I have done a thorough research on why the needs of studying the varieties of world religions in comparison with the religion of Christianity. This will be a series of articles on my blog for the couple of weeks on various issues on the importance of world religions in relation to Christianity. For now I will begin with the definition or our understanding on what the word or term “RELIGION.”
The etymology of the English word "religion" came from the Old French "religion" which originally derived from the Latin word "religo" which means "good faith”, “ritual” or from another Latin word "religare" which means "to tie fast."
[1] Many will find the definition focus too narrowly on only a few aspects of religion that does not fit well like Kile Jones wrote in his essay on defining religion:
"It is apparent that religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. To limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition."
[2]A check with several dictionaries produces the following listing
[3] . Each of the definition of the word "religion" represents a different idea of what religion is and tends to differ from one belief to another.
Barns & Noble (Cambridge) Encyclopedia (1990):
"...no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practices, and ideas which constitute different religions."
The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990):
"Human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience"
This definition would not consider some Buddhist sects, as religions. Many Unitarian Universalists are excluded by this description. Strictly interpreted, it would also reject polytheistic religions, since it refers to "a" personal God."
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
"a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."
This is a curious definition because it does not require elements often associated with religion, such as deity, morality, worldview, etc. In addition, it requires that a person pursues his or her religion with enthusiasm. Many people identify themselves with a specific religion, but are not intensely engaged with their faith.
Webster's New World Dictionary (Third College Edition):
"any specific system of belief and worship, often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy."
This definition would exclude religions that do not engage in worship. It implies that there are two important components to religion:
one's belief and worship in a deity or deities
one's ethical behavior towards other persons
The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM):
"An organized system of belief that generally seeks to understand purpose meaning, goals, and methods of spiritual things. These spiritual things can be God, people in relation to God, salvation, after life, purpose of life, order of the cosmos, etc."
Is "religion" a form of human thought or opinion based on freedom of speech, press, assembly and so on or just a sign of superstition of man to perform an act or relation with a God "binds" with a sort of law or covenant? We learned the root word of "religion" is related to being bound." In the history of Israel, the biblical literature, mentioned Israel to be in a "covenant" (berith
[4]) relationship with it God (Yahweh). On the other hand, one that holds the religion as a belief is bound or tied by a tenet of commitment to a particular faith. That particular faith on one hand includes a wide or broader concept that embraces "how one lives." It reflects the lives of individual and society as a whole. The more we understand religions, the more we will understand and appreciate its similarities as well it differences. In the similarity, we understand how a religion is shaped. For instance, take the case of Theravada Buddhism. We will note that this so-called "religion" is not really a religion but a philosophy. It is not theistic in a way because it recognizes no sacred being or being but a veneration of a higher Being. Another example, Christianity and Islam are not the same and are they argue about their true ONE God or Allah. Islam is all about submission to God and the messenger of God. We find Jesus in their Qur'an while the Christian Bible mentions the Son of God and even admits that He is God Himself. It indicates the uniqueness of the Christian religion is wrapped in the mysterious person of Jesus inspired religion separate and distinct from Islam. When we study both of these religions among others, we see the similarities and differences prevail. Then we can depict a clearer picture that authenticates our Christian faith. Let hear this in John A. Hutchinson
[5], in his book Paths of Faith, he acknowledged the difficulty in defining religion. He wrote:
"Formal definitions of religion are as numerous, as various, and often as mutually conflicting as there are students of religion. Often such definitions illustrate the oriental parable of the blind men describing the elephant, each taking hold of part of the beast and defining the whole in terms of this part. Like the elephant, religion is a large and complex phenomenon. In this connection, some historians of religion question or reject the word religion as a distortion of the form of experience it seeks to communicate. Several of the world's major languages lack any word that can be adequately translated as "religion." The common noun religion imputes a unity or homogeneity of experience that many observers believe does not exist. (p. 3-4)"
This discourse is about comparing religions or what today's world would call it “comparative” religions. Comparative comes from the word comparison. Comparison is a procedure or act of abstraction by detaching a religion from it cultural matrix and securitizing it as a discrete set of symbols, ritual, ceremonies, myths, teaching, philosophy and verbal states of belief then reducing this religion into a set of meaningful principles or truths. The result is an intellectualized scholarly discussion which can be taught as well written about. The acute question now is whether comparative religion can affect one's idea in searching the only ONE true Being or God as well authenticate mankind live in terms of the daily basis of life. Religion is a numerous word defining it, not as something that ties but constitutes so much meaning as it relates to fetishisms, animisms, polytheisms, and monotheisms among the known historic religions. It is not convenient or easy to assume that all religions were like branches of a large tree which came from a visible trunk tree, and that trunk does not means all religions came from the same source or God. To me that trunk of a tree symbolize human quests of seeking the true God. The outcome is so much religion that we lose our purposes. Just like the Jews they were so legalistic and strict with tradition and custom that they deny even Jesus Christ as a Messiah which was prophesized in the Old Covenant. They persistently await another Messiah that could never exists or come. If we look hard or study the branches (of religions) and examine our innate self (the trunk of the tree) then perhaps we will discover a salient accurate, comprehensive, conviction of God whereby we be willing to give up our lives and bear witness of why we are here.
