Culture and Religion

This is an image of St. Mary’s Cathedral, the Catholic cathedral located in Sydney near Hyde Park.  In thinking about how this image reflects culture, I realized that culture and religion have many parallels, as well as many intersections with each other.  According to the reading “The Meaning of Culture” by Trompenars, culture has three layers: explicit products, norms and values, and basic assumptions.  Similarly, religion also has these three layers.  This cathedral is an explicit product of the religious value of glorifying God through Catholic tradition.  These have sprouted from the basic acceptance of truths about the existence of God and reaching for the transcendent through religious worship. 

Religion and culture have a complex relationship.  Religion is not completely dependent on culture, but also not completely independent of it.  The two are not opposites, but rather they work together in a society: religion influences culture, and culture influences religion.  For example, some Australians come to worship at this cathedral as Catholics, but other Australians do not.  Neither group is more or less Australian because of their religious affiliation.  Rather, one’s religion is the choice of the individual.  The choice of the individual is important to consider in both religion and culture, because the choices of an individual are not necessarily reflective of the whole.  One Australian is not reflective of the entirety of Australian culture, because that person is a unique person with their own quirks and personality.  Likewise, one Catholic is not reflective of the entirety of the religion.  For both, the individual is a unique person who participates with other people in the culture or religion.

Culture is the overarching connection between all those who live in Australia, while religion is the overarching connection between all those who choose to worship God through precepts and practices of worship.  Both religion and culture are simultaneously about connections between people, and about each individual within the whole.  But culture and religion, while with many similarities, are not the same.  Culture is a way of life through which people cooperate to form a good society.  Religion is a way of life through which people cooperate to discover and worship the transcendent.  One culture can contain citizens of many religious affiliations.  Conversely, different cultures can participate in the same religion.

Religions are shared across cultures.  This is especially applicable to Catholicism: as a universal and united Church, the Masses here in Australia are the same worship liturgy as the Masses I regularly attend in the United States.  I witnessed this when I attended a Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral.  The immersive experience was unique: to observe how the Mass here was the same Catholic Mass, yet it contained unique nuances of Australian culture that in no way detracted from the validity of the Mass itself.  For example, attending this Mass was my first instance in which I really noticed the Australian accent.  Here I was, participating in the responses of the Mass I knew from childhood by heart, and this small congregation said the responses in their Australian accent.  A slight difference that, while it doesn’t make the Mass any less valid, altered the sound of the Mass.  My American accent felt like an apple amidst oranges.  Self-conscious, I found that even throughout the Mass, I was—both consciously and unconsciously—imitating the Australian accent so my words would blend in with the rest of the congregation’s, so my response wouldn’t “stick out.”  In hindsight, that’s an understandable reaction for me as someone unexperienced with new cultures, but it’s not a good reaction to have.  A huge part of culture is embracing the differences between cultures, not trying to blend together or be ashamed of those differences. 

I also realized that the difference in accent between Americans and Australians is so hard to describe.  With a word in common such as “praise”: it’s as if my usual speaking of the word has more emphasis on the ‘a’, while the Australian congregation speaking in their accent had more emphasis on the ‘i’.  I found it interesting that in the U.S., we usually think of people of other cultures having accents, when we hear different voices that stand out.  But here, I’m the one “with the accent,” and it was a perspective I hadn’t really experienced before.

By Laurie Ruhlmann