Religion, page 9
Other Living Traditions
Four great traditions beyond the largest religions, and seven smaller faiths in brief, all sorted the same way.
Beyond the four largest
The last four pages looked at the world’s largest religions. This page turns to four other great traditions, smaller in numbers but deep in wisdom: Judaism, the root from which both Christianity and Islam grew; Sikhism; Taoism; and Confucianism. It ends with seven smaller faiths in brief.
Each is sorted with the same three labels used throughout this section: wise, questionable or story, and harmful, followed by a short note on how to be its friend.
Judaism
The ancient Near East, about 3,000 years old, tracing back to Abraham and Moses. About 15 million followers.
Judaism was one of the first religions to worship a single God, and it is the root from which both Christianity and Islam grew. At its center are the covenant, a lasting relationship between God and the Jewish people, and the Torah, the teaching and law given through Moses. Judaism has several main branches today, from Orthodox, which keeps the traditional law strictly, to Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist, which adapt it to modern life.
Wise
The Sabbath: one full day in seven set apart from work, buying, and busyness, for rest, family, and the spirit. In a world that never stops, it may be the wisest idea any religion has offered. Justice: repeated commands to care for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan. Questioning: Abraham argues with God, and the rabbis of the Talmud record their disagreements rather than hiding them. Repairing the world: the call known as tikkun olam. And the Psalms, which give words to every human feeling, from despair to joy.
Questionable or story
A literal six-day creation, the parting of the sea, and the other miracles of the early books, which many Jews themselves read as teaching stories rather than history. The Exodus from Egypt, whose history scholars debate, but whose story of liberation from slavery has inspired oppressed people for thousands of years. The idea of a “chosen people,” which many Jews understand as chosen for responsibility, not privilege. And the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, with deep meditative practices wrapped in an elaborate symbolic picture of the universe.
Harmful
In Orthodox Judaism, women cannot serve as rabbis, are not counted among the ten people needed for communal prayer, and sit separately in the synagogue. Under traditional law, only a husband can grant a divorce, so a wife whose husband refuses can be left “chained,” unable to remarry, sometimes for years. In Israel, where religious courts control Jewish marriage and divorce, this affects many women. The early books of the Bible also contain harsh laws, including death by stoning, and accounts of wars of conquest, though Jewish tradition long ago stopped applying such laws.
The other side of the ledger: Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative Judaism ordain women as rabbis, the first as early as 1935, and many Orthodox rabbis now use prenuptial agreements to protect wives from being chained.
Being a friend of Judaism
Keep a Sabbath of your own, even a few hours of rest each week. Accept an invitation to a Passover meal, read the Psalms, and learn from a tradition that honors questions.
Sikhism
The Punjab region of India, founded by Guru Nanak about 500 years ago. About 25 million followers.
Guru Nanak taught that there is one God, beyond all religious labels, found through honest living and devotion rather than ritual or rank. Nine gurus followed him, and the last named the Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, as the eternal guide. Its three core duties are to remember God, to earn an honest living, and to share with others.
Wise
Radical equality: Sikhism rejected the caste system from the start and taught the equality of women and men. The langar: a free community kitchen at every Sikh temple, where anyone of any background sits on the floor side by side and eats together. The Golden Temple in Amritsar feeds tens of thousands of people every day. Selfless service, called seva. Remembering God by repeating the divine name, a practice much like mantra meditation. And the balance of devotion with ordinary working family life, rather than withdrawal from the world.
Questionable or story
The five articles of faith worn by initiated Sikhs, including uncut hair and a steel bracelet, are symbols of commitment and identity. Karma and rebirth, as in the other traditions of India, are matters of faith. And the miracle stories that grew up around Guru Nanak’s travels are loved for the lessons they carry.
Harmful
Here the harm lies mostly in the gap between teaching and practice. Although the gurus rejected caste, caste divisions persist among many Sikhs, and in some places separate gurdwaras serve different castes. Women are fully equal in Sikh teaching, yet they remain rare in leadership, and they are still not permitted to sing the hymns in the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple. Many Sikhs are working to bring practice in line with the gurus’ own teaching.
Being a friend of Sikhism
Visit a gurdwara and share a meal at the langar, where you will be welcomed as an equal whatever your faith.
Taoism
China. Its classic, the Tao Te Ching, dates from about 2,400 years ago.
The Tao, or “Way,” is the natural flow of the universe, which cannot be fully captured in words. Taoism teaches living in harmony with it: simply, humbly, and without forcing. Its central text, the Tao Te Ching, is traditionally credited to a sage called Laozi.
“The highest excellence is like that of water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving, the low place which all men dislike.”
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8, translated by James LeggeWise
Be like water: soft and yielding, yet able to wear away stone. Wu wei, “effortless action,” doing what is needed without strain or struggle. Simplicity, humility, and a deep love of nature. And tai chi and qigong, the gentle flowing exercises that grew from Taoist practice, which research shows improve balance and reduce falls in older adults.
