by Christine G.

Created on: March 25, 2008   Last Updated: March 10, 2009

The anthropology of religion is the empirical study of religious institutions in relation to other social institutions, comparing religious beliefs and practices across culture. The point of view is one of cultural relativity, not evaluating one kind of religion as more correct or sophisticated than another, but rather, looking how they function within the societies which have them. This type of study is not particularly welcome to those who committed to the idea that their religion is an accurate representation of ultimate reality, to the exclusion of others.

Anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace (1923 - ), who has done extensive work with Native American cultures, proposes four categories of religions through which a society progresses.

1. The Individualistic is the most basic, where a person sets out to make contact with supernatural reality through a ritual such as the vision quest.

2. In the Shamanistic, part-time practitioners who have acquired the power to compel particular entities in the spirit world, use their special expertise to heal, divine, curse, or change something in the material world, usually on behalf of a client. They are generally associated with primitive cultures, but have their modern equivalents in tarot readers, seance leaders, and energy healers.

3. Communal religion has an elaborate set of beliefs and practices. People are grouped by lineage, age, or degrees of knowledge.

4. The ecclesiastical form of religion, which is the most complex, is what we generally think of when we hear the word "organized religion". It incorporates the elements of the previous three, and includes a formally ordained priesthood, sacred objects, set rituals in holy places, a common system of values and beliefs, and a holy scripture including stories which model ideal behavior.

Where does religion come from? Anthropologists see religion as a system that is created by a human community as a projection of its social values. In the words of the French sociologist Emile Durkleim's (1858 - 1970): "Religion is society worshiping itself." Religious practices and beliefs have a social function, and reflect political or economical practices. Spiritual awakenings do not occur in a vacuum, but are harbingers of profound changes in the individuals or group involved. Religions are generally conservative and difficult to change, but in times of upheaval, new prophetic voices upset the apple cart of tradition.

Although religion has been rejected by many Westerners as being unscientific,

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>