Belonging to Multiple Religions? Or Owning Them? [View all]
August 16, 2013
By Robert Hunt
On a recent trip I spent three days with my wife’s family. You know that drill. Awakening early (or staying quietly in your bedroom) to accommodate unfamiliar meal-times and meals. Engaging in conversations about topics you don’t know or care about. Generally adapting to life in a home that is and isn’t quite your own. It isn’t easy, because when you belong to a family you are more owned than owner.
That appears to be lost on the increasing number of Americans who profess to having “multiple religious belongings.” Americans who identify themselves as ”Buddhist-Catholics” or “Hindu-Buddhist-Kabbalists” or (in its common short form) “Bu-Jews.”
The problem with multiple religious belongings is that religion isn’t just a set of metaphysical ideas, ritual practices, theological beliefs, and ethical ideals from which individuals may choose. First and foremost a religion is a community of human beings. A person can belong to a religion, just as he or she can belong to a family. But a religion doesn’t belong to a person any more than a family can belong to a person. When I say “my family” I obviously mean something different from “my car” or “my boat.” A family name indicates to whom I belong more than what I own.
Some so-called multiple religious belonging is quite consistent with this social reality of religion. A member of a Catholic community or a Jew might practice Buddhist meditation. Or a Hindu might find that a variety of meditative practices and conceptualizations are useful to his or her religious quest. A Christian may find that some Islamic theological constructs help better conceptualize God’s nature – or that Jewish prayer rituals are deeply meaningful.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/roberthunt/2013/08/belonging-to-multiple-religions-or-owning-them/
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