Once asserted
as an institution, religion became the locus of specific human
interaction that resulted in patterns based on the language
(Latin, for some in the Western Christian world, and Arabic in
the Islamic East) in which religion was expressed. Religious
practical experience progressively distanced itself from the
complexities of work and socio- political organization, and
constituted a form of praxis independent of others, although
never entirely disconnected from them. The organization of
religion concerns the pattern of religious services at certain
locations: temple, church, mosque. It concerns the institution,
one among many: the military, the nobility, guilds, banks,
sometimes competing with them. It also concerns education,
within its own structure or in coordination, sometimes in
conflict, with other interests at work.
A multitude of structural environments, adapted to the practical
aspects of religious experience appear, while religion
progressively extricated itself, or was eliminated, from the
pragmatics of survival and existence. The institution it became
dedicated itself to pursuing its own repetitive assignments. At
the same time, it established and promoted its implicit set of
motivations and criteria for evaluation. In many instances, the
church constituted viable social entities in which work, and
agriculture in particular, was performed according to
prescriptions combining it with the practice of faith.
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