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ISBN-13:

9780520966796

Publisher: University of California Press
Publication date: 05/04/2016
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Pages: 128
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Joanne O'Brien and Martin Palmer are members of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture (ICOREC), a UK-based group that specializes in working with religions worldwide. Martin is a regular TV and radio broadcaster for the BBC, and heads the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), which develops environmental projects with religions worldwide. Joanne has headed work with Buddhists in Asia and the Benedictine Order of the Catholic Church for ARC. She also runs Circa Religion Photo Library, one of the largest such libraries devoted to religious topics. They are both authors of many books on religion, including Religions of the World and Festivals of the World.

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The Atlas of Religion

By Joanne O'Brien, Martin Palmer, Jannet King, Candida Lacey, Sadie Mayne

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 2007 Joanne O'Brien and Martin Palmer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-96679-6

CHAPTER 1

Part One BEGINNINGS

Religions arise in a diversity of ways. Some, such as Daoism, emerge from the lifestyles and beliefs, environment and landscape of the people. Some, such as Zoroastrianism, are believed to have been revealed. Yet others develop from the spiritual and philosophical experiences of the founder, such as happened in the case of Buddhism. Some remain rooted in a given location – such as Shinto in Japan. Others have spread around the world. The rise of missionary religions (starting with Buddhism in the 3rd century BCE), followed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are the best-known examples.

Some religions have only recently started to move beyond their homelands. Hinduism and Daoism are the best-known examples of this. Yet others have to all intents and purposes been reinvented – Shamanism, for example, is now a term used to describe a vast plethora of different practices around the world.

Within each major religion, differences of opinion, often over issues of authority and power, led to splits. These traditions themselves then frequently gave rise to further schisms. For example, Anglicanism split away from the Catholic Church and then Baptists and Methodists split from the Anglican Church.

Religions also spawn new religions, as Judaism has in relation to Christianity. Although Islam established itself as an independent religious tradition, for several centuries some Christians viewed it as a schism within Christianity. To this day, Jains sometimes find themselves viewed as Hindus by Hindu organizations. While occasionally religious traditions reunite, usually it is the other way round and the number and range of diverse traditions within each religion keeps growing.

While the religious maps of Europe and Asia have remained almost unchanged for centuries, those of the Americas, Africa and much of the Pacific have been radically transformed in the last 200 years, and are still in a state of flux. They bear witness to the trade winds, and to the rise of Europe as a spiritual as well as economic and military power. As that power wanes, newer branches of Christianity in particular are taking on an autonomy that is often challenging to the theologies and ideas of the older European Churches. Similar trends can be seen in other missionary religions, such as Islam, and in particular Buddhism as it spreads into the Western world.

While 80 percent of people worldwide profess some religious allegiance, what this means differs from country to country and even from religion to religion.

In Islam, the notion that religion is separate from daily life is unthinkable: it is a way of life rather than a faith. Similarly, Hindus see what they believe as being how they live. There is no sense of one set of beliefs for everyday life and another for religious life. In fact, Hinduism as a term of reference to a 'religion' is an external creation: the name was introduced by the Persians to describe all beliefs in India – across the River Indus. Judaism is also particular, since it is both a way of life and an ethnic identity – though not always linked to religious belief or practice.

For many people, religious identity goes hand in hand with ethnic, social and cultural identity. Thus, questions about how much a religion is practised are not appropriate to Indonesia, for example, nor to large swathes of Africa, South America or even China. For many people, religion is not a choice. They are born into a given set of values and beliefs. Unless some major trauma shakes them or they move right away from their own culture, the religion of their birth remains lifelong. This pattern can be disturbed. Certain religions and new religious movements are committed to conversion, and the arrival of missionaries can change religious allegiance.

In areas where religions are expanding quickly – notably in Eastern Europe and Africa – religious commitment often carries with it powerful social, political and ethnic identity.

Popular Religions

Allegiance to a single religion is professed by at least two-thirds of the population in more than 80% of the world's states.

In the 3rd century BCE, the Emperor Ashoka, whose empire covered most of present-day India and Pakistan, sent out missionaries to spread the Buddhist teachings from Sri Lanka to Egypt. Prior to this, religions appear to have been ethnically or culturally based, with no principle of seeking to convert others to a different way of life.

The rise of the missionary ushered in a new world of international religions. By the 1st century BCE, Judaism had become a missionary religion, and from it sprang the two most successful missionary religions in history: Christianity in the 1st century CE and Islam in the 7th century.

The European trading nations brought about the next major change. From 1450 onwards, Portugal, Spain, England and the Netherlands followed new sea routes both westwards, to Americas, and eastward to Asia, because Islam was blocking the old trade routes through the Middle East. This is why southern Africa, the Americas, Australasia and the Pacific islands are now largely Christian. Russia, similarly avoiding Islamic countries, expanded across Siberia and arrived north of China in the late 17th century.

Arrivals

The rise of the missionary religions and seaborne trade has greatly influenced the religious map of the world.