The study of religion is not an attempt to draw comparison neither a judgment of it as good or bad, false or true. It is not good or bad because all religion does not teach humankind to be bad or evil but to live a life united and serving each other with kindness and love. It is not false or true because religion is man seeking the inner self-believing that there is a God. Mankind somehow creates a being or god that somehow does not provide the truth but a mere philosophy or one's own teaching. What I want to do here is to view the differences, and find the real creator of this world. The world's religions broadly classify into two different groups i.e. the Western prophetic tradition and the Eastern Salvationist or mystical tradition. The Western tradition springs from a Semitic parentic group, which includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and all its offshoots. They are prophetic and emphasizes revelation of God to human, from outside human spiritual perspective. They are more "world-affirming" which accept goodness of the physical and seeking salvation or redemption as well aiming to transform the worldly sinfulness. The second groups are the Eastern tradition mostly emanated from the Indian parentic root, which includes Hinduism, Buddhism, and its offshoots. Emphasizing “mysticalism” where finding of God by human within the human spiritualism. They are more "world-denying" accepting anything-spiritual nature of reality and seeking release for the soul from the endless recycles of birth or reincarnation. All the world religion bifurcates from these two traditions. Not forgetting that we need to look at all the world religions in six dimensions:
1) Doctrine - it systems of belief to provide a total explanation of reality,
2) Myth - it does not mean fiction but stories of God, creation, salvation and events of historical significance,
3) Ethics - its values and codes of behavior,
4) Ritual - customary worship, festivals, rites and initiations,
5) Experience - individual experience of it - awe-inspiring, transcendent, self-belonging and commitment of something better than ourselves, and
6) Social - the institutional organization of how they practice religion. These are how we should approach in the study of the religions of the world.
Human being cannot replete the knowledge of God because man is mortal and neither can he (or she) claims to be god even in the sense of being mystical nor insolate himself from the world to the pursue knowing Him by means of being ascetical. Human being has the deep consciousness of knowing somehow, there is God from all their senses and this cause man to garner information to know the insights and construct a close approximation of God. Through the working of history, God makes room for man to find the answer of God. But we need to be cautious, circumspect and prudent in our search in religious knowledge because mankind is fallible, capable of making mistakes or misjudgments even though he or she is honest or ingenious in the search. Subsequently, God augments or assists man in his or her search in His favor because of two things. First, God always love His creation especially man because he was the image of Him. Second, despite man's imperfection, God always desires to have fellowship with man. Consequently, He makes known His being, if we are sincere in our quest of understanding Him, we will encounter Him. The quality of man’s knowledge of God is both rational and emotional; the rational approach is though man cannot know God unless we decide to garner information of what is available on this earth whilst emotional is through man own desires as explain by Edmond La B. Cherbonnier:
"Knowledge of such a God, like knowledge of any other person, would depend upon what he said and did. It would thus satisfy the requirement …. (that) it would be radically empirical, even experimental. For knowledge of a person's words and deeds is obtained, not by abstract deduction, but altogether a posteriori."
