Program / Course 18: World Religions / Lesson 1.2
What you will learn
- Distinguish an insider (emic) view of a religion from an outsider (etic) view.
- Explain what each view can show and what each can miss.
- Recognize that words such as religion, god and salvation do not always carry over from one tradition to another.
- Name some limits of comparison and some ways to compare responsibly.
The big idea
A religion can be studied from inside, as its followers live and understand it, or from outside, as a scholar or neighbor sees it. Both views are useful and both have blind spots. Insiders know what the faith means to them but may not notice what they take for granted. Outsiders can see patterns and compare, but may impose categories that do not fit. Comparison is possible and valuable, yet it works best when the student knows which kind of statement is being made.
Key terms
- Insider view (emic)
- A description in the terms and categories that members of a tradition use for themselves.
- Outsider view (etic)
- A description in terms chosen by an observer, such as a historian or sociologist, which members may not use.
- Category
- A general label used to sort things, such as religion, scripture, priest or salvation.
- Phenomenology of religion
- An approach that tries to describe religious experience and practice as it appears to believers, setting aside questions of truth for the time being.
- Reductionism
- Explaining a religion as nothing but something else, such as psychology, economics or politics.
- Translation
- Carrying a term from one language and culture into another, always with some loss or change of meaning.
- Syncretism
- The blending of elements from different religions into one practice or belief.
Background
Imagine two people describing the same Sunday service. One is a member, who says, “The congregation was gathered before God, and the bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ.” The other is a visitor from a university, who says, “About two hundred people sat in rows, sang, listened to a speaker and shared a ritual meal.” Both statements may be accurate. They are different kinds of statement.
Scholars use the terms emic and etic for this difference. The words come from linguistics. The emic view stays inside the categories of the tradition. The etic view uses categories the scholar brings. A complete education in religions needs both, and a careful student learns to say which one is in use at a given moment.
Comparison is the hardest part of the task. Comparing religions can lead to real insight, as when a student notices that Jews, Christians and Muslims all speak of a single Creator. It can also mislead, when a student assumes that a word in one tradition means the same as a similar word in another.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What the insider view gives
The insider view shows what a religion is like to live in. It supplies the reasons believers give, the stories they tell, the obligations they feel and the way they rank things. A Jewish description of the Sabbath includes rest, but also covenant, memory of creation and the joy of the day. An outsider who lists only “no work on Saturday” has missed most of it.
Insiders can also see distinctions that outsiders overlook. A Muslim knows the difference between the Qur’an as the word of God and the later books of commentary. A Buddhist knows the difference between devotion and meditation. These distinctions matter to the people who live by them.
Step 2: What the insider view can miss
Insiders usually describe their tradition as it ought to be, and may not notice how much of what they do came from local custom or history. They may not be aware of how other people see them. They can also disagree with one another about what is central. Ask three members of the same church what their faith is and the answers will differ.
For these reasons, a single insider cannot be treated as final authority on the whole tradition. A good student reads several, and especially those who write for outsiders.
Step 3: What the outsider view gives, and what it can miss
The outsider view can notice history, patterns and similarities across traditions, and can ask questions that insiders do not ask. Historians have shown, for instance, how the Qur’an was gathered and how Jewish practice developed after the fall of the Temple. This is useful, though some believers find such studies difficult when they seem to treat sacred texts like ordinary documents.
Outsiders can also err. They may explain a religion by something else and claim that it is only psychology or only politics. This is reductionism. Such explanations may be partly true, but believers rightly object when their reasons are ignored. A scholar who never takes the believer’s own reasons seriously will not understand the religion.
Step 4: Words that do not travel
Many English terms for religion come from Christian history. The word religion itself is debated: some traditions have no single word that matches it. Hinduism is a Western label for a family of practices that its own members often call by other names. In Judaism, being Jewish is a matter of peoplehood as well as belief, which is why a person can be a secular Jew. Islam stresses submission and practice (the word Islam means submission to God) as much as creed.
Take the word salvation. In Christianity it means being saved from sin and death through Christ. In Buddhism the closer idea is liberation from suffering and rebirth. In Judaism the focus is often on living faithfully in the covenant and on the hope for the world to come. Treating these as one “salvation” hides real differences.
Step 5: Comparing responsibly
Comparison is still worth doing. A responsible comparison states the category it uses, explains how each tradition fills it, and marks where the fit is poor. It avoids two errors. One error says that all religions are the same underneath. The other says that no comparison is possible. Neither claim is supported by careful study: the traditions share some concerns and differ sharply on others.
Another caution is that some similarities are real and some are only on the surface. Two traditions may both have fasting, and the reasons for it may be unrelated. Always ask what a practice means inside the tradition before using it in a comparison.
- Am I describing this as the tradition does, or in words that I have supplied?
- Which insider voices have I heard, and are they the only ones?
- What does a purely outside description leave out?
- Does the word I am using, such as religion, priest or salvation, really fit this tradition?
- Am I explaining the belief away, or taking its reasons seriously?
- What would a member of this tradition say is the main difference between us?
