The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion

John Hinnells

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135252854
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion is a major resource for courses in Religious Studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues, such as gender, science, fundamentalism, ritual, and new religious movements. Written by renowned international specialists, this new edition:

• includes eight new chapters, including post-structuralism, religion and economics, religion and the environment, religion and popular culture, and sacred space
• surveys the history of religious studies and the key disciplinary approaches
• explains why the study of religion is relevant in today's world
• highlights contemporary issues such as globalization, diaspora and politics
• includes annotated reading lists, a glossary and summaries of key points to assist student learning.

Chapter 1
Why study religions?

John R. Hinnells

Introduction

Are the study of theology and religious studies only for religious people? If you are religious, should you not get on and practise your religion rather than study it? If you are studying religions, should you not get on with that – studying them – rather than discussing abstract theories and debates on methods? The answer to each of these questions is ‘no’. Obviously many people do wish to study religion if they are religious, because they want to know more about their own religion, or be able to see their religion in the context of others. Some people find studying religion helps to develop their own spiritual journey, be they Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Zoroastrian or whatever. Students in most fields object to starting a subject by lectures on theory and method. But it is necessary to be aware of the different disciplinary perspectives used, and to be alert to some of the key issues that affect basic presuppositions.

But why study religions if you are not religious and/or do not want to become religious? As a professor of the comparative study of religion, the first question I am commonly asked when meeting people is – ‘which religion do you belong to?’ Those who know me to be an atheist, often ask why I spend most of my life studying something I believe to be wrong? Indeed one might go further. I incline to the view that religions are dangerous because more people have been tortured and killed for religious reasons than for any other motive. Persecution, the torture and killing of heretics and people of other religions have been major themes running through much of world history. At a personal level a religion can be helpful, supportive and even joyous for many people. But equally many are tortured by feelings of guilt or shame because they cannot live according to the ideals of their religion, or cannot in conscience accept doctrines they are expected to hold.

Of course one does not have to agree with something in order to study it. Students of the Holocaust do not have to agree with Hitler and his followers. One can learn something about history, about oneself, from studying even evil forces. But why have whole departments of theology and religious studies? Why have such financial and human resources been invested in the subject if it is harmful or marginal, and for which one has no attachment? Increasingly sociology, psychology, history, philosophy departments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have moved religious studies towards the margins of their subject. One does not have to be ill to become a doctor but one does have to want to care for and aid the sick to be a doctor – why study religions if one does not wish to encourage people to be religious? Some universities have it in their constitution that they shall not teach or research religion – University College London and Liverpool are two examples in Britain.

Despite my own non-religious position, however, I want to argue that the study of religions is vital and not only for ‘the Hitler principle’ that one should never ignore forces for destruction (nor is it because religions have sometimes been forces for good), but because of the massive power that religions have wielded, something that no one can deny. I question whether one can understand any culture and history – political or social – without understanding the relevant religions. This is true not only of ‘the Holy Roman Empire’ or the Islamic conquest of Iran, i.e. in past history; it is true in the twenty-first century as well. Although the situation in Northern Ireland is complex it cannot be denied that there are strong religious motives involved in the conflict there; there is sectarian hatred. Christian Serbians were killing Muslims in the former Yugoslavia; Muslims in many countries believe that the West is anti-Muslim and many fear that if there is another World War it will be between Islam and the Christian world.

Originally my intention had been to write a standard survey of academic arguments for and against such studies. Obviously one only writes an Introduction to a book when all the material is in. Having read all the chapters it is clear that there are several scholarly and well-written articles in this book surveying the field. So I concluded that this should be a personal piece based on forty years of university teaching, also to make explicit my motive in producing the book and why it is structured with certain emphases. It means that most examples will be taken from my specialist field – the Parsis and their religion Zoroastrianism. There is no single argument for why and how one studies religions. Many readers will reject my arguments completely and that is perfectly reasonable; maybe where this book is used for a course an early seminar discussion on the subject may be ‘why study religions?’ The basic question to be addressed is: why should an atheist want to study religions? First, it is necessary at the start of a book of this nature to discuss what one means by the term ‘religion’.

