Another way of understanding the “folk” does not relegate them to a separate folk
society, or to the status of a dissenting minority, but includes all of us as we live our lives
day by day. Leonard Norman Primiano’s formulation of “vernacular religion” draws
attention to religious beliefs, practices, and experiences as they are understood,
undertaken, and expressed by all people, modern and traditional, urban and rural
(Primiano 1993). The opposition here is between an ideal of religion—the institutional,
codified, set form of religion—and religion as experienced. While a distinction is
maintained between institutional religion and vernacular religion, this conception of folk religion draws attention to that which all people, no
matter what their background or social standing, have in common by way of religious
experience. Urban sophisticates as well as rural rustics partake of vernacular religion.