Page 260 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

religion—overview 1561

The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the
crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a
merchant. • Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803–1882)

fresh challenges from propagators of a new approach to Europe, did not experience the growth in the number of
the world. Sometimes it was called the Renaissance, religious adherents, though Christianity in its various
because it involved a recovery in the thought world of the forms survived there. Yet 1.8 billion people around the
glories of Greece and Rome, just as it celebrated their arts world were numbered as Christian, one billion of them
and sciences. Sometimes the change came in what was Roman Catholic at the turn of the century. Especially
called the Enlightenment.This was a movement in north- prosperous were new Christian movements, especially
west Europe, one that celebrated reason, progress, and Pentecostalism, in the southern world, especially sub-
science, often at the expense of faith. Saharan Africa. Meanwhile Islam advanced by popula-
In Renaissance times some challengers such as Coper- tion growth, efforts to convert, and development of
nicus and Galileo, who presented new views of the phys- philosophies and movements attractive to many among
ical universe, were harassed, the latter condemned by the the world’s poor. Hinduism was also among the advanc-
pope. Sometimes they won converts from Enlightened ing religions.
church leaders who fused rationalist or scientific thought Religion came wearing many guises. In a vast gener-
with their faith and church. But in any case, the modern alization that needs many qualifiers, it could be said that
world saw an increase in tension between believers and in the world of today, more people are being healed and
nonbelievers.The emergent worldview of the latter came more are being killed in the name of religion than of any
to be called “secular,” from the Latin word saeculum.The other force. Healing here would mean not only physical
implication or even overt claim was that whether or not and personal spiritual healing, but reconciliation, con-
God existed, one could live out a full life interpreting and cord, works of justice and mercy. Killing here need not
changing the world without recourse to God, sacred always mean literal murder; it could imply anything neg-
texts, religious institutions, and the like. ative related to persons, including oppression, repression,
In the nineteenth century, on the soil of secularism, suppression. But it can point directly to killing, since
there arose more pitiless and belligerent rivals to Judaism, armies move against each other, or terrorists act in the
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Most of name of their gods. Efforts at reconciling the religious do
the twentieth-century forms ended in -ism: Fascism, Com- occur, and many people of good will in many cultures ini-
munism, Nazism, Maoism were typical. Many of these tiate and promote movements of interfaith dialogue and
took on the trappings of the religions they set out to common action. These are dwarfed, however, by the
replace.They called for the sacrifice of millions of lives in massive, convulsive moments of tribe against tribe,
war, and they took other lives. They generated myths of people against people, and often nation against nation
leadership and symbols such as the swastika, the hammer on the basis of mixed motives, but many of them being
and sickle, and the star to rally or subjugate people.They religious.
invented ceremonies and rituals. In due course their cre-
ations imploded and they waned, while in most cases the Some Functions of Religion
religions they had set out to abolish returned and often in the Contemporary World
prevailed in various areas. Any assessment of the role of religion has to begin with
the place it plays in the life of individuals.This is as true
Religious Survival in Jainism, Sikhism, Shinto, Babism, and other significant
and Revival movements that one will find in atlases and encyclope-
In the twenty-first century, religion without doubt plays dias of religion or in open encounters around the world.
as large a role as it had centuries earlier, despite many Historical change came because of Buddha realizing
predictions that modernity, secularity, and science would enlightenment, Jesus teaching and dying, monks like
sweep it away.The old heartland of Christianity, western Francis of Assisi, Jewish scholars like Maimonides, and