Folk religions are localized spiritual expressions of pre-scientific and pre-technological cultures with a deep link to nature and oral tradition. They are characterized by being localized to a particular geography, viewing the world in a holistic sense where the sacred and mundane are interconnected, relying on oral traditions rather than written texts, incorporating rituals, shamanism, animism and other beliefs. When folk religions encounter universal religions, they may die out, be affirmed in a modified form, or actively appropriate elements of the new religion according to their own cultural ways of thinking.

2. Folk Religions

3. Formal
Formal, High, Universal Religion:
1. Universal cosmic truth
2. Describe the nature of reality
3. Concern for the purpose and destiny of the
universe, society and the self
4. Institutionalized
5. Authoritative written texts

4. Formal
Formal, High, Universal Religion (cont):
6. Defined theologies, and philosophies
7. Prescribed rites, rules and regulations
8. Trained, often professional, specialists
9. A celebrated great tradition
10.May take folk expression

5. Folk
Folk Religion:
1. Religion of common people
2. Closed systems versus universal
3. Very diverse
4. Particularistic – each clan or tribe has its
own gods, spirits, ancestors, practices,
beliefs
5. An animated world of spirits

6. Folk
Folk Religion:
1. Concern for the meaning of this life and the
problem of death
2. The pursuit of well-being and success, and
the avoidance of misfortunes
3. The pursuit of a knowledge of the unknown
to aid one’s life in the present
4. Employ a wide variety of manipulative
strategies: shamans, rituals, amulets,
charms, offerings, medicines, magic, etc.

7. Terms
Other terms:
Primal
– Prior to the “universal” or formal religions
– Contains the basic features found in all religions
– Assumes an evolutionary account of the origin of
religion
Preliterate
– No literary tradition
– No suggestion of evolutionary development from
a previous or earlier religion

8. A Perspective…
Oglala Sioux Indian, John Lame Deer through biographer Richard
Erdoes:
What do you see here, my friend? Just an ordinary old cooking pot, black
with soot and full of dents. It is standing on the fire on top of that old word stove,
and the water bubbles and moves the lid as the white steam rises to the
ceiling. inside the pot is boiling water, chunks of meat with bone and fat, plenty of
potatoes.
It doesn't seem to have a message, that old pot, and I guess you don't give it
a thought... But I'm an Indian. I think about ordinary, common things like this
pot. The bubbling water comes from the rain cloud. It represents the sky. The
fire comes from the sun which warms us all - men, animals,
trees. The meat stands for the four-legged creatures, our animal brothers, who
gave of themselves so that we should live. The steam is living breath. It was
water; now it goes up to the sky, becomes a cloud again.
These things are sacred. Looking at that pot full of good soup, I am thinking
how, in this simple manner, Wakan Tanka takes care of me. We Sioux spend a lot
of time thinking about everyday things, which in our mind are mixed up with the
spiritual... We Indians live in a world of symbols and images where the spiritual
and the commonplace are one... We try to understand them not with the head but
with the heart, and we need no more than a hint to give us the meaning.

9. Folk Religions
What characterizes the religion and
worldview of John Lame Deer?

10. Definition
Folk religions are localized spiritual
expressions of a pre-scientific and pre-
technological milieu with a deep link with
nature and oral tradition.
The religion of the common people.

11. The Formal and the Folk
• Folk Islam
• Chinese folk religions
• Japanese folk religions
• Christian folk religions

12. Characteristics
Localized
• Are smaller in scale and self-contained
• Tied to a particular geography
• Develop in close connection and
dependence with particular land and/or
water.
• “The land shapes the people.”

13. Characteristics
Holism
• Unity of experience lacking the
fragmentation of modern cultures into
secular and sacred. The sacred or
spiritual is pervasive.
• The whole of existence is sacred.
• Interrelationships, cause/effect
between gods/spirits humans and
nature.

