Olivia Medical Anthropology

Religion is essentially a set of beliefs that are at the core of culture. Some anthropologists and researchers study how an individual’s religion is linked to cultural beliefs, background, and even how religion is a culture in itself. Culture plays a significant role in society as it allows beliefs to be carried on, as well as enables individuals to carry an identity. These beliefs are passed on from generations, and allows people to thrive as a cohesive group. The more personal, subjective, and spiritual aspect of culture is virtually the basis of religion. In essence, values of a culture are the foundation of religiosity. In her journal entry, Inna Reddy Edara explored how religion is a subset of culture. She says, “The relation of culture to religiosity means that in spite of the universalism perspective on spirituality, people experience and express spirituality in diverse ways based on their social and cultural worldviews that are composed of attitudes, values, concepts, and philosophies of life.” I related these connections of religion and culture to a recent trip to The Vatican and the deep religious and cultural ties it has to Catholicism and history of the Romans. Vatican City represents the center of Christianity and is an important archaeological site of Romans. During this trip I was able to experience a historical point in time: the passing of Pope Benedict. It highlighted how religion creates a sense of community, and especially it’s ability to unite believers during a significant event in the church. The common beliefs of culture, and more prominently the religion, creates a strong unification in a time of mourning.

“Defining culture in broader terms helps us to assume that religious culture is a subset of culture at large, with meanings that are although overlapping with yet distinguishable from other subsets such as educational culture, entertainment culture, economic culture, political culture or media culture. In this line of thinking, Geertz (1973) described religion as a cultural system of symbols, which establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations and naturalize conceptions of a general order of existence (p. 91).”

“Religion: A Subset of Culture and an Expression of Spirituality”
written by Inna Reddy Edara,
published by Advances in Anthropology, Vol.7 No.4, 2017