The first question which arises is how do we distinguish "religious" folks from "non-religious" folks? I would do so in the following fashion:
-- non-religious folks claim "what you
see is what you get" or, in other words, that reality is
encompassed by the
world of human experience (the physical universe, time and history
from "the big
bang" until the end of the universe, our lives from birth to death, etc.). Life
finds its meaning
within life. See, for instance, the claims of The Secular Humanist
Declaration.
-- religious folks claim that the above
reality is not all there is but that there is another order
of reality (let us call
it "the Sacred"). This Sacred reality is of an order totally different from
the ordinary reality of
experience and is, therefore, ultimately inexpressible and unknowable.
-- religious folks claim
further that, despite its inexpressibility, this reality is accessible to human
experience. Human
communities can, somehow, "link up" with Sacred reality. The "how" of
this link is the
business of religious traditions. It can vary from the self-revelation of God (in
the Christian, Islamic
and Jewish traditions) to the results of meditative experience in
Buddhism. The point is
that Sacred reality is both "totally other" than ordinary reality and
is accessible to human
experience.
Joachim Wach defines religious experience as "the total response of the total being to Ultimate Reality." Another way of expressing this is to say that religious experience involves all dimensions of human experience (the social, political, economic, psychological, etc.) in response to the encounter with the Sacred. This experience is not self contained but is always expressed. Religious folks don't only experience the Sacred, they also do something as a result of this experience. I would summarize Wach's discussion (with my own emendations) of the expressions of religious experience as follows:
-- religious experience is always expressed
in THOUGHT. Human beings think about what
they experience when
they experience the Sacred. This thought has taken two forms in the
history of religions.
- systematic
thought: theology, religious philosophy, etc. Scholars or thinkers within a
tradition reflect systematically on the meaning of the community's experience of the
Sacred.
The
results are manifest, for instance, in Christian theology, the Jewish Talmud, Buddhist
abhidharma,
Hindu speculation and so forth.
- mythology (I would
prefer to define this as "the truth about reality told in the form of
STORY"):
Present in all religious traditions and dominant in non-literate traditions (many
native traditions), this "telling of stories" is the way in which the community
reflects on the
meaning of Sacred reality and its significance for life, the world and the community.
Examples can range from the Genesis account of the creation of the world and the
biography of the Buddha to Native creation myths (the "dream time" of the
Australian
Aborigines, emergence myths of Native Americans, etc.).
-- religious experience is always expressed
in ACTION. Religious folks do something as a
result of their
encounter with the Sacred. This is manifest in two major ways in religious
traditions.
- ethics: folks behave
differently as a result of their religious experience (the Ten
Commandments, the Christian law of charity, the Buddhist "Five Precepts," Native
customs and traditions, the Confucian code, etc.).
- ritual (what I
would prefer to call "religious symbolic action"): religious communities
"act
out" and "dramatize" their experience of the Sacred in highly complex and
symbolically
dense
ritual activities. Some examples could include the Roman Catholic Mass, the Jewish
Seder,
Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca, Buddhist recitations of Sutras and mantras, Native
initiation rituals, universal rituals surrounding birth, marriage, puberty, and death.
These
actions are extremely dense since they involve the community's response to the Sacred.
-- religious experience is always expressed
in COMMUNITY. When religious folks
experience the Sacred
they always gather into communities. The nature and form of these
communities is
determined by the nature and form of the experience of the Sacred. This has
two major implications
for the nature of community in human experience.
-
religious experience of the Sacred gives rise to various forms of religious communities.
Examples include Christian churches or Church, the Buddhist sangha (the universal
Buddhist community), the Jewish family, the Chinese extended family, the Hindu caste
system, the "tribal" identity of Native Peoples, and so forth.
- religious experience always has a social dimension or, in other words,
implications for
the
organization of the larger society. I often put this to my students in a theistic context
by
saying "if God is God, how should the world be?" Religious traditions have
always seen the
larger social community in light of their experience of the Sacred. Some examples from
history include Christendom (the Middle Ages), Islamic societies today, India and the
caste
system, Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand, tensions between Native
societies and nations (tribal sovereignty in the US, First Nations in Canada, etc.), the
state
of
Israel and so forth. Examples abound of the interactions of religious traditions and the
societies which encompass them.
The pathway between religious experience and the human historical and cultural situation goes both ways. Not only does religious experience have important shaping influences on human culture and history (for examples see the history of any civilization or society), but human economic, political, social, psychological, and cultural experience shapes religious experience. Religious experience always happens in a fully human context. What Christians think about Jesus (or, for that matter, Buddhists about the Buddha or the Dharma) is partially dependent on who they are, where they are, and when they are. To fully understand any religious experience demands an analysis of all of its contexts. This also accounts for the divergencies within any religious tradition and among the practitioners of these traditions.
Dr. James S. Dalton
Siena College.
Last updated February 20, 1998