RELIGIOUS SPEECH COMMUNITY AND REINFORCEMENT OF BELIEF

Language is a structured system of symbols through which members of a group interact. It canalizes forms of activities in which group members cooperate, & fosters a strong unity of feelings & endeavors. This applies to religion too. The problem of the importance of the religious community to the strengthening of the individual's belief is very scantily represented in the soc-psychol of religion. In a speech community words have the same cognitive, emotional & conative meaning for its members. A religious speech community is a symbol milieu which creates & maintains specified att's toward a superior power. `Faith' implies a stronger commitment than `belief', but can exist without a real theoretical conviction (K. W. Deutsch). It may be considered an att, not an event or a particular state. An interesting question is how important the symbol milieu is for the religious convictions of the individual group member. In preaching, the common acceptance of the Creed is often stressed. Unison singing is a strong means of confirming faith together. It heightens the emotional level & makes the singers more susceptible to preaching & permanently influences their att's. L. Festinger has noted the role of soc support in the reduction of cognitive dissonance in an individual's beliefs. A hypo is suggested that such a dissonance, with the subsequent wish for soc support, may lay behind the proselytizing of separatist movements in their initial stages. Another hypo, concerned with ecstatic religious movements which have acquired an institutionalized character is: there is a tendency for the responses in such movements to attach themselves to established symbols; images that have a quality of familiarity are particularly effective once the situation is institutionalized. I. Pipping.