INDONESIAN RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION: Applying Bellah’s Theory in Indonesian Context
Abstrak: Religious adherents
usually pay no
attention to the
evolution of religions. They
believe in religion
as a matter
of taken for
granted without considering the
historical aspect which
in the end
becomes his believed religion.
Robert Bellah has clarified the historicity of religion and found the evolutional process
of religions which
are similar to the
evolution of human
civilization. His research
finally ends with
the conclusion that religions evolve and develop from the simple entity
to the complex one.
Bellah has classified religious evolution into five periods. Firstly is the period
of Primitive Religion
which is then
followed by Archaic Religion, Historical religion, Early
Modern Religion and comes in the end the
period of Modern
Religion. Each period
has distinct characteristic which is
coincident with the
phase of human
civilization of the
time. Having paid attention
to Bella’s insight
upon religious evolution
this paper tries to implement the theory in the context of Indonesia. Some
of paper’s invention discloses the
different way of
religious participation among modern
Indonesian Muslims who
are no longer
dependent on religious
institutional interpretation.
Author: Achmad Murtafi Haris
Journal Code: jpsosiologigg130011
