Examples of Ordinary Religious Practice

It occurred to me to make a list of aspects of Ordinary religious practice as I believe they take place.  Also, it might be good to include some aspects that Albanese includes from the book America Religions and Religion.

Ordinary practice, as earlier defined is the day to day practice of a particular faith tradition not encompassing a dynamic encounter with the divine, or in other words an otherwise mystical or super-spiritual experience. That is to say that it is the repetition of religious practice as it occurs in our day to day life.

• A few ordinary religious practices would be:
• Weekly Church Service
• Weddings, Baptisms, Funerals, and other like ceremonies
• Religious text study in context with worship
• Communal food taking within a religious context
• Similar style of dress or uniform
• Articles of faith
• Cultural rules of belief

In general, the list includes the aspects that are the cultural bulwark of the institutional practice, an aspect that Albanese suggests are the “…ordinary religion can reveal itself in the many customs and folkways that are part of a culture: expected ways of greeting people; wedding etiquette concerning clothes, manners, and obligations; habits of diet; and holiday behavior, to mention a few.”  Each of these aspects, she says, convey the “values of a society” and the means of identifying their distinct social boundaries of practice.  These practices become the social “glue” of the culture and “reinforces the bonds between members of a society.”

While the list could become extensive, at its most surface level the practice or ordinary religion celebrates the ideas of the extraordinary while keeping the wider practice grounded in the day to day practice.