Questionable or story
Yin and yang, the balance of opposites such as light and dark, active and restful: wise as a way of seeing life in balance, but not a literal force of physics. Qi, the life energy said to flow through the body, which has never been measured, though the practices built on it are calming and healthy. Laozi’s legendary life, riding away on an ox. And the immortals, with the old quest for an elixir of eternal life.
Harmful
Very little, by comparison. Taoism has seldom sought political power to force its beliefs on others. The main harms have come from story taken as fact: several Chinese emperors died from drinking elixirs of immortality that contained mercury, and today, remedies based on qi can do harm when used in place of real medical treatment.
Being a friend of Taoism
Read the Tao Te Ching, a short book you can finish in an afternoon and ponder for a lifetime, or join a tai chi class in the park.
Confucianism
China. Confucius lived about 2,500 years ago, around the time of the Buddha.
Confucianism is less a religion than a philosophy of how to live well with others. Confucius taught that a good society grows from good people, and good people are made through lifelong learning, self-examination, and respect in every relationship: between parent and child, friends, and rulers and citizens. For two thousand years it shaped the life of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
Confucius, Analects, Book 15, translated by James LeggeWise
The “silver rule” above, a cousin of the golden rule. Lifelong learning and self-improvement. Daily self-examination: one of Confucius’s disciples said he examined himself every day on three points, much like the Stoic evening review. Ren, humaneness or kindness toward others. And the idea that leaders should rule by good example rather than by force.
Questionable or story
Honoring ancestors. Remembering and respecting those who came before us is wise; offering food to their spirits belongs to belief and custom.
Harmful
Classical Confucian teaching bound a woman to “three obediences”: to her father as a daughter, to her husband as a wife, and to her son as a widow. Its rigid ranks placed the young below the old and subjects below rulers in all things, and for centuries they were used to justify the absolute power of emperors and the silence of women. Modern Confucian thinkers have worked to keep the tradition’s kindness, learning, and self-examination while leaving the old hierarchy behind.
Being a friend of Confucianism
End each day with a few minutes of honest self-examination, and live by the silver rule.
Smaller traditions in brief
Seven more faiths, each summed up with the same three labels.
Jainism
India, about 2,500 years old.
Wise: Nonviolence toward every living thing, practiced more thoroughly than anywhere else, and the teaching that truth has many sides. The parable of the blind men who each touch a different part of an elephant, and each insist they know what an elephant is, comes from this tradition.
Questionable or story: An elaborate picture of the universe and its endless cycles of great teachers.
Zoroastrianism
Ancient Persia, one of the oldest living religions.
Wise: Its simple motto, good thoughts, good words, good deeds, and the teaching that each person is free to choose between good and evil.
Questionable or story: A cosmic battle between good and evil spirits. Its ideas of heaven, hell, and a final judgment likely influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Shinto
Japan, ancient and ongoing.
Wise: Reverence for the sacred in nature, in mountains, waterfalls, and ancient trees, with gratitude and a love of cleanliness and purity.
Questionable or story: The spirits, or kami, as literal beings, and the old belief that the emperor descended from the sun goddess, which Japan’s emperor himself publicly renounced in 1946.
Harmful: Before 1945, “State Shinto” was used to build worship of the emperor and to support Japan’s wartime militarism.
Indigenous traditions
Native American, African, Australian, and others worldwide.
Wise: Kinship with the earth and all living things, honoring ancestors, and thinking of the generations yet unborn when making decisions.
Questionable or story: The spirits of animals, places, and ancestors, which carry deep respect for the natural world. These traditions deserve respect, and their ceremonies belong to their own communities rather than to outsiders who borrow them.
Modern paganism and Wicca
Britain and America, revived in the 20th century.
Wise: Living by the rhythm of the seasons, reverence for nature, and the Wiccan guideline to do as you will, so long as you harm none.
Questionable or story: Spells and magic, best understood as symbol and intention rather than power.
The Latter-day Saints
America, founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. About 17 million members.
Wise: Strong families and communities, a well-organized system for caring for members in need, a culture of service, and a health code without alcohol or tobacco. Studies have found that devout members tend to live longer than average.
Questionable or story: The Book of Mormon’s account of ancient peoples in the Americas, which archaeology has not supported.
Harmful: Early polygamy, officially ended in 1890, and a ban on Black men holding the priesthood that lasted until 1978. Women still cannot hold the priesthood.
Rastafari
Jamaica, 1930s.
Wise: The dignity and liberation of people descended from slavery, a natural whole-food diet, and a message of love and unity spread around the world through reggae music.
Questionable or story: The belief that Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie was divine, which he himself did not claim.
The heart of it
Every tradition on this page has something to give: the Sabbath, the free kitchen, the wisdom of water, the silver rule, nonviolence, good thoughts, words, and deeds, and reverence for nature. And each, where it has gathered harm, has reformers working to heal it.
Continue
The final page of this section turns to smaller spiritual paths that have grown up mostly in the last few centuries: the Quakers, the Baha’i Faith, Unity and New Thought, the Unitarian Universalists, and the new age movement. Many of them say similar things under different names, so rather than a page for each, we look at the ideas they share.