Religion and Society
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Religion and Society
Imagine a perfect world, a living experience where good always trampled evil. Such a place does not exist among human beings. The human species is usually defined through complex social interaction rules ever since the rudimentary set of human life. For a functional social setting, the set social norms should be respected and followed to the letter. The social rules are set based on specific tools. One such of a tool is religion, a set system of specific beliefs, morals, and practices relating humanity to supernatural beings. Its influence on strife and willingness by human beings to follow their ambitions for a taste of success and grandeur has had positive and negative effects on their well-being and the society as a whole. The separation of the right set of religious beliefs from wrong ones has been behind major human choices, both good and bad. Chinua Achebe’s and Leo Tolstoy’s ingenious character presentation in their books “Things Fall Apart” and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” respectively unanimously demonstrate religion and our society.
Religion is normally based on good against evil, the conflict between good and evil has been in existence for a long time. Evil is the absence of what is termed as good. The term good is subjective as it relates to specific human settings and religious beliefs. This is evident in the disparity between the cultures of the Umuofia clan and that of the colonialists in the “Things Fall Apart” novel. Christianity, a monotheistic religion, is in direct conflict with the Igbo tribe, who believe in the existence of several gods and goddesses. The separation of what good from evil is, therefore, directly related to the set religious practices a clan member chooses to follow.
Religion may, at times, be viewed as a mind-control tool. A tool used to further specific behavior related agendas, both positive and negative, as presented the “Things fall apart” book. Enoch is the son of a priest of the snake cult. He’s presented as a quarrelsome man, and rumour has it that his father had cursed him for killing and eating the sacred python. His embrace of the Christian religion that is in direct contrast to his father’s beliefs amazed an angered many. “Enoch’s devotion to the new faith had seemed so much greater than Mr Brown’s that the villagers called him the outsider who wept louder than the bereaved.” (Chinua, 1958).) Enoch’s new belief gave him the courage to disrespect publicly and question a cultural norm that had been in existence for centuries. Mr Brown terms the worship of other gods as idolatry, arousing confusion among clan members and the questioning of their cultural norms as demonstrated by the unmasking of an egwugwu during a ceremony to honour the dead by Enoch. The colonialists used Enoch to disapprove of the said powers of the gods; the clan believes in the search for more converts.
Religion plays a key role in the moral and political settings of any society. It is usually the basis on which rules are set. This is seen by the way colonialists break authoritative order in Umuofia by destroying the clan’s basis of justice. They take authority from the clan heads and give it to converts with no titles and are viewed as outcasts within the community. Also, the death of a clansman, the son of Ogbuefi Ezeudu, is termed as a crime committed against the earth goddess. Okonkwo and his family, therefore, has to be exiled for seven years. For the cleansing of the village, the men had to burn all his belongings under the set cultural rules. This clearly shows the levels of reliance the society has on religion in the maintenance of law and order.
Religion presents the ground where cultural similarities and disparities wage war. Every religious group striving to prove the superiority of their beliefs. In Umuofia for example, religion was associated with agriculture while the white men associated it with education. To maintain the loyalty of the members of both religions, fear tactics are incorporated. The clan members of the Umuofia society are believed to live on the mercies of the agricultural cycles provided by their gods. They are therefore resistant to go against the will of the gods. The missionaries, Mr Brown in particular, openly find fault in the worship of any other god and use scare tactics too to ensure that the white man’s religion takes roots too. Anyone going against the will of the white man is beaten and locked up. The use of symbolism is another notable similarity in both cultures is evident in the conversation between Akunna and Mr Brown concerning the use of wooden carvings as deities. He presents those as symbols of their god just as Mr Brown is a symbol of his god.
Chinua Achebe depicts religion as a source of a generational divide. This is when he foreshadows Okonkwo’s experiences after a rise in the Christian flock in his fatherlands. This is through a speech by an elder from Okonkwo’s mother’s side while he was exiled. “I have only a short while to live, and so have Uchendu and Unachukwu and Emefo. But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong the bond of kinship is. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice.” (Chinua, 1958). This speech foretells the dissolution of clans, families and Igbo traditions witnessed in later chapters influenced by the absorption of the white man religion into the community.
The power of religion over a person’s emotional well-being cannot be overlooked. It affects the decision making, thought processing, and behavioural patterns of a person influencing temporal changes in the states of emotional whole being or the shaping of a person’s character. It brings about the conflict between physical life and spiritual life. In the book “The death of Ivan Ilyich,” Ilyich is not presented as a very religious man. This did not mean that religion did not emotionally affect him more so in the approach of his death. The inevitability of death caused new perspectives, new spiritual beginnings and an evaluation of the life lived. “When the priest came and heard his confession, Ivan Ilyich was softened and seemed to feel a relief from his doubts and consequently from his sufferings, and for a moment there came a ray of hope.” (Tolstoy, 2005).
He is later said to receive a sacrament from the priest in tears as he thought of the possibility of correcting the vermiform appendix. A religious practice had the power to ease the emotional load of operation, gave him hope and a need to live again. Gerasim, Ilyich’s servant explains death as the will of God. With such a perspective, handling hopeless, weak and dying patients becomes manageable. The use of religious beliefs to fill crucial emotional voids or give reason to baffling situations has made it an irresistible tool in psychological, political and social settings.
Tolstoy has used religion in the background to show the spiritual changes in human life based on experiences. The life of Ivan Ilyich tries to use a religious perspective to give meaning to life. The book presents two kinds of lives, artificial life and real life. Artificial life is characterized by self-interest and unfulfilling materialistic actions. Such a life is presented by Peter and almost everyone in Ivan’s company. The real-life is presented as full filling, thoughtful, compassionate and respects people for who they are not what they are worth. This is presented by Gerasim. (Tolstoy, 2005)Ivan’s life is presented as artificial and non-spiritual, a person who lives by his own rules. Religion in this book seem to suddenly appear, Ivan turns his thoughts from blaming himself for his suffering to relating it to a punishment from God.
In conclusion, a proverb in the book Things Fall Apart say, “Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig” (Chinua, 1958) which acknowledges the power of external factors on the changes of fate. The influence of any religion on the members of any community in individual decision making, development of political structures and generational passing of social norms cannot, therefore, be dismissed. As presented by these books, religion provides faith, which leads to action resulting in a positive or negative growth of a society or an individual.
Reference
Chinua, A. (1958). Things fall apart. Retrieved from http://marul.ffst.hr/~bwillems/fymob/things.pdf
Tolstoy, L. (2005). The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Retrieved from http://www.classicallibrary.org/tolstoy/ivan/index.htm