14. Characteristics
Orality
• No literary tradition, yet may have well
developed narrative tradition.
• Common in pre-scientific and pre-
technological cultures.
• Mythological
– Stories which attempt to express ultimate divine
reality, basic truths, or inner meaning of life for
believers.
• The power of words and sounds

15. Characteristics
Ritualistic
–Rehearsals or performances of myths
such as the original creative act.
Reenactments.
–Prescribed celebrations for great
moments of life, such as birth, puberty,
marriage, sickness, planting, war, and
death – rites of passage
–Fertility rites

16. Characteristics
Shamanism
• The key spiritual figure is usually the
shaman who is the tribal healer and who
has traveled the "geography" of the
spiritual realm and of death and has
returned to guide the people.

17. Characteristics
Timelessness
Time not thought of in terms of linear
“distance” and inaccessibility.
A present backdrop in which the gods and
ancestors simply are and are
accessible by people and people
accessible to them.

18. Characteristics
• Animism – the natural world is alive with
spirits,
• Fetishism – protection is sought by the
power of special objects,
• Taboos – prohibitions of certain behaviors
for fear of dangerous contact with spiritual
powers.
• Totemism - a tribal or personal association
with an animal or plant as a source of identity
and spiritual power.

19. What Happens?
What happens to primal religion when they encounter
“universal religions?”
1. They die out
2. Affirmed in some modified form
3. Appropriated to the primal religion
[Filipinos] actively appropriated Western Catholicism according to
their cultural-religious way of feeling, thinking and
behaving. What happened here is a local example of the truth of
the dictum, “quidquid recipitur secundum modum recipientis
recipitur” (“Whatever is perceived is perceived according to the
mode of perception of the perceiver.”). In this way Christianity
became part, no matter how unsystematically, of Filipino reality.
Popular religiosity confirms in its own way the real acceptance of
Christianity by the people. But there is today a continuing
discussion as to whether Filipinos had been truly Christianized, or
whatever Christianity had simply been Filipinized.
(José M. de Mesa, http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/eapr00/Mesa.htm)
• God has the characteristics of Bathala, the primal deity.
• Saints are spirits that control nature.
• Priests are regarded as shamans.

20. What Happens?
Folk religion and Christian mission
Roman Catholic
– High religion and low religion
Protestant
– Secularization

21. Evangelistic Approaches
• Establish relational bridge.
– Credibility - cultural
– Friendship
– Respect
• Establish a conceptual bridge.
– Build on existing ideas
• Bring the truth across.
– Be biblical
– Be aware of your own cultural framework for
understanding Christianity.

22. Evangelistic Approaches
Ask questions regarding the Supreme
Being.
• What is the supreme God like?
• Was there a time when He was close to
humanity?
• What caused this separation?
• Why does God seem distant now?
• How do we offend Him?

23. Evangelistic Approaches
Ask questions regarding the Supreme
Being
– What are the consequences of offending
him?
– Is there any way we can divert these?

24. Worldview Assessment
Contrasting elements
– Primal religions have a multiple gods.
– Christianity has only one God.
– Primal religions believe that gods and
humans belong to one cosmic system,
depending on each other.
– Christianity believes that God is unique and
not dependent upon anything.

25. Worldview Assessment
Primal religions believe in efficacy through
sacrifice and ritual.
– In Christianity…
• God does not depend on our sacrifices
because He provided for us the “once and for
all” sacrifice of his Son.
• He is not moved or manipulated by charms and
rituals.
• God’s power is not localized in any fetish object
nor does he identify himself or peoples with
special totemic symbols.

26. Worldview Assessment
– Primal religions believe in mixing religion and
magic.
– Christianity views magic as incompatible with
belief in the one true God.
– Primal religions have no revelation through
history.
– Christianity is historical in that it points to
important events in which God has acted in
history.

27. Evangelistic Approaches
Teach the Bible storyline
– A sovereign transcendent Personal God exists
and created the heavens and the earth.
– Man was created in some ways like God, the
creation centerpiece and therefore having
intrinsic worth.
– Man rebelled against God and corruption and
perversion are the result.
– God has taken the initiative to save humanity
through his Son.
– History is nearing God’s appointed conclusion