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Table of Contents

ArticleFunction and significancePrinciples of classification

NormativeGeographicalEthnographic-linguisticPhilosophicalMorphologicalPhenomenologicalOther principles

ConclusionWorldwide religious adherentsReligious adherents in the United StatesAdditional ReadingCitations

classification of religions, the attempt to systematize and bring order to a vast range of knowledge aboutreligious beliefs, practices, and institutions. It has been the goal of students of religion for many centuries butespecially so with the increased knowledge of the world’s religions and the advent of modern methods ofscientific inquiry in the last two centuries.

The classification of religions involves: (1) the effort to establish groupings among historical religiouscommunities having certain elements in common or (2) the attempt to categorize similar religious phenomena to reveal the structureof religious experience as a whole.

Function and significanceThe many schemes suggested for classifying religious communities and religious phenomena all have one purpose in common: tobring order, system, and intelligibility to the vast range of knowledge about human religious experience. Classification is basic to allscience as a preliminary step in reducing data to manageable proportions and in moving toward a systematic understanding of asubject matter. Like the zoologist who must distinguish and describe the various orders of animal life as an indispensable stage inthe broad attempt to understand the character of such life as a whole, the student of religion also must use the tool of classificationin his outreach toward a scientific account of human religious experience. The growth of scientific interest in religion in Westernuniversities since the 19th century has compelled most leading students of religion to discuss the problem of classification or todevelop classifications of their own.

The difficulty of classifying religions is accounted for by the immensity of religious diversity that history exhibits. As far as scholarshave discovered, there has never existed any people, anywhere, at any time, who were not in some sense religious. The individualwho embarks upon the arduous task of trying to understand religion as a whole confronts an almost inconceivably huge andbewilderingly variegated host of phenomena from every locale and every era. Empirically, what is called religion includes themythologies of the preliterate peoples on the one hand and the abstruse speculations of the most advanced religious philosophy onthe other. Historically, religion, both ancient and modern, embraces both primitive religious practices and the aesthetically andsymbolically refined worship of the more technologically progressive and literate human communities. The student of religion does

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not lack material for his studies; his problem is rather to discover principles that will help him to avoid the confusion of too muchinformation. Classification is precisely the appeal to such principles; it is a device for making the otherwise unmanageable wealth ofreligious phenomena intelligible and orderly.

The endeavour to group religions with common characteristics or to discover types of religions and religiousphenomena belongs to the systematizing stage of religious study. According to Max Müller,

All real science rests on classification and only in case we cannot succeed in classifying the variousdialects of faith, shall we have to confess that a science of religion is really an impossibility.

Principles of classificationThe criteria employed for the classification of religions are far too numerous to catalogue completely.Virtually every scholar who has considered the matter has evidenced a certain amount of originality in his

view of the interrelationships among religious forms. Thus, only some of the more important principles of classification will bediscussed.

Normative

Perhaps the most common division of religions—and in many ways the most unsatisfactory—distinguishes true religion from falsereligion. Such classifications may be discovered in the thought of most major religious groups and are the natural, perhapsinevitable, result of the need to defend particular perspectives against challengers or rivals. Normative classifications, however, haveno scientific value, because they are arbitrary and subjective, inasmuch as there is no agreed method for selecting the criteria bywhich such judgments should be made. But because living religions always feel the need of apologetics (systematic intellectualdefenses), normative classifications continue to exist.

Many examples of normative classification might be given. The early Church Fathers (e.g., St. Clement ofAlexandria, 2nd century ce) explained that Christianity’s Hellenistic (Greco-Roman culture) rivals were thecreations of fallen angels, imperfect plagiarisms of the true religion, or the outcome of divine condescensionthat took into account the weaknesses of men. The greatest medieval philosopher and theologian, St.Thomas Aquinas, distinguished natural religion, or that kind of religious truth discoverable by unaidedreason, from revealed religion, or religion resting upon divine truth, which he identified exclusively withChristianity. In the 16th century Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, forthrightly labelled the religious

views of Muslims, Jews, and Roman Catholic Christians to be false and held the view that the gospel of Christianity understood fromthe viewpoint of justification by grace through faith was the true standard. In Islam, religions are classified into three groups: thewholly true, the partially true, and the wholly false, corresponding with Islam, the Peoples of the Book (Jews, Christians, andZoroastrians), and polytheism. The classification is of particular interest because, being based in the Qurʾān, (the Islamic holy book),it is an integral part of Islamic teaching, and also because it has legal implications for Muslim treatment of followers of other religions.

Although scientific approaches to religion in the 19th century discouraged use of normative categories, elements of normativejudgment were, nonetheless, hidden in certain of the new scientific classifications that had emerged. Many evolutionary schemesdeveloped by anthropologists and other scholars, for example, ranked religions according to their places on a scale of developmentfrom the simplest to the most sophisticated, thus expressing an implicit judgment on the religious forms discussed. Such schemesmore or less clearly assume the superiority of the religions that were ranked higher (i.e., later and more complex); or, conversely,they serve as a subtle attack on all religion by demonstrating that its origins lie in some of humanity’s basest superstitions, believedto come from an early, crude stage. A normative element is also indicated in classification schemes that preserve theologicaldistinctions, such as that between natural and revealed religion. In short, the normative factor still has an important place in theclassification of religions and will doubtless always have, since it is extraordinarily difficult to draw precise lines between disciplinesprimarily devoted to the normative exposition of religion, such as theology and philosophy of religion, and disciplines devoted to its

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description (phenomenology of religion) or scientific study (e.g., anthropology of religion, sociology of religion, or psychology ofreligion).

