Religion: Its Past and Present; Its Role in British Society

Introduction

 

 

In present course work we are going to turn our attention to the most widespread religions in Great Britain, because religion and belief has an important role to play in modern and democratic societies, for the individual and for society as a whole.

It should be noted that the importance of religion lies primarily in the moral and socio-moral aspect of man’s existence. Any religion may be seen as a belief system. This system may affect values, laws, customs, rites and general behaviour patterns. Religion may affect the individual, group, community or nation. It may play a peripheral or an integral role within society.

It’s necessary to say that religion is almost always a belief in some form of supernatural happenings or causes. It is always associated with some sort of discipline, be it physical, mental or, many deny the fact, but all are so steeped in the traditions and ideas basic to religion that psychological. Such disciplines often manifest themselves as religious ritual or habitual behaviour. Religion underpins the emotions and logic of almost everyone. In today’s secular societies it is an identity for those who consider themselves to be members of a particular group. Even those who do not consider themselves to be members, or do not actively participate, but are associated mainly with those are members of a sect, effectively impossible to shake off its effects. Even in societies where the official line has been that there is no God, the ordinary people have been so exposed to a long tradition of religious concepts that almost no-one could be devoid of its effects. Religion effectively provides identify themselves and are identified by others, as belonging to the culture of the sect.

We know that one of the most significant differences between man and other living beings is the moral and the socio-moral aspect of man’s existence. Man is not merely a physical being. On the contrary, man has a strong moral aspect to his existence. This moral and socio-moral aspect of man’s existence is the foundation on which the legal and social structures that we see in all the societies have evolved overtime. It is in fact the acceptance, appreciation and realization of mutual rights and responsibilities, which has resulted in the strong bonds of family, friendship, tribe and society. So it’s religion that supports social norms, provides social integration, social control, legitimating of social values, social solidarity, social conformity, interpretation of important life cycles in society and life events, informs legal systems.

This course work is actual because, the function of religion in a society is often to explain to the people in that society their primal origins, the nature of life, the function and aims of life and reasons for living. It’s not questioned that religion still continues to influence and guide people through times of crisis, helping them to face the challenges of living and even in facing death.

According to this, the main aims of my work are to single out the role of religion in British society, to study multitude diversity of religions in Great Britain, how Christian, so as non-Christian and describe religious situation in Britain nowadays, turning into its past.

Remarkably, that in a few words religion can be defined as belief in spiritual beings. More broadly, religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life. Religion has helped societies in maintaining social harmony and well as aided authorities in social control by directing citizens towards rightful behavior, because it’s the major determinant of human behavior since the dawn of consciousness.

Religion may dictate a set of acceptable standards and those who wish to remain in that society must adhere to those standards, within acceptable limits. For those who are unable to do this, for whatever reason, there is the option of leaving the society or of beginning / belonging to, another religion.

It is necessary to say that religion has always been the refuge to man in times of crises. While religion offers the direction for rightful behavior in both public and private spheres, it also protect from vulnerabilities. As the media reports and other studies reveal, religion continues to be a major force and influence in the present society, including the United Kingdom, as it influences governmental, business and family values and decisions.

It must be noted that the Church is a visible organization. It is a form of «public community» and so to be officially recognized. It is not simply a private association of individual consciences whose activities have nothing to do with the world. So, one of my chapters takes the information about Christian churches, its membership, structure, doctrine and practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Religion: Its Past and Present; Its Role in British Society

 

1.1 Historical background

 

In the late Roman world a paganus was a ‘rustic’, and the word’s shift to mean ‘non-Christian’ reflects a period when Christianity had spread among the upper classes and within towns, but not to the rural peasantry. Pagans need not share any common ground, but in Britain the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings recognized the same major gods and goddesses, but with slight variations in name, and although the native British had different deities these had responsibility for similar aspects of life such as warfare and fertility. The Romans had no trouble in assimilating the deities of either group with their own pantheon. One should not envisage either Celtic or Germanic paganism as having structures or doctrines comparable to those of the Christian church. The building of temples and existence of a professional class of priests seems to have been more a feature of Celtic than Germanic practice. What may have mattered far more to the majority of people were localized guardian spirits who might be honoured at natural sites such as a spring, a grove of trees, or a hilltop.

Christianity saw off the major pantheons of gods and goddesses without too much difficulty and major festivals of the pagan year such as midwinter could be replaced with appropriate Christian celebrations like Christmas. What was harder to eradicate was the attachment to local holy places, though healing springs, for instance, were sometimes absorbed into local saints’ cults [12, p.7].

