How Are Religious Cultures Different from National Cultures?

Religious cultures are similar to national cultures yet differ in several ways. Religion, like national and ethnic cultures, can be thought of as a type of culture and a cultural system (Cohen, 2009; Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

Religious parameters of culture can strongly correlate with other cultural dimensions of the country. Such a correlation between the religious elements of culture and other cultural characteristics makes it difficult to disentangle the unique function of religion from that of other aspects of cultural life. Nevertheless, I argued in another article that the main reasons why religions should be considered as cultures with their own sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices.

Cultural experts believe that religion has a considerable impact on the cultural characteristics of societies, but cross-cultural researchers overlook this factor (e.g., Cohen, 2009; McCutcheon, 1995, see review Karandashev, 2021a).

Four major cultural dimensions of religions

Researchers identified four major dimensions of religious cultures, which are present in many religions and denominations with some cultural variation (see Saroglou & Cohen, 2013 for a detailed review). These are

1. Fundamentalist (orthodox) expression vs. questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices.
2. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic reli­gious orientations.
3. Traditional reli­giousness vs. modern spirituality.
4. Mystical dimension of religion, focusing on the spirituality of the mystics

For example, the distinctions between fundamentalist and questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices are identified among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. The differences between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations are found among Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Variations in the dimension of organized traditional reli­giousness vs. modern individual spirituality are discovered in many religious cultural contexts. The mystical dimension of religion, centered on the spirituality of the mystics, appeared to be common to many religions. In particular, it was found that mystic experiences are similar among Iranian Muslims and American Christians. They are also similar in religiousness among Indian Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, and Israeli Jews (see for a detailed review, Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

How Do Religious Cultures Influence National Cultures?

National cultures are the sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices that have evolved due to the impact of various cultural factors, such as ecological, ethnic, social, political, and religious ones. All those variables, in a historical perspective, merged to form specific national cultures. On a daily basis, religions interact with other cultural factors, affecting people’s emotional and cultural lives.

Religious cultures have profound ties with national and ethnic cultures. Religions and religious cultural variables are among the strong factors that determine the national cultures of countries. So, countries with similar Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist religious cultures can have a lot in common with each other culturally.

Religions have historically shaped the cultural patterns of nations. However, the opposite effects have also occurred when a country’s culture influenced religious development in some ways (Norris & Inglehart, 2004). Religious culture comes into the national culture being modified and transformed.

For example, according to anthropological studies, Islam in different countries advocates different cultural values. The Muslim populations of Egypt and Bali maintain different cultural traditions, despite sharing the same faith and adhering to the same Islamic principles (Wikan, 1988).

The Ways How Religious Cultures Shaped Eastern and Western Civilizations Let’s look at how cultural differences between the West and the East have evolved and persisted for hundreds of years, in part because of their shared religious history.

The difference between individualistic Western societies and collectivist Eastern societies is the most well-known cultural difference between the West and the East.

Eastern societies tend to be largely collectivistic cultures, while Western societies are mostly individualistic.

The Buddhist religion is quite collectivistic in many respects. This can explain why Japanese culture tends to be a collectivistic culture. And generally, collectivistic cultural values and beliefs are commonly associated with Eastern religions. The cultural worldviews, social perspectives, and schools of thought of Eastern societies are substantially determined by their religions. Confucianist societies tend to be collectivistic, while Islamic societies are frequently hierarchical. On the other hand, Christianity, and Protestantism in particular, is strongly related to individualistic values and beliefs. This can explain why many Western European and European American societies are individualistic cultures. For instance, Protestant societies are often individualistic and egalitarian. Many aspects of Western national cultures and their worldview biases are substantially shaped by Christianity. Their scholarly, social, cultural, and political approaches to the modern world are Western and Christian-centric (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

The Religious Cultural Values of Interdependence and Independence There are several ways in which religious values can predispose people to think and feel in certain ways. For instance, in general, religious people are more interdependent than those who are not religious (Cohen & Rozin, 2001; Cukur, de Guzman & Carlo, 2004, Triandis, 1995). Religions differ in their values of interdependence. Those who are monotheistic are more self-sufficient, while non-theistic are more interdependent (Basabe & Ros, 2005).