Geographical

A common and relatively simple type of classification is based upon the geographical distribution of religiouscommunities. Those religions found in a single region of the earth are grouped together. Such classificationsare found in many textbooks on comparative religion, and they offer a convenient framework for presentingreligious history. The categories most often used are: (1) Middle Eastern religions, including Judaism,Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and a variety of ancient cults; (2) East Asian religions, comprising thereligious communities of China, Japan, and Korea, and consisting of Confucianism, Daoism, the variousschools of Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhism, and Shintō; (3) Indian religions, including early

Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and sometimes also the Theravada (“Way of the Elders”) Buddhism and the Hindu- andBuddhist-inspired religions of South and Southeast Asia; (4) African religions, or the cults of the tribal peoples of Sub-SaharanAfrica, but excluding ancient Egyptian religion, which is considered to belong to the ancient Middle East; (5) American religions,consisting of the beliefs and practices of the Indian peoples indigenous to the two American continents; (6) Oceanic religions—i.e.,the religious systems of the peoples of the Pacific islands, Australia, and New Zealand; and (7) classical religions of ancient Greeceand Rome and their Hellenistic descendants. The extent and complexity of a geographical classification is limited only by theclassifier’s knowledge of geography and his desire to seek detail and comprehensiveness in his classification scheme. Relativelycrude geographical schemes that distinguish Western religions (usually equivalent to Christianity and Judaism) from Easternreligions are quite common.

Although religions centred in a particular area often have much in common because of historical or genetic connections,geographical classifications present obvious inadequacies. Many religions, including some of the greatest historical importance, arenot confined to a single region (e.g., Islam), or do not have their greatest strength in the region of their origins (e.g., Christianity,Buddhism). Further, a single region or continent may be the dwelling place of many different religious communities and viewpointsthat range from the most archaic to the most sophisticated. At a more profound level, geographical classifications are unacceptablebecause they have nothing to do with the essential constitutive elements of religion. The physical location of a religious communityreveals little of the specific religious life of the group. Though useful for some purposes, geographical classifications contributeminimally to the task of providing a systematic understanding of human religions and religiousness.

Ethnographic-linguistic

Max Müller, often called the “Father of the history of religions,” stated that “Particularly in the early history of the human intellect,there exists the most intimate relationship between language, religion, and nationality.” This insight supplies the basis for a geneticclassification of religions (associating them by descent from a common origin), which Müller believed the most scientific principlepossible. According to this theory, in Asia and Europe dwell three great races, the Turanians (including the Ural-Altaic peoples), theSemites, and the Aryans, to which correspond three great families of languages. Originally, in some remote prehistory, each of theseraces formed a unity, but with the passage of time they split up into a myriad of peoples with a great number of distinct languages.Through careful investigation, however, the original unity may be discerned, including the unity of religion in each case. Müller’sprincipal resource in developing the resulting classification of religions was the comparative study of languages, from which hesought to demonstrate similarities in the names of deities, the existence of common mythologies, the common occurrence ofimportant terms in religious life, and the likeness of religious ideas and intuitions among the branches of a racial group. His effortswere most successful in the case of the Semites, whose affinities are easy to demonstrate, and probably least successful in the caseof the Turanian peoples, whose early origins are hypothetical. Müller’s greatest contribution to scholarship, however, lay in his studyof Indo-Aryan languages, literatures, and comparative mythology.

Because Müller was a scholar of the first rank and a pioneer in several fields, his ethnographic-linguistic (and genetic) classificationof religions has had much influence and has been widely discussed. The classification has value in exhibiting connections that had

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not been previously observed. Müller (and his followers) discovered affinities existing among the religious perspectives of both theIndo-Aryan-speaking and Semitic-speaking peoples and set numerous scholars on the path of investigating comparative mythology,thus contributing in a most direct way to the store of knowledge about religions.

There are, nevertheless, difficulties with the ethnographic-linguistic classification. To begin with, Müller’s evidence was incomplete, afact that may be overlooked given the state of knowledge in his day. More important is the consideration that peoples of widelydiffering cultural development and outlook are found within the same racial or linguistic group. Further, the principle of connectionamong race, language, and religion does not take sufficiently into account the historical element or the possibility of developmentsthat may break this connection, such as the conversion of the Indo-European-speaking peoples of Europe—who were viewed asbeing not only linguistically, as the Indo-Aryan languages continue to be classified among the Indo-European language family, butalso racially connected to the Indo-Aryan speakers—to a Semitic religion, Christianity.

Other scholars have developed the ethnographic classification of religion to a much higher degree than did Müller. The Germanscholar Duren J.H. Ward, for example, in The Classification of Religions (1909) accepted the premise of the connection betweenrace and religion but appealed to a much more detailed scheme of ethnological relationship. He says that “religion gets its characterfrom the people or race who develop or adopt it” and further that

the same influences, forces, and isolated circumstances which developed a special race developed at the same time aspecial religion, which is a necessary constituent element or part of a race.

In order to study religion in its fullness and to bring out with clarity the historical and genetic connections between religious groups,the ethnographic element must thus have adequate treatment. Ward devised a comprehensive “Ethnographico-historicalClassification of the Human Races to facilitate the Study of Religions—in five divisions.” These major divisions were (1) the Oceanicraces, (2) the African races, (3) the American races, (4) the Mongolian races, and (5) the Mediterranean races, each of which has itsown peculiar religion. The largest branch, the Mediterranean races, he subdivided into primeval Semites and primeval Aryans, inorder to demonstrate in turn how the various Semitic, Indo-Aryan, and European races descended from these original stocks.

Philosophical

The past 150 years have also produced several classifications of religion based on speculative and abstractconcepts that serve the purposes of philosophy. The principal example of these is the scheme of GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a seminal German philosopher, in his famous Lectures on the Philosophy ofReligion (1832). In general, Hegel’s understanding of religion coincided with his philosophical thought; heviewed the whole of human history as a vast dialectical movement toward the realization of freedom. Thereality of history, he held, is Spirit, and the story of religion is the process by which Spirit—true to its owninternal logical character and following the dialectical pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (thereconciliation of the tension of opposite positions in a new unity that forms the basis of a further tension)—comes to full consciousness of itself. Individual religions thus represent stages in a process of evolution (i.e.,progressive steps in the unfolding of Spirit) directed toward the great goal at which all history aims.

Hegel classified religions according to the role that they have played in the self-realization of Spirit. The historical religions fall intothree great divisions, corresponding with the stages of the dialectical progression. At the lowest level of development, according toHegel, are the religions of nature, or religions based principally upon the immediate consciousness deriving from sense experience.They include: immediate religion or magic at the lowest level; religions, such as those of China and India plus Buddhism, thatrepresent a division of consciousness within itself; and others, such as the religions of ancient Persia, Syria, and Egypt, that form atransition to the next type. At an intermediate level are the religions of spiritual individuality, among which Hegel placed Judaism (thereligion of sublimity), ancient Greek religion (the religion of beauty), and ancient Roman religion (the religion of utility). At the highestlevel is absolute religion, or the religion of complete spirituality, which Hegel identified with Christianity. The progression thusproceeds from human immersed in nature and functioning only at the level of sensual consciousness, to human beings becoming

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conscious of themselves in their individuality as distinct from nature, and beyond that to a grand awareness in which the oppositionof individuality and nature is overcome in the realization of Absolute Spirit.

