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Religion and Culture; An Overlapping views


By: Azzam Anwar

Religion, in the most ancient form, has become an important factor in society. To borrow a phrase from Durkheim, religion appears in the form of "the sacred" with "the profane" in the public understanding. Therefore, the relationship between religion and culture does not need to be debated. For example, our name, how to talk and respect for the elderly is an example of the relationship between religion and culture. Religion and culture are always coloring our daily lives. From there, it can be concluded that the reality of religion will always intersect closely with everyday reality, the reality of human.

Recognizing this, we will understand that the reality of religion also requires the active work of the human their self. Religion has become the reality of human history and culture influencing each other. That is why; to understand religion in the social construction requires our ability to understand what is prevailing in the community. This is because the reality of the real religion of humanity is expressed in the real world. In addition, the intrinsic meaning of diversity lies in the interpretation and practice of religious discourse.

For Foucault, discourse as a daily reality, can be a tool of interest, power, hegemony, domination culture and knowledge. In the relationship between religion and culture, there are many elements of power play important role in society as a social discourse there. Elements of strength that will be involved in this study will appear at least of two discourses: social interpretation and scientific knowledge. Social interpretation can be extracted from social structures such as family, tribe or nation. Social interpretation provides a clear example of how people produce their knowledge of religion and use it for their daily activities.

Social interpretation is always connected into public relations. Typically, the types of relationships occur such as negotiation, conflict or even "indigenization". In addition, scientific knowledge also plays a key role that academia or the public how other people see and judge ultimately the same as they do research. Scientific knowledge has power because it gives a certain form of "universal truth" for something that is based on the methodology of scientific research.

There is a lot of debate going on in order to show what religion or what culture is. Instead of being involved in the debate, we should celebrate that in the case of the relationship between religion and culture is always different and has a particular role in a particular reality. There is no pure reality built neither by religion nor culture per se. Religion and culture always overlap, intersect and influence each other.

Everyday religion as an example
Everyday religion is a way to differentiate the practice of the daily activities of the official teaching of religion. The term implies that every religion has its own teaching, but also has its own practice of his followers. Differences arise because there are many ways to understand the teaching by the people. Everyday religion is another version of how religion is understood by ordinary people or laity in the modern era.

This approach will be helpful in order to determine that religion really practical. We know that people usually tend to rely on their definition of religion in the official definition of religious institutions such as churches, rabbi / synagogue or Ulama. However, there is a kind of social filter that gives distinction in practice. This approach also shows that in fact people have their own interpretations or definitions about their religion. Thus, this perspective will make the meaning and practice of religion more broadly in society.

Everyday Religion definitely brings a new conception of the meaning of the teachings of other religions. While in the past people just follow the official interpretation, these days people tend to justify that their actions can also be classified as a religion based on their interpretation of the religion itself.

A great example of the daily religion is about the case of the MUI (Indonesian Cleric Board) fatwa of smoking. MUI stating that smoking is prohibited because of many reasons of the healthy side. But we know that many Muslims here still and ignore it. People act against the fatwa by giving another meaning of the teachings of Islam that "official" is. This is very interesting because the people push themselves to follow a different way from the official interpretation as stated by the MUI.

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