliography. The latter is divided into three parts: a good first book, further reading, and reference and research.
The Order of the Chapters
The first four chapters follow the rationale that Hinduism, which shares much of the worldview of Buddhism, prepares students for Buddhism; Buddhism, as a component of both Chinese and Japanese religions, prepares students for these two religions; and Chinese religion, both by its syncretistic nature and its early influence on Japan, prepares students for that religion.
Traditional and indigenous religions are often placed at the beginning of a text, giving the impression that they are more elemental (primitive) than other religions, or at the end, implying, perhaps, that they are not as important. To avoid this, African religions, the religions of Oceania, and indigenous religions in the Americas follow Japanese religion. The order of the last three religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, follows the standard rationale that the religious worldview of Christianity presupposes that of Judaism, and the religious worldview of Islam presupposes that of both Judaism and Christianity. It also has the advantage of putting religions near the end that are already familiar to many students, but which they must now reassess in light of having studied other religions. The chapter entitled Change in Religion and New Religions follows these because it presupposes some knowledge of the religions discussed in the earlier chapters. Finally, the chapter on the study of religions is placed last, in the hope that the earlier chapters will have peaked the interest of some students to the point that they want to know more about the discipline.
Figures and End Matter
The photographs, diagrams, illustrations, and maps that accompany the text have been carefully chosen to further the discussion of the text, not simply to add ornamentation. At the end of the book, a combined glossary of key terms from all the chapters is assembled, as well as a comprehensive index.
A Personal Note
After teaching “world religions” to incoming first‐year students for more than a decade, I began to formulate an analytical approach to the material, replacing the largely descriptive‐chronological one I had been using. The result, three years later, was Rethinking Religion (2005), in which I outlined a model for making sense of religions. It was on the basis of that publication that I was asked to consider editing a textbook on religions, the first edition of which appeared in 2015. With this new edition, I am again pleased and excited to offer my colleagues what I consider to be a solid introductory text as well as a genuine pedagogical contribution to the study of religions in undergraduate courses.
Will Deming
CHAPTER FEATURES
Each chapter that presents a religious tradition (Chapters 1–10) is divided into four main sections: introduction, history, contemporary beliefs and practices, and conclusion. This is followed by questions for review and discussion, a glossary of key terms, and reading suggestions. In addition, these chapters contain feature boxes that highlight aspects of each religious tradition under discussion. There are five types of boxes:
A Closer Look offers an extra level of detail for topics mentioned in the text.
Rituals, Rites, Practices draws attention to distinctive activities performed by religious adherents.
Sacred Traditions and Scripture provides the reader with examples of the narratives, legal codes, and other compositions—both written and oral—that are authoritative for a religion.
Talking about Religion focuses on how adherents and scholars choose to express themselves when describing or explaining a religion.
Did You Know … makes connections between a religion and things that readers commonly know but had not associated with that religion.
Introduction
Understanding religions takes time.
The Importance of Religion
Eighty‐five percent of the world's population is religious—roughly 6.9 billion people. This means that religion shapes and justifies much of what goes on in the world. To understand religion is to understand people. To understand religion is to understand today's world.
When people go to war, when they make peace, when they buy and sell, when they start families, and when they honor their dead, they do so in ways influenced by religion. Here are some examples that have important political or economic implications: Almost one‐fourth of the world's population (1.9 billion people) does not eat pork or drink alcohol for religious reasons. Another 1.4 billion people do not eat beef. Many countries have a national religion, display religious symbols or colors on their flags, or require their citizens to pay a religion tax. In the United States, sessions of Congress begin with prayer; the outcome of national elections is influenced by religious organizations; tens of thousands of churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are exempted from paying taxes; and in the grocery store, many foods carry a religious mark or symbol (Figure I.1).
Figure I.1 Many foods at the grocery store bear a mark of religious certification. The “circle U” on this jar designates the approval of a Jewish organization called the Orthodox Union. The “D” signifies that the product contains dairy, and hence should not be eaten with meat.
Source: Will Deming.
Knowledge of Religion
Despite religion's considerable presence and influence in the world (Figure I.2), most people know little about it. Maybe this is not so surprising. Most people know little about their own language. Religion, like language, is something people use but rarely think about—it is simply a given of their world. But even when people do ponder religion, it is usually their own religion that comes to mind. Most Roman Catholics, for example, know little about Islam or Hinduism. Most, in fact, know little about other forms of Christianity. And the same is true for Baptists and Methodists, and for different types of Muslims and Buddhists.