The different traditions within one religion owe their creation to many different factors. In the process of expanding beyond its original heartland, a religion can take on the beliefs of another culture – as happened when Buddhism moved from India through China to Japan. Political divisions may exacerbate theological differences and help to create alternative traditions – as occurred when the demise of the Roman Empire split the Christian Church in two: the Eastern Orthodox Church, based in Constantinople, and the Western Catholic Church, based in Rome.

Divisions often arise when a religious structure claims to be authoritative – as happened when the Protestants broke from the domination of Rome. Faiths with a more fluid organizational structure, such as Hinduism, tend have fewer splits because there is no single defining authority to be challenged.

Chinese religion is a vast catchbag of traditions, schools, temples and ways of life with no overarching authority, leaving almost every temple to develop its own distinctive traditions.

Religious traditions may be created to support a national identity within a universal tradition. Such is the case with Anglicanism within Christianity. However, Anglicanism then created a universal tradition through the British Empire, and this is now splitting into new traditions as cultural factors, particularly in African traditions, challenge the earlier Anglo-American traditions.

Roots and Branches

Yesterday's revolution can be today's orthodoxy. Some new movements have grown to become the most popular religion in a state.

CHAPTER 2

Part Two BELIEFS

The vast majority of people follow one or other of the major world religions. While there is a small, but growing number of non-believers, the number of atheists has shrunk recently due to the fall of communism.

Adherence to one religion is not the only way that people express religious commitment. China, for example, has a complex mixture of religious traditions, ranging from Shamanism, through Daoism to Buddhism and Christianity. In practice, most Chinese make use of different aspects of each tradition for different needs. For example, they might use Shamanism or Daoism for exorcisms, Daoism for charms and magic, Buddhism for death ceremonies, and Christianity for success in business deals. Combining these into a workable mix is not considered a problem by most Chinese, whereas the Western and Islamic world view asks for adherence to just one tradition.

For many who have grown up within a specific religion, the pluralism of today offers additional elements of spirituality and religious practice that people are beginning to use increasingly, while still remaining within the fold of one particular tradition. Many devout Catholics, for example, will practise yoga, while devout Buddhists will also offer prayers to the Virgin Mary in times of special need. This wider framework of religious reference is also underpinning the growth in new religious movements and the surprising growth of indigenous traditions, such as Native American and traditional African religions, which have spread to many other parts of the world.

In looking at the figures for religious belief, it is useful to remember that outward adherence often covers a vast array of different beliefs, rooted in one tradition, but increasingly fed by many sources of inspiration.

A third of all people belong to one of six major Christian traditions. Within these traditions there is wide variation, creating a vast array of interpretation and practice. There are over 33,800 Christian denominations in 238 countries, comprising 3.4 million worship centres, churches or congregations.

Christianity is growing across the world, especially in South Korea, Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa. While the percentage of the populations of India and China that are Christian is small, there are sizeable Christian groups in these countries, some of whom may be hidden.

One of the emerging trends in Christianity has been the growth of independent movements. There has always been an historical tradition of church members leaving a parent body because of differences regarding authority, structure or lifestyle, and forming their own Christian groups. In time, many of these have become mainstream denominations, as has happened with Lutheranism or Methodism. Today's 'Independents' follow that tradition in their search for a church lifestyle and authority appropriate to their beliefs, and often to their cultural and ethnic identity. Some denominations on the fringe of organized, mainstream Christianity are termed 'marginal Christians'.

Christianity

Christianity is the world's largst religion, with more than 2.1 billion adherents worldwide, and more than 33,000 denominations.

The two main traditions within Islam are Sunni and Shi'a. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, leadership of the Muslim community passed to a succession of caliphs ('deputies'). In the mid-7th century under the caliphate of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, some came to believe that leadership of the Muslim community should be hereditary; these became known as the Shi'a (partisans of Ali). The majority held that the caliphs should be democratically chosen, according to the Sunna, the sayings and customs of the Prophet Muhammad. These are known as Sunni. They number more than 1.1 billion, and are in the majority in most Islamic countries. The Shi'a number 192 million and are in the majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Yemen.

Within Sunni and Shi'a there are various schools of law and traditions. The Sunni schools of law are widespread, such as the Maliki school that is dominant throughout most of Muslim Africa. In Shi'a Islam there are more localized traditions, such as the Alawite and Druze in Syria and Lebanon.

The Ibadiyyah tradition originated in the decades immediately after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, before the split between Sunni and Shi'a. Small numbers of Ibadites, who are predominantly Bedouin Arabs, are found in the deserts of Arabia, Iraq and North Africa.

Islam

There are 1.34 billion Muslims worldwide, 20% of the world's population. Islam is the state religion of 25 countries.

Hinduism is intricately woven into the land and culture of India, and Hindus refer to their religion as sanatana dharma, the eternal truth or ancient religion.

Although 95 percent of the world's Hindus still live in India, there was a significant wave of migration from the 1st to 7th centuries CE along trade routes into South-East Asia and Indonesia. The second major phase began when Indians migrated to other parts of the British Empire as indented labour or for trade.

