The Nature of Religion and

its Meaning

 The English word religion is from the Latin verb
religare, which means “to tie” or “to bind fast”
 Religion is a powerful institution that connect
human beings, both as individual and collectively, to
a transcendent reality.
The Nature of Religion and
its Meaning

 According to (Super 2006,p. 2) "The evidence proves
that since the remote past has been a part of our
mental and emotional make-up. Even non-believers
usually agree that the term homo religious [religious
man] aptly describes human experience. Men and
women by their nature are religious, and efforts to
eliminate religion, as many social and political
movements have done since the eighteenth century,
come up short. They ultimately fail as badly as
attempts to replace the family with party or
friendship with ideology.”
 CHURCH

 The church is a religious organizations that claims to
possess the truth about salvation exclusively. A
classic example is the Roman Catholic Church.
 The Church includes everybody or virtually
everybody in a society.
 Membership is by childbirth- new generations are
born into the church and are formally inducted
through baptism.
 CHURCH

 In the Philippines, the National Statistics Office
estimates the Roman Catholics at about 74,211,896 in
2014. Being the largest religious organization in the
country, it is a very powerful institutions as attested
by the recent controversy regarding the reproductive
health bill.
 CHURCH

 The El Shaddai, a Philippines- based Catholic
Charismatic religious group, was founded by
Mariano “Mike” Zuniega Velarde (born
August 20,1939), better known as Bro. Mike Velarde.
El Shaddai has grown rapidly in the last decade and,
as of 2005, had a reported 8 million members world
wide
CATHOLIC CHURCH

EL SHADDAI
CHURCH

 SECT

 The sect also perceives itself as a unique owner of the
truth. However, it constitutes a minority in a given
society.
 Recruitment takes place through conscious
individual choice.
 A good example is the resurgence of “born again”
Christianity that recruits members by asking them to
accept Jesus Christ in their lives.
 SECT

 An example of sect in the Philippines is the Iglesia ni
Cristo(INC, or Church of Christ) that has 2,251,941
members in 2014.
 The INC was established in 1914 by Felix Manalo,
who served as the first executive minister. As a sect,
The Iglesia ni Cristo believes itself to be the one true
universal church. It preaches all other Christian
churches, including the Roman Chatolic church, are
apostases
IGLESIA NI CRISTO
CHURCH

 DENOMINATION

 Is oriented toward cooperation, at least as it relates
to other similar denominations.
 People join through individual and voluntary choice,
although the most important form of recruitment is
established denominations takes place through
childbirth.
 The liberal branches of Protestant group belong to
this category
 DENOMINATION

 In the Philippines, the religious group affiliated with
the National Council of Churches in the
Philippines(NCCP) are usually tolerant of other
forms of religious organizations.
DENOMINATIONAL
CHURCH

 CULT

 The concept of another form of religious
organization, the cult, was introduce in 1932 by
sociologist Howard Becker.
 After reviewing the literature on cults, Gerry Lanuza
(1999) provides a comprehensive definition of a cult:
“a non-traditional form of religion, the doctrine of
which is taken from diverse sources, either from non
traditional sources or local narratives or an
amalgamation of both, whose members constitute
either a loosely knit group or an exclusive group.
 CULT

 They were considered as “brainwashed” by their
religious organizations. Brainwashing means that
cult members were forced to believe in the doctrine
of the group by force.
 Sun Myung Moon

 Born on February 25, 1920. Died on September 3,
2012
 A Korean religious leader, businessperson, political
activist, and media mogul. A self-proclaimed
messiah.
 He was the founder of the Unification Church and of
its widely noted “blessing” or mass wedding
ceremony.
Sun Myung Moon

 New Religious Movements (NRMs)
and Indigenous Religious Groups

 New religious movement came into use among
social scientists in the 1960s. It was an alternative
label for cults that have been negatively portrayed by
mass media and some social scientists.
 New emerging religions also include modern day
witchcraft such as Wicca. Wicca emerge in Britain
during the 1940s and combined Christian tradition,
paganism, and Eastern ritual and symbols.
 Religious Syncretism

 The proliferation of new religious movements may
be explained partly by globalization. With the rapid
and accelerated movement of people, culture, and
information across national borders, religious ideas
also rapidly transfer from one place to another.
 Religious Syncretism

 Globalization promotes syncretism or the mixing of
different soil, they tend to mixing of different
religious and cultural beliefs and practices.
 A perfect example of this is the various colorful
fiestas in the Philippines like Sto. Nino, Black
Nazarene, and other cult of the saints are hardly
found in the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church
 TWO SPLIT-LEVEL
CHRISTIANITY

 At one level he professes allegiance to ideas,
attitudes and ways of behaving which are mainly
borrowed from the Christian West
 At another level he holds conviction which are more
properly his own ways of living and believing .
 The Ilaga