Figure I.2 Religion is a human activity practiced by about 85 percent of the world's population.
In the United States, several legal and social norms actually discourage people from learning about any religion beyond their own. The American principle of separation of church and state has limited the extent to which religion is studied in public schools, while the secular nature of American society promotes the idea that religion is a private matter, unsuited for public discussion. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was even popular to single out religion as one of two topics that people should avoid in polite conversation—the other being politics.
Beyond this, the absence of a national religion in the United States encourages religious diversity. Today, more religions are practiced in the United States than in any other country. But with so many smaller religious circles carrying on internal conversations of their own, a larger forum for the public discussion of religion has been slow to materialize. Historically, Christians and Jews have had little interaction with one another; Roman Catholics and Protestants have also kept to themselves; and the various Protestant denominations have more often than not established their identities by highlighting their differences. The unifying factors that now promote the public discussion of religion are fairly recent to the American scene. Ecumenical movements, the notions that most Americans practice an “Abrahamic religion” or share a common “Judeo‐Christian” value system, and the adoption of the phrase “In God We Trust” as the national motto go back no further than the previous century.
Finally, the importance given to science in the United States often marginalizes religious perspectives on social and economic issues. In legislatures and boardrooms across the country, it is now a matter of course to demand that someone “do the science” before addressing an issue. By contrast, it is rarely appropriate to ask that someone consider the religious or spiritual dimensions of an issue—that is, “do the theology.”
A Closer Look
Approaching Religion
Not everyone interested in religion practices religion—some people are insiders and some are outsiders. Religious adherents and theologians are insiders. Those in the first group practice a religion; those in the second both practice a religion and seek to understand, explain, and articulate how that religion works. Students of religion, by contrast, engage in the academic study of both religion and religions from the outside, often by comparing several religions. They can practice a religion in their private lives as well, but they are rarely theologians.
Understanding Religions
The purpose of this book is to provide an objective approach to learning about and analyzing religions. It is one thing to know facts about a religion—its history, its size, its geographical distribution, and its principal beliefs and practices. It is quite another thing to understand a religion: to appreciate why a particular religion is so appealing to some people; why it makes sense to its adherents; and how it works as a system for defining and achieving human aspirations. This sort of understanding gives us insight into how religious people view the human condition and what motivates them to live as they do.
Defining Religion and Religions
There are many ways to define religion. Typical definitions include things like:
a system of beliefs and moral behavior,
faith in God, and
the worship of supernatural beings.
While these definitions may be helpful in discussing certain religions or certain aspects of religions, they are not broad enough to cover all the religions we will study in this book. As a consequence, we must take a more inclusive approach, defining religion as orientation to what is supreme or ultimate in one's life.
A definition such as this is necessary because of the tremendous variation we find among the religions of the world. The word “orientation,” for example, is flexible enough to account for the innumerable ways in which people practice their religions (pilgrimage, sacrifice, dancing, acts of kindness, storytelling, devotion, etc.). Likewise, the use of “what” in the phrase “what is supreme or ultimate” is necessary because the focal point of some religions, such as brahman in Hinduism or nirvana in Buddhism, is neither a thing nor a being. Indeed, according to some Buddhist teachings, nirvana may, in fact, neither exist nor not exist. For this reason, each of these is best designated as a “what.” Finally, the phrase “supreme or ultimate” is needed because, while “ultimate” accurately describes the Muslim God and nirvana, it would distort African and Oceanian views of the divine world in a way that “supreme” does not. The difference is a subtle but indispensable distinction between what is most important and what is more important than anything else could ever be.
Given this definition of religion, we may define religions (the plural) as discrete systems or traditions of orientation to what is supreme or ultimate—for example, Buddhism and Islam (Figure I.2).
The goal of orienting oneself to what is supreme or ultimate is to make one's life more real, more true, and more meaningful, and in every religion this requires the use of symbols. While everyday English uses the word symbol to mean something that “represents” or “stands for” something else, it is important to think of religious symbols as tools. This is because religious symbols do not just represent something, they do something. They enable religious people to achieve their fullest potential in life by linking them to what is supreme or ultimate. Lighting a candle and placing it in front of the statue of a god does not simply represent wisdom or divine light. Rather, it nurtures a relationship with a divine being who is accessible through the symbols (“tools”) of the candle and the statue. Likewise, prayer does not “stand” for anything. It is orientation to deities by speaking to them.
