Neusner - Introduction to World Religions: Communities and Cultures

INTRODUCTION TO

WORLD RELIGIONS

INTRODUCTION TO

WORLD RELIGIONS

COMMUNITIES AND CULTURES

EDITED BY

JACOB NEUSNER

ABINGDON PRESS

Nashville

INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGIONS

COMMUNITIES AND CULTURES

Copyright 2010 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Introduction to world religions : communities and cultures / edited by Jacob Neusner.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-687-66000-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Religions. I. Neusner, Jacob, 1932

BL80.3.I59 2010

200dc22

2009053600

All scripture quotations, unless noted otherwise, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are taken from The New English Bible. The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture quotations marked TANAKH are taken from TANAKH: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society. Used by permission.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

INTRODUCTION

A "HUMANLY RELEVANT" COSMOS: WHAT WE STUDY WHEN WE STUDY RELIGION

William Scott Green

R eligion is a powerful force in contemporary life. It both unites nations and divides peoples. It both teaches charity and generates suspicion. It both offers solace and causes anxiety. It provides hope and inspires fear. It promotes human rights and preserves social inequity. It advances social justice and obstructs social mobility. It calls for peace and causes war. It preaches love and breeds intolerance. Americans in particular think religion is a significant part of human experience. Because religion is so consequential, it also is controversial. Some see it as a destructive delusion, We study religion to make sense of all this to understand what religions advocate, what religious people do, why they do it, and why it matters. In doing so, we use disciplined investigation to find the rationalityor irrationalityin what religions teach and how their adherents behave. We will look at these issues in the rest of this introduction.

Why Religion Matters

Religion matters for two reasons. First, globally, religion is an increasingly important part of contemporary life. Second, religion is a basic element in American politics, society, and culture. Let us take these up in turn.

Contemporary research shows that in the past thirty or forty years, religion has grown significantly in the world's cultures. Consider the following data:

• "The world's largest religions have expanded at a rate that exceeds that of global population growth."
• "A greater proportion of the world's population adhered to each of" the religious systems of Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, and Hinduism "in 2000 than in 1900."
• "The overwhelming preponderance of this growth occurred between... 1970 and 2000."
• More people in the world hold "traditional religious beliefs" than ever before.
• "Today religion is the most common source of civil wars currently raging.... Since 2000, fully 47 percent of civil wars have been religious."
• "Religious ideology is the leading motivator for most translational terrorist attacks, particularly but not exclusively those committed by al Qaeda."
• Religion's influence appears to increase with democracy and democratization.
• "Far from stamping out religion, modernization has spawned a new generation of say, organizationally sophisticated, and technologically adept religious movements."
• The new religious movements are "politically capable."

These data show the expanding influence of religion in the world's population and emphasize its impact on world politics. The correlation of religion's growth with the "economic and political modernization" of the past three or four decades suggests that religion will be significant in global life well into the future.

Why We Care about Religion

Even if religion were less important than it is in the contemporary world, it still would matter to Americans because the U.S. Constitution, in the First Amendment, mandates and privileges the category of religion. Indeed, religion may be the only field in the humanities whose subject matter is explicitly named and governed by the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It assumes that religion and government are different and distinct, and it sets religion apart as a particular kind or sphere of experience. In so doing, the First Amendment makes religion into a fundamental component of American life. Indeed, religion is so familiar in American discourse that it can be called a native category for Americans. It is something we inherit as an assumed part of our national and personal lives. This does not mean that all Americans practice religion, but rather that religion is a culturally legitimate marker both of Americans' individual and national identities. Americans routinely define themselves in terms of being either religious or not religious. Because of the First Amendment, in America religion isand historically has beena matter of choice and therefore of fundamental freedom. American culture assumes that religion exists and that it matters enough to be protected from government imposition and government interference. The freedom of religion as expressed in the First Amendment shapes a distinctive context for the practice of religion, and this is one primary reason American colleges and universities teach and study religion as they do.

To say that religion is an American native category means that it is not a global one. Other nations, societies, or cultures do not necessarily have the term