The Encyclopedia of World Religions

154 S founders, religious

erate. But reading is done in a different way. In folk-religion versions of scripture-oriented faiths like Christianity or I SLAM , the B IBLE or the Q UR ’ AN may play an important role, to be read, believed, chanted, venerated. Yet they are not read or under stood as they would be by a scholar of the faith’s great institutions of learning, but in a direct way, without historical perspective. The scripture is really another sign, amulet, miracle or source of miracles—the greatest of all. While often passive so far as social or politi cal change is concerned, folk religion can rouse itself to become the voice of the common people and so to produce movements that intend major social change or even revolution, whether moral, social, or political. From out of the very nature of folk religion, such movements are likely to be cos mic, present-oriented, under visionary charismatic leadership, full of belief in miracles and expecting to be confirmed by miraculous signs and victories, up to and including direct divine intervention. But even if frustrated, folk religion movements like that of J OAN OF A RC can change the course of history. Folk religion and its modern popular religion version, with all their color and festivity, remain important in the contemporary world. Further reading: Charles Leslie, ed., Anthropology of Folk Religion (New York: Vintage, 1960); Robert A. Segal, ed., Anthropology, Folklore, and Myth (New York: Garland, 1996); Peter Williams, Popular Religion in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). The six or eight persons who have been accounted the founders of the world’s great religions have exercised far more influence in history than countless kings or presi dents. These include A BRAHAM and M OSES for J UDA ISM , Z ARATHUSTRA (or Zoroaster) for Z OROASTRIANISM , C ONFUCIUS for C ONFUCIANISM , L AO -T ZU for T AOISM , the B UDDHA for B UDDHISM , J ESUS for C HRISTIANITY , and M UHAMMAD for I SLAM . (The traditional life sto ries, and even the historical existence, of some of these may be legendary, but that does not negate founders, religious

occurrences of personal life thus blend into occa sions that keep community identity alive. RITES OF PASSAGE into adulthood are ways for a community to perpetuate its own life; burial rites for the deceased become ways for the family and community to re bond and reaffirm their continuity after the loss. Oral transmission, another fundamental fea ture of folk religion, means that folk religion is learned first of all through the words of people one knows locally and face to face, rather than through much study or in the way the religion is known by its literary sources or elites, its BRAHMINS or bish ops. Folk FAITH is acquired in many ways—from parents, other family, peers, community example, festivals, services, lodges, INITIATIONS , local clergy and wise-women—but mainly in bits and pieces, rather than as a logically coherent whole. As pop ular religion becomes modern and urban, media like radio, television, and massmarket books or magazines may be added to the means of trans mission, so that shamans become television evan gelists. Very important, because of folk religion’s living out of the present rather than out of his tory and institutionalization, is a leader’s capacity to manifest direct and visible spiritual power, or immediate impressive credentials. Like a shaman, she or he should exhibit special charisma and pre ternatural-seeming states of consciousness; or like a priest, the ability to mount imposing and mystic seeming services or ceremonies. Some very impor tant religious leaders like the Japanese Buddhist prophet N ICHIREN and the founder of M ETHODISM , John W ESLEY , have managed successfully to bridge the gap between folk and institutional religion, and on a lesser scale so have many local priests and pastors. Folk religion generally is quite open to belief in MIRACLES and immediate demonstrations of supernatural power, both good and bad. Miracles of HEALING and divine protections are commonly acknowledged, as is belief in negative WITCHCRAFT or comparable uncanny EVIL . Omens, amulets, div ination, VISIONS , voices, signs, and MAGIC may be taken seriously. Oral transmission does not mean that people who maintain a folk religion are necessarily illit