Religion in the prehistoric period

The spirit world

Almost nothing is known about religious beliefs in early prehistoric times. It is probable that the people who lived and hunted in the Dartford area tens or thousands of years ago believed in a hidden spirit world dominated by the spirits of animals and birds, and of their ancestors.

Modern Stone Age societies studied by anthropologists have a complicated belief system where good and harmful spirits are believed to exist, and are placated through food offerings and sacrifices. Trees, rocks and other natural features take on a spiritual significance. This type of belief system is known as animism. The natural elements of wind, fire and water may also have had some place in the belief system.

The only hint of any kind of local prehistoric belief system stems from the discovery of a couple of small Bronze Age spearheads found in a gravel deposit at Hawley, near Dartford. The finder reported that these objects had been carefully placed in the gravel, perfectly aligned in relation to each other. Expert archaeologists report that bronze objects found at other riverside locations have also been carefully aligned. These bronze objects may represent a votive offering (gift) to the spirit of the nearby river.

Pagan beliefs in the Dartford Area: spirits and gods

Before the Romans came to Britain, the native population worshipped nature spirits. One of the most important cults was that associated with the Celtic mother-goddess. Small outdoor shrines were common throughout the countryside, particularly near rivers, streams or ponds. Trees, foliage and groves were worshipped by the native population.

Archaeologists working in the Dartford area have found Iron Age bronze and tin coins decorated with the symbols of pagan belief and worship. The main British pagan idols and deities were Etharun, the stag-horned god Cernunnos, the bull-horned or ram-horned God of War, Sulis the healing deity, and at least three different mother goddesses concerned with the earth, fertility, sexual pleasures and the magical aspects of warfare. Venerated animals which appear on local Iron Age coins include the boar, the stag, the horse, the bull and the dog. Birds also played an important role in religious imagery. Omens were seen in bird flight and bird call. Swans, ravens, ducks and the eagle were venerated by the native population. The whole of pagan religion was controlled by magic. The pagan Celts also believed in the Otherworld, the home of the gods. Their graves were equipped with the articles considered necessary for the Otherworld and the Great Feast [14, p.14-16].

Druid rites and rituals in Kent

Religion and superstition played a major role in the everyday life of the native British tribes. Pagan priests, the Druids, often performed their rituals in natural places, sometimes next to sacred springs or wells. Sacrifices were used in religious ceremonies.

Pliny, the Roman historian, wrote an interesting account of the sacred rites of the Druids, involving mistletoe and white bulls.

They (the Druids) call the mistletoe by a name meaning the all-healing. Having made preparation for sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they bring thither two white bulls, whose horns are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe, the priest ascends the tree and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, and it is received by others in a white cloak. They then kill the victims, praying the God will render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has granted it. They believe that the mistletoe, taken in drink, imparts fertility to barren animals, and that it is an antidote for all poisons. Such are the religious feelings that are entertained towards trifling things by so many people.

The Order of Druids was highly respected by the native British population in Kent. Caesar wrote:

The Druids are concerned with the worship of the gods, look after the public and private sacrifice, and expound religious matters; a large number of men flock to them for training, and hold them in high honour.

The Druids may have continued to hold some kind of power over the native population until well into Roman times, even when Christianity was adopted as the state religion [11, p.40-41].

Paganism in early Roman times

Springhead and the cult of source

Many of the native Celtic pagan beliefs continued into Roman times. The roadside settlement of Springhead near Dartford was an important centre of pagan religion and pagan worship based on the Cult of Source. This cult was associated with healing and fertility and its temples and shrines were usually sited near a spring, the source of a river or stream. At the centre of Springhead were at least six Romano-Celtic temples within a walled compound. Two main temples seem to have replaced the others some time between 120-150 A.D. All of the temples were derelict by the middle of the fourth century. Evidence retrieved from Springhead suggests that people visited the site to obtain a cure for diseases and ill-health. Small bronze models of a human arm, hand and thumb have been found at Springhead. These were probably offered to the spirits of the springs in the hope that the diseased limb would be healed. Other pagan objects excavated at Springhead include a bone figure of Genius Cucullatus, a god of riches and prosperity dressed in a hooded cloak, and a pipe-clay figure of Venus. Votive objects retrieved from other sites include coins, tools, pots, jewellery, figurines of gods and goddesses and pieces of inscribed lead begging favours from a particular god or goddess.

