Fungsi Agama Bagi Komunitas Pendidik Non Pendidikan Agama

Abstract

It is possible not to read too much about the function of religion, including for clergy and educators. This paper elaborates the function of religion based on John Saliba's book. Saliba classifies religious functions into five classifications: Explanation, Emotional, Social, Validation, and Adaptive. Research on educators (teachers and lecturers) who are not teaching in the field of Religious Education, seeks to photograph and map the extent to which they experience religion, especially Christianity, in their lives as individuals and as members of the community. Finally, through the interview data processing it was found that religion for them (the educators) turned out to be the most dominant Validation function, although other functions also appeared. Surprisingly, adaptive functions do not appear in their answers. Does that mean the adaptive function is not important? Furthermore, how does the church respond to these diverse religious functions? These questions will be answered in this paper.

Ada kemungkinan tidak terlalu banyak membaca tentang fungsi agama, termasuk bagi kaum rohaniwan maupun pendidik. Tulisan ini mengelaborasi fungsi agama berdasarkan buku John Saliba. Saliba membuat pengklasifikasian fungsi agama menjadi lima klasifikasi: Eksplanasi, Emosional, Sosial, Validasi, dan Adaptif. Penelitian terhadap para pendidik (guru dan dosen) yang bukan mengajar bidang Pendidikan Agama, berusaha untuk memotret dan memetakan sejauh mana mereka menghayati agama, khususnya Kristen, di dalam kehidupan mereka sebagai pribadi dan sebagai anggota masyarakat. Akhirnya, melalui pengolahan data hasil wawancara didapati kenyataan bahwa agama bagi mereka (para pendidik) ternyata fungsi Validasi nampak paling dominan, meskipun juga nampak fungsi-fungsi lain. Yang mengejutkan, fungsi adaptif tidak muncul dalam jawaban mereka. Apakah itu berarti fungsi adaptif tidak penting? Selanjutnya, bagaimana gereja menyikapi fungsi-fungsi agama yang beraneka rupa ini? Pertanyaan-pertanyaan ini akan dijawab dalam tulisan ini.