Many criticisms have been offered of Hegel’s classification. An immediately noticeable shortcoming is the failure to make a place forIslam, one of the major historical religious communities. The classification is also questionable for its assumption of continuousdevelopment in history. The notion of perpetual progress is not only doubtful in itself but is also compromised as a principle ofclassification because of its value implications.

Nevertheless, Hegel’s scheme was influential and was adapted and modified by a generation of philosophers of religion in theIdealist tradition. Departure from Hegel’s scheme, however, may be seen in the works of Otto Pfleiderer, a German theologian of the19th century. Pfleiderer believed it impossible to achieve a significant grouping of religions unless, as a necessary preliminarycondition, the essence of religion were first isolated and clearly understood. Essence is a philosophical concept, however, not ahistorical one. Pfleiderer considered it indispensable to have conceptual clarity about the underlying and underived basis of religionfrom which all else in religious life follows. In Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (“Religion, Its Essence and History”),Pfleiderer held that the essence of religious consciousness exhibits two elements, or moments, perpetually in tension with oneanother: one of freedom and one of dependence, with a number of different kinds of relationships between these two. One or theother may predominate, or they may be mixed in varying degrees.

Pfleiderer derived his classification of religions from the relationships between these basic elements. He distinguished one greatgroup of religions that exhibits extreme partiality for one over against the other. The religions in which the sense of dependence isvirtually exclusive are those of the ancient Semites, the Egyptians, and the Chinese. Opposite these are the early Indian, Germanic,and Greek and Roman religions, in which the sense of freedom prevails. The religion of this group may also be seen in a differentway, as nature religions in the less-developed cultures or as culture or humanitarian religions in the more advanced. A second groupof religions exhibits a recognition of both elements of religion, but gives them unequal value. These religions are called supernaturalreligions. Among them Zoroastrianism gives more weight to freedom as a factor in its piety, and Brahmanism and Buddhism arejudged to have a stronger sense of dependence. The last group of religions is the monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism, andChristianity, which are divided again into two sub-groups, i.e., those that achieve an exact balance of the elements of religion andthose that achieve a blending and merging of the elements. Both Judaism and Islam grant the importance of the two poles of piety,though there is a slight tendency in Islam toward the element of dependence and in Judaism toward freedom. It is Christianity alone,he claimed, that accomplishes the blending of the two, realizing both together in their fullness, the one through the other.

The intellectual heritage that lies behind this classification will be immediately apparent. The classification reflects its time (19thcentury) and place (western Europe) of conception in the sense that the study of religion was not yet liberated from its ties to thephilosophy of religion and theology.

Morphological

Considerable progress toward more scientific classifications of religions was marked by the emergence of morphological schemes,which assume that religion in its history has passed through a series of discernible stages of development, each having readilyidentifiable characteristics and each constituting an advance beyond the former stage. So essential is the notion of progressivedevelopment to morphological schemes that they might also be called evolutionary classifications. Trends in the comparative studyof religions have retained the interest in morphology but have decisively rejected the almost universal 19th-century assumption ofunitary evolution in the history of religion. The crude expression of evolutionary categories such as the division of religions into lowerand higher or primitive and higher religions has been subjected to especially severe criticism.

The pioneer of morphological classifications was Edward Burnett Tylor, a British anthropologist, whose Primitive Culture (1871) isamong the most influential books ever written in its field. Tylor developed the thesis of animism, a view that the essential element inall religion is belief in spiritual beings. According to Tylor, the belief arises naturally from elements universal in human experience(e.g., death, sleep, dreams, trances, and hallucinations) and leads through processes of primitive logic to the belief in a spiritual

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reality distinct from the body and capable of existing independently. In the development of the idea, this reality is identified with thebreath and the life principle; thus arises the belief in the soul, in phantoms, and in ghosts. At a higher stage, the spiritual principle isattributed to aspects of reality other than human beings, and all things are believed to possess spirits that are their effective andanimating elements; for example, primitive peoples generally believe that spirits cause sickness and control their destinies.

Of immediate interest is the classification of religions drawn from Tylor’s animistic thesis. Ancestor worship, prevalent in preliteratesocieties, is obeisance to the spirits of the dead. Fetishism, the veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernaturalpotency, springs from the association of spirits with particular places or things and leads to idolatry, in which the image is viewed asthe symbol of a spiritual being or deity. Totemism, the belief in an association between particular groups of people and certain spiritsthat serve as guardians of those people, arises when the entire world is conceived as peopled by spiritual beings. At a still higherstage, polytheism, the interest in particular deities or spirits disappears and is replaced by concern for a “species” deity whorepresents an entire class of similar spiritual realities. By a variety of means, polytheism may evolve into monotheism, a belief in asupreme and unique deity. Tylor’s theory of the nature of religions and the resultant classification were so logical, convincing, andcomprehensive that for a number of years they remained virtually unchallenged.

The morphological classification of religions received more sophisticated expression from Cornelius Petrus Tiele, a 19th-centuryDutch scholar and an important pioneer in the scientific study of religion. His point of departure was a pair of distinctions made bythe philosophers of religion Abraham Kuenen and W.D. Whitney. In the Hibbert Lectures for 1882, National Religions and UniversalReligions, Kuenen had emphasized the difference between religions limited to a particular people and those that have taken rootamong many peoples and qualitatively aim at becoming universal. Whitney saw the most marked distinction among religions asbeing between race religions (“the collective product of the wisdom of a community”) and individually founded religions. The first arethe result of nature’s unconscious working through long periods of time, and the latter are characterized by a high degree of ethicalawareness. Tiele agreed strongly with Whitney in distinguishing between nature and ethical religions. Ethical religion, in Tiele’sviews, develops out of nature religion,

but the substitution of ethical religions for nature-religions is, as a rule, the result of a revolution; or at least of anintentional reform.

