RELIGION AND DIETARY CHOICES
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Introduction
Religion is a system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things relative to sacred things that have bound together and set apart some of the beliefs and practices to conform to a single moral community which is the church. According to Emile Durkheim, religion impacts giving meaning and purpose to life reinforce social unity and stability, and it’s also an agent of social control, thus strengthening social order. Many sociologists have developed some interest in this topic of study to understand religion’s role towards humankind and their behavior in society. This paper illustrates the impact of religion on various social factors such as food, physical spaces, deviance, sexuality, healing and intervention, social change, and cultural constructs.
Religion and Dietary Choices
The choice of food by individuals is based on various factors. Some of the factors are internal, while other factors are external. A healthy diet is vital for growth and healthy body development. Rising cases of lifestyle diseases have resulted in people eating foods they regard healthy and religions guiding their followers on what they should feed on, to demonstrate their faith or maintain their health (Sabaté, 2004).
The most common religions include Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews. Diversity of the affiliations causes different dietary requirements, with Christianity bearing few restrictions. Among Christians, Individuals are compelled to forego alcohol and meat during certain periods, including the Fridays on the Lenten period. Muslims eat halal foods, including fruit, vegetable, and eggs. Meat and their products must be from halal slaughtered animals. Haram foods discouraged for Muslim consumption include pork, crustaceans, on-halal animal-derived additives such as gelatin or suet, alcohol any foods that contain alcoholic ingredients.
Most of the Hindus are Lacto-vegetarian (meat and eggs) avoidants; their meals comprise lamb, chicken, or fish. Hindus consider the cow as a holy animal, and they refrain from taking beef, but they feed on dairy products. Animal-derived fats are discouraged together with alcohol. Some Hindus choose not to feed on ghee, milk, onions, eggs, coconut, garlic, domestic fowl, or salted pork. During the Ramadhan period, Muslims fast and refrain from consuming anything between sunrise and sunset with the exemption of pregnant, breastfeeding, menstruating women, children under the age of 12, older adults, and people with preexisting conditions.
Sikhs are vegetarians; however, they are granted the freedom to decide what type of meat to feed on as long as they avoid slaughtered animals and alcohol. Judaism takes Kosher’s food, which means food must meet Kashrut standards and be suitable and pure. Kosher does not put any restrictions on food from particular groups. Some of the aspects cut across various sects.
The diet varieties make it so accommodative for the refugees because they will have a sense of belonging depending on what they feed. Based on their religious guidance, they will be comfortable in their escape countries.
Religion, Inequality, and Conflict
Karl Marx, in his work, described religion as the opiate of the masses, and it’s also a root cause for refugee migration (Bottomore & Rubel, 1957). Many people subscribe to religion which makes them happy with their conditions. Karl Marx those that people should rise from the religious ways of thinking by indicating that many people tend to look at religion from a poverty point of view. Their thoughts are tied to God using poverty to test the faith of the poor people or because people have gone against him and the consequence is poverty. Poor people might be forced to think that there is a reward awaiting after suffering. Society is disadvantaged by making the poor accept their poor fate, which is comforting for the refugees and increasing social inequality in nations.
Religion and other institutions have a different approach towards gender and inequality. However, they have been able to maneuver to help shift gender paradigms by working with communities to lift stigmas, ending traditional practices like Female Genital Mutilation, and combating discrimination and violence related to gender and sexual orientation. Christians referenced their thoughts about women and subordination from the bible, which are traditional views of how women should live their lives (Lummis & Nesbitt, 2000). They did not regard women so much since she is supposed to be always headed by a man negatively impacts society and other institutions to support women’s inferiority despite their efforts and empowerment.
Places of worship have been a source of social conflict, with the beliefs breeding so much judgment and suffering among people in the society. In different countries, the domination of some religious affiliation results in the insubordination of the rest. The differences have aroused wars, persecutions, and killings since ancient times.
Harsh judgment on people by the self-righteous Christians has also caused suffering among the people with the freedom of speech, dressing, and even lifestyles being forced by churches. Despite all this, the church remains the source of comfort to all refugees who seek hope and shelter. Some of the religious affiliations have managed to protect the refugees by creating safe spaces for them and championing their rights and freedom without causing any disruptions in society.
Sexual abuse was a common problem in religion. Many cases were caused by religious people, including pastors and priests who hide their selfish needs. Young and older adults have glorified the religious leaders and even entrust their lives with them. Some break the trust and go ahead to abuse their followers from children to adults sexually (McGrath-Merkle, 2009). The church hierarchy does little or nothing to prevent such incidences of abuse from happening. In any case, they pay lump sums of money to cease the follow-up of those cases giving more room for sexual abusers.
