Key Critical Issues

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.

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