Introducing Religion

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Introducing Religion

• Linda Woodhead
• Lancaster University

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Introducing religion

• Defining religion
• Classifying religion
• Religion across the world today
• UK
• Europe
• World

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Definitions of Religion (1)

• beliefs, actions and institutions that assume
  the existence of supernatural entities with
  powers of action, or impersonal powers or
  processes possessed of moral purpose
• Steve Bruce God is Dead, Secularization in the
  West (2002)

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Definitions of Religion (2)

• religion is a unified system of beliefs and
  practices relative to sacred things, that is to
  say, things set apart and forbidden--beliefs and
  practices which unite into one single moral
  community called a Church all those who adhere to
  them...
• Emile Durkheim The Elementary Forms of Religious
  Life (1912)

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Definitions of Religion (3)

• (1) a system of symbols (2) which acts to
  establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting
  moods and motivations in men (3) by formulating
  conceptions of a general order of existence and
  (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura
  of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations
  seem uniquely realistic.
• Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System
  (1965)

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Definitions of Religion (4)

• The attempt to effect certain ends either in
  this world or in other worlds by means wholly or
  partially supernatural
• Robert Currie et al., Churches and Churchgoers
  Patterns of Church Growth in the British Isles
  Since 1700 (1977)

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A working definition

• Religion offers people access to a power to
  which they would not otherwise have access, and
  which helps them to do things they would not
  otherwise be able to do (sacred power).

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Religion and Spirituality

• Sacred power can be conceived as EXTERNAL or
  INTERNAL
• The former is characteristic of RELIGION
• The latter of SPIRITUALITY

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Introducing religion

• Defining religion
• Classifying religion
• Religion across the world today
• UK
• Europe
• World

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Classifying Religion

• Traditions
• Types

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• Religion across the world today
• UK
• Europe
• World

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England Wales census 2001
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2001 censuses religion

• People in Northern Ireland were most likely to
  say that they identified with a religion (86)
• compared with those in England and Wales (77)
• and Scotland (67).

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Religion and Ethnicity 2001 census (England and
Wales)
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• The important difference between adherence and
  attendance
• In England, 72 Christian adherence but 8
  church attendance
• Complexity of estimating other religions.

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Religious proportions of world populations,
1900-2050
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Further Reading

• Malory Nye Religion The Basics (2003)
• Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead The Spiritual
  Revolution Why Religion is Giving way to
  Spirituality (2005)
• Will Braun and Russell McCutcheon Guide to the
  Study of Religion (1999)