Each of these categories (i.e., nature or spiritualistic–ethical) may be further subdivided. At the earliest and lowest stage of spiritualdevelopment was polyzoic religion, about which there is no information but which is based on Tiele’s theory that early human beingsmust have regarded natural phenomena as endowed with life and superhuman magical power. The first known stage of the naturereligions is called polydaemonistic (many spirits) magical religion, which is dominated by animism and characterized by a confusedmythology, a firm faith in magic, and the preeminence of fear above other religious emotions. At a higher stage of nature religions istherianthropic polytheism, in which the deities are normally of mixed animal and human composition. The highest stage of naturereligion is anthropomorphic polytheism, in which the deities appear in human form but have superhuman powers. These religionshave some ethical elements, but their mythology portrays the deities as indulging in all sorts of shocking acts. None of thepolytheistic religions, thus, was able to raise itself to a truly ethical point of view.

Ethical religions fall into two subcategories. First are the national nomistic (legal) religions that are particularistic, limited to thehorizon of one people only and based upon a sacred law drawn from sacred books. Above them are the universalistic religions,qualitatively different in kind, aspiring to be accepted by all men, and based upon abstract principles and maxims. In both subtypes,doctrines and teachings are associated with the careers of distinct personalities who play important roles in their origin andformation. Tiele found only three examples of this highest type of religion: Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism.

Tiele’s classification enjoyed a great vogue and influenced many who came after him. Nathan Söderblom, a Swedish archbishopwho devoted much energy to problems of classification, accepted the division of higher religions into two great groups but used avaried terminology that pointed to some of the characteristics of the two types of religion. In addition to natural religion and revealedreligion, or religions of nature and religions of revelation, Söderblom spoke of culture religions and prophetic religions, of culturereligions and founded religions, and of nature religions and historical religions. The highest expression of the first category is the

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“mysticism of infinity” that is characteristic of the higher aspects of Hindu and Buddhist religious experience. The apex of genuineprophetic religion is reached in the “mysticism of personality.” All these distinctions mean the same thing, and all are indebted toTiele’s thought. Söderblom, however, sharply disagreed with Tiele’s thesis of continuous development in the history of religion. InSöderblom’s view, the line between nature religion and prophetic religion is a deep and unbridgeable chasm, a qualitative differenceso enormous that one type could never evolve by natural historical processes into the other. Prophetic religion can be explained onlyas a radical and utterly new incursion into history. As Söderblom was a churchman and theologian as well as a distinguishedhistorian of religion, there is without doubt an element of theological judgment influencing his stand on this matter. Söderblom waseager to defend the uniqueness of biblical religion, and he believed that his historical and scientific studies provided an objectivebasis for asserting not only the uniqueness but also the superiority of Christianity.

Tiele’s enduring influence may also be seen in the classification of religions advanced by Mircea Eliade, aRomanian-American scholar who was one of the most prolific contemporary students of religion. Eliade, whoin other respects might be considered among the phenomenologists of religion, was interested in uncoveringthe “structures” or “patterns” of religious life. The basic division that Eliade recognized is between traditionalreligions—including primitive religions and the archaic cults of the ancient civilizations of Asia, Europe, andAmerica—and historical religions. The distinction is better revealed, however, in the terms cosmic religionand historical religion. In Eliade’s estimation, all of traditional religion shares a common outlook upon theworld—chiefly, the deprecation of history and the rejection of profane, mundane time. Religiously, traditionalhumans are not interested in the unique and specific but rather exclusively in those things and actions thatrepeat and restore transcendental models. Only those things that participate in and reflect the eternal

archetypes or the great pattern of original creation by which cosmos came out of chaos are real in the traditional outlook. Thereligious activities of traditional human beings are the recurring attempts to return to the beginning, to the Great Time, to trace againand renew the process by which the structure and order of the cosmos were established. Traditional religions may, therefore, find thesacred in any aspect of the world that links man to the archetypes of the time in the beginning; thus, their typical mode of expressionis repetitive. Further, their understanding of history, as far as they are concerned with it at all, is cyclical. The world and whathappens in it are devalued, except as they show forth the eternal pattern of the original creation.

Modern, postarchaic, or historical religions (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, Islam) show markedly other features. They tend to see adiscontinuity between God and the world and to locate the sacred not in the cosmos but somewhere beyond it. Moreover, they holdto linear views of history, believing it to have a beginning and an end, with a definite goal as its climax, and to be by natureunrepeatable. Thus, the historical religions are world affirming in the double sense of believing in the reality of the world and ofbelieving that meaning for human beings is worked out in the historical process. By reason of these views, the historical religionsalone have been monotheistic and exclusivist in their theologies. Although Eliade outstripped his predecessors in delineating thequalities of traditional religion in particular, much of his thought was anticipated in Söderblom’s descriptions of nature religion andprophetic religion.

Phenomenological

All the principles thus far discussed have had reference to the classification of religions in the sense of establishing groupingsamong historical religious communities having certain elements in common. While attempts have been made to classify entirereligions or religious communities, in recent times the interest in classifying entire religions has markedly declined, partly because ofan emerging interest in the phenomenology of religion.

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This new trend in studies, which has come to dominate the field, claims its origin in the phenomenologicalphilosophy of Edmund Husserl, a German Jewish–Lutheran scholar, and has found its greatest exponents inthe Netherlands. Phenomenology of religion has at least two aspects. It is first of all an effort at devising ataxonomic (classificatory) scheme that will permit the comprehensive cataloging and classifying of religiousphenomena across the lines of religious communities, but it is also a method that aims at revealing the self-interpretation by religious practicioners of their own religious responses. Phenomenology of religion thusrejects any overview of religion that would interpret religion’s development as a whole, confining itself ratherto the phenomena and the unfolding of their meaning for religious people. Phenomenologists are especiallyvigorous in repudiating the evolutionary schemes of past scholars, whom they accuse of imposing arbitrary

semiphilosophical concepts in their interpretation of the history of religion. Phenomenologists also have little interest in history for itsown sake, except as a preliminary stage of material gathering for the hermeneutical (critical–interpretive) task that is to follow.

One of the earliest Dutch phenomenologists, W. Brede Kristensen (1867–1953), spoke of his work as follows:

Phenomenology of Religion attempts to understand religious phenomena by classifying them into groups…we mustgroup the phenomena according to characteristics which correspond as far as possible to the essential and typicalelements of religion.

