Key Critical Issues
The research-based approach to the study of religions, though valuable, brings problems and
questions. Are we genuinely listening to the voices of the practitioners, or are we only paying
attention to the experiences of the observer? Can an outsider be truly objective, or is the outsider
merely imposing the theories of other cultures? Doesn’t scientific observation contaminate the
people and culture being observed? Could informants give deliberately false answers to
questions that they think are inappropriate? (They do.)
Conflict in Religion: Religious Blends
A book like this has to treat religions as somewhat separate. While there is truth to that
separateness, it is also true that religions are constantly borrowing from each other. One example
that we know of occurs in the Catholic practice of Mexico. Our Lady of Guadalupe is not only
one form of the Virgin Mary; she is also a continuation of the pre-Christian deity Tonantzin, who
was once worshiped at the modern-day site of the main church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Other
native beliefs and practices continue in the Christianity of South America; for example, the
veneration of earlier nature deities has influenced the current veneration of saints. In Zen
Buddhism, there is influence from Daoism and Confucianism; the Daoist love of nature appears
in Zen flower arrangement and garden design, and the Confucian respect for a teacher appears in
the obedience given to a Zen master. The Shiite Islam of Iraq contains practices that can be
traced back to Zoroastrianism. In recent times, Scientology seems to have elements very similar
to those found in Hinduism and Buddhism, and the Vietnamese religion of Cao Dai unites beliefs
of Asian religions with elements of Christianity and spiritism. As we study the religions of the
world, we must remember this tendency to borrow and blend, which enriches them all.
Whatever their religion, people tend to turn to it with hope. Here a supplicant in Romania crawls
under an icon to secure greater attention from the Virgin Mary, who is portrayed.
© Thomas Hilgers
Moral questions also arise. Does the research arise from respect for a different culture and
religion, or is it just a more modern form of domination and colonialism? And doesn’t research
introduce new ideas and new objects, such as cell phones, cameras, and different clothing? Don’t
these objects alter cultures that have been unchanged for centuries?
In addition, research has revealed to investigators the enormous variety within major religions.
Because some major religions have blended with earlier religions to produce unique hybrids, can
we really speak of single great religions, such as “Buddhism” or “Christianity”? Do they really
exist, or are they just useful fictions?
Some scholars also have pointed out that the religious experience of women within a religious
tradition may be quite different from that of men. In Islam, for example, women’s religious
experience may be centered primarily in the home, while men’s may be centered more on the
mosque. And the religious experience will be quite different for a child, a teenager, or an adult.
In addition, the varying meaning of being a Buddhist or a Christian or a Hindu will depend
considerably on the culture and the period. Think, for example, of the difference of being a
Christian in first-century Rome and twenty-first-century North America, or of being a Hindu in
medieval India and modern-day New York City.
Although this book obviously has not abandoned the category of religions, it tries to show that
religions are not separate and unchanging. It sees world religions as grand patterns, but it
recognizes that we are true to these religions only when we see the great diversity within them.
Why Study the Major Religions of the World?
Because religions are so wide-ranging and influential, their study helps round out a person’s
education, as well as enriches one’s experience of many other related subjects. Let’s now
consider some additional pleasures and rewards of studying religions.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion
gives man wisdom which is control.