The Complexity of Religion

Pete Ward (2011) discussed the idea of Para-Religion in his book, Gods Behaving Badly. In the scope of the modern world, celebrities and celebrity "worship" are often thought of as religious. However the idea is disputed in the literature especially concerning the definition of religion and what it entails. Depending on the definition, celebrity culture can or cannot be seen as religious. Ward (2011) attempts to find middle ground, calling on the term, para-religion to describe celebrity "worship". Fundamentally, this term means we can draw parallels between traditional religions and the celebrity culture.

This term is rather constructive and helps provide clarity through the chapter as Ward goes on to discuss what makes up a religion, using various sources to corroborate these aspects. What does a religion require? Spiritual beings, myths and rituals (the ritual often seeming to come first), the process of dying and rising, a distinction between the sacred and profane... Ward goes into more detail about what else is classed as religion, exploring the idea of congregation and en masse worship down to the individual and their needs.

We can see from this article that things in society commonly referred to as "religious" (and Ward gives the examples of baseball, rock and roll, and Coca Cola - but we could extend this to, e.g. sport in Australia) are much more complicated than we think. Perhaps it is the idea that lay people themselves are starting to attribute less complexity and more profanity to religions that is the cause of diluted religion in the modern age. In the past, religion was the highest form of study in early universities. In the early Western world, one was not considered a truly proficient scholar until they had studied Christianity and the Bible (Perry, 2011 p. 159-160). Now religion is a social and cultural tradition. While at school we are taught about the different religions, and attending a private school will most definitely see education combined with religion; however, there is no place for this in the adult/working world. We've lost many of these aspects of religion, mentioned by Ward (2011), in the common person, and perhaps it is for this reason that the lines between traditional religion and popular religious movements is blurred or unrecognisable to many people.

References:

Perry, M. 2011. Western civilisation: A brief history. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Ch 7: The flowing and dissolution of Medieval civilisation, p. 157-180

Ward, P. 2011. Gods behaving badly: Media religion and celebrity culture. London: SCM Press. Ch 3: Para-Religion.