Defining religion

There have been endless discussions of the definition of ‘religion’. Indeed recently some scholars have argued for avoiding the word ‘religion’ as meaningless and have argued instead for the term ‘culture’. This introduction is not a place for extensive debate, but rather as a place for explaining where I am ‘coming from’ as editor of this book, but it would be a mistake not to indicate my position on this primary issue of saying what is meant by the word ‘religion’. In my opinion there is no such thing as ‘religion’, there are only the religions, i.e. those people who identify themselves as members of a religious group, Christians, Muslims, etc. An act or thought is religious when the person concerned thinks they are practising their ‘religion’. Organizations are religious when the people involved think they are functioning religiously. In some societies in East Asia a person may have, say, a Christian initiation, a Buddhist wedding and a Chinese funeral; in my understanding, at the moment they are acting, say, in a Christian way, then at that moment they are a Christian. Of course the boundaries of those groups are fluid – so some people who claim to be, say, Muslims are not accepted by the majority of that religion as being ‘true’ Muslims. My general position in discussing religions is that people are what they believe they are. I am cautious about replacing ‘religion’ with ‘culture’ (Fitzgerald 2000, see also McCutcheon 2001) partly because that simply moves the debate on to the question of what is meant by ‘culture’. But many others see culture as something that includes religion, but that also has much wider connotations. The Parsis, for example, have what they see as their culture in addition to their religion. The equivalent term is Parsi panu (Parsi-ness), and it includes non-religious dress (e.g. the Parsi style of a sari in contrast to the religious garments, the sacred shirt and cord, sudre and kusti), drama (nataks – in Gujarati, rather bawdy but huge fun – and never on religious themes) and their own highly distinctive way of cooking dhansak. All these are Parsi favourites, common not only in the old country but also in the diaspora. They would interpret such items as parts of Parsi culture but not part of their Zoroastrian religion. Parsis who say they are not Zoroastrians (either because they are not religious or if they have converted to, say, Christianity) are still likely to enjoy Parsi panu. Some of my colleagues disagree with the use of the phrase ‘the religious dimension’ of a situation or event. I do not wish to imply that there is any ‘thing’ out there that is religious. But events, like people, are complex, and can have both religious and secular dimensions; having one does not exclude the other. An act is a religious act when the person involved believes it to be associated with their religion. A religious thought is a thought which the thinker thinks is Zoroastrian (Christian, etc.). Of course I recognize that the situation is far from clear-cut. What of ‘cultures’ that have no word for ‘religion’, as in Sanskrit, and where the term for a religion is anachronistic, for example the term ‘Hinduism’, which is a modern West-imposed label for a plethora of different groups, beliefs and practices across a large continent with some purely local phenomena. ‘Hinduism’ exists in the diaspora communities because of compliance with use of Western categories, e.g. to obtain charitable status. Ninian Smart’s use of the term ‘world views’ has some merits, but prioritizes the belief aspect of religion that is inappropriate elsewhere, e.g. Parsis for whom ‘religion’ is to do with individual identity; it is something in the blood or genes, to do with community boundaries and associated practices but with little or no reference to beliefs. In the case of Zoroastrianism, ‘religion’ is appropriate since there is a term (den) that it is reasonable to translate as ‘religion’. All ‘labels’ have limitations and these must be accepted, so ‘religion’ is a useful but potentially misleading term.

Religions and politics

The former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once argued strongly that religion was a private matter of belief (therefore bishops should not get involved in political debates as they were doing). But I believe that in this assertion she was completely wrong. Religions and religious leaders have rarely been outside politics, be they Jesus, Muhammad or Gandhi. Christianity was a driving force in Spanish, Portuguese and British empire-building. With the first two there was a powerful urge for converts as well as fortunes. The British came to stress ‘the white man’s burden’ of ‘civilizing the natives’ (though fortunes and converts were also welcome!).

Partition in South Asia in 1947 sought to create separate Muslim and Hindu nations. These countries have been to war, or on the brink of it, many times in the following decades (though, now that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan, the religious divisions no longer follow the original policy). The showing and sales of videos of the two Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata stoked (probably unwittingly) the fires of Indian nationalism, and the radical BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) party came to power. A touchstone was the Hindu claim to the site of the mosque at Ayodhya, which they claimed was built over an important Hindu temple (Van der Veer). Many looked on in horror at the Hindu attacks on Muslims, the mob violence and the torching of Muslim homes in Bombay and Gujarat by Hindu militants in the early 1990s. The sorry tale of religious violence extends over all continents.

In the contemporary world the various religions seem to be even more prominent: the Israeli conviction that the land of Israel is God’s gift to them has led to attempts to eject or impose themselves over the Palestinians (who respond with suicide missions). The reason why it is thought American governments ignore Israel’s breaking of UN resolutions is due to the powerful Jewish lobby in the US; rightly or wrongly many Muslims believe it be an anti-Islam stance. The Shah was overthrown in 1979 for various reasons, but a major factor was the popular uprising led by Ayatollah Khomeini on the grounds that American influence had become more important to the government than Islam. It is difficult to believe that the invasion of Iraq in 2003/4 is legitimately explained simply by the terrible massacre of thousands in the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11. It is not only that there is little evidence of Iraqi government involvement in al Qaeda activity; it is highly unlikely because Saddam Hussein was not a particular ally of a movement that opposed his secularizing tendencies. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, both of whom have made public their Christian religious position, sought ‘regime change’ through invasion or ‘a crusade’ as Bush called it. For Muslims in many countries this was seen as a Christian assault on Islam and the consequences will almost certainly be with us for many years and may well have brought al Qaeda’s ideology into Iraq and provoked more militant Muslims in many countries. Many fear it might bring nearer a war between the Christian ‘West’ and Islam. Terrorist activity in America, England, India and Spain, for example, has increased since 9/11 and increases the concern about such a war, and the invasion of Afghanistan raises wider concerns prompting some Muslims to see this as a further Christian–Western invasion of Muslim countries.

