Social Institutions and Religions

Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam are a few of the "universal" or "universalizing" religions. Strayer frames the universalizing religions in terms of the spread of different cultures and ideas throughout the world. Religions are integral to social and political power and control, and thus have a transformative effect on society as well as on the individuals within that society. The nature of universalizing religion is such that they can be all-pervasive, permeating almost every dimension of life including political, economic, and social institutions.

However, universalizing religions are distinct in that they actively seek new followers; they believe their message is indeed universal and contains universal truths embedded within it. Although universalizing religions use different methods of spreading their faiths, they share in common the desire to influence human thought and even public discourse.

Of the universalizing religions, Christianity and Islam have historically revealed the most aggressive evangelical tendencies but Hinduism and Buddhism have at times engaged in colonial activities and proselytism too, which is why Buddhism penetrated into the farthest reaches of East, Southeast, and Central Asia from its initial hub in India, and why Hindu kingdoms flourished for some time in Southeast Asia. When universalizing religions engage in colonial activities, they actively and permanently transform their target cultures and communities, in addition to individuals.

As Premawardhana points out, religious conversion has a "plurality of meanings," (21). Conversion is occasionally forced, as during periods of crusades by Christians and Muslims or the colonial enterprises of European Christian nations in the Americas and the Muslim Ottoman Empire throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Kong shows how Christianity has continually been able to reinvent itself, repackaging itself and changing its evangelical methods to remain relevant. Universalizing religions need to update themselves in order to attract followers from each generation.

In addition to their practice of colonialism and cultural transformation, there are specific doctrinal elements to universalizing religions that give them their "universal" characteristics or universal appeal. For one, religions that appeal to the desire of all humans to be free from fear and suffering are bound to have universal appeal. All of the universalizing religions promise that ascription to the faith will offer the practitioner liberation of some sort. The type of liberation and the way it is presented to the individual is different for each of these faiths.

For the Christian, liberation comes only in death. For the Buddhist, the opposite is true -- liberation comes from cultivating Buddha-nature now. As Strayer points out, Buddhism had a strong popular appeal throughout East Asia in part because the religion was able to integrate itself well with existing religions and worldviews. When a religion can adapt to local cultural norms, it has a much greater chance to become a universalizing religion. Ethical and moral precepts are other reasons why these faiths have universalizing tendencies and universal appeal.

Societies often structure their laws around the moral precepts embedded in the dominant religions, which is why law has a cultural context. Sharia law is integral to the religion of Islam, and Sharia law interfaces with secular law in many Muslim societies. The moral guidelines outlined in the Old Testament, as in the Ten Commandments, have become the foundation for ethical and legal codes in Christian societies. The need for clear moral guidelines and codes of behavior is one of the main reasons why some religions have become universal.

Universalizing religions need to be genuinely universal in that they deny the relevance of ethnicity or culture to the faith itself. Closed religions, or religions that are not universal because they depend on ethnic heritage, cannot by definition become universal. Zoroastrianism is an example of a religion that does not accept converts; Although Judaism accepts converts, it does not proselytize and to a degree is an ethnic religion because of its matrilineal tradition.

Universalizing religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, on the other hand, reach out to all people regardless of their background or ethnicity. They do not need to be culturally embedded religions, even though often they are. Christianity has a strong evangelical tradition, which is continued until this day with missionary activities throughout the world.

In fact, missionary work is one of the ways universal religions like Christianity are successful: they perform acts of service and develop institutions that promote economic growth or education, but do so under the rubric of religion. Islam likewise has its own banking system. Buddhism is.