Shap Journal 2001/2002
Living Community

Religion and Community 
Keith Ward

Despite the fact that A. N. Whitehead defined
religion as what persons do with their
solitariness, religions are generally speaking
social phenomena. Religious faiths are not
just sets of beliefs which individuals may or may not
accept. They are rooted in communities with distinctive
stories and rituals, social practices and ways of life. For
early sociologists like Emile Durkheim this was so
evident that he thought of religion as a set of practices
for unifying a social community and expressing in
symbolic form the mind or spirit of a particular society.

As these two very different definitions of religion
suggest, religions have different attitudes to community.
Some see religion primarily as a set of laws or principles
which should govern the life of the whole community, in
both social and personal aspects. Within such
communities, morality is basically founded on obedience
to divine command, a command which is meant for
human good and enjoins the practice of justice and
mercy. Often it is insisted that the religious community
is not a special community, distinct from the society as
a whole. The whole of society should be governed by
religious laws, or at least its laws should not conflict
with those of religion. Some forms of Judaism and Islam
come nearest to embodying this notion.

Other religions are not primarily concerned with the
ordering of society as such. They tend to form
communities - like the Buddhist sangha or monastic
community - which are separate from the world, and
enjoin renunciation of many worldly goals. For them,
morality is a matter of effective means to the goal of
liberation from worldly concerns. Even for those not in
the religious community, morality is based on the
teaching of liberated souls, who see that such virtues as
compassion for all beings and non-attachment are
necessary for enlightenment. The ultimate goal is that of
renunciation of desire. Thus the religious communities
are primarily monastic, and the duty of the laity is to
support monks and nuns, but rarely expect them to take
an active part in political matters.

Some traditions have a more individualistic approach,
and regard faith as a choice to follow a chosen god or
teacher. Devotional rituals or meditation practices are
largely personal, or take place in the home, and a range
of alternatives are permitted or sometimes encouraged.
There may be strong moral codes, founded on holy
teachings, but they tend to be seen as means of
preserving social order, whereas the highest moral
insight is evoked by the vision of supreme goodness
which a god inspires. Such a view is found in some
Indian traditions, where there may be many different
sorts of religious communities - often called sampradayas
(we might say 'sects') - following various teachers, and
all ideally co-exist.

A fourth view tends to see faith as in a generally
supportive but critical relationship to the state. The
Christian churches have rarely claimed to rule
politically, or to renounce social concerns entirely -
though such claims have been made from time to time.
But the churches usually claim to be distinctive
communities which try to mediate the Spirit of Christ to
the world, and to that extent the basis of their moral
stance is that of seeking the guidance of the Spirit in
new situations, rather than obeying some written code.
There is a tendency, particularly in Catholic and
Orthodox traditions, to see the Church as one united
international community, with a hierarchical structure,
and some form of positive diplomatic relationship with
various nation states. Thus the church is seen as a
distinctive community standing in an interactive
relationship with various forms of social and political life.

The four types of religious community I have outlined
are of course 'ideal types'. They are never found in pure
form. There are many historical exceptions in each
tradition. There are even large parts of traditions which
would not accept them at all, and perhaps each type is
found somewhere within each major religion.
Nevertheless, they can be seen as differing forms of the
relationship of religious faith to society, and of religious
communities themselves.

If you look at the history of religious communities, it is
clear that all of them have been associated with
imperialistic or ethnic ambitions at various times. Even
in the present day, some apologists for both Islam and
Christianity hold out the hope for world domination by
their own faith (usually peaceful, they would say). But a
modicum of political realism makes it highly probable
that the great faith communities will have to co-exist for
the foreseeable future. Is it possible for them actually to
applaud and encourage such diverse co-existence?
Perhaps this is the greatest challenge for religious
communities, which by their nature exclude those who
do not believe, and which tend to think they have a
truth so important that everyone ought to believe it.

In facing this question, religions of the renouncing type
find it fairly easy to applaud diversity. For their primary
faith communities are a spiritual elite, and there may be
other forms of faith for those at differing stages of
spiritual development. Of course this may seem
uncomfortably hierarchical, but it requires so much
renunciation to be a Buddhist monk, for example, that
few other people will resent their own implied spiritual
inferiority.

