How does culture affect religion? ⬅️ Religion shapes culture, but as people deviate from the teachings of the religion, culture starts to influence people's behavior ⬅️
Subscribe to follow campaign updates!
Before diving deeper into the implications of this question and the questions it may bring up as a result, it’s important to establish in a general sense, what is meant by culture and what is meant by religion.
● Religion can generally be defined as the belief and obedience to a higher power, often referred to as a God
● In contrast, culture can be seen as a “way of life”
As previously stated, culture seems to revolve more so around the individual or a group of individuals encompassing everything from language, cooking, social habits, art and more in comparison to religion which is typically associated with a creator (or several).
With culture essentially being “meaning” being given to human activity, it molds everything that revolves around social norms, traditions and rituals.
That being said, religion can of course represent a key factor in the cultural identity of some thus influencing their behaviors and tradition. It can thus be affirmed that religion can often manifest as a form of cultural expression.
The vocation of a religious person such as a Christian for example, is rooted in a personal relationship with the Lord —i.e in an experience of faith.
If culture expresses the way humans experience and understand the world then religion represents the intrinsic way in which humans experience and understand this world.
Often providing people with values and guidelines for living righteously, religion can help enforce as well as maintain a sense of order and organization and because of its social dimension, it also implicitly has a cultural dimension to it. Consider this, without this cultural medium, how would faith along with various components of a given religion be experienced?
Throughout history, religion has been at the core of x or y culture with some of the most notable examples belonging to Christians who carry the heritage of Judaism, Greek thought and the Roman civilization showcasing once and for all that culture does and will play a role in shaping religious beliefs.
Viewed through this lens, it’s easy to see how religion is an integral part of culture, as our world advances and becomes more and more modernized and thus globalized, culture will continue to have an impact on religion in various amounts of ways, today’s emergence of Christian apparel trends or a return to more “traditional” values are a fitting example.
All in all, the connection between both notions is both undeniable and irrefutable with culture molding much of what religion will consist of.
Sign in with your Facebook account or email.