CHAPTER FOUR
Social Forms of Religion and Religions
in Contemporary Global Society
Peter Beyer
CONCEIVING AND DEFINING RELIGION AND RELIGIONS
It may seem to many readers thatreligionis a fairly straightforward notion, easily bring-
ing to mind clear and concrete pictures: A group of Muslims at daily prayer, a Christian
priest saying mass, a Buddhist monk or nun meditating, a person lighting a votive or
holiday candle, and myriad other possibilities. Yet, as in several other domains of social
life, such as art, sport, and that ever elusive term, culture, what seems clear at a quick
and first glance is anything but upon further reflection. If a Shakespearean play and
neolithic cave paintings count as art, what about the arrangement of flowers on the
dining room table, a television advertisement, or the rousing performance of a popu-
lar politician on the hustings? If ice dancing is an Olympic sport, why isn’t ballroom
dancing even a sport? If dim-sum is part of Chinese culture, how many kung-fu centers
do there have to be in Houston or San Francisco before they become an expression
of American culture? Similarly, while most readers may agree that what happens in a
Jewish synagogue or at a Shinto shrine qualifies as religion, many people in Western
countries have just as serious doubts about what happens at a Scientology course as
government officials in China have about Falun Gong. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints and the Brahma Kumaris are clearly religious groups; are they also
Christian and Hindu, respectively?
How important such questions are varies according to time, place, and circum-
stance. If the Christian status of Mormons and the cultural status of kung-fu establish-
ments are currently not all that critical in the United States, the Islamic status of Baha’is
in Iran or the cultural implications of the magazine,Sports Illustrated,^1 in Canada have
in recent years been hotly debated or highly consequential issues. Ambiguities and dis-
agreement in these matters can often be of great practical importance; they interest
more than detached intellectual observers. Moreover, it seems that the sorts of dispute
that arise with regard to these concepts are basically of three kinds, two of them having
(^1) Sports Illustrated, a large American-based sports magazine, publishes a Canadian issue, but
sells advertisements at relatively low prices to Canadian companies, thus making it harder for
Canadian-based magazines to survive only in the Canadian market. The argument against
whatSports Illustrateddoes has been framed in Canada as a matter of defending “Canadian
culture.”
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