Paganism at Lullingstone Roman Villa

The Romans introduced their own gods which became the subject for worship. Venus was their fertility goddess. The Celtic deities of healing (Sulis, Nodens or Coventina) were replaced by Minerva and Apollo. Jupiter and Minerva played a leading role as chief Roman gods. Diana, Vulcan, Hercules and Mars were deities associated with aggression. The Cult of Mercury was also important. Mercury was the patron of merchants, traders, travel, trade and crafts. Successive Roman emperors were also given the status of gods as part of the Imperial Cult.

The Romans were tolerant of most faiths, so long as they did not threaten the political and social values of the Empire. Exotic eastern mystery cults were introduced to Britain by soldiers and foreign tradesmen.

Pagan worship continued locally and is well represented by the finds at Lullingstone villa in the Darent Valley. The villa had a separate circular shrine building where a cult image was venerated, as well as a temple-mausoleum complete with wall paintings. In the second century A.D. a bath house was added to the villa complete with a shrine dedicated to water nymphs. The splendid mosaics at Lullingstone villa feature a scene from pagan mythology; that of the hero Bellerophon on the winged horse Pegasus slaying the monster Chimaera. This scene illustrates the triumph of good over evil. Another section of the mosaic portrays a lively depiction of the Rape of Europa.

The temple mausoleum at Lullingstone

A pagan temple-mausoleum was constructed at Lullingstone Roman Villa c. A.D. 300 upon a purpose-built terrace behind the main villa complex. This mausoleum was designed for the burial of a young man and a young woman in their early twenties. A temple was erected above the mausoleum for the performance of rituals associated with their memory. A cult room in the mausoleum provided the focus for the burials. The bodies were placed beneath the floor of the cult room in lead coffins decorated with embossed scallop shells; grave goods accompanied each burial. Coffins and grave goods were enclosed in a heavy wooden sarcophagus buried under twelve alternate layers of chalk and gravel.

Grave goods accompanying the bodies consisted of objects needed by two persons in the after-life, two flagons, four glass bottles, two glass bowls, two knives and two spoons. On the lid of the coffin that enclosed the body of the young man were the remains of a square gaming board with a complete set of thirty glass gaming pieces, fifteen white and fifteen red-brown, all decorated with spots of coloured glass. The type of game played is not known but may have been a form of backgammon [8, p. 219-221].

English folklore

The term (with its synonym ‘heathenism’) for any religion where several gods and goddesses are worshipped; its relationship to folklore has long been debated, and is central to most origin theories.

In England, the first people to discuss folklore from the outside (as opposed to participating in it) were Elizabethan Protestants, who used it as a weapon in their campaign to identify Catholicism with paganism. They sought out every possible similarity between medieval customs and rituals and those of the only two pagan cultures they knew about: Old Testament Gentiles, and classical Greeks and Romans. This was the argument of Philip Stubbes’s The Anatomie of Abuses, with its famous diatribe against the maypole as a ‘stinking idol’; it was taken up by antiquarians such as the Revd Henry Bourne, whose Antiquitates Vulgares attacks popular customs and beliefs as coming from Pagan Rome via Papist Rome. Even Aubrey, who liked old ways, held the same theory. In his significantly titled Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme he argues that ceremonies and beliefs were ‘imbibed’ by the ancient Britons from the Romans, and survived wherever ‘the Inundation of the Goths’ (i.e. Anglo-Saxons) did not penetrate.

Several generations of writers referred back to Flora, Ceres, or the Saturnalia, to explain English festivals. Then 19th-century scholars showed that early Germanic and Celtic peoples had had myths and rituals of their own, independent from Rome, supplying closer precedents for English traditions. Claims for pre-Christian origins have always had great appeal among the general public, if only for the glamour antiquity confers; currently they are more popular than ever, for pagan beliefs (especially Celtic ones) are seen by many as admirable, and Christian tradition as repressive and dull.

However, there is an important distinction between showing that a custom or belief is older than Christianity, and arguing that when it is found among Christians it means paganism is still alive. Some aspects of the supernatural (e.g. fear of ghosts and witchcraft, belief in dreams) are so commonplace that they can occur in virtually any period, including our own, and do not correlate with one religion rather than another. The same is true of large categories of non-rational thought and action, e.g. those involving fate, luck, omens, and minor practices such as touching wood; Christians who think or act in this way rarely see it as inconsistent with faith. Calendar and life-cycle customs usually involve celebratory activities (e.g. dancing, special foods, drinking, disguise, bonfires) distinct from the religious side of the event (if any), but not felt to be in conflict with it. The appropriate word for these is ‘secular’, not ‘pagan’.

