The Original Role of Religion

Religion is commonly thought of as something that controls people's desires through rigid doctrine. But the original role of religion was nothing so narrow-minded. It was, quite simply, to save people.

And saving people meant not only saving them spiritually through doctrine, but also physically and economically. Hearing this may overturn the stiff image we have of religion, but that is what religion originally was.

Saving People Physically

Today we take hospital treatment for granted, but in the past monks made medicines in monasteries.

The price of medicine varied with a person's means and faith, and the poor received it cheaply — almost for free. Medical care took place in monasteries rather than hospitals, and hospitals were funded by the support of lords and donations from merchants. Saving people from illness and injury was thus a major part of religion's original role.

Saving People Economically

Then as now, there were gaps between rich and poor. Monasteries saved people economically by taking in the destitute and giving alms. Today soup kitchens run by NPOs and public welfare fill that role, but originally religion carried it within society.

Promoting Culture and Education

Through religious events such as Mass and festivals, religion also raised people's level of culture and nurtured their hearts — a cultural role. In Japan, the terakoya (temple schools) that educated ordinary people raised literacy in the Edo period and boosted economic activity.

Spiritual Salvation

Life is full of worries of every kind, and religion used its teachings to support people's spirits. But worries differ with the times, and every person's worries are their own.

That is why the Bible is written in deliberately abstract language that allows a degree of free interpretation. To support people across many eras, leaving room for interpretation was essential.

Interpretation was entrusted to priests and pastors, who could draw out answers suited to the people and circumstances of their time — and this very flexibility preserved the Bible's universality. Had it been written as rigid academic prose, scientific progress would have exposed contradictions and stripped it of universality.

Religion Was Originally Social Infrastructure

Religion's original role was to provide social infrastructure. That is how people were able to keep their spirituality and order in a chaotic world.

The Problem with Religion Today

Over the past 200 years of capitalist development, however, social infrastructure has been turned into business, and religion too has surrendered to capitalism and become a religion business.

Religion has come to be seen as something stiff that suppresses desire with narrow doctrine, and so it is declining overall. Technological progress and faith in science have also turned doctrine into an academic subject, and contradictions exposed by scholarly interpretation have ended up discrediting it.

Doctrine is originally something to be understood with the heart, not the head, and a degree of abstraction is important for preserving the universality of religion.

September 5, 2021 — sandragon965

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