The material with which phenomenology is concerned is all the different types of religious thinking and action, ideas about divinity,and cultic acts. Kristensen’s systematic organization of religious phenomena may be seen in the table of contents of his Meaning ofReligion in which he divides his presentation of material into discussions of (1) cosmology, which includes worship of nature in theform of sky and earth deities, animal worship, totemism, and animism, (2) anthropology, made up of a variety of considerations onhuman nature and also on human life and human social associations, (3) cultus, which involves consideration of sacred places,sacred times, and sacred images, and (4) cultic acts, such as prayer, oaths and curses, and ordeals. Kristensen was not concernedwith the historical development or the description of a particular religion or even a series of religions but rather with grouping thetypical elements of the entire religious life, irrespective of the community in which they might occur.

Probably the best known phenomenologist is Gerardus van der Leeuw, another Dutch scholar. In his Religion in Essence andManifestation, van der Leeuw categorized the material of religious life under the following headings: (1) the object of religion, or thatwhich evokes the religious response, (2) the subject of religion, in which there are three divisions: the sacred person, the sacredcommunity, and the sacred within human beings, or the soul, (3) object and subject in their reciprocal operation as outward reactionand inward action, (4) the world, ways to the world, and the goals of the world, and (5) forms, which must take into account religionsand the founders of religions. Van der Leeuw was not interested in grouping religious communities as such but rather in laying outthe types of religious expression. He discussed distinct religions only because religion in the abstract has no existence. He classifiedreligions according to 12 forms: (1) religion of remoteness and flight (ancient China and 18th-century deism), (2) religion of struggle(Zoroastrianism), (3) religion of repose, which has no specific historical form but is found in every religion in the form of mysticism,(4) religion of unrest or theism, which again has no specific form but is found in many religions, (5) dynamic of religions in relation toother religions (syncretism and missions), (6) dynamic of religions in terms of internal developments (revivals and reformations), (7)religion of strain and form, the first that van der Leeuw characterizes as one of the “great” forms of religion (Greece), (8) religion ofinfinity and of asceticism (Indian religions but excluding Buddhism), (9) religion of nothingness and compassion (Buddhism), (10)religion of will and of obedience (Israel), (11) the religion of majesty and humility (Islam), and (12) the religion of love (Christianity).The above is not a classification of religions as organized systems. Categories 3, 4, 5, and 6 relate to elements found in many if notall historical religious communities, and the categories from 7 onward are not classifications but attempts to characterize particular

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communities by short phrases that express what van der Leeuw considered to be their essential spirit. The “primitive” religions ofless-developed peoples are not classified.

Other principles

William James, the American philosopher and psychologist, in his book The Varieties of ReligiousExperience, differentiated two types of religion according to the attitude toward life—the religion of healthy-mindedness, which minimizes or ignores the evil of existence, and that of morbid-mindedness, whichconsiders evil as the very essence of life. Max Weber, a German sociologist, distinguished between religionsthat express themselves primarily in mythopoeic ways and those that express themselves in rational forms.The distinction comes very close to that between traditional and historical religions, though its emphasis issomewhat different.

Nathan Söderblom, in his prolific scholarly career, devised several classifications other than the principal onediscussed above. In his great work on primitive religions, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens (“Development ofthe Belief in God”), Söderblom divided religions into dynamistic, animistic, and theistic types according to the

way primitive peoples apprehend the divine. In other works (Einführung in die Religionsgeschichte, or “Introduction to the History ofReligion,” and Thieles Kompendium der Religionsgeschichte neu bearbeitet, or “Tiele’s Compendium of the History of ReligionRevised”) he contended that Christianity is the central point of the entire history of religions and, therefore, classified religionsaccording to the historical order in which they came into contact with Christianity. Similarly, Albert Schweitzer, the French theologian,medical missionary, and Nobel laureate, in Christianity and the Religions of the World, grouped religions as rivals or nonrivals ofChristianity. Still another scheme may be seen in Söderblom’s Gifford Lectures, The Living God, in which religions were dividedaccording to their doctrines of the relation between human and divine activity in the achievement of salvation. Thus, among higherreligions there are those in which humanity alone is responsible for salvation (Buddhism), God alone is responsible (the bhaktimovements of India), or God and humanity cooperate (Christianity).

The American sociologist Robert Bellah, having in mind the advances of the social sciences in their understanding of religions, offersa refurbished and more highly sophisticated version of an evolutionary scheme that he thinks to be the most satisfactory possible inthe present state of scholarly knowledge. He views religion as having passed through five stages, beginning with the primitive andproceeding through the archaic, the historical, and the early modern to the modern stage. The religious complexes that emerge ineach stage of this evolution have identifiable characteristics that Bellah studies and differentiates according to the followingcategories: symbol systems, religious actions, religious organizations, and social implications. Two basic concepts run throughBellah’s classification, providing the instruments for the division of religions along the evolutionary scale. The first is that of theincreasing complexity of symbolization as one moves from the bottom to the top of the scale, and the second is that of increasingfreedom of personality and society from their environing circumstances or, in other words, the growing secularization of the religiousfield. Bellah’s classification is important because of the wide discussion it has awakened among social scientists.

One may find additional classifications based upon the content of religious ideas, the forms of religious teaching, the nature ofcultus, the character of piety, the nature of the emotional involvement in religion, the character of the good toward which religionsstrive, and the relations of religions to the state, to art, to science, and to morality.

ConclusionThe classification of religions that will withstand all criticism and serve all the purposes of a general science of religions has not beendevised. Each classification presented above has been attacked for its inadequacies or distortions, yet each is useful in bringing tolight certain aspects of religion. Even the crudest and most subjective classifications throw into relief various aspects of religious lifeand thus contribute to the cause of understanding. The most fruitful approach for a student of religion appears to be that ofemploying a number of diverse classifications, each one for the insight it may yield. Though each may have its shortcomings, eachalso offers a positive contribution to the store of knowledge and its systematization. The insistence upon the exclusive validity of any

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single taxonomic effort must be avoided. To confine oneself to a single determined framework of thought about so rich andvariegated a subject as religion is to risk the danger of missing much that is important. Classification should be viewed as a methodand a tool only.