This raises an important question: what qualifies a candle, a statue, or a prayer as a religious symbol? As we will discover, many things serve as symbols: words, objects, images, sounds, motions, rituals, foods, animals, clothing, buildings, mountains, rivers, and much, much more. Even so, not just anything can be a symbol for a particular religion. Because each religion has its own understanding of what is supreme or ultimate, each will also have its own set of appropriate words, objects, images, etc. If what is supreme or ultimate comes through enlightenment, as in Buddhism, then meditation will be an appropriate tool for orientation. But if it comes through establishing balance and harmony in an ever‐changing cosmos, as in Chinese religion, then acupuncture or eating bitter foods might be required.
This wide variation in symbols between different religions underscores a final important insight: each religion is a distinct, internally logical system. In this respect, religions may be compared to languages. Just as a word from one language may be meaningless or inappropriate in another language, most religious symbols are meaningless or inappropriate outside the context of their own religion. Praying in the direction of Mecca, as Muslims do, has no significance for Hindus and Buddhists. Removing one's shoes before entering a place of worship, as is practiced in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, is normally quite inappropriate in Jewish and Christian worship. Even symbols that outwardly resemble one another are often appropriate in different religions for very different reasons. The Hindu practice of bathing in the Ganges River and Christian baptism are both methods of spiritual purification that use water. In Hinduism, however, bathing in the Ganges “makes sense” because the Ganges is a manifestation of the Great Goddess. For Christians, however, baptism is an effective tool because it connects them to God through the death of Jesus Christ. Likewise, while most Hindus do not eat beef and most Muslims do not eat pork, Hindus renounce beef because they consider the cow too god‐like to harm, let alone eat, whereas Muslims forgo pork because they regard the pig as ritually and hygienically unfit for human consumption.
In the final analysis, what qualifies something as a symbol is its capacity to “work” in accordance with a religion's internal logic. Given a religion's understanding of what is supreme or ultimate, things that promise orientation to it have the potential to be effective symbols. When symbols lose this capacity, moreover, they become obsolete. This is why, for example, Roman Catholics no longer abstain from meat on Friday as a way to please God. Because of decisions made at the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), abstaining from meat on Friday lost its effectiveness: it no longer “works” as a tool to draw close to God.
Conclusion
By defining religion and religious symbols, we have taken the first step in understanding the religions of the world. In the following chapters, we will examine 10 religions, each of which has its own view of what is supreme or ultimate, operates according to its own internal logic, and uses its own repertoire of symbols. Using this knowledge, we will consider each religion's beginning, its development over time, and its manifestation in today's world. In two final chapters we will explore the ways in which religions change over time, how new religions come into being, and how the study of religions became an academic discipline. For our efforts, we will gain valuable insight into how the people with whom we share the earth view themselves and others from a religious perspective.
For review
What is the role of symbols in a religion?
How is a religion's internal logic related to what it envisions as supreme or ultimate?
What is the difference between religion and
a
religion?
According to our definitions, do you consider yourself a religious adherent, a theologian, or a student of religion—or some combination of these?
For discussion
Can entire religions die out? Give some examples and explain why this happens.
Why, in an age of secularism and science, do people still find religion attractive?
Key Terms
internal logic
A system of meaning unique to a particular religion that determines how one orients oneself and others to what is supreme or ultimate.
religion
The human activity of orientation to what is supreme or ultimate.
religions
Symbolic systems by which people orient themselves to a particular vision of what is supreme or ultimate.
the supreme or ultimate
The focal point of religion and religions; that which is the most important, real, and true in someone's life.
symbol
The means by which people orient themselves to what is supreme or ultimate; depending on the religion, a symbol can be practically anything.
Bibliography
A good first book
Will Deming.
Rethinking Religion: A Concise Introduction
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Further reading
Peter L. Berger.
The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociology of Religion
. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.
Thomas A. Tweed.
Religion: A Very Short Introduction
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Reference and research
Lindsay Jones, ed.
Encyclopedia of Religion
, 2nd edn, 15 vols. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.
Mark C. Taylor, ed.