Communities which permit a wide spectrum of internal
diversity also have little difficulty with the idea of co-
existence - except that they sometimes place rather
rigorous limits on the sort of diversity they will accept.
Protestant Christianity in the United States allows a
wide variety of denominations, but can be very hostile
to Hinduism or Islam. In a similar way, Indian traditions
may be very tolerant to variant Hindu sects, but can be
hostile to Christian ones.

The faiths which have the biggest problem with diversity
are Islam and Christianity. Yet they both embrace a
huge internal diversity, from Sufi brotherhoods to strict
Sunni legalism, from Quaker meetings to the Roman
Curia. Perhaps it only requires a little more imagination
and empathy to make this diversity extend to all morally
acceptable faiths.

In some ways Judaism may suggest a positive model.
While having a divine law for its own community, it also
accepts that its distinctiveness lies in somehow serving
God in one particular way, which God does not require of
Gentiles. This might be called a 'vocational' view of faith.
Some people see themselves as drawn to a particular
vocation, but do not expect or require it of all. If faith
communities could see themselves as vocational in this
way, as purveying a distinctive vision of the divine for
those who are 'called' or attracted to it, the threat of
competition for dominance in beliefs might disappear.

On such a vocational view of the community, a believer
could applaud the variety of communities as an
expression of the variety of human cultures and
perceptions of the divine. But it would be essential to
protect freedom of conscience so that no one is
compelled, either by force or by social pressure, to be a
member of one community, even if they are attracted to
another. It must be said that most faith traditions are
not as yet managing to accept such freedom, but it
seems to be a necessary condition of religious
communities co-existing in the modern world. The
American political theorist Samuel Huntington has
predicted that the next war may be between Islam and
Christianity. This view seems to overlook the diversity of
Islam, apart from anything else, but it is clearly
important for world peace that these communities
renounce violence and seek greater understanding of
one another.

One way in which this can be done is for each
community to emphasise its commitment to human
fulfilment and the preservation of human dignity, and its
central concern as a religion with conscious relationship
to a state or being of supreme value, of wisdom,
compassion and bliss - whether this is called 'God' or
not. Along with this, a greater sensitivity is needed to
the moral ambiguity of all human communities, and to
the positive value of the complementary perspectives
offered by a range of diverse communities.

Religious communities are rather like families. They are
great, strengthening and consoling institutions. But
unless they exist for the sake of others, live peacably
with families other than their own, and avoid nepotism
and introversion, they can become barriers to morality
and truth. So in a global perspective, religious
communities need to find a way to preserve their own
distinctive traditions, while valuing and respecting those
of others. The best way of ensuring this is to allow
diverse forms of communal life to co-exist in a generally
secular society. By this I do not mean an anti- or post-
religious society, but one in which no form of morally
acceptable faith is preferentially favoured. Or if that is
too much to ask, where at least no such faith suffers
severe social or personal penalties by exclusion from the
body politic.

The best foundation for such a global secularism is not
lack of faith, but commitment to a faith community
which has, as an internal part of its world view, respect
for and understanding of the conscientious freedom of
others. That, I think, all the major religious
communities have in principle, but it has often been
obscured by the tendency of all human communities to
eliminate rivals and to believe themselves to be totally
self-sufficient. Religious communities should take the
lead in opposing that tendency. Religions are a major
means of inculcating a sense of community, so
important to human flourishing. But they need to
ensure that this sense is not imperialistic and exclusive,
and that will require some major changes in many
current attitudes, changes which are essential to the
survival and welfare of the earth. Virtually all faith
communities, however, have spiritual resources which
are central to their own tradition and which can
motivate such changes. That they may rediscover and
implement them is our best hope for the future.

The Religion series written by Keith Ward and published
by Oxford University Press was completed in 2000 with
the publication of Religion and Community, Oxford
University Press 0-19-875259 Pbk. £15.99