 A local Christian extremist militia composed of
Visayan groups(Hiligaynon and Cebuano) that
combined local magical tradition with Catholic
beliefs.
 Norberto Manero, Jr. was released from prison in
2006. He murdered Fr. Tullio Favali, a missionary
with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, on
11 April 1985 in Tulunan. Fr. Favali was suspected as
a “communist” by the Ilaga
RELIGION AND WOMEN

 Men are considered as the leaders of the religious
organization. In short, religious leadership and
power have always been dominated by men while
women tend to become its major transmitter.
 However, it must be born in mind that some feminist
scholars of religion argue that before the birth of the
“male god,” there was matriarchy.
 Matriarchy-a system of society or government ruled
by a woman or women.
 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 Peter L. Berger (1999) briefly summarized the thesis
of secularism: “Modernization necessarily leads to ‘a
decline of religion ’, ’both in society and in the mind
of individuals”. Modernization drastically replaces
tradition with science-based knowledge
 Religion is reduced to just one of the many sources of
ultimate meaning
 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 To have a “secular mind” means that one believes
that this world is all there is to reality. There is no
heaven, no afterlife of any kind, and no Messiah
(Ledewitz 2009,p.1)
 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 In the case of the Philippines, one scholar observed
that religion and the religious influence are so
pervasive in Asia that secularization often means not
a rejection of religion, but a rejection of decadent
clergy who have become exploitative, rigidly
formalist, and standing in the way if genuine
spiritual development”(Mendoza 1984-1986,p.56).

 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 The rapid communication among people across time
and space promotes the spread of religious ideas
across geographical boarders(Peter Beyer,2006).
 People, considered now as loci of communication,
carry their communicative orientations and habits,
their particularly, with them, but to a different social
context.
 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 The funeral of Pope John Paul II held on
April 8,2005. Countries with different
religions(Muslims, Buddhist, Hindu) paid homage to
the Polish pontiff.
 Secularization Thesis
Reconsidered

 This global religious event highlighted the
ecumenical character of the mission of the head of
the Roman Catholic Church.
 The violence perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq
and al-Shams(or Syria) (ISIS)-also known as the
Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL)- now known
as IS, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, drew
condemnations from many Muslim communities
around the world.
 PENTECOSTALISM

 The term pentecostal is derived from pentecost, the
Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks. For
Christians, this event commemorates the descent of
the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ, as
described in the second chapter of the Book of Acts.
 Pentecostalism is very much alive in Latin America
and Africa where social inequality and poverty are
also widespread( May Ling, 2007,p.30).
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Christianity are declining because of secular
humanism. Many Christians in advanced industrial
countries find their Christian faith undermined by
the humanist and secular ideology of the modern
world.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 According to Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory
questions the authenticity of “divine inspiration”
explanation for the origin of human being and other
species.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 According to Albert Einstein’s “big bang theory”
provides an alternative explanation for the creation
for the creation of the universe. This scientific
development led some conservative Christians to
strongly oppose modernization and secularization.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 According to Frey (2007). The first characteristic
feature of fundamentalism, which underlies all the
others, is what the Chicago researchers term
reactivity. A defensive or protective attitude toward
religious belief is necessary, in their opinion, or a
group or movement to qualify as fundamentalism.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Victor Seidler(2007,p.27) laments the hostilities
among religious groups due to fundamentalist
attitude: have been able to acknowledge the violent
histories they carry.”
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Conflicts between Hindu and Muslim
fundamentalists are a major ingredient in the on-
going religious violence in India. In some cases,
fundamentalists groups within an established
religion separate themselves from the mainstream
church. This attitude is called dualism. Religious
fundamentalists tend to see the world black and
white
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 According to Rebecca Frey (2007), in Israel, the
knitted skullcap, or kippah (yarmulke), was
identified with members of Gush Emunim; some
Israeli journalists even spoke of a “knitted skullcap
culture” of “self-assured religious youth who are not
apologetic about their piety.”
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 The Gush Emunim (Bloc [of the] faithful) was an
Israeli messianic, right-wing activist movement
committed to established Jewish settlements in the
West Bank, the Gaza strip and the Golan Heights.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Among Christians, those who strongly oppose
secular values such as women empowerment,
homosexuality, cultural hedonism, and scientific
encroachment on Christian beliefs, the reaction is
often fundamentalists in nature.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Fundamental to these groups is the belief in the
inerrancy of the Bible or any other sacred text upon
which they base their doctrine. They oppose
evolutionary theory unless it can be reconciled with
the Bible; they lobby against abortion and
euthanasia; they condemn same sex marriage; and
they champion the traditional roles of women and
families.
 THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM

 Christian fundamentalism is said to have originated
from the famous Scopes Trial, formally known as
The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and
commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, in
1925.