Although a perfect classification lies at present beyond scholars’ grasp, certain criteria, both positive and negative in nature, may besuggested for building and judging classifications. First, classifications should not be arbitrary, subjective, or provincial. A firstprinciple of the scientific method is that objectivity should be pursued to the extent possible and that findings should be capable ofconfirmation by other observers. Second, an acceptable classification should deal with the essential and typical in the religious life,not with the accidental and the unimportant. The contribution to understanding that a classification may make is in direct proportionto the penetration of the bases of religious life exhibited in its principles of division. A good classification must concern itself with thefundamentals of religion and with the most typical elements of the units it is seeking to order. Third, a proper classification should becapable of presenting both that which is common to religious forms of a given type and that which is peculiar or unique to eachmember of the type. Thus, no classification should ignore the concrete historical individuality of religious manifestations in favour ofthat which is common to them all, nor should it neglect to demonstrate the common factors that are the bases for the very distinctionof types of religious experience, manifestations, and forms. Classification of religions involves both the systematic and the historicaltasks of the general science of religion. Fourth, it is desirable in a classification that it demonstrate the dynamics of religious life bothin the recognition that religions as living systems are constantly changing and in the effort to show, through the categories chosen,how it is possible for one religious form or manifestation to develop into another. Few errors have been more damaging to theunderstanding of religion than that of viewing religious systems as static and fixed, as, in effect, ahistorical. Adequate classificationsshould possess the flexibility to come to terms with the flexibility of religion itself. Fifth, a classification must define what exactly is tobe classified. If the purpose is to develop types of religions as a whole, the questions of what constitutes a religion and whatconstitutes various individual religions must be asked. Since no historical manifestation of religion is known that has not exhibited anunvarying process of change, evolution, and development, these questions are far from easily solved. With such criteria in mind, itshould be possible continuously to construct classification schemes that illuminate humanity’s religious history.

Charles Joseph Adams

Ed.

Worldwide religious adherentsA list of worldwide religious adherents is provided in the table.

Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas,Mid-2014

Africa Asia Europe Latin America

Northern America

Religionists 1,130,409,000 3,716,413,000 634,018,000 599,974,000 303,081,000

Christians 553,046,000 372,552,000 580,784,000 575,606,000 279,417,000

Roman Catholics 199,125,000 146,234,000 277,068,000 504,971,000 89,298,000

Protestants 209,681,000 93,681,000 94,079,000 62,884,000 62,003,000

Independents 119,783,000 147,535,000 15,082,000 53,960,000 71,855,000

Orthodox 50,533,000 18,748,000 202,831,000 1,104,000 7,770,000

Muslims 473,121,000 1,147,503,000 45,404,000 1,669,000 5,284,000

Sunnis 465,892,000 945,963,000 43,247,000 1,224,000 3,651,000

Shiʿites 2,817,000 192,170,000 2,125,000 432,000 1,039,000

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Hindus 3,163,000 967,028,000 1,159,000 796,000 1,909,000

Buddhists 274,000 507,766,000 1,865,000 794,000 4,632,000

Mahayanists 261,000 363,160,000 1,167,000 793,000 4,010,000

Theravadins 12,800 128,606,300 196,000 1,900 558,000

Chinese folk-religionists 144,000 449,460,000 565,000 200,000 815,000

Ethnoreligionists 97,718,000 152,630,000 1,169,000 3,792,000 1,269,000

New religionists 216,900 60,786,000 646,000 1,929,200 2,465,300

Sikhs 81,600 23,561,300 582,000 7,700 633,000

Spiritists 3,100 2,200 146,400 13,751,000 252,000

Jews 132,000 6,302,000 1,519,000 457,000 5,608,000

Daoists (Taoists) 0 8,642,200 0 0 12,900

Confucianists 21,300 8,334,000 16,000 500 0

Bahaʾis 2,381,000 3,603,000 137,000 962,000 593,000

Jains 106,000 5,332,800 19,800 1,500 104,000

Shintoists 0 2,746,000 0 8,100 64,900

Zoroastrians 1,100 164,500 5,800 0 21,900

Nonreligionists 7,820,000 625,842,000 108,795,000 23,448,000 55,155,000

Agnostics 7,181,000 510,568,000 94,076,000 20,423,000 52,886,000

Atheists 639,000 115,274,000 14,719,000 3,025,000 2,269,000

Total population 1,138,229,000 4,342,255,000 742,813,000 623,422,000 358,236,000

Oceania World % Change Rate (%)

Number ofCountries

Religionists 31,295,000 6,415,190,000 88.6 1.28 234

Christians 28,534,000 2,389,939,000 33.0 1.26 234

Roman Catholics 9,326,000 1,226,022,000 16.9 1.11 234

Protestants 12,921,000 535,249,000 7.4 1.52 231

Independents 2,035,000 410,250,000 5.7 2.04 231

Orthodox 1,048,000 282,034,000 3.9 0.45 137

Muslims 609,000 1,673,590,000 23.1 1.79 214

Sunnis 502,000 1,460,479,000 20.2 1.80 212

Shiʿites 104,000 198,687,000 2.7 1.72 148

Hindus 542,000 974,597,000 13.5 1.08 144

Buddhists 620,000 515,951,000 7.1 0.83 152

Mahayanists 459,000 369,850,000 5.1 0.84 142

Theravadins 161,000 129,536,000 1.8 0.78 47

Chinese folk-religionists 108,000 451,292,000 6.2 0.63 120

Ethnoreligionists 394,000 256,972,000 3.5 1.31 146

New religionists 122,400 66,165,800 0.9 0.51 121

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Sikhs 52,400 24,918,000 0.3 1.23 64

Spiritists 8,300 14,163,000 0.2 0.77 59

Jews 124,000 14,142,000 0.2 0.70 147

Daoists (Taoists) 4,900 8,660,000 0.1 0.48 6

Confucianists 52,200 8,424,000 0.1 0.56 17

Bahaʾis 118,000 7,794,000 0.1 1.66 224

Jains 3,100 5,567,200 0.1 1.22 19

Shintoists 0 2,819,000 0.0 0.34 8

Zoroastrians 2,700 196,000 0.0 0.10 27

Nonreligionists 7,534,000 828,594,000 11.4 0.22 233

Agnostics 6,977,000 692,111,000 9.6 0.30 233

Atheists 557,000 136,483,000 1.9 −0.20 223

Total population 38,829,000 7,243,784,000 100.0 1.15 234

Methodology. As defined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a person’s religion is what he or she professes,confesses, or states that it is. Totals are enumerated for each of the world’s 234 countries, using recent censuses, polls, surveys,yearbooks, reports, Web sites, literature, and other data. See the World Christian Database (www.worldchristiandatabase.org), theWorld Religion Database (www.worldreligiondatabase.org), and the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project(www.pewforum.org) for more detail. Religions are ranked in order of worldwide size as of mid-2014.

