What is Religion? Defining the Field
The Comparative Study of Major Religions paper is the alternate compulsory paper for non-Muslim CSS candidates, taken in lieu of Islamic Studies. It examines the world's major religious traditions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam — through their history, scripture, doctrine, sects and contemporary practice.
Before turning to specific traditions, this lesson establishes what religion itself is — how scholars have defined the field, the dominant approaches to its study, and the global landscape into which the major traditions fit.
Why definition matters
There are an estimated 10,000+ religions in the world today. They range from globally institutionalised faiths (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) to local indigenous traditions, from ancient continuous traditions to modern movements (Bahai, the Latter-day Saints, the Falun Gong). What ties them together — and what distinguishes them from non-religious worldviews?
The question is not academic indulgence. The definition you adopt shapes:
- Which traditions count as "religions" for analytical purposes.
- Which features (belief in supernatural beings, ritual, community, scripture) are taken as essential.
- How religion is distinguished from related categories (philosophy, ideology, magic, science).
Two principal approaches
Scholars have converged on two broad approaches to defining religion: the substantive and the functional.
The substantive approach
The substantive approach defines religion by what it is — its content, beliefs, practices and objects of worship.
The most influential substantive definition comes from the British anthropologist E.B. Tylor (1871):
The minimum definition of religion is the belief in spiritual beings.
A more elaborated substantive definition is offered by Melford Spiro (1966): "an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings."
The substantive approach captures what is intuitive about religion — gods, spirits, the supernatural. Its limitation: certain traditions universally regarded as religions (early Buddhism, Confucianism, some forms of Daoism) place little emphasis on supernatural beings.
The functional approach
The functional approach defines religion by what it does — the role it plays in human life and society.
The classical functional definition comes from the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1912):
A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.
For Durkheim, the essence of religion is the social distinction between sacred (set apart, treated with awe) and profane (ordinary, everyday) — and the community that emerges from shared orientation to the sacred.
A different functional approach was offered by the American theologian Paul Tillich: religion is "ultimate concern" — that which a person treats as of ultimate importance, whether or not it involves supernatural beings.
The functional approach captures traditions the substantive approach misses (Buddhism, Confucianism). Its limitation: it can be too inclusive, treating phenomena like nationalism, environmentalism or communism as "religions."
The combined approach
Most contemporary scholars use a combined approach: religion has both substantive features (typically including some reference to the supernatural or transcendent) and functional features (community, ritual, ethical orientation, ultimate meaning).
A system of beliefs, practices and institutional structures, oriented toward an ultimate or transcendent reality, that creates a community of adherents, provides ethical and existential orientation, and ritually connects individuals and groups with what is held sacred.
Dimensions of religion
The British scholar Ninian Smart (1996) proposed a useful seven-dimensional analytical framework. Every major religion can be mapped along these dimensions:
- Doctrinal / philosophical — the systematic beliefs and theology.
- Mythic / narrative — the stories that convey religious meaning (creation myths, sacred history).
- Ethical / legal — the rules of conduct, moral teaching, sometimes legal codes.
- Ritual / practical — the prayers, sacrifices, sacraments, observances.
- Experiential / emotional — the personal experiences of the sacred, conversion, mystical states.
- Social / institutional — the community, clergy, sects, organisational forms.
- Material — the physical artefacts, sacred art, architecture, places.
Smart's framework allows comparative analysis without privileging one dimension over another. Some traditions (Islam, Judaism) are particularly strong on the ethical-legal dimension; others (Hinduism, certain forms of Christianity) on the ritual-mythic; others (Theravada Buddhism, philosophical Daoism) on the experiential.
The academic study of religion
The systematic academic study of religion — sometimes called Religious Studies or Comparative Religion — emerged in the 19th century. Its principal pioneers:
- Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) — the German-born Oxford philologist often credited with founding the comparative study of religion. His Sacred Books of the East series brought translations of Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist, Zoroastrian and Islamic texts to European audiences.
- William James (1842–1910) — the American psychologist whose The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) examined religion through psychological and experiential lenses.
- Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) — the French sociologist of religion.
- Max Weber (1864–1920) — the German sociologist whose work on the relationship between Protestant ethics and capitalism, and on the comparative sociology of world religions, remains foundational.
- Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) — the Romanian-American historian of religions whose phenomenological approach emphasised the experience of the sacred across cultures.
- Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916–2000) — the Canadian scholar who emphasised personal faith over institutional religion.
The discipline distinguishes itself from theology by its comparative, descriptive and non-confessional approach: it examines religions as social and cultural phenomena, not as truth-claims to be confirmed or refuted.
The global religious landscape
The world's religious population, as of recent estimates (Pew Research, 2023):
| Religion | Adherents (approximate) | % of world population |
|---|---|---|
| Christianity | 2.4 billion | ~31% |
| Islam | 2.0 billion | ~25% |
| Hinduism | 1.2 billion | ~15% |
| Buddhism | 535 million | ~7% |
| Folk religions | 430 million | ~6% |
| Other religions (incl. Sikhism, Judaism, Bahai, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, etc.) | 60 million | ~1% |
| Religiously unaffiliated | 1.2 billion | ~15% |
Two important observations:
Geographic distribution
- Christianity is the largest single religion, geographically distributed across Europe, the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific and parts of Asia.
- Islam is concentrated in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. Pakistan, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh contain the largest Muslim populations.
- Hinduism is concentrated overwhelmingly in India and Nepal.
- Buddhism is dispersed across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and pockets globally.
The trajectory
- The unaffiliated population (often called "nones") has grown to ~15% globally and is the dominant category in much of East Asia, Western Europe and parts of North America.
- Islam is projected to become the largest religion globally by approximately 2070, driven by demographic factors.
- Christianity continues to grow rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.
Why compare religions?
The CSS curriculum places the comparative study of religions alongside Islamic Studies as a compulsory paper because of the recognition that:
- Civic literacy — informed citizens of a multi-religious world should understand the world's major faiths.
- Intellectual history — much of the world's philosophical, ethical and aesthetic heritage is religious in origin.
- Diplomatic competence — a public servant interacting with global counterparts benefits from religious literacy.
- Comparative insight — the comparative approach can illuminate features of one's own tradition that would otherwise remain unmarked.
The discipline of comparative religion is not, however, a project of religious relativism or syncretism. Comparing religions does not erase their distinctive truth-claims; it allows those claims to be considered in their proper context.
What you take from this lesson
Religion is best understood through a combined substantive and functional definition, examined through Smart's seven dimensions, and located in the global landscape of major and minor traditions. The next lesson examines the methodologies of comparative study — how scholars approach the comparison, the pitfalls of bias, and the conventions of academic religious studies.