Patterns in Religious Life

Most religious systems are organized around certain past events and models. Each religion has its own account of the history of the world—the great time when gods, creators, sages, ancestors, saviors, founders, or heroes established or revealed the essential elements of the religion. These collective memories are ordinarily preserved in carefully maintained oral traditions or in the classic accounts known as scriptures or sacred writings. In Christian histories, the key event of the past is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, whose teachings, death, and resurrection set the model for the meaning of Christian life. In Judaism the great time was the Exodus (the flight from Egypt under Moses) and the subsequent receiving of the Law at Mount Sinai (see Ten Commandments). The enlightenment experience of the Buddha and the revelation of the Qur'an (Koran) (Islamic scripture) to the prophet Muhammad are defining events in Buddhism and Islam, respectively. The Islamic calendar begins with the birth of Islam in ad 622 (see Hegira), the Christian calendar begins with the birth of Christ, and the Jewish calendar begins with the biblical time of the Creation itself.

Religions provide for continual renewal by setting aside special times for their adherents to recollect and demonstrate what they hold sacred. These occasions may take place annually, monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly. Muslims are expected to pause for prayer at five different times every day, and during the holy month of Ramadan—which honors the month when the Qur'an was first revealed—they are expected to observe a fast (see Fasting) every day from sunrise to sunset. For Jews, the High Holy Days—a ten-day period in autumn celebrating the new year and concluding with the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)—is a major time of spiritual renewal, as is Passover in the spring. Jews dedicate the seventh, or Sabbath, day to recalling the divine basis of life. Christians follow a similar seven-day cycle but give special prestige to Sunday, honoring the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which, according to the Christian scriptures, occurred on the first day of the week. Every religion, large or small, has regular major festivals and observances that celebrate and display its fundamental commitments and that intensify and renew the spiritual memory of its followers.

Religions not only create sacred times that define the calendar and occur throughout the year, intersecting with ordinary time, they also establish special places that localize the sacred in the midst of ordinary space. Sometimes these are places of natural beauty or imposing power, such as mountains, caves, or rivers. They may also be sites that commemorate great religious events of the past—for example, the birthplace of the Hindu god Krishna; the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment; or the spot where Muhammad is believed to have journeyed to heaven (memorialized by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem). Sometimes they are places where miraculous spiritual appearances are believed to have occurred, as in the case of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France. They may also be shrines and temples built to house the gods or their representative symbols, such as the Parthenon in Greece, which was dedicated to Athena, patron goddess of Athens. Holy places also become objects of pilgrimage, such as the Kaaba, the holiest shrine of Islam, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. For Muslims, the Kaaba is the symbol of true monotheistic religion and is believed to have been built by biblical patriarch Abraham. All Muslims are expected to visit it at some time in their lives. Sometimes the act of building a sacred place occurs each time the rite is performed and is thus part of the ritual itself, as in the case of the annual Native American Sun Dance ceremonies, for which a new lodge is erected each year.

The use of space reveals a great deal about a religious worldview. Some structures, such as Pueblo kivas (ceremonial chambers), are built into the ground, acknowledging the earth as the place from which human beings emerged and as the source of sustenance for the Pueblo’s agricultural society (see Native American Religions). Others, such as the European gothic cathedrals, through their delicate architecture and skyward reach, suggest the transcendence of the divine realm. Shinto shrines in Japan express reverence for nature in the harmonious way they blend with the natural environment. On the other hand, some so-called megachurches (churches with huge congregations) of modern North America have taken the form of corporate office complexes geared for efficiency of organized service. Some holy places are understood to be the actual dwelling place of the god. Others—as in certain branches of Protestant tradition—are understood to be primarily places of gathering for the faithful (see Protestantism: Beliefs and Practices). In such cases, a plain architectural style follows naturally from the desire to de-emphasize the importance of the physical building itself.