In recent years, through education and civilization, the churches have developed strategies to protect their members through sensitization and support various policies favoring gender protectionism. Clergy members are now taken action to protect members of the congregation and the society at large. The refugees can find solace in churches.
Culture and Religion
When moving to different countries, refugees may be overwhelmed due to their movement out of their original country. They experience multiple worries that can impact their mental health, one of them including the loss of their cultural norms. The refugees contribute to the richness of the diversity of cultures. Before adjusting to the new cultural changes, they require mental health practitioners and religious leaders who offer comfort during the migration period. During this period, they can interact with different people and even join their religious affiliations to sense belonging.
Physical Spaces and Religion
The bible teaches Christians not to mistreat individuals residing among them when living in your land. Instead, they should be treated as native-borns and be loved. Some nations receive the refugees with a lot of tolerance bearing in mind the heartbreaking stories and trauma they might have gone through. The religions volunteer to erect some temporary fences and shelters or even volunteering their church space to accommodate the refugees. However, some continents are not accommodative to different affiliations. For instance, in Europe (Kéri & Sleiman, 2017), they had challenges accommodating Muslim refugees, but the truth remains churches offer more safe spaces than other institutions.
Sanctuaries in buildings that are religious communities’ property are used to assist the migrants and refugees despite the challenges of political pressure and insufficiency. Most of the religious leaders ready to give out shelter have experienced prior displacement in their lives. Among the unique activities offered in this sanctuary includes education, where the religious people partner with the surrounding schools in the environs. Together with the surrounding communities, their efforts to uplift the refugees go ahead in ensuring resources are well mobilized, and the differences in religious divides and secular divides are minimized.
The faith actors do not hesitate to refer refugees with specific needs to relevant authorities. Their reputation plays an important role in localizing processes and mediation between international humanitarian institutions and grassroots organizations. The efforts present real opportunities to improve migration and refugee response, especially when such collaborations are supported by training programs for humanitarian organizations around partnering with religious people.
Religious people impact society positively by restoring the dignity of the immigrants who lose their lives while migrating by performing burial rites and mourning rituals. They pray for the deceased’s souls, sometimes with little or no knowledge of their religious affiliations. Sometimes the refugees are permitted to perform the rituals themselves together with their relatives in case they exist. Men of faith are the best people to encourage faith communities and the public to reflect on deceased plight while saving their lives from harm and those who lack a decent burial due to lack of identification and therefore remaining invisible.
Healing and Interventions and Religion
During the transition period of forced displacement, refugees face harsh living conditions, fear, and uncertainty regarding the future and mental health problems, patiently waiting for durable solutions. Sometimes their cause of migration might be to access proper treatment for their diseases that they cannot access in their original country. Religion can reach out to health care centers for guidelines on how to support the specific groups of immigrants. They also partner with secular organizations to provide health care services to people on the move and are unable to reach the national public or private healthcare systems.
Faith actors are also better positioned to act as mediators between refugees and health care providers to help bridge the different understandings of health conditions and healing processes. The role of religion is to ensure they provide a conducive environment for the refugees’ healing by offering countless acts of compassion and solidarity. They mobilize efforts from all channels, including government, people of goodwill, religious communities, and political leaders.
In conclusion, the idea of individuals welcoming strangers to a foreign country by natives is central in nearly all affiliations. Religions mostly feel obligated to take the responsibility to shield the refugees from violence and oppression. Many institutions borrow a leaf and this aids in bridging the gap between the immigrants and natives. People should therefore take it from religions to welcome refugees and create safe spaces for them.
References
Bottomore, T. B., & Rubel, M. (1957). Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy. Economica, 24(93), 95. https://doi.org/10.2307/2551656
Kéri, S., & Sleiman, C. (2017). Religious Conversion to Christianity in Muslim Refugees in Europe. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 39(3), 283–294. https://doi.org/10.1163/15736121-12341344
Lummis, A. T., & Nesbitt, P. D. (2000). Women Clergy Research and the Sociology of Religion. Sociology of Religion, 61(4), 443. https://doi.org/10.2307/3712528
McGrath-Merkle, C. (2009). Generativity and the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops’ Responses to Priests’ Sexual Abuse of Minors. Journal of Religion and Health, 49(1), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-009-9288-0
Riesebrodt, M. (1999). Charisma Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion. Religion, 29(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.1999.0175
Sabaté, J. (2004). Religion, diet, and research. British Journal of Nutrition, 92(2), 199–201. https://doi.org/10.1079/bjn20041229