In England, a fair amount is known about Roman, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon religions before the arrival of Christianity, but little about the conversion process itself, which has led modern advocates of paganism to claim that tolerance and continuity was the norm. For the first wave of Christianization, that which reached the Celtic Britons of the 4th century, the only evidence points the other way: when Celtic Christians reused pagan sites, they mutilated and dumped the statues of the gods. The final conversion, that of the Anglo-Saxons, is described by Bede as a peaceful process, but evidence of continuity is again scanty. Despite the interpretation sometimes put on Pope Gregory’s letter, no Saxon pagan shrine has yet been found underlying a church; though (very exceptionally) some Roman sacred sites were reused. Coincidence of dates is even less significant. The dates of Christmas and Easter had been fixed long before Christianity reached Britain, and reflected Roman paganism and the Jewish Passover respectively, not the festivals of northern Europe; since every day in the Christian year celebrated at least one saint, every pagan festival necessarily coincided with a saint’s day, for reasons quite unconnected with local cults.

The only significant documents are some law-codes of the 7th and 8th centuries forbidding sacrifices to Germanic deities, and some more in the early 11th century applying to the diocese of York, where Viking settlers had reintroduced them [18].

It should be noted that the native British believed in a hidden spirit world dominated by the spirits of animals, birds and their ancestors. They had a complicated belief system where good and harmful spirits were placated through food offerings and sacrifices. After the Roman conquest the Romans introduced their own gods which became the subject for worship. It’s remarkable that the Romans were tolerant of most faiths, that’s why many of the native Celtic pagan beliefs continued into Roman times.

                                               

 

1.2 The Conversion into Christianity 

 

We cannot know how or when Christianity first reached Britain, but it was certainly well before Christianity was accepted by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early fourth century AD. In the last hundred years of Roman government Christianity became firmly established across Britain, both in Roman-controlled areas and beyond. However, the Anglo-Saxons belonged to an older Germanic religion, and they drove the Celts into the west and north. In the Celtic areas Christianity continued to spread, bringing paganism to an end.

In 597 Pope Gregory the Great sent a monk, Augustine, to re-establish Christianity in England. He went to Canterbury, the capital of the king of Kent. He did so because the king’s wife came from Europe and was already Christian. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 601. He was very successful. Several ruling families in England accepted Christianity. But Augustine and his group of monks made little progress with the ordinary people. This was partly because Augustine was interested in establishing Christian authority, and that meant bringing rulers to the new faith.

It was the Celtic Church which brought Christianity to the ordinary people of Britain. The Celtic bishops went out from their monasteries of Wales, Ireland and Scotland, walking from village to village teaching Christianity. In spite of the differences between Anglo-Saxons and Celts, these bishops seem to have been readily accepted in Anglo-Saxon areas. The bishops from the Roman Church lived at the courts of the kings, which they made centres of Church power across England. The two Christian Churches, Celtic and Roman, could hardly have been more different in character. One was most interested in the hearts of ordinary people, the other was interested in authority and organization. The competition between the Celtic and Roman Churches reached a crisis because they disagreed over the date of Easter. In 663 at the Synod (meeting) of Whitby the king of Northumbria decided to support the Roman Church. The Celtic Church retreated as Rome extended its authority over all Christians, even in Celtic parts of the island.

England had become Christian very quickly. By 660 only Sussex and the Isle of Wight had not accepted the new faith. Twenty years later, English teachers returned to the lands from which the Anglo-Saxons had come, bringing Christianity to much of Germany.

Saxon kings helped the Church to grow, but the Church also increased the power of kings. Bishops gave kings their support, which made it harder for royal power to be questioned. Kings had «God’s approval». The value of Church approval was all the greater because of the uncertainty of the royal succession. An eldest son did not automatically become king, as kings were chosen from among the members of the royal family, and any member who had enough soldiers might try for the throne. In addition, at a time when one king might try to conquer a neighboring kingdom, he would probably have a son to whom he would wish to pass this enlarged kingdom when he died. And so when King Offa arranged for his son to be crowned as his successor, he made sure that this was done at a Christian ceremony led by a bishop. It was good political propaganda, because it suggested that kings were chosen not only by people but also by God.

There were other ways in which the Church increased the power of the English state. It established monasteries, or minsters, for example Westminster, which were places of learning and education. These monasteries trained the men who could read and write, so that they had the necessary skills for the growth of royal and Church authority. The king who made most use of the Church was Alfred the Great, king who ruled Wessex from 871-899. He used the literate men of the Church to help establish a system of law, to educate the people and to write down important matters. He started the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most important source, together with Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, for understanding the period.