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Multiple Religious Belonging: extending the spectrum of spirituality
Tom Sherwood
Carleton University
It has been called "fusion faith" (Emberley, 2002:148-202), "multiple
religious belonging" (Cornille 2002; Phan 2003), and "double
religious belonging" (McDaniel 2003; Cornille 2003). Whether or not
it is a new social phenomenon, it is certainly new to the literature of
sociology of religion: there are few references before the 1990s, and
the earliest is perhaps only 40 years old (Pannikar 1964). It has only
recently crept into the popular culture, of the West at least. In the
award-winning novel, Life of Pi, the adolescent title character seems
to be becoming Hindu, Christian and Muslim at the same time. His
father says, "He seems to be attracting religions the way a dog attracts
fleas" (Martel 2001:82).
As a campus minister, I am accustomed to students blending traditions into a
personal spirituality; and as a sociologist, I am familiar with syncretism. But a new
phenomenon has been emerging in my pastoral ministry: young adults selfidentifying
as fully members of more than one world religion, for example:
Christianity and Islam, or Buddhism and Judaism. In Canada, it is not unusual for
children to grow up bilingual and bicultural, speaking French to one parent and
English to the other. In our multicultural, multifaith society, young adults are now
growing up "speaking" two different religions, and claiming to express themselves
with integrity in both. Just as we have long had pastoral experience dealing with
an interfaith couple as a social unit (a “mixed marriage”), we are now dealing with
individuals who claim to belong to more than one religion.
During the presentation of this paper at the “Dreaming Landscapes,” conference
there were two extreme reactions among participants. One western chaplain began
to heckle and discount the phenomenon. Another university chaplain, an ordained
Anglican from south Asia, spoke out in response. “My bishop knew that I was
Buddhist when he ordained me,” he said. In response to this exchange, two other
participants self-identified as belonging to more than one religion. Several more
reported that they were familiar with the phenomenon in their ministries, in their
families or in their social lives. After the paper was presented, other campus
ministers told me that this phenomenon might explain behaviour that they had
encountered, but not understood. For example, some university chaplaincies
receive information about the religious affiliation of students entering First Year. I
was told that in the past year or two, some students were indicating more than one
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323
religion. “I thought it was just a mistake,” one American chaplain told me; “or
perhaps, they meant that their parents were of two different religions. Now I’m not
so sure.”
BACKGROUND
My own interest in the phenomenon may be seen to have several points of origin.
At Carleton University, I teach an undergraduate course on religion in Canadian
society. Early in 2002, a new monograph was published, endeavouring to portray
“religion in Canada in the year 2000”. A qualitative analysis by Peter C.
Emberley, based on participant observation and interviews. Emberley’s book,
Divine Hunger: Canadians on Spiritual Walkabout, became required reading for
my students. He devotes a chapter to what he calls “fusion faith,” which he defines
as a form of syncretism:
Fusion faith is a medley of traditions, forms of worship, devotional
practices, spiritual experiences, and religious beliefs. Like fusion
cuisine, it takes the best of each tradition and blends. Fusion faith is
oblivious to the fact that there are gross contradictions and
incompatibilities between its elements … (Emberley 2002:195-6).
Emberley does not use the term “multiple religious belonging,” but some of his
case studies and examples are people who seem to feel that they are authentic in
more than one religious worldview. He attributes the phenomenon to a
combination of several social factors: the decline of traditional Canadian religious
institutions, cultural pluralism (“multiculturalism”), and especially individualism:
What distinguishes fusion faith from each of these distinct theological
options, and from earlier periods of experimental syncretism,
however, is the distended individualism at its centre. This
individualism assertively relegates to itself the authority to use and
discard. Its global reach and absence of shame or piety often renders
fusion faith simply vulgar (Emberley 2002:197).
At one point he refers to a “do-it-yourself spirituality package” (Emberley
2002:156). When I quoted Emberley’s descriptive phrases at “Dreaming
Landscapes”, many of the participants indicated that they are encountering this
phenomenon in their populations of university students around the world.
My population of students (especially those required to read Emberley) began to
make connections and draw them to my attention. I was soon hearing about Yann
Martel’s Booker Prize novel, Life of Pi. Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are all
available resources to the title character when his ship sinks and he is stranded in
the middle of an ocean alone in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. But when he does
an inventory of his resources at one point, the religious arithmetic is neither
“multiple” nor complex. It is quite simple:
324
192 tablets of anti-seasickness medicine
124 tin cans of fresh water
16 wool blankets
6 hand flares
5 buoyant oars
4 rocket parachute flares
3 can openers
2 sea anchors
1 lifeboat
1 ocean
1 God.
People wanted to talk about this novel, and we organized discussion groups.
People wanted to talk about Pi’s multiple religious citizenship and the idea of “1
God” for such a person, “1 God” for people of different religions. I began to keep
an eye out for theological reflection and sociological research on the subject.
SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION OF “MRB”
In 2002, Catherine Cornille published a collection of essays on multiple religious
belonging: Many Mansions? – Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian
Identity. In 2003 Cornille published another paper on the subject, and Peter C.
Phan published a paper in Theological Studies – the Jesuit journal. At the time, I
was supervising a young Jesuit in a senior reading course. He connected me not
only to the article but also to acquaintances who self-identified as belonging to
more than one religion. The Phan article begins with reference to “a recent
American college graduate who, when asked about her religious identity, answered
with an easy laugh, ‘Methodist, Taoist, Native American, Quaker, Russian,
Orthodox and Jew’” derived from (Winston 1998). I have not encountered that
plural an identity, but I have been able to speak with several students who do claim
dual religious citizenship, and interview them. I began to fit these case studies into
my awareness of macro level expressions of multiple religious belonging.