Continents. These follow current UN demographic terminology, which divides the world into the six major areas shown above. SeeUnited Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision (New York: UN, 2013), with populations of all continents, regions,and countries covering the period 1950–2100, with 100 variables for every country each year.

Change rate. This column documents the annual change in 2014 (projected from an average annual change from 2000 to 2010) inworldwide religious and nonreligious adherents. Note that the annual growth of the world’s population was 1.15%.

Countries. The last column enumerates sovereign and nonsovereign countries in which each religion or religious grouping has anumerically significant and organized following.

Agnostics. Persons professing no religion (unaffiliated), nonbelievers, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularistsindifferent to all religion (but who are not atheists). Together with atheists, the nonreligious number 829 million, or 11.4% of theworld’ population (continuing to decline from a high of 20% in 1970).

Atheists. Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to allreligion). While recent books have outlined the Western philosophical and scientific basis for atheism, the vast majority of atheiststoday are found in Asia (primarily Chinese communists).

Buddhists. Adherents of Buddhism; 72% Mahayanists, 25% Theravadins (Hinayanists), 3% Tantrayanists (Lamaists, Tibetans).

Chinese folk-religionists. Followers of a unique complex of beliefs and practices that may include universism (yin/yang cosmologywith dualities earth/heaven, evil/good, darkness/light), ancestor cult, Confucian ethics, divination, festivals, folk religion, goddessworship, household gods, local deities, mediums, metaphysics, monasteries, neo-Confucianism, popular religion, sacrifices,shamans, spirit-writing, and Taoist and Buddhist elements.

Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ normally affiliated with churches (church members, with names written on church rolls, usuallytotal number of baptized persons, including children baptized, dedicated, or undedicated), shown above divided among four majorchurch traditions. Independents. This term denotes members of Christian churches and networks that regard themselves asindependent of historical, mainstream, organized, institutionalized, confessional, and denominationalist Christianity. It also includesmembers of denominations who define themselves as Christians but differ significantly from organized mainstream Christianity

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(e.g., Unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses). Protestants. Includes Anglicans. The four traditions do not add up to the totalnumber of Christians because of doubly affiliated, disaffiliated, and unaffiliated Christians.

Confucianists. Chinese and non-Chinese followers of Confucius and Confucianism, mostly neo-Confucianists in East andSoutheast Asia and Korean Confucianists in Korea.

Ethnoreligionists. Followers of local, tribal, animistic, or shamanistic religions, with members restricted to one ethnic group.

Hindus. Adherents of Hinduism. 68% Vaishnavites, 27% Shaivites, 5% Saktists and neo-Hindus and reform Hindus.

Jews. Adherents of Judaism. For detailed data on "core" Jewish population, see the annual "World Jewish Population, 2012" articlein the American Jewish Committee’s American Jewish Year Book (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013).

Muslims. Adherents of Islam. 87% Sunnis, 12% Shiʿites, 1% other schools.

New religionists. Followers of Asian 20th-century neoreligions, neoreligious movements, radical new crisis religions, andsyncretistic mass religions. Also includes other religionists, including quasi-religions, pseudoreligions, parareligions, religious ormystic systems, and religious and semireligious brotherhoods of numerous varieties.

Total population. UN medium variant figures for mid-2014, as provided in World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision.

Religious adherents in the United StatesA list of religious adherents in the United States is provided in the table.

Religious Adherents in the United States of America, 1900–2010

1900 % mid-1970 % mid-1990 % mid-2000 %

Religionists 74,994,000 98.7 199,421,000 95.0 231,127,000 91.2 250,531,000 88.0

Christians 73,260,000 96.4 191,130,000 91.1 216,161,600 85.3 232,276,300 81.6

Roman Catholics 10,775,000 14.2 48,305,000 23.0 56,500,000 22.3 62,970,000 22.1

Independents 6,650,000 8.8 39,768,000 18.9 51,340,000 20.3 62,816,000 22.1

Protestants 36,600,000 48.2 60,382,000 28.8 62,666,000 24.7 59,221,000 20.8

Orthodox 400,000 0.5 4,395,000 2.1 5,150,000 2.0 5,595,000 2.0

Jews 1,500,000 2.0 5,870,000 2.8 5,535,000 2.2 5,628,000 2.0

Muslims 10,000 0.0 800,000 0.4 3,300,000 1.3 3,747,000 1.3

Sunnis 6,500 0.0 520,000 0.2 2,145,000 0.8 2,440,000 0.9

Shiʿites 2,000 0.0 160,000 0.1 660,000 0.3 774,000 0.3

Buddhists 30,000 0.0 200,000 0.1 1,880,000 0.7 3,482,000 1.2

Mahayanists 30,000 0.0 190,000 0.1 1,692,000 0.7 3,037,000 1.1

Theravadins 0 0.0 8,000 0.0 169,000 0.1 398,000 0.1

New religionists 20,000 0.0 1,010,000 0.5 1,685,000 0.7 2,064,000 0.7

Hindus 1,000 0.0 100,000 0.0 750,000 0.3 1,231,000 0.4

Ethnoreligionists 100,000 0.1 70,000 0.0 780,000 0.3 977,000 0.3

Bahaʾis 3,000 0.0 138,000 0.1 600,000 0.2 434,000 0.2

Sikhs 0 0.0 10,000 0.0 160,000 0.1 239,000 0.1

Spiritists 0 0.0 0 0.0 120,000 0.0 194,000 0.1

Chinese folk-religionists

70,000 0.1 90,000 0.0 76,000 0.0 99,600 0.0

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Jains 0 0.0 3,000 0.0 5,000 0.0 74,000 0.0

