The oldest pattern of religion on earth: the conviction that the world is alive with persons, human and other than human, and that right relationship with them is the substance of the good life.
Animism names the outlook of the primal religions, in which rivers, animals, ancestors, and places are persons to be related to rather than objects to be used. It is not one church or creed; it is the shared pattern beneath thousands of particular traditions, each belonging to its own people and its own land. The particular traditions stand under the review of the communities that hold them.
Sources
Primary
- The oral traditions of the peoples themselves, held and retold in community.
Secondary
- Graham Harvey, Animism: Respecting the Living World (2005).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this worldview compare to Christianity? Is it a Christian worldview?
This assessment has not yet been reviewed. Every verdict below stands at Not yet reviewed until the named theological reviewers supply it.
- Does it consider itself Christian?
- Not yet reviewed
- Did it arise from the Christian tradition?
- Not yet reviewed
- Does it affirm the ecumenical creeds?
- Not yet reviewed
- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
- the Catholic Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Eastern Orthodox Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Oriental Orthodox churches: Not yet reviewed
- conciliar Protestant bodies: Not yet reviewed
- the WCC / National Council of Churches: Not yet reviewed
- This site's assessment
- Not yet reviewed
- Reviewer
- Not yet reviewed. The theological reviewers are named on the criteria page when they are appointed.
The comparative record for this entity, its points of convergence and divergence across the ten loci, has not yet been populated. It stands in the assessment queue on the criteria page.
What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.