The Encyclopedia of World Religions

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and make faith characteristic of J UDAISM , I SLAM , and especially C HRISTIANITY . They stress ways in which what appears to be faith in other religions differs from the faith that characterizes Judaism, Chris tianity, and Islam. Others acknowledge these dif ferences but argue that the religious elements of other beliefs still count as faith. They think that the others have simply defined faith too narrowly. The paragraphs that follow use illustrations from various religions, not just Judaism, Christian ity, and Islam. Readers should realize that these illustrations offer rough approximations that not everyone would accept. VARIETIES OF FAITH Faith has different shades of meaning in religion. In some contexts it means chiefly fidelity, the ongo ing loyalty of worshippers to G OD and of God to humanity even when all seems darkest. It is thus really a kind of inner stability of character and predictability of action. Muslims may express this attitude in part when they profess their faith in the words of the shahadah: “I profess that there is no God but God (A LLAH ), and that M UHAMMAD is his Messenger.” This is certainly the attitude displayed in the B IBLE by J OB . In R OMAN C ATHOLICISM faith first of all means acknowledging the truths of the religion, which are contained in the established DOGMAS AND DOC TRINES . The most basic expressions of these truths are the CREEDS . Such teachings may be arrived at in part by reason rather than simple acceptance. Prot estants, too, especially Protestant laypeople, some times think of faith as believing in propositions, for example, that the Bible contains no errors.

fairies In traditional folklore, nonhuman, quasi supernatural but not divine beings who dwell on this planet. Fairies, elves, gnomes, dwarfs, brown ies, trolls, and pixies are familiar names. While not strictly religious, belief in fairies is interesting and important for showing that the sense of won der that is one source of religion can have other manifestations than the reverence of G OD alone. In some religious mythologies, one finds not only HEAVENS above and HELLS beneath, but also “hori zontal” wonderlands somewhere on our plane. For example, Avalon, the Isles of the Blessed, and the Eastern grottoes of immortals, are comparable to Fairyland. faith The state of mind by which religious people are able inwardly to accept and act on the teachings of a religion. Faith is called for especially when there are few outward proofs that a religion is true. In the most famous definition of faith, that of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Christian N EW T ESTAMENT , it is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” IS FAITH FOUND IN ALL RELIGIONS? In the 1950s a professor at Harvard, Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916–2000), made a suggestion that extended this usage of the word “faith.” He said that instead of talking about religions scholars should talk about faith and cumulative traditions. Both common usage and Smith’s suggestion imply that faith is found in many, if not all, religions. Actually, scholars disagree about whether most religions involve faith. Some take a narrow view

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