Shintoists 0 0.0 0 0.0 50,000 0.0 57,500 0.0

Zoroastrians 0 0.0 0 0.0 14,400 0.0 16,200 0.0

Daoists (Taoists) 0 0.0 0 0.0 10,000 0.0 11,400 0.0

Nonreligionists 1,001,000 1.3 10,470,000 5.0 22,212,000 8.8 34,063,000 12.0

Agnostics 1,000,000 1.3 10,270,000 4.9 21,442,000 8.5 32,896,000 11.6

Atheists 1,000 0.0 200,000 0.1 770,000 0.3 1,167,000 0.4

U.S. population 75,995,000 100.0 209,891,000 100.0 253,339,000 100.0 284,594,000 100.0

Annual Change, 2000–2010

mid-2010 % Natural Conversion Total Rate(%)

Religionists 267,620,000 85.7 2,434,300 −725,400 1,708,900 0.66

Christians 248,182,800 79.5 2,256,900 −666,200 1,590,700 0.66

Roman Catholics 70,656,000 22.6 611,900 156,700 768,600 1.16

Independents 68,292,000 21.9 610,400 −62,800 547,600 0.84

Protestants 58,206,000 18.6 575,400 −676,900 −101,500 −0.17

Orthodox 6,253,000 2.0 54,400 −11,400 −65,800 −1.12

Jews 5,238,000 1.7 54,700 −93,700 −39,000 −0.72

Muslims 4,131,000 1.3 36,400 2,000 38,400 0.98

Sunnis 2,678,000 0.9 22,900 1,000 23,800 0.94

Shiʿites 885,000 0.3 10,000 500 11,100 1.35

Buddhists 3,979,000 1.3 33,800 15,900 49,700 1.34

Mahayanists 3,439,000 1.1 29,500 10,700 40,200 1.25

Theravadins 481,000 0.2 3,900 4,400 8,300 1.91

New religionists 2,233,000 0.7 20,100 −3,200 16,900 0.79

Hindus 1,453,000 0.5 12,000 10,200 22,200 1.67

Ethnoreligionists 1,091,000 0.3 9,500 1,900 11,400 1.11

Bahaʾis 516,000 0.2 4,200 4,000 8,200 1.75

Sikhs 281,000 0.1 2,300 1,900 4,200 1.63

Spiritists 227,000 0.1 1,900 1,400 3,300 1.58

Chinese folk-religionists

109,000 0.0 1,000 −100 900 0.91

Jains 85,900 0.0 700 500 1,200 1.50

Shintoists 63,100 0.0 600 0 600 0.93

Zoroastrians 17,700 0.0 200 0 200 0.89

Daoists (Taoists) 12,500 0.0 100 0 100 0.93

Nonreligionists 44,627,000 14.3 331,000 725,400 1,056,400 2.74

Agnostics 43,309,000 13.9 319,600 721,700 1,041,300 2.79

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ARTICLE

Atheists 1,318,000 0.4 11,300 3,800 15,100 1.22

U.S. population 312,247,000 100.0 2,765,000 0 2,765,000 0.93

Methodology. This table extracts and analyzes a microcosm of the world religion table. It depicts the United States with estimatesat five points in time from 1900 to 2010. Each religion’s Annual Change for 2000–2010 is also analyzed by Natural increase (birthsminus deaths, plus immigrants minus emigrants) per year and Conversion increase (converts in minus converts out) per year,which together constitute the Total increase per year. Rate increase is then computed as percentage per year.

Structure. Vertically the table lists major religious categories. The major categories (including nonreligious) in the U.S. are listedwith the largest (Christians) first. Indented names of groups in the "Adherents" column are subcategories of the groups above themand are also counted in these unindented totals, so they should not be added twice into the column total. Owing to rounding, thecorresponding percentage figures sometimes might not total exactly to 100%. Religions are ranked in order of size in 2010.

Agnostics and atheists (See world table for definitions.) Together (termed "nonreligionists") in 2010 these number 44.6 million, or14.3% of the total population. This is markedly higher than the 1970 figure of 10.4 million (5%). Note that these figures are lowerthan survey results for the "unaffiliated" or "nones," which include large numbers of religionists who are indifferent to or dislikeorganized religion.

Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ normally affiliated with churches. (See also the note on Christians below the world religiontable.) The indented lines under "Christians" are ranked by size in 2010 for each of the four major church traditions (Independent,Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic). Two important subcategories of Christians (potentially from all four traditions) areEvangelicals and Pentecostals. Evangelicals are mainly Protestant churches, agencies, and individuals who call themselves bythis term (for example, members of the National Association of Evangelicals); these numbered approximately 45 million in mid-2010. Pentecostals include classical Pentecostals (such as Assemblies of God), Charismatics (in mainline churches), andIndependent Charismatics (such as African Instituted Churches). Together these numbered approximately 66 million in 2010.There is some overlap between Evangelicals and Pentecostals.

Jews. Core Jewish population relating to Judaism, excluding ethnically Jewish persons professing a different religion or no religion.

Muslims. 65% Sunnis, 21% Shiʿites (mainly Iranian immigrants), 14% other schools (including many Black Muslims).

Other categories. Definitions are as given under the world religion table.

Two monographs dealing specifically with the classification of religions, each of which offers a survey of previous classifications inaddition to the author’s own scheme, are Duren J.H. Ward, The Classification of Religions: Different Methods, Their Advantages andDisadvantages (1909); and Fred Louis Parrish, The Classification of Religions: Its Relation to the History of Religions (1941),containing a full survey of classification schemes with brief characterizations of each and the best bibliographical guide for pursuingthe subject in depth. Other books for further study are as follows: P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte,2 vol. (1887–89; Eng. trans. of vol. 1, Manual of the Science of Religion, 1891), which includes classification problems at thebeginning of vol. 1; C.P. Tiele, Elements of the Science of Religion, 2 vol. (1897–99), a classic work by an important scholar on thissubject; and F. Max Mueller, Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873), another classic work. Of more recent origin is GustavMensching, Die Religion: Erscheinungsformen, Strukturtypen und Lebensgesetze (1959), a popular manual of the history of religionsthat includes a long section on classification problems.

Charles Joseph Adams

"classification of religions". Encyclopædia Britannica. Britannica Academic.Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 22 Aug. 2015<http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/497215/classification-of-religions>.

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