Folk Religions

FormalFormal, High, Universal Religion:

1. Universal cosmic truth

2. Describe the nature of reality

3. Concern for the purpose and destiny of the universe, society and the self

4. Institutionalized

5. Authoritative written texts

Formal

Formal, High, Universal Religion (cont):6. Defined theologies, and philosophies

7. Prescribed rites, rules and regulations

8. Trained, often professional, specialists

9. A celebrated great tradition

10.May take folk expression

Folk

Folk Religion:1. Religion of common people

2. Closed systems versus universal

3. Very diverse

4. Particularistic – each clan or tribe has its own gods, spirits, ancestors, practices, beliefs

5. An animated world of spirits

Folk

Folk Religion:1. Concern for the meaning of this life and the

problem of death2. The pursuit of well-being and success, and

the avoidance of misfortunes3. The pursuit of a knowledge of the unknown

to aid one’s life in the present4. Employ a wide variety of manipulative

strategies: shamans, rituals, amulets, charms, offerings, medicines, magic, etc.

Terms

Other terms:Primal

– Prior to the “universal” or formal religions– Contains the basic features found in all religions– Assumes an evolutionary account of the origin of

religion

Preliterate– No literary tradition– No suggestion of evolutionary development from

a previous or earlier religion

A Perspective…

Oglala Sioux Indian, John Lame Deer through biographer Richard Erdoes:

What do you see here, my friend? Just an ordinary old cooking pot, black with soot and full of dents. It is standing on the fire on top of that old word stove, and the water bubbles and moves the lid as the white steam rises to the ceiling. inside the pot is boiling water, chunks of meat with bone and fat, plenty of potatoes.

It doesn't seem to have a message, that old pot, and I guess you don't give it a thought... But I'm an Indian. I think about ordinary, common things like this pot. The bubbling water comes from the rain cloud. It represents the sky. The fire comes from the sun which warms us all - men, animals, trees. The meat stands for the four-legged creatures, our animal brothers, who gave of themselves so that we should live. The steam is living breath. It was water; now it goes up to the sky, becomes a cloud again.

These things are sacred. Looking at that pot full of good soup, I am thinking how, in this simple manner, Wakan Tanka takes care of me. We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things, which in our mind are mixed up with the spiritual... We Indians live in a world of symbols and images where the spiritual and the commonplace are one... We try to understand them not with the head but with the heart, and we need no more than a hint to give us the meaning.

Folk Religions

What characterizes the religion and worldview of John Lame Deer?

Definition

Folk religions are localized spiritual expressions of a pre-scientific and pre-technological milieu with a deep link with nature and oral tradition.

The religion of the common people.

The Formal and the Folk

• Folk Islam

• Chinese folk religions

• Japanese folk religions

• Christian folk religions

Characteristics

Localized

• Are smaller in scale and self-contained

• Tied to a particular geography

• Develop in close connection and dependence with particular land and/or water.

• “The land shapes the people.”

Characteristics

Holism• Unity of experience lacking the

fragmentation of modern cultures into secular and sacred. The sacred or spiritual is pervasive. 

• The whole of existence is sacred.• Interrelationships, cause/effect

between gods/spirits humans and nature.

Characteristics

Orality• No literary tradition, yet may have well

developed narrative tradition.• Common in pre-scientific and pre-

technological cultures.• Mythological

– Stories which attempt to express ultimate divine reality, basic truths, or inner meaning of life for believers.

• The power of words and sounds

Characteristics

Ritualistic– Rehearsals or performances of myths

such as the original creative act. Reenactments.

– Prescribed celebrations for great moments of life, such as birth, puberty, marriage, sickness, planting, war, and death – rites of passage

– Fertility rites

Characteristics

Shamanism

• The key spiritual figure is usually the shaman who is the tribal healer and who has traveled the "geography" of the spiritual realm and of death and has returned to guide the people. 

Characteristics

Timelessness

Time not thought of in terms of linear “distance” and inaccessibility.

A present backdrop in which the gods and ancestors simply are and are accessible by people and people accessible to them.

Characteristics

• Animism – the natural world is alive with spirits,

• Fetishism – protection is sought by the power of special objects,

• Taboos – prohibitions of certain behaviors for fear of dangerous contact with spiritual powers.

• Totemism - a tribal or personal association with an animal or plant as a source of identity and spiritual power.

What Happens?

What happens to primal religion when they encounter “universal religions?”

1. They die out2. Affirmed in some modified form3. Appropriated to the primal religion

[Filipinos] actively appropriated Western Catholicism according to their cultural-religious way of feeling, thinking and behaving.  What happened here is a local example of the truth of the dictum, “quidquid recipitur secundum modum recipientis recipitur” (“Whatever is perceived is perceived according to the mode of perception of the perceiver.”). In this way Christianity became part, no matter how unsystematically, of Filipino reality. Popular religiosity confirms in its own way the real acceptance of Christianity by the people. But there is today a continuing discussion as to whether Filipinos had been truly Christianized, or whatever Christianity had simply been Filipinized.

(José M. de Mesa, http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/eapr00/Mesa.htm)

• God has the characteristics of Bathala, the primal deity.• Saints are spirits that control nature.• Priests are regarded as shamans.

What Happens?

Folk religion and Christian mission

Roman Catholic– High religion and low religion

Protestant– Secularization

Evangelistic Approaches

• Establish relational bridge.– Credibility - cultural– Friendship– Respect

• Establish a conceptual bridge.– Build on existing ideas

• Bring the truth across.– Be biblical– Be aware of your own cultural framework for

understanding Christianity.

Evangelistic Approaches

Ask questions regarding the Supreme Being.

• What is the supreme God like?• Was there a time when He was close to

humanity?• What caused this separation?• Why does God seem distant now?• How do we offend Him?

Evangelistic Approaches

Ask questions regarding the Supreme Being

– What are the consequences of offending him?

– Is there any way we can divert these?

Worldview Assessment

Contrasting elements– Primal religions have a multiple gods.– Christianity has only one God.– Primal religions believe that gods and

humans belong to one cosmic system, depending on each other.

– Christianity believes that God is unique and not dependent upon anything.

Worldview Assessment

Primal religions believe in efficacy through sacrifice and ritual.

– In Christianity…• God does not depend on our sacrifices

because He provided for us the “once and for all” sacrifice of his Son.

• He is not moved or manipulated by charms and rituals.

• God’s power is not localized in any fetish object nor does he identify himself or peoples with special totemic symbols.

Worldview Assessment

– Primal religions believe in mixing religion and magic.

– Christianity views magic as incompatible with belief in the one true God.

– Primal religions have no revelation through history.

– Christianity is historical in that it points to important events in which God has acted in history.

Evangelistic Approaches

Teach the Bible storyline– A sovereign transcendent Personal God exists

and created the heavens and the earth.– Man was created in some ways like God, the

creation centerpiece and therefore having intrinsic worth.

– Man rebelled against God and corruption and perversion are the result.

– God has taken the initiative to save humanity through his Son.

– History is nearing God’s appointed conclusion