Many Hindu gurus travelled west from the late 19th century, and the spread of Hindu ideas has been considerable through Europe, North America and Australasia. In the USA, Swami Vivekananda spoke at the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893 in Chicago, and in 1894 established the Vedanta Society of New York. The Vendanta Society is also credited with establishing the first Hindu temple in the USA – in San Francisco in 1906.

Since the 1960s, a wave of movements inspired by Hindu philosophy and spirituality has emerged as westerners have been influenced by the teachings of visiting gurus, travels to India and translations of classics such as the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads. Movements such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) now have communities worldwide.

Hinduism

Hinduism is the world's third largest religion, with over 950 million Hindus worldwide. Almost all live in South Asia, with the majority in India, where over 80% of people are Hindu.

Buddhists make up nearly 6 percent of the world's population. More than 98 percent live in South-East Asia, where new political freedoms in many countries have witnessed a growth of Buddhist practice and monasticism, particularly since the 1990s. In Cambodia, for example, only 3,000 monks were thought to have survived the civil war and its ensuing genocide. By 2006 the number of monks and pagodas had returned to pre-war levels of 1969–70. However, Buddhist activities are monitored or restricted in other countries, such as North Korea, China and Burma.

Outside Asia, there has been a considerable growth in Buddhism, with more than 3 million Buddhists in the USA, over 1.5 million in Europe and almost 700,000 in Latin America.

Within the three major traditions or branches of Buddhism there are hundreds of smaller organizations and groups, including the English Sangha Trust, with 10,000 supporters; the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, with 800,000 members, and Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, with 19.5 million members.

Buddhism

More than half the world's population live in countries where Buddhism is now, or has been, dominant. During the 20th century, Buddhism was subject to greater suppression than at any time in its history.

Since the 1980s, Jewish population trends have been affected by major socioeconomic and geopolitical changes: the break-up of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the reunification of Germany, the expansion of the European Union, instability in some Latin American countries and continuing tensions in the Middle East. As a result, 80 percent of the world's Jews now live in the USA and Israel.

The 'core' Jewish populations illustrated on this map include those who, when asked, identified themselves as Jews, or were identified by someone in the same household as Jews. This definition reflects subjective feelings and overlaps, but does not always coincide with, definitions of rabbinic law – Halakah. Jewish population studies also recognize the 'enlarged' Jewish population: this includes the 'core' population, all others of Jewish parentage who are not currently Jewish, and the non-Jewish members of their households.

In the state of Israel, however, individual status is subject to Ministry of Interior rulings that follow criteria established by rabbinical authorities. The 'core' Jewish population in Israel is not based on personal subjective identification but reflects the legal rules of Halakah.

Judaism

There are over 13 million Jews worldwide, more than 5 million of whom live in Israel.

The Sikh faith began in the Punjab region of India in the 15th century under the teachings of Guru Nanak. The Punjab remains the heartland of the Sikh religion, with up to 16 million Sikhs living in this state.

The largest Sikh populations outside India are in the USA, UK and Canada, and were originally established through links with British rule in India during the British Empire. Canada's first gurdwara opened in 1908 in Vancouver, the UK's in London in 1911, and the USA's in 1912 in California.

The 2001 British Census asked the population to voluntarily state their religion and 336,179 Sikhs in the UK were recorded. The Canadian Census of the same year asked for religious affiliation and recorded 278,400 Sikhs. In contrast, the US Bureau of Census is prohibited by law from asking this question. However, an independent Religions Congregations Membership Study (RCMS) is planning a major survey of religious populations in 2010 that will include a county-by-county statistic of the Sikh population in the USA. This development is welcomed by the World Sikh Council's America Region, which estimates that around 500,000 Sikhs are living in the USA.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Atlas of Religion by Joanne O'Brien, Martin Palmer, Jannet King, Candida Lacey, Sadie Mayne. Copyright © 2007 Joanne O'Brien and Martin Palmer. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Acknowledgements, 8,
Introduction, 9,
Part One BEGINNINGS, 12,
Popular Religions, 14,
Arrivals, 16,
Roots and Branches, 18,
Part Two BELIEFS, 20,
Christianity, 22,
Islam, 24,
Hinduism, 26,
Buddhism, 28,
Judaism, 30,
Sikhism, 32,
Traditional Beliefs, 34,
Catholicism, 36,
New Religious Movements, 38,
New Departures, 40,
Non-Believers, 42,
Part Three STRUCTURES, 44,
State Attitudes to Religion, 46,
Christian Finance, 48,
Religious Education, 50,
Christian Missionaries, 52,
The Word, 54,
Christian Broadcasting, 56,
Aid and Development, 58,
Islamic Law, 60,
Part Four CONFLICTS AND TENSIONS, 62,
Faultlines, 64,
Emerging from Persecution, 66,
Part Five CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES, 68,
Shared World, 70,
Equal Rites, 72,
Environmental Protection, 74,
Ethical Investment, 76,
The Future, 78,
Part Six THE HEARTLANDS, 80,
Origins, 82,
Holy Natural, 84,
Fundamentals of the Faiths, 86-89,
Part Seven SOCIAL CONTEXT, 90,
World Data Table, 92,
Notes and Sources, 100,
Index, 126,

The Atlas of Religion

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