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Religion is a social institution that plays a significant role in shaping cultural beliefs, moral values, and social cohesion. It provides a framework for understanding the mysteries of life, including birth, death, and human purpose. While religious beliefs and practices vary widely, all religions serve to offer meaning, community, and guidance. Religions based on the belief in a single deity are monotheistic. Those that encompass many deities are polytheistic.
Uniting Traditions
Religious traditions help reinforce a shared identity among believers. Through rituals, ceremonies, and communal worship, religion strengthens bonds within families and across larger religious communities. These traditions also serve as a way to pass down cultural and moral values to future generations. When families attend religious services or put up decorations in honor of a holiday, they are teaching their children about their religion and how to observe it. By engaging in these activities and traditions, children are united with others of the same religion around the world. In this way, families teach their own culture as well as the culture of the society at large.
Major World Religions
Throughout history, different religious traditions have emerged across cultures. While there are countless religious groups worldwide, a few major religions have the largest followings and the greatest global influence.
Christianity: The most widespread world religion, Christianity derived from Judaism. It is based on the belief that Jesus Christ was the son of God and the redeemer of mankind. There are many different Christian denominations.
Islam: Followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslims believe that the true word of God was revealed to the prophet Muhammad around 570 CE. God in Islam is the same god as the Christian and Judaic deity.
Judaism: Judaism is a monotheistic religion that predates Christianity, built on the belief that they are the “chosen people” of God.
Hinduism: Hinduism is the oldest major world religion, dominant in India. Hindus do not worship a single person or deity but rather are guided by a set of ancient cultural beliefs. They believe in the principle of karma, which is the wisdom or health of one’s eternal soul. Karma can be strengthened with good acts and harmed by bad acts. Hindus believe that karma plays a role in reincarnation, a cycle of continuous rebirth through which, ideally, the soul can achieve spiritual perfection. The state of a person’s karma determines in what form he or she will be reborn.
Buddhism: Buddhists, most of whom live in Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma, follow the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher of the sixth-century BCE. Buddhism, like Hinduism, does not feature any single all-powerful deity but teaches that by eschewing materialism, one can transcend the “illusion” of life and achieve enlightenment.
Types of Religious Groups
Religious organizations vary in their relationship to society, ranging from widely accepted institutions to more isolated or unconventional groups. Sociologists group religious organizations into three categories: church, sect, and cult, each defined by its level of integration with the broader society.
A church is a religious group integrated with society.
Example: The Roman Catholic Church is well integrated in the society in Spain.
A sect is a religious group that sets itself apart from society as a whole.
Example: The Amish of Pennsylvania are a classic sect. Though Christian, they choose to set themselves apart from the rest of society by their lifestyle, which eschews many aspects of modernity.
A cult is a religious group that is outside standard cultural norms, typically centered around a charismatic leader.
Example: The People’s Temple, a cult that emerged in the late 1970s, was led by a man named Jim Jones. Jones started his cult in San Francisco, then convinced several hundred followers to move with him to Jonestown, Guyana. He claimed to be a god and insisted on strict loyalty. In 1978, he and 913 of his followers committed mass suicide.
Religion in the United States
In the United States, the degree to which people are religious is related to their social class, race, and ethnicity. The most affluent people in the United States tend to be Protestant, although Jews also enjoy a higher-than-average standard of living. Northern Europe, which is mostly Protestant, was the area of origin for most of the early settlers in America, so people of Northern European descent tend to come from the most established families and encounter the least amount of prejudice. People who emigrated from predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Southern and Eastern Europe and, later, Latin America encountered more prejudice and tended to be less affluent than the Protestants. However, there is wide variation among the groups.
African-American churches have blended the traditions of Christianity and the African faiths of the slaves brought to America. These churches have played a major role in promoting civil rights for Black people.
The Rise of Fundamentalism
Religious beliefs and practices are not static; they evolve in response to cultural and social changes. In some cases, religious movements become more rigid in response to modern influences, leading to the rise of fundamentalism. This trend, seen across various religions, reflects a desire to preserve traditional beliefs in the face of an increasingly secular and globalized world.
Fundamentalism is a strict, literal adherence to religious doctrine accompanied by a rejection of intellectualism and worldliness. All religions can experience a rise in fundamentalism. Among Southern Baptists, for example, fundamentalism has been on the rise. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan adhered to fundamentalist Muslim doctrine.
