Is religion defined by belief in spirits, by the things a community treats as sacred, or by several features taken together? Researchers have given different answers because they start from different questions and examples. Two historical definitions and a proposal that starts from Afro-Brazilian traditions show what each approach makes visible. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, chapter 11 · Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, book I, chapter 1 · Engler, Gardiner and Porcher, Religion at the Crossroads
Tylor’s minimum definition
In Primitive Culture (1871), Edward Burnett Tylor proposed belief in spiritual beings as the minimum for calling something religion. He thought requiring belief in a supreme deity, judgement after death or a particular rite such as sacrifice would exclude many of the traditions he wanted to compare. His definition gives the investigator one main question to ask about a case. It also places the weight on what people believe about certain beings. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, chapter 11
Tylor discussed this definition within a nineteenth-century theory of cultural evolution. His decision to define religion through belief in spirits and his account of how religious beliefs arose are separate claims. The definition gives a rule for classifying examples. Establishing a sequence for their historical development would require historical evidence of its own. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, chapter 11
Durkheim’s sacred things and moral community
In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912), Émile Durkheim defined religion through connected beliefs and practices concerning sacred things. A thing is sacred in this sense when it is set apart and people observe rules about how to approach or handle it. A second part of his definition concerns the group formed by sharing those beliefs and practices. Durkheim called this a moral community and used the word Church in that wider sense. Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, book I, chapter 1
Consider the Shinto shrine complex of Ise Jingu, where priests move a sacred mirror when the sanctuary is renewed. A researcher using Tylor’s criterion would ask about beliefs concerning Amaterasu Ōmikami, for whom the mirror is a symbol. A researcher following Durkheim could ask who may move the mirror, what distinguishes it from everyday objects and how the ceremony organises the work of a community. The same ritual raises different questions under the two definitions. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, chapter 11 · Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, book I, chapter 1 · Ise Jingu’s account of Shikinen Sengu
What changes when a different example comes first?
In a 2026 paper, Steven Engler, Mark Q. Gardiner and José Eduardo Porcher used Afro-Brazilian traditions as their starting examples. Their proposed definition uses a cluster of features. Cases can qualify through different combinations of features. Starting with these traditions foregrounds such elements as healing, ritual, overlapping affiliations and interactions among religious traditions. The authors present this approach as an exercise in seeing what changes when researchers choose a different starting point. Engler, Gardiner and Porcher, Religion at the Crossroads
The authors show that choices also enter when a feature is applied. For instance, researchers who give different weight to popular devotion or formal religious practice may differ on whether healing is central in Roman Catholicism. A definition can therefore make its criteria explicit while leaving readers with evidence to consider in particular cases. Engler, Gardiner and Porcher, Religion at the Crossroads
Conclusion
Tylor’s definition directs attention to belief in spiritual beings. Durkheim puts sacred things and the community that forms around them in view. The cluster approach asks how several features fit together and what the choice of a starting example brings into focus. Each approach makes a particular kind of comparison possible. For the broader subject of belief, practice and belonging, see our general introduction to religion.
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