Some writers suggest such acts are not the outcome of ‘real’ or ‘true’ Christianity/Islam, etc., rather they suggest this is people using a religion to justify their violence; it is not, they say, that religion is the cause of the problems. Even the fighting in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants is often put down to other causes. Doubtless there are a variety of factors in most conflicts, but religions are often potent factors in the explosions of violence. Of course religions can also be at the forefront of movements for peace and justice; for example Gandhi’s non-violent campaign; Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa; the Reverend Martin Luther King with his dream in America; and the bishops’ stand taken against the corrupt dictators in South America with ‘Liberation theology’. How can anyone doubt the importance of studying religions when they are such potent forces?

Religion and culture

Is it possible to understand another culture without looking at the appropriate religion practised there, be that in ancient Egypt or modern America? (It should be noted that the term ‘culture’ is a contested one, see Masuzawa in Taylor 1998:70–93.) It is often difficult to say which came first, the religion or the values and ideals – but basically it does not matter; they are now part of an intricate network. In pre-modern times most artwork was produced for use in the relevant religion. How can one study the art without understanding its use and context? Whether the student/teacher/writer is religious or not, one cannot – should not – fail to study the religion of the culture. A study of the history of Gothic churches or of artefacts from primal societies in North America or Africa or the Pacific without setting them in their religious context is inevitably going to fail to understand their importance and ‘meaning’. The artist may or may not have been inspired by the religion of his region but it is important to know something of the culture in which the object was produced and used, and religions are commonly an important part of that culture.

In the contemporary world, interaction with other cultures is inevitable, with trade, in the news, when travelling or just watching television; meeting a different cultural tradition is inevitable for most people. To understand a religion, it is essential to have an awareness of the different sets of values and ideals, customs and ethical values. Even if the people one meets from the ‘other’ culture are not religious, nevertheless their principles, values and ideals will commonly have been formed by the religion of their culture. Although an atheist, I have no doubt that my value system has been formed by Christianity, specifically Anglican Christianity. My attitudes to gender relations, prioritizing one set of values over another, what I consider to be ‘good and bad’, have all been affected by my general background of which Christianity was a major part.

Racial and religious prejudices are major issues in the contemporary world. They are often interwoven so it is not clear whether someone is discriminated against for being, say, from Pakistan or because of prejudice against Islam, and either can be the excuse for violence. In the 1980s and 1990s I undertook a survey questionnaire among Zoroastrians in America, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, East Africa and Pakistan, and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Zoroastrians in France and Germany. Many respondents believed that they had faced prejudice, especially in Canada, but there they said they had faced it mainly in obtaining a first job. Once you had shown that you were good at your work, they said, you were accepted. In America one-third of my respondents said that they had experienced discrimination, but what they feared even more was the threat of the ‘melting pot’ eroding their identity. Some scholars describe the ‘melting pot’ as a myth, and there have been different terms used, e.g. a ‘salad bowl’ of cultures. American respondents and informants thought that the ‘melting pot’ was a threatening reality. The countries in which most people said that they frequently faced discrimination were Germany and Britain – especially in schooling (Hinnells 2005). One major motive for me in pursuing the comparative study of religions (usually abbreviated, conveniently if unfortunately, to comparative religion) is to encourage knowledge and understanding between religions and cultures, based on the assumption that prejudice will be overcome if each knows more about the other. The media and many sections of society have stereotypical images of ‘the other’. I hope that knowledge will result in understanding, and thereby better relations between peoples. Above all my ‘quest’ as a teacher is to enable students to ‘see through the spectacles’ of another culture. I do not believe that there is a block of knowledge that has to be conveyed. If someone can develop an empathetic understanding of one other culture, the result will be that they are more ready to empathize with other cultures as well. But am I wrong? Is it necessarily the case that the more you know about the other religion, the more you will think positively about people from that religion? Some might be alienated from it. Would people respect Hitler more if they knew more about him? Maybe my motives are ‘woolly liberalism’. If I thought that, then I would feel I had wasted much of my academic life.

Some common presuppositions

Writers have a tendency to think that ‘real’ Islam is found in the Middle East and in Arabic texts; or ‘real’ Hinduism is found in S...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Why study religions?
• 2 The study of religion in historical perspective
• 3 The study of religions: the last 50 years
• 4 Religious history
• PART 1 Key approaches to the study of religions
• PART 2 Key topics in the study of religions
• PART 3 Religions in the modern world
• Glossary