Religion
Formalism in religion means an emphasis on ritual and observance over their meanings. Within Christianity, the term legalism is a derogatory term that is loosely synonymous to religious formalism.
Read more about this topic: Formalism (philosophy)
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“There is more religion in men’s science than there is science in their religion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)