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.

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.

A second function of worship is the creation and maintenance of views and attitudinal stances that identify the members of the society to each other and in relation to other groups. Worship thus involves social learning: the members of the community, through their common worship, learn how to plant, to cultivate the soil, to hunt game, to engage in warfare, to settle disputes, to relate to the various strata of the society. Worship displays and reinforces the character of the society; the traditions are passed along through the worship of the community. In this way, acts of worship sum up and reinforce the moral and cultural commitments and understandings of the community. In a situation in which one religion predominates, such social learning pervades the entire society. This situation formerly pertained, for example, in Ethiopia, where the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was closely identified with the character and objectives of the state.

The worship of a particular group within a society performs the same purposes for that group. Group concord is effected and maintained through the rites and formal acts of group worship. The celebration of fundamental understandings and values through worship bestows solidity and substance on them so that they become a part of the divinely ordained system of laws, customs, and social practices. Doctrines or dogmas are significantly strengthened and reinforced through worship, and religious truths become a part of the very existence of a group as they are embodied in the art, music, drama, and public rites of the worshipping community. Group learning also is effected, since occasions for worship offer opportunity for the group to reflect upon the significance of its history, rites, and traditions and to celebrate the import of these. The remembrance of deliverance from Egypt (i.e., the Exodus, 13th century bce) became a regular part of the celebration of Passover for the Jews.

A third function of worship is that of providing personal support to individual members of a group or of a society. Because life is marked by anxiety, disasters, and dangers from natural and historical happenings, the individual is provided with a sense of well-being through acts of worship. Worship is viewed as relating the disparate elements of life to the life, purposes, and plans of the divine; and in this way the worshipper is enabled to believe that the burden has been shared, or taken over, by the gods.

Since acts of worship need to be performed in the “right” way in order to be efficacious, there is a strong tendency toward conservatism regarding the forms and understandings of worship. The desire for release of personal or group anxiety also makes it likely that the practice of worship may support conservatism within the group, since the tendency is to rely upon past solutions to personal or group problems long after the time when such solutions appear to be entirely satisfactory. This conservatism belongs to the nature of religion, inasmuch as religion deals precisely with those issues of life that yield no easy resolution or solution: the mystery of life itself, the travails of birth, initiation into the community of adults, marriage, sickness, public disasters, and death. It is of great social importance that worship brings to the group and its members a sense of the enduring qualities of life, hope for a doubtful future, and a sense of well-being and health in the midst of trials and illness and danger. The result, however, can also be that the forward movement of the society is inhibited by the religious traditions and claims of a past age that are regularly reinforced through acts of worship.