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Folk religion |
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) |
Folk religion consists of beliefs, superstitions and rituals transmitted from generation to generation in a specific culture. It could be contrasted with an organized religion or historical religion in which founders, creed, theology and ecclesiastical organizations are present. In contrast, ethnic religion refers to the religious practices particular to a certain ethnicity. Folk religion and ethnic religion alike are characterized by the absence of proselytization, membership being, as a rule, equivalent to ethnicity.
The folk religion with the largest number of adherents is the Chinese folk religion, accounting for some 6% of world population. Various "primal indigenous" religions (animism, shamanism) account for another 4%, but elements of folk religion exist as part of all religious traditions and should be regarded as popular currents (as opposed to a theological or institutionalized) rather than as separate religions, so that folk religion is a phenomenon present in every society.
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Folk religion can also be thought of as the practice of religion by lay people outside of the control of clergy or the supervision of theologians (e.g. outside of organized religion). Don Yoder has defined "folk religion" as "the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of the official religion." There is occasionally tension between the practice of folk religion and the formally taught doctrines and teachings of a faith. For "folk religion" to be a meaningful category, there must be an institutional religion with a traditional teaching or professional clergy to contrast it against; in cultures that lack these things, it is difficult to speak of folk religion as a meaningful category. 1
The term is also applied to the blending of folk practice with those of major religions, so that folk practices among people in Christian countries are called "folk Christianity", in Islamic countries "folk Islam", and so on. The term is also used, especially by the clergy of the faiths involved, to describe the desire of people who otherwise infrequently attend religious worship, do not belong to a church or similar religious society, and who have not made a formal profession of faith in a particular creed, to have religious weddings or funerals, or (among Christians) to have their children baptised. 2
Folk religion answers human needs for reassurance in times of trouble, and many of its rituals are aimed at mundane goals like seeking healing or averting misfortune. Many elements of folk religion stem from animistic or fetishistic practices, which is almost inevitable given its mundane goals and ritualistic nature. Folk religion also often aims at divination to foresee the future. The line is often blurry between the practice of folk religion and the practice of magic. (see magic and religion)
Examples of folk religion would include:
Ethnic religions may include officially sanctioned and organized civil religions with an organized clergy, but they are characterized in that adherents generally are defined by their ethnicity, and conversion essentially equates to cultural assimilation to the people in question. Contrasted to this are imperial cults that are defined by political influence detached from ethnicity.
In antiquity, religion was one defining factor of ethnicity, along with language, regional customs, national costume, etc. As Xenophanes famously comments:
With the rise of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, ethnic religions came to be marginalized as "leftover" traditions in rural areas, referred to as paganism or shirk (idolatry).
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