Critical Terms for Religious Study
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
CHAPTER 1Hinduism: The divine is in everyone
A murti (idol) of the Hindu god Ganesha, the elephant‐headed son of the Great Goddess Devi.
Source: Will Deming.
DID YOU KNOW …
The popular term avatar comes from Hinduism, where it has been used for hundreds of years to describe the 10 incarnations of the god Vishnu. In Hinduism an avatar is a form by which this god crosses over from his reality into ours.
Overview
Hinduism is the predominant religion of India, the world's most populous nation. More than 80 percent of its population (around 1.4 billion people) identify themselves as Hindu. The next largest religion in India is Islam, at about 14 percent of the population, followed by Christianity and Sikhism, at about 2.3 and 1.7 percent, respectively. More than 50 million Hindus also live in countries surrounding India—Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Myanmar—and significant populations can be found in Bali, Malaysia, the United States, Mauritius, Guyana, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 A map indicating the Hindu population of different countries as a percentage of each country's total population.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Hindus have no single scripture that codifies their core beliefs, nor do they have a governing body that establishes a standard for religious practices. Instead, Hindus recognize a wide diversity within their religion. In India alone one finds innumerable regional differences, and outside the country this diversity is sometimes even greater. Indonesians, for example, practice forms of Hinduism that incorporate elements from Islam and local folk traditions.
Thus, it should come as no surprise to learn that the name Hinduism, which manages to gather this diversity neatly—perhaps too neatly—under a single designation, was not created by Hindus themselves. Rather, the ancient Persians used “Hindu” to designate their neighbors to the east, who lived along the banks of the Indus River. But even the Persians did not intend to identify the religion of these people, just their geographical location. Only when India came under British colonial rule in the eighteenth century did Hinduism gain currency as an umbrella term for the religion. The British, who thought of religions as theological systems, and who governed India by taking into account the religious affiliation of their subjects, needed terms to distinguish Indians of this religion from Indians who were Sikhs, or Muslims, or something else. By contrast, Hindus had traditionally referred to their religious activities as dharma (duty), and distinguished themselves from others in various ways, such as calling themselves Aryans (noble people), or followers of Brahmins (Hindu priests), or devotees of a particular god in the Hindu pantheon. Today, many Hindus accept and use the names Hindu and Hinduism to speak of themselves and their religion, despite its unusual diversity.
To envision such a multiform religion, Julius Lipner has likened Hinduism to the famous banyan tree near Kolkata (Calcutta), in West Bengal. The banyan (Figure 1.2), India's national tree, sends out a profusion of aerial roots, which become new trunks, covering large areas and assimilating everything in their path. The Kolkata banyan covers approximately four acres. It has no central trunk or core segment, but is nonetheless a single tree. In a similar way, we can understand Hinduism as a single entity, but one whose diversity almost defies description. (Julius Lipner, “On Hinduism and Hinduisms: The Way of the Banyan,” in The Hindu World, ed. Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby (New York and London: Routledge, 2004).
Figure 1.2 Like the banyan tree, Hinduism has no center or main trunk.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
History
Timeline
2300–2000
BCE
The Indus Valley civilization is at its height.
2000–1500
BCE
The Indus Valley civilization is in decline.
1700–1500
BCE
Aryans migrate into the Indus Valley; the
Rig‐Veda
is composed.
1200–900
BCE
The
Collections
are brought to completion.
900
BCE
Aryan peoples spread eastward to the Ganges River.
800–600
BCE
The
Brahmanas
are composed.
500–400
BCE
The first
Upanishads
are composed; Buddhism begins.
5th–4th century
BCE
The caste system begins to take shape.
3rd century
BCE
Ashoka becomes king of the Mauryan dynasty.
300
BCE
–300
CE
The
Mahabharata
and the
Ramayana
are composed; the practice of
puja
begins.
1st century
CE
The
Bhagavad Gita
is composed.
2nd century
CE
The first evidence of Hindu temples.
3rd–4th century
CE
Devotional practices (
bhakti
) become popular in south India among Tamils.
ca. 350
CE
The first
Puranas
are composed.
7th century
CE
Devotional practices (
bhakti
) are used widely in Hinduism.
ca. 1000
CE
Muslims enter the Punjab.
1206–1526
CE
The Delhi Sultanate.
mid‐13th century
Buddhism disappears from most of India.
15th century
Sikhism is founded.
