The Pew Study of religious belief in former Communist countries that we blogged about recently cites a scholar who breaks down religious involvement into three factors: ย โBelieving. Behaving. Belonging.โ
A religion entails believing in certain things. ย โBehavingโ refers not so much to moral behaviorโthough acting in accord with what oneโs religion teachers is surely an important factorโbut to religious behavior, such as attending church, praying, etc. ย โBelongingโ refers to membership in a religious community, as in belonging to a church and holding to a particular religious identity.
The major insight from this breakdown is that people around the world often approach their religion in at least one of these ways, but not always in all three of them.
In the former Communist countries, people โbelieveโ and โbelong,โ but they do not โbehave.โ ย That is, they affirm Christian teachings and consider membership in a church extremely important, but they hardly ever actually go to church or practice other religious โbehavior.โ
In Scandinavia, as I have been learning, despite the presence of intensely Christian individuals who do all three, the majority of people do not โbelieveโ (the rates of atheism and agnosticism are very high), nor do they โbehaveโ (seldom attending religious services). ย But they do โbelong,โ as rates of church membershipโchurch tax and allโremains very high.
In East Asian Buddhism, many people do not believe in their religion, nor do they belong to a religious community. ย But they do โbehaveโ in accord with the religion, going to the temple and performing the rituals and sacrifices.
Many Americans โbelieveโ but neither โbelongโ to a church nor โbehaveโ by attending one.
Liberal Christians โbelongโ and โbehaveโ in their mainline denominations without actually โbelieving.โ
Some say that these can be put into an order according to which people can be drawn into the church, though opinions differ on what the order is. ย Might โbelongingโ eventually lead to โbeliefโ? ย Or does โbeliefโ lead to โbelongingโ? ย (See Roger Olsenโs ย discussion.)
What are some other applications? How can this breakdown help us in reaching the โunchurchedโ and in discipling the โchurchedโ? ย Or is this merely a sociological account of religion that has little to do with actual faith?
Fromย Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe | Pew Research Center:
Around the world, different ways of being religious
Believing. Behaving. Belonging.
Three words, three distinct ways in which people connect (or donโt) to religion: Do they believe in a higher power? Do they pray and perform rituals? Do they feel part of a congregation, spiritual community or religious group?
Research suggests that many people around the world engage with religion in at least one of these ways, but not necessarily all three.
Christians in Western Europe, for example, have been described as โbelieving without belonging,โ a phrase coined by sociologist Grace Davie in her 1994 religious profile of Great Britain, where, she noted, widespread belief in God coexists with largely empty churches and low participation in religious institutions.1
In East Asia, there is a different paradigm, one that might be called โbehaving without believing or belonging.โ According to a major ethnography conducted last decade, for example, many people in China neither believe in a higher power nor identify with any particular religious faith, yet nevertheless go to Buddhist or Confucian temples to make offerings and partake in religious rituals.2
Many Central and Eastern Europeans, on the other hand, might be described as โbelieving and belonging, without behaving.โ While Pew Research Centerโs survey shows that majorities of adults across the region believe in God and identify with Orthodox Christianity, conventional measures of Christian religious behavior โ such as levels of daily prayer and weekly worship attendance โ are relatively low.
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