The word "culture," today, often refers to customs and civilization of a particular time or people. A particular culture is made up of world views (religious and secular), values, society (family, social systems, educational systems, law and order), and customs. It is well accepted that cultures are not static but dynamic. As the elements of culture undergo change, so does culture undergo change.
It can be seen that religion influences the various elements of culture in a variety of ways and degrees. Its influence can be observed in the economic organization, social organization, political organization, ideology, art, language, and technology of a culturally united people. In the modern generation, we find an accelerated impact of the developments within indigenous cultures on the global scenario. Cultural absorptions and interchanges range from food, clothing, and housing varieties to ideological and technological assimilations. This has been greatly made possible through the inter-communication system provided by transports, media, trade, and migrations. In India, the impact of cultures can be easily seen in the differences one sees between villages and cities, clearly expressed in the various art forms, of language, pictures (paintings, films, etc), dance, and music. More obvious are the impacts of "foreign" cultural elements on Indian religions or at least members belonging to particular Indian religions (educationally, politically, economically being impacted). The "foreign" cultural elements also includes "foreign" religious elements as seen in the impact of Christianity on Gandhian Thought, on Raja Ram Mohan Roy's reformatory efforts, etc. Yet it is the scientific elements and the material culture of the West and also East that have the greatest impact on modern India. But the religious influence of Christianity on politics, law, education, art, language, etc of India cannot be ignored.
Organical Relationship
Thus, the relationship between religion and culture can be considered as to a considerable degree organical. Religion is a part of culture. Culture is the comprehensive under which religion falls. Religion as a part can influence cultural dynamics and culture as a whole can influence religious dynamics. In the process, the nature of each influence each other in an organic way. Religious beliefs, organization, traditions, and values can be partially or entirely transmitted into another culture through either expulsion of the other culture's religion (partially or entirely) or filling up of a gap left through a lack of religion. The religious void of any culture cannot be perpetual. Since culture is was man is (his developments or degressions) and man is equally a religious being as much as he is a philosophical, political, and social being, any culture for long cannot tolerate a lack of the religious elements. The transmission of religious elements (beliefs, values, etc) and their attachments (e.g. dress, food, shelter ways, like the saffron robe from India-Buddhism, and Western culture from the West) can impact the particular recipient culture in many ways. Religious responses (individual primarily) to any religion can move the consciousness into the reordering of life. Consciousness rules the whole man. Thus, an individual becomes transformed in many ways in keeping with the new beliefs and values that are being embedded deeply in his consciousness. A single man's culture is meaningless, since culture is collective. Though individually retained, maintained, and developed it is referred to as the culture of a people of which the individual is a part. Therefore, a convert to any religion, if he is transformed in a way in which all elements of his earlier culture in him are destroyed, also converts to the new culture he has absorbed. Where many individuals have converted in the same manner, a new unit often arises in the society.
But, total cultural transformation of an individual and group is a myth. It never happens and cannot happen in an instant in any case. This so because no human can absorb and relate to a whole complexity of ideas and practices in one sitting. In addition, cultural elements like customs, habits, language, and music cannot be totally renounced. All the elements cultivated in a person cannot be cut off at once.
And so a religion which is transmitted to or absorbed by other cultures becomes contextualized and contemporized as it saturates in that particular culture. In this contextualization process certain elements in the culture which were hostile to the new religion may either be eliminated or modified. This contextualization is an ongoing process; since as the organism called culture develops through the development of its elements and parts, each part affects each other in which process religion is also affected.
Thus, religion relates to culture organically.
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Oct 2014
In modern times, we can no longer say that religion is part of culture. For instance, Christianity is a global religion and Christians hail from various cultures. Thus, a Christian in Mexico follows Mexican culture while a Christian in China follows Chinese culture. Some differences between non-Christian Mexicans and a Christian Mexican may be spotted in their cultural life; however, usually it is possible to keep both religion and culture distinct. That is to say, if a particular custom poses religious-belief issues, intrinsically speaking, so that adherents of a particular religion cannot observe it, then that custom is no longer cultural but religious in essence (since it involves belief-issues). Consequently, religious elements of people following a particular culture will change when they conflict with beliefs newly embraced; but, cultural elements don't necessarily change.
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