1526–18th century
The Mughal Dynasty.
1600
The East India Company establishes offices in Kolkata.
1757
The beginning of British colonial domination.
18th and 19th centuries
The Hindu Renaissance.
1869–1948
Mohandas Gandhi.
1872–1950
Aurobindo Ghosh.
1947
End of British rule; millions of Hindus and Muslims are uprooted and resettled during India's Partition, which creates the nation of Pakistan.
1950
The Indian Constitution guarantees certain civil liberties regardless of caste or religion.
1980s
The resurgence of Hindu Nationalism.
The Indus Valley
Hinduism began in the middle of the second millennium BCE in the Indus Valley, a fertile region fed by five tributaries of the Indus River. Today this area is known as the Punjab (five rivers) and is divided between the nations of India and Pakistan. From approximately 2300 to 2000 BCE, a complex, urban civilization flourished in the Indus Valley. It had two major cities, Harappa and Mohenjo‐daro, a host of other towns and settlements, and a remarkably uniform culture spread out over 400 square miles.
Both the religion and the name of this civilization remain a mystery, since no one has been able to decipher what is left of its writing system—if, in fact, the curious shapes found there are a writing system. On the basis of archaeology, some scholars postulate connections between the religion of the Indus Valley civilization and later Hinduism. For example, there remain about 2000 soapstone seals from the Indus Valley civilization which were used to identify property, and some of these depict images of what might be incense burners or altars. One of the most celebrated images depicts a figure seated with his legs crossed in a yogic position, surrounded by various wild animals. It has been suggested that this is an early form of the Hindu god Shiva, who is master of yogic renunciation and sometimes carries the name Lord of the Animals. It has also been proposed that Hinduism's veneration of the Goddess may have roots in the worship of goddesses in the Indus Valley civilization.
Newcomers to the Indus Valley
Whether or not this earlier civilization influenced Hinduism, most of what constituted the first period of Hinduism came from a nomadic herding people who called themselves Aryans (noble ones). Scholars from the previous century believed that the Aryans had crossed over the Himalayas from central Asia and conquered or overwhelmed the Indus Valley's inhabitants. But archeological research has since cast doubt on this theory, leading most scholars to consider flooding, disease, or crop failure as the cause of the Indus Valley civilization's demise. The original homeland of the Aryans is now also debated, some scholars suggesting a location in what is now modern Turkey, or even another part of India.
A Closer Look
The Swastika
While westerners generally associate the swastika with the atrocities of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, this association is uniquely western and only goes back to the early twentieth century. As a religious symbol in India, the swastika is at least as old as the second millennium BCE, and has been used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism for many centuries (Figure 1.3).
Figure 1.3 This juxtaposition of swastikas and six‐pointed stars on adjacent window screens might strike a westerner as jarring, as the former are usually associated with Nazi anti‐Semitism and the latter with Judaism. In Hinduism, however, these symbols are often used together in the worship of the gods Ganesha and Skanda, sons of Devi and Shiva, respectively.
Source: Reproduced by permission of H. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C.
The word swastika derives from an ancient Sanskrit term for well‐being. It later became associated with the pleasures of life and with spiritual truth. In Hinduism it often denotes the blessings that come from Ganesha, the god of good beginnings. In Buddhism it is an element in images of the Wheel of Law; and in Jainism it represents the endless process of birth and rebirth (samsara), in a diagram that depicts the tenets of that religion.
Regarding the further identity of the Aryans, it has been established that they belonged to a much larger group of nomadic peoples whom scholars call Indo‐Europeans, and that their religious ideas appeared in the Indus Valley as early as 2000 BCE, around the time of the Indus Valley civilization's decline. “Indo‐European” is actually a linguistic, rather than an ethnic designation, referring to the type of language these nomads spoke. Sanskrit (the sacred language of Hinduism), Greek, and Latin are members of the Indo‐European language family, as are most of the local languages of northern India.
A Closer Look
Indo‐European Languages
The discovery of ancient Sanskrit by westerners in the 1800s revolutionized the study of linguistics. One aspect of this discovery that especially fascinated scholars was the large number of cognates, or historically related words, that Sanskrit shared with Greek and Latin (as well as Persian, Hittite, German, Celtic, and others).
Latin
Greek
Sanskrit
English
est
esti
asti
is
mater
mêtêr
matr
mother/maternal
Jupiter
