Analytical essay In the “World’s religions: continuities and transformations,” Clarke, Peter B., Beyer, Peter note the challenges in defining religion. As they point out, the definition of religion has been the question of many scholars for years and yet have not gotten an answer and probably will not in the near future. The strong quest for defining religion has been challenging for many scholars mainly due to two factors. The first challenge is that the term “religion” can be used for a range of circumstances, practices and rituals in which a phenomenon that is “religious” for some religion may not be for the others. The fact that the word “religion” has been integrated into the western culture for centuries is the second challenge that scholars face to appropriate the term for academic purpose. Since scholars struggled to come up with a single accepted definition, they grouped the definition of religion into two: substantive and functional. Substantive (“exclusivist”) definition emphasis on what religion is whereas functional(“inclusivist”) definition focus on what it does. Although they try to define religion at some level, both definitions have drawbacks. The substantive definition is criticized as it revolves around the western folk concept and does not include the conception of those who are non-westerners. Similarly, the functional definition is criticized for it is over broad concept. As the authors’ mentioned, the definitions suggested by scholars should not be
