The Encyclopedia of World Religions

364 S purification, religious

ance of the Jewish people from a planned massa cre in ancient Persia. The date of the massacre had been set by casting lots—thus, the name. Purim is celebrated on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Adar, generally in March. It is preceded by a fast on the 13th day. At the heart of the celebration is a festive reading of the book of E STHER in the SYNAGOGUE . Esther tells the story of the plot against the Jews and how it was thwarted. The name of the person responsible for the plot was Haman. Whenever his name is read, congre gations often use loud noisemakers to keep his name from being heard. Jews celebrate Purim with other lighthearted activities. These often include costume parties and the performance of plays. Purim is also a time to give gifts to friends and charity to the poor. Puritanism A movement within Protestant C HRISTIANITY . Puritanism was active in England and its North American colonies in the late 16th and the 17th centuries. It took its name from its program: It wanted the Church of England ( see A NGLICANISM ) to be purely Protestant ( see P ROTESTANTISM ). King Henry VIII began the English R EFORMA TION as a political rather than a religious move. Henry’s only objection to the Catholic Church was that it would not grant him a divorce. Therefore, he nationalized the church in his realm ( see NATIONAL ISM , RELIGIOUS ). By the time of Queen Elizabeth I the Church of England had assumed a compromise form. Its beliefs, practices, and structures were neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant but some where in between. The Puritans opposed this compromise. They favored Protestantism. They first objected to the Catholic vestments that the Church of England required its ministers to wear. But this objection was only a symptom of a much more profound dis agreement. At issue were central features in THE OLOGY and church organization as well as WORSHIP practices. Some Puritans left the Church of Eng land. Indeed, some had to flee England itself. But most stayed in England and its church. Puritanism was a movement, not a separate Christian body.

purification, religious Making oneself clean or pure in a religious sense. Virtually all religions have some concept of that which is pure—that is, which is as it should be, and which is of the same pure nature as the soul and the divine—and of that which is polluted, in other words, the opposite: dirty, dangerous, of a nature that separates one from the divine. Pollutants may be inward: EVIL , “impure” thoughts, sinful ideas, bad attitudes. They may be expressed in behavior: sinful deeds, the violation of TABOOS , doing RITUALS incorrectly. Or they may be external or occasional. Many societies, for exam ple, have notions that such things as feces, blood, childbirth ( see BIRTH RITUALS ), sickness, the pres ence of death or a corpse, are inherently polluting and may require ritual purification before the per son exposed to them can be considered pure and perform certain religious acts, or even be accepted in society. Sometimes certain animals are consid ered impure, either inherently or as foodstuffs, as in the traditional dietary rules of Orthodox J UDAISM and I SLAM , which forbid eating the flesh of the pig. Sometimes, as in the Hindu caste system, some human beings, and their occupations, are regarded as impure to those of higher status, and so contact between them must be limited. Ritual ways of removing impurity are very common. Often a person who has indulged in inward pollution or SIN should confess and do penance to make up for it, as in R OMAN C ATHOLI CISM . External and other kinds of pollution may be removed by such acts as ritual bathing, ritual sweeping gestures, the ritual use of water, salt, or fire (all widely regarded as purifying), and the like. Frequently religious services begin with ritual ges tures purifying the area and the persons present, like the sprinkling of holy water in the Catholic traditions of C HRISTIANITY or the waving of an ever green branch in S HINTO . Even when ritual expres sions of purity versus pollution are not present, they are often felt and dealt with inwardly.

Purim Hebrew word meaning “lots”; the name of a Jewish festival. Purim celebrates the deliver