Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Worship
religion
Table of Contents
Introduction
Nature and significance
Functions of worship
Types of worship
Variations or distinctions within the act of worship
Times and places of worship
Focuses of worship
Conclusion
Worship, broadly defined, the response, often associated with religious behaviour and a general feature of almost all religions, to the appearance of that which is accepted as holy—that is, to a sacred power or being. Characteristic modes of response to the holy include cultic acts of all kinds: ritual drama, prayers of many sorts, dancing, ecstatic speech, veneration of various persons and objects, sermons, silent meditation, and sacred music and song. Also included in worship are acts of private response: spoken or unspoken prayers, silence, the assumption of particular postures, ritual acts and gestures, and individual acts of veneration of persons or objects.
Pearce, Charles Sprague: ReligionDetail of Religion, a mural in lunette from the Family and Education series by Charles Sprague Pearce, 1897; in the Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-highsm-02028)
Nature and significance
The performance of acts of worship rests upon the assumption that there is a realm of being that transcends the ordinary (i.e., secular or profane) “world” of the worshipper. Acts of worship serve to unite, temporarily at least, the ordinary and the transcendent realms through one or more of a variety of possible means. According to the imagery of this assumption, the heavenly world is above and apart from the earthly, and the reality and powers of the heavenly realm are made to be effectively present on earth through acts of worship. The worshipper may thus find himself transported from the earthly to the heavenly world or may perceive the heavenly to descend to the earthly through the movement of worship.
The act of uniting the sacred and profane realms, in effect, transforms the situation of the worshipper into one that means health, fresh understanding, renewal of life, or salvation. The situation that prompts worship thus calls for change or for the acknowledgment of change. Frequently, life is recognized to be in need of renewal, and worship is viewed as offering the path to such renewal. Some acts of worship arise from the need of the worshipper to exult in praise of the holy and to express his joy or gratitude that his situation, in fact, has changed for the better.
In both instances, the change is widely believed to take place through the worshipper’s return, by means of the acts of worship, to primordial time (as in early or tribal religions), to the realm in which unity and blessedness obtain. Public acts of ritual often include the recitation of myths of creation or of origin; such recitation transports the worshipper from ordinary time and circumstance back to the beginnings of things. The result is the reconstitution of the world itself and of the worshipper within the world.
Worship, especially in ancient societies, was no matter of indifference to the society at large, for the very continuation of life demanded it. In hunting and food-gathering societies, the continuance of sources of food depended upon the performance of ritual acts through which the means of sustaining life were preserved or secured. In agricultural societies, the fructification of the soil took place in relation to acts of worship focussed upon fertility (e.g., in Syrian and Palestinian religions). In the religion of the state (e.g., ancient Rome), the preservation of the society in times of danger depended upon appropriate acts of worship through which the power of the holy was focussed upon the community’s particular need.
In ancient societies (and in some contemporary communities) worship was viewed as affecting all aspects of the life of the community, since it was recognized to provide the means for preserving and renewing life itself. Most of the arts developed in relation to worship and to statecraft and law, and the practical (technical) arts generally gained legitimacy and continuing force through their place in the ritual and liturgical acts of the community. In many ancient societies, the chief institutions (e.g., monarchies) and customs of the society were understood to be derivative from their prototypes or archetypes in the realm of the gods. Kingship was patterned upon divine kingship; worship itself had its heavenly archetype; and the representations of the gods and goddesses were modelled upon the divine beings themselves or upon replicas of them in the heavenly place of worship. Functions of worship Primary functions
The basic function of worship—the establishment and maintenance of the relation between human beings and the holy—includes many facets. The relation between the holy and the earthly has, however, a noteworthy ambivalence. On the one hand, human life is enriched and renewed through ever closer relations with the divine. On the other hand, the holy represents threatening, potentially damaging power, for the force of the holy so greatly transcends human experience that its coming is recognized as a grave danger. This double relationship to the gods has been summed up in various ways. The Latin expression do ut des, “I give, that you may give,” voices some of the dimensions. The worshipper turns to the gods with his gifts (e.g., sacrifices, prayers, words of praise and adoration, and petitions), and the gods receive these and bestow the gifts on which human life depends. The other dimension of the relationship is signalled by the Latin do ut abeas, “I give, that you may go (and stay) away.” The divine power must be averted in order to preserve human life. The gods can become the enemies of human beings, and worship can function to keep the gods at a safe distance.
The rites of worship well document this double attitude of worshippers toward the holy. The sacred precincts are most holy because at them the holy once appeared and continues to appear. Thus, the precincts must be guarded, worship must be performed in the right manner, and the sanctity of the site identified and maintained.
Acts of sacrifice include gifts to the gods in exchange for gifts received or anticipated. They also include offerings entirely devoted to the gods, none of which is touched again by the worshipper; these are sacrifices intended to avert the wrath of the gods or to express the worshipper’s complete dependence upon them. The most characteristic sacrifice, however, is one in which both the beneficence and the danger of the holy are affirmed: sacrifices that relate the divine and the human, that express and create communion between God and humanity. These communion sacrifices generally take the form of a meal (e.g., in Mithraism) that worshipper and deity share. Care must still be taken not to infringe upon the deity’s rights or desires, but the mood of such sacrificial meals is one of sacramental participation in the life and beneficence and power of the god.
Aspects of a soma sacrifice in Pune (Poona), India, on behalf of a Brahman, following the same ritual used in 500 bce.C.M. Natu
Secondary functions
Secondary functions of worship—highly significant for the social and personal life of the community—are distinguishable, although their interrelationship is evident. An important function of worship is the creation and maintenance of social concord in societies dominated by one religion. The understandings expressed in worship bind the members of the society together. The acts of worship celebrate and symbolize this unity when the majority of the members of the society regularly engage in common worship. In Islam, for example, both the regular division of the day into five parts through the call of the muezzin (official proclaimer) to prayer and the daily gatherings in the mosque unite the society and express its common commitments and character.