The Study of Religion

Religion (or religiosity) is a set of beliefs and practices that focuses on the worship of God. Religion may also refer to a system of values, ethics, and social organization. The study of religion encompasses a wide range of traditions and approaches, including anthropological, phenomenological, psychological, sociological, and historical. Some scholars take a more functional approach, believing that religion is anything that provides a cohesive framework for people to organize their lives. Others believe that it is a specific type of social institution that promotes community solidarity and moral order, while still others see it as a phenomenon in the human brain that can take many forms.

The study of religion entails many different perspectives and methodologies, from anthropological fieldwork to ethnographic and qualitative research methods to history and textual analysis. Despite this diversity, some themes recur across the various approaches. For example, all these methodologies attempt to understand how religion functions within a society, or, more specifically, how it can be said to function in any culture.

It has long been a goal of anthropologists to study the origin and development of religions as well as to make comparisons between different religious systems. This is done with the goal of advancing an understanding of human nature and the causes and effects of cultural change.

One of the earliest attempts to develop a theory of religion was made by James Frazer (1854-1941), in his major work, The Golden Bough. Frazer’s thesis was that early humans began with magic, then moved to religion, and finally evolved to science. Using evidence from the world’s earliest civilizations, he claimed that early human rituals were intended to appease supernatural powers who had to be propitiated in order to survive.

Sociological functionalists have defined religion as a particular kind of axiological concern that generates solidarity among members of a group. This definition has been criticized for treating religion as universal, and some critics have shifted the concept from a set of defining properties to something more flexible. This is known as a polythetic approach.

This newer definition is anchored to the idea that religion is a complex, and that the notion of religion can be usefully described as a constellation, an assemblage, or a network that contains a set of interrelated components.

These more flexible or polythetic definitions of religion have the potential to produce valuable insights into the way in which this concept operates. However, there are disadvantages to polythetic definitions, and a more rigorous approach that is less open to subjective interpretation might be preferable for some purposes. For example, an anchored definition might require that there be three of the defining characteristics for a system to be deemed “religious”. Such a definition would provide a clearer line between religion and nonreligion and it might articulate gradations between types of religions that are more or less prototypically religious.