We are (not) Different from the Others: Religious Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Slovakia and India

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Abstract

Although the narrative of modernity has been rejected by numerous scientists, it remains a powerful paradigm. Several Western countries have, during the COVID-19 pandemic, witnessed renewed interest in some archaic practices and beliefs. Based mostly on media analysis, this paper provides an insight into religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia and India, two completely different cultural areas. Simultaneously, it challenges the self-identification of the West as the epicentre of rational thought, in contrast to the so-called non-Western world. The self-image of superiority adopted by the modern West in terms of religious relevance has proved to be distorted, as the tendency to turn to spiritual practices in times of crisis is not exclusively a feature of non-Western societies.

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Religion and Faith Perception in a Pandemic of COVID-19

Oliwia Kowalczyk, Krzysztof Roszkowski, Xavier Montané … (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted religion and faith in different ways. Numerous restrictions have been implemented worldwide. Believers are in conflict with authorities’ warnings that gatherings must be limited to combat the spread of the virus. Religion has always played a role of the balm for the soul, and the regular religious participation is associated with better emotional health outcomes. In our study, we examined whether the exposure to COVID-19 enhances the faith. The instrument used was a survey verifying the power of spirituality in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Prevalence and Determinants of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine Provider Use among Adults from 32 Countries

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In Crisis, We Pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jeanet Sinding Bentzen (2021)

In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Ivan Souček:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5170-871X

ivan.soucek@umb.sk , soucek.ivan@gmail.com

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Relig Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Relig Health

Title: Journal of Religion and Health

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Print): 0022-4197

ISSN (Electronic): 1573-6571

Publication date (Electronic): 27 February 2023

Pages: 1-18

Affiliations

GRID grid.24377.35, ISNI 0000 0001 2359 0697, Department of Social Studies and Ethnology, , Matej Bel University, ; Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

Author information

Ivan Souček http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5170-871X

Article

Publisher ID: 1777

DOI: 10.1007/s10943-023-01777-9

PMC ID: 9970116

PubMed ID: 36849604

SO-VID: 2c9bfe24-b42a-40da-8d78-11f93342d4e6

Copyright © © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

License:

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

History

Date accepted : 16 February 2023

Funding

Funded by: VEGA

Award ID: 1/0381/22

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