[6]What it is saying is that Knowledge of God in religions is a product of observation and intuition. They are facts (a posteriori) precede knowledge which are essential device in procuring mortal sift through the evidence to understand God. God is not an impersonal type of creator. He is an anthropomorphic having personality which is evident in action. Its pieces up together to clarify Himself which gives clues to mankind trusting our freedom to make the right choices of knowing Him. Once again, as Edmond La B. Cherbonnier explicated:
"Knowledge of persons, of course, can never be attained by the methods of science and philosophy alone. In fact, if the person chooses to "clam up," it can be attained by no method at all. It is always dependent upon his own initiative. And this is all that is meant by revelation; one free agent voluntarily discloses something of himself to another by his words and deeds; that is, through particular, historical events. To say that the Bible is the revelation of God is simply to say that it records the words and mighty acts by which He made Himself known to a particular people at times and places of His own choosing".
[7]Knowledge is important to man in search of the true God. All religions attest it own belief. How true it is, it is up to us to decide! There is a connection that exists between the information available in religious knowledge and how that information is used in practice. Both of these dichotomies can be combined to understand the nature of God and compels man to take action. Thus making knowledge means action and the needs of man to respond positively or negatively. When recognizing the purposes of God toward mankind in history then man must attempt to fulfill that purposes in one's own life. That is why it is important for one to study or have knowledge of what world religions are all about as we own our belief in one own faith.
The religion of the world has been with us since the beginning of this world. The creation of this world can only be explained through religion as religion is related to the global issues and cultural conflict of today's era. We see all types of religions in the lives of the people we know, love and even in ourselves as we live out or wrestle with our own faith as well with those around us. Religion is an influential and is a persistent phenomenon that greets us to understand better without sign of vaporizing into the mist air whether we are practitioners or observers. Neither one religion nor our own Christian faith can live in a socio-cultural in a religious vacuum. Religious vacuum in the sense that we believe in our own religion and isolating the rest of the world religions around us. The diversity of religions require us to develop and cultivate our own capacity to critically evaluate other religions, traditions, and worldviews so that we can participate or disseminate meaningful in a religious plural societies knowing what our religions stand for, when we are call to defend our faith in the areas of apologetics studies. As a Christian, knowing the belief of other religions somehow protect our own faith and not be backed into a corner when asked to discuss our beliefs and why we do not believe in our opponent's faith.
Allocating our time to pursue the study of world religions is a participant, is understanding of one another and ourselves as we examine each other behavior. It is a principal form of human culture to understand culture, politics, and social movements in view of human experience from the perspective of these religious life forms and worldviews in which indicates man endeavor, achievement, and even conflicts. Religious knowledge is also an understanding of the sensitivity to the needs, interests, and practices of others. The wrong conception of studying religions are that we tend to put aside our own beliefs, we extrapolate extra features of human experiences and existence in the views of other religions. We tend to think it makes us less religious when we mess up our faith with other faiths while it actually is strengthening our faith as we become informed of our own tradition as well as others. As I was mentioning “messing up” with religions, I mean we may speculate wildly which may lead to muddy thinking because some religions are mystical but if our faith in our own religion has a strong foundation, we have nothing to worry. Knowledge of world religion is impractical one may say. This is not the issue. On the other hand, it actually attests one’s skill in cross-cultural understanding and critical analysis for personal evangelism.
Knowledge of World Religions somehow offers believers something to hold onto in times of trouble or indecision especially when we are confronted with martyrdom. We know what our faith stands that we are willing to give up our life (John 20:24-29; 1 Peter 5:1; 2 Timothy 1:8). Knowledge of world religion encourage civilized, friendly behavior among one group of followers and another because we know another person better and aware of their like and dislike in a multicultural and international way of being that bursts the boundaries of the conventional and the everyday ways of living because other will know Christ through us (John 13:34-35; John 13:14-15). It builds our self-esteem, making possible the acquisition of competencies crucial for one's well-being in increasingly diverse world we are living in. Therefore it brings the whole corpus of understanding based upon the realization, recognition and acceptance of our part of the relationship between ourselves and our unseen Creator that all man needs to be loved no matter what religions he or she believes in or stands for as we have to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40; Luke 6:35).
TO BE CONTINUED….[1] Religious Tolerance.org, http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm, Copyright 1997 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
[2] Kile Jones is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. See: http://www.kilejones.com
[3] see http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm
[4] Dumbrell, William, Covenant and Creation, Paternoster Press, London – 1984, p15 - 16
[5] Hutchinson, John A. Paths of Faith. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981.
[6] Cherbonnier, "The Word of God" (in H. N. Wieman), p. 272, in the Cherbonnier subsite
[7] Cherbonnier, "Is There A Biblical Metaphysic?", p. 465, in the Cherbonnier subsite
