Excerpt:  Strategy and Religion, part two

We opened this chapter on strategy and religion (in part one) by exploring the topic of faith in general, how it arose in the evolution of the species homo sapiens, and how it manifested at the individual, the family, the community and national levels.  We drew strategic insights from the benefits accrued by the religious, how these contributed to their survival, and the power dynamics between state and religion, and between science and religion.  The exploration paused at the observation that a high standard of proof, of experimentation, was needed to test and revise our assumptions about religion, in the same way as we hold science accountable.  With this in mind, we move on to part two, and what we might learn from each of the major world faiths.

Given the sheer number of religions at any one time (more than 4000 currently*), we should take a moment to define what constitutes a “major” world faith.  The most common approach is to rank by number of adherents or followers.  According to the Pew Research Center, around the world there were approximately 2.2 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, 500 million Buddhists, and 14 million Jews in 2010.**

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions

** https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

They also described the geographic distribution of each faith, noting the presence of nation-states with a majority religion (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish).

“There are no countries where members of other religions (such as Baha’is, Jains, Shintoists, Sikhs, Taoists, followers of Tenrikyo, Wiccans and Zoroastrians) make up a majority of the population. There are also no countries where people who identify with folk or traditional religions clearly form a majority.”*

* Ibid

Some also cite longevity, how long a religion has been in existence, as a factor, with Judaism predating Christianity by at least 600 years, Buddhism following about 200 years later, then Christianity now more than 2000 years old, followed by Islam 600 years later.  The oldest surviving faith, however, is Hinduism, more than 4000 years in age (the origins of Hinduism being controversial and difficult to substantiate).

As you will see from what follows in this chapter, each major faith emerged at the right time, in the right place, meeting a deep existential need in society.  In the chaos that ensued from the challenged powers-that-be, in each case, the emergent religious leaders, both the original prophets and their most ardent followers, exhibited incredible flexibility to arrive at various forms of accommodation, even co-opting existing traditions and rituals, in order to survive.

From the perspective of a strategist, interesting questions to ask include what are the characteristics of a successful religion?  What factors contribute to its survival over such long periods of time and allow it to attract and retain such large numbers of followers, in some cases forming the majority of the population of nation-states?  For these factors may offer learnings applicable to organisations and institutions in general...