Religion is a broad term, and scholars use it to mean many different things. Depending on the context, it might refer to a specific group’s belief system, its rituals and ceremonies, its moral code, or its view of the world. Religion also is used to describe a person’s behavior or attitudes. A common definition is that religion is a set of beliefs, values, and practices concerning what is sacred or spiritually significant.
Religion has evolved as a concept over the years, and scholars have debated how to categorize it. One approach focuses on the characteristics that distinguish religion from other social phenomena, while another tries to discern a necessary and sufficient property that all religious practices must have. These approaches, often referred to as monothetic and polythetic, have diverged over the years.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers and sociologists began to consider religion as a social phenomenon. Notable among the early theorists was Giambattista Vico, who devised a scheme of religio that approximated to “scrupulousness”, “conscientiousness”, or “feeling of obligation”. In the 19th century, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx developed models that focused on social functions rather than beliefs. Their contributions led to the development of modern sociology.
A third approach to religion aims to understand it as a complex cultural process that develops over time. The ideas of the sociologists and of the anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen were among the first to emphasize that religious practices can be as powerful as beliefs. His pioneering work, Das Mutterrecht (“The Mother Right”), explained many aspects of ancient law and mythology in terms of a matriarchal society.
The idea that religion is an aspect of culture rather than a belief system has become very popular, and it has been the basis for much of the work of anthropologists who study religion. In this view, religions are characterized by symbols that represent important life events and that are passed on from generation to generation in the form of oral and written traditions. In addition to these traditions, there are the practices of religions that give meaning to life, reinforce social unity and stability, serve as an agent of social control, promote physical and psychological well-being, and motivate people to work for positive social change.
The term religion is also used to describe a particular group’s organization and hierarchy of authority. The hierarchies of religions are sometimes compared with those of other institutions, such as corporations and countries. The differences in the size of these hierarchies and their relative positions on the social scale indicate that they are organized in a relatively unique way. Typically, large religious groups have full-time religious leaders who manage the group’s affairs. In contrast, smaller religious groups are more likely to be headed by part-time shamans. Both types of organizations may be classified as cults, sects, denominations, or ecclesia. In many cases, religions move between these classifications, as they start out as a cult and then become a denomination or an ecclesia.