The Institutionalization of Religion

Religion and Culture ANTH 2301 The Institutionalization of Religion Shamanism is categorised under animism, a worldview in which everything has a spiritual component, including objects found in nature like trees and rocks. Initially, anthropologists understood animism as a primitive step towards more complex religions. It was sometimes associated with the idea of dual souls—a day soul and a night soul, the latter of which can wander in dreams—and sometimes with anonymous and disembodied spirits thought to be associated with living and nonliving things. Considered the first academic anthropologist, British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor recognised animism as a proto-religion, the evolutionary ancestor of all faiths, in his work Primitive Culture (1871). Religion reflected many of the changes in population density and the increasingly sophisticated forms of social organisation that arose in cultures. The establishment of state societies led to the institutionalisation of religion. With the rise of metropolitan areas and higher population densities, religion became more bureaucratic and served as a state religion. State religions are official establishments with full-time administrators (priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, for example), a predetermined set of rules and doctrines, and an expansion strategy that seeks out new adherents through conversion. State religions maintained aspects of their former forms, but they were now organised as hierarchical organisations with several levels of functionaries with varying specialisations. Not only was religion performed, but it was now managed. Like hiring mercenaries to work as paid soldiers in a state army, bureaucratic religions provide paid jobs that might not even need members to adhere to the belief system. The pantheons of ancient Greece and Egypt are instances of early state religions. These days, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity are the most prevalent state religions. Tribal and state religions are frequently led by full-time religious leaders who oversee higher levels within the religious bureaucracy, as opposed to part-time shamans. As religion became more institutionalised, it produced codified doctrines—sets of precise, typically inflexible beliefs or principles—that would be put into effect by formalising a legal code. Furthermore, state religions are often characterised by conversion rather than birthright, in contrast to previous religious systems. State religions are influential organisations in society because they aggressively attract new members via the practice of proselytization. They create shared value systems and unite disparate groups of people. The relationships between political states and state religions often take two forms. In certain cases, like modern-day Iran, the political system is headed by religious leaders and the religious institution is one. There is a clear division between religion and state in other civilizations. Nation-states have addressed the divide in diverse ways. A state religion—or several—may be recognised as the official religion in some governments by the political administration. In certain of these situations, the religious organisation will be involved in local to national political decision-making. Religious organisations will get subsidies and other benefits from state governments in other state societies where religion and state are kept apart. This might involve special access to resources and exemptions from taxes or the military. This latter setup is observed in the United States, where organisations like the IRS and the Department of Defence maintain lists of officially recognised faiths that are free from taxes and have political standing. There are various differences in how the state and religion interact among the 200 or so independent nation-states in the globe. These include countries that practise political religions, in which the state or its leaders are revered as sacred or divine. Juche, meaning independence and self-reliance, is the official policy followed by the people of North Korea today. Extremely nationalist in nature, the programme has religious connotations, involving unwavering loyalty to the North Korean state and veneration and deference to Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader. Juche, an extreme kind of nationalism, serves as a political religion in which the ruler and government are revered as gods. In North Korea, the political structure is the religion that is practiced, as opposed to a theocracy where the religious structure holds political authority. The state's connections with religious institutions have always been very complicated, with constantly shifting power dynamics. Christian fundamentalism is becoming more and more political in today's American culture. Religion has had a political role in practically every nation-state since it became bureaucratized. Religious institutions have several roles in state societies. They can be charitable organisations that provide for the fundamental needs of many citizens, educational institutions that provide both mainstream and alternative pedagogies, or community organisations that aid in organising people for certain causes. While atheism has been officially declared the official policy of a few regimes throughout history, including North Korea, China, Cuba, Cambodia, and the former Soviet Union, religion has never completely vanished in any of these states. In state cultures, however, different religious communities may experience different degrees of oppression. Ten million or more Uighurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic minority living in northwest China. The Uighurs have experienced increasing degrees of persecution, including prejudice in public services, after Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2017 decree that all faiths in China should be Chinese in orientation. Recent allegations against this ethnic group by the Chinese government include mass sterilisations and genocide (see BBC News 2021). Religion tends to fragment into smaller units practiced at a local or even household level under times of state tyranny.