Examples
Insider and outsider on the same practice
A Muslim says, “Prayer five times a day is a duty to God and a way to remember Him throughout the day.” A sociologist says, “Daily prayer structures time and builds community identity.” The second may be true as far as it goes, but only the first states why the Muslim prays.
A word that does not travel
In English, Theravada Buddhist monks are sometimes called priests. But they do not offer sacrifice or stand as mediators between God and people in the way the Christian word priest suggests, and Theravada does not center on a creator God. A better description uses the tradition’s own term, monk, and explains the role.
A comparison that works
Jews, Christians and Muslims all teach that God created the world and gave moral instruction. Comparing what each tradition says about the source and authority of that instruction is fruitful, because all three speak of a divine word. (A constructed outline of a comparison.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching holds that reason and honest study can know real truths, and that other religions can contain truth and goodness (Nostra Aetate). This supports careful study from both inside and outside. At the same time the Church teaches that the fullness of revelation is given in Christ, so Catholics do not treat all traditions as the same.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology stresses that God is known by participation and worship, not merely by observation. For that reason an Orthodox Christian may hold that purely external study of any faith, including Orthodoxy, misses the heart of it. Orthodox scholars still use historical and textual methods.
Protestant
Protestants hold a range of views. Some evangelical scholars use the language of general revelation, meaning that God gives knowledge of himself through creation and conscience (Romans 1:20), to explain why other religions contain real insights. Other Protestants, in the tradition of Karl Barth, are suspicious of religion as a human effort and place revelation in Christ alone.
Jewish, Muslim and other adherents
Many Jewish and Muslim scholars welcome outside study that is respectful and accurate. Many also object when scholarship treats their sacred texts only as human products, or when Christian categories such as creed and church are used to describe them. These objections are themselves a useful guide to what outside study should avoid.
Scholarly study of religion
Scholars debate whether the very category of religion is too shaped by Christian history to compare traditions fairly. Some think it should be used with care, and others think it is still useful. This is an active debate, not a settled question.
Why it matters
The rest of the course compares traditions on God, revelation, humanity and salvation. Those comparisons only work if the student knows when a word is being borrowed, when a description is from inside and when from outside. This lesson supplies the habit of asking, in every case, whose categories are in use.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Only a member of a religion can say anything true about it.
Correction: Insiders have special knowledge, but outsiders can also learn real facts, ask new questions and check claims against history. The best understanding usually draws on both.
Misunderstanding: Comparison shows that all religions are basically the same.
Correction: Careful comparison finds real agreements and real disagreements. Many religions share moral concerns, but they differ on God, the human problem and what rescue looks like.
Misunderstanding: If a scholar explains the origin of a belief, the belief is thereby shown to be false.
Correction: Knowing how a belief arose does not by itself decide whether it is true. Treating it so is sometimes called the genetic fallacy. Arguments about truth must be judged on their own grounds.
Misunderstanding: Religion is a universal category that applies the same way everywhere.
Correction: The word comes from Western history, and some traditions do not divide life into religious and non-religious parts. Use it, but with attention to how each tradition speaks.
Knowledge check
What do the terms emic and etic mean?
Emic describes a tradition in the categories and language its own members use. Etic describes it in categories brought by an outside observer, such as a historian or sociologist. A careful student learns to say which kind of statement is being made and to use both.
Give one thing an insider view can miss and one thing an outsider view can miss.
An insider view can miss how much of a practice comes from local history or how outsiders perceive the tradition. An outsider view can miss the believer’s own reasons and the meaning of the practice, especially when it explains the religion as nothing but psychology or politics.
Why is salvation a difficult word to use across traditions?
It means different things. In Christianity it is rescue from sin and death through Christ. In Buddhism the nearer idea is liberation from suffering and rebirth, and in Judaism the emphasis is often on faithful life within the covenant. One word can hide these differences.
Name two errors that careless comparison can fall into.
One error is to say that all religions are the same at bottom, which ignores real differences. The other is to say that no comparison is possible, which ignores genuine shared concerns. A third is to treat similar-looking practices as having the same meaning when their reasons differ.
Think it through
- Think of your own church service or practice. How would you describe it as an insider, and how might a visitor describe it?
- Which Christian words, such as sin, grace or church, might not fit another tradition well?
- Is it possible to take a believer’s reasons seriously and still disagree? What does that look like in practice?
- Why might a believer feel hurt by a purely historical study of a sacred text?
Independent assignment
Two descriptions of one practice
In your notebook, choose one practice from a tradition you have seen or read about (for example Jewish Sabbath, Muslim daily prayer or Hindu puja). Write about 150 words describing it as an insider would, using the tradition’s own terms and reasons. Then write about 150 words describing it as an outside observer would. Finish with 100 words on what each description shows and what each leaves out. Use a source written by a member of the tradition.
Further study
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions Read how the author tries to give a tradition’s own sense of itself, and compare his account with another source.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religious Diversity (Pluralism) Read the opening sections for how philosophers handle the problem of comparing religious claims.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hermeneutics Read for the general problem of interpreting texts and practices from another setting.
- Romans 1:20 God’s qualities seen in creation, a text used for general revelation.
- Acts 17:28 Paul quotes the poets of Athens in his speech.
- Proverbs 18:13 Answering before hearing is folly.