CENSUS DATA
In Canada, the federal census is held every 10 years, and people are required to
answer the question, “What religion are you?” The respondent can give only one
answer. The four largest categories of response in the 2001 Census are: Roman
Catholic, “No religion,” United Church of Canada, and Anglican. In Canada, we
expect the responses to total exactly 100% of the population; and they do. That is
not the case in every country.
The official census in Japan does not ask about religion, but data are collected in
private surveys, and religion is usually included in demographic discussions. It is
often pointed out that the research finds that the number of Buddhists and the
number of adherents of Shinto add up to considerably more than the national
population (Van Bragt 2002:8). The anthropologist John Bowen has analyzed this
Japanese phenomenon in a forthcoming book, Religions in Practice:
This willingness to participate in more than one religion lies behind
the common practice of declaring oneself as both Buddhist and
Shinto, marrying in a Protestant church, and attending sessions of a
healing sect to seek a cure for an illness. And it is evident in figures
about religious membership: about 75 percent of the population are
classified as Buddhist by the government, 95 percent as Shinto, and
over 10 percent as members of new religious movements (Reader
1991:6). Japanese do affiliate with religious organizations, and
usually more than one (Bowen 2005:32).
It is difficult for an investigator with a Western perspective to consider the
categories of the religious affiliation variable as anything other than discreet. We
want each respondent to choose one category and only one category. We want the
number of Presbyterians, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists,
Hindus, Others, No religions and No Replies to add up to exactly 100%. In the
West, it is not like asking how many vegetarians, pragmatists, optimists,
Democrats, Baptists and Yankee fans there are in the USA. But, in fact, asking the
Japanese population for the number of adherents of Shinto, Buddhism, Tao,
Confucianism, etc. is exactly like adding up pragmatists, high school graduates and
baseball fans. The categories are not mutually exclusive. In Canadian society, we
want to ask people if they are Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Jewish or Buddhist,
and we have not traditionally provided for a “some of the above” or “all of the
above” response. Religious authorities and previous empirical research resist the
idea of multiple religious belonging. But it is starting to appear. Bowen says
simply that “the idea of exclusivity” does not fit with the norms in certain societies
(2005:27).
CASE STUDIES
In preparation for this paper, I arranged intentional, formal interviews with three
people in my campus community:
1. a male in his 20s who self-identifies as both Muslim and Christian;
2. a female in her 40s who self-identifies as both Jewish-Buddhist; and
3. a female in her 30s who self identifies as Buddhist-Christian.
There are also a few cases of public figures who may be seen to be related to the
phenomenon of multiple religious belonging:
4. Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
5. Raimon Pannikar (b. 1918).
1. Omar
Omar has a Muslim father and Christian mother who divorced in his pre-teen years.
He has lived for prolonged periods of time with each parent; and he sees them both
regularly now. With his father, he is Muslim. When he goes to the mosque or
participates in Muslim prayer, he is authentic: he is not a tourist, visiting Islam.
With his mother, he is Christian. He attends church with her with integrity, not as
a tourist, visiting Christianity.
Omar does not belong to any group. He moves in and out of Islam and Christianity
very comfortably. His sister and some of his friends can tell similar stories. He
doesn’t feel that his sense of dual belonging is particularly unusual. He does feel
that he has a richness of spirituality that many of his peers lack; and he enjoys the
freedom he has from the monopoly on his spirit that any individual religious
commitment might entail.
2. Zelda
Zelda grew up Jewish in a home that did not keep kosher but certainly observed the
high holy days. She is not sure she was ever a religious Jew in the strictest sense –
some would say that a Reform rabbi is not a religious Jew. But her cultural, ethnic
and religious identity was firmly Jewish in terms of Canadian society, and she feels
that she will always be Jewish in that social sense. However, she became
interested in mysticism in university, practiced meditation, studied Buddhism on
her own time, joined in Buddhist groups and experiences, and has become a
Buddhist in terms of personal spiritual practices and group affiliation. She does not
attend Jewish worship or identify with the Jewish community except under extreme
circumstances. She calls herself a Jewish-Buddhist.
3. Keisha
Keisha grew up in a Christian family, specifically Episcopalian. Her university
studies led her to Buddhism; and her objective scholarly study of Buddhist
symbolism and ritual led her to practice. She is a Buddhist. But like Zelda, she is
a hyphenated Buddhist, still obviously a product of her formation. She carries with
her concepts of God and religious vocabulary from Christian upbringing. Most of
her relatives are Christian, and she is comfortable participating in their ritual lives
and rites of passage. She feels that, as a Buddhist, she can participate in Christian
worship with integrity without subscribing to the entire theological package. She is
a Buddhist, but not like Buddhists whose parents and grandparents were Buddhist.
She is a Buddhist who grew up Christian.
4. Thomas Merton
Many wonder whether Thomas Merton was a Buddhist-Christian near the end of
his life. Certainly his exploration of Eastern spirituality was more experiential than
objective, done more by immersion than by observation and study. As he wrote
just a few weeks before his death in 1968:
I come as a pilgrim who is anxious to obtain not just information ...
but to drink from ancient sources ... I think we have now reached a
stage of (long-overdue) religious maturity at which it may be possible
for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian and Western
monastic commitment, and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist
or Hindu discipline and experience (Merton 1973:312-3).
At about the same time, on that last trip of his life, Merton spoke in Calcutta about
the intimate relationship he had found between Christianity and Buddhism:
And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but
communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond
speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity.
We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one.
But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our
original unity. What we have to be is what we are (Merton 1973:308).
5. Raimon Pannikar
Finally, Raimon Pannikar is a much-published religious scholar born of a Hindu
father and a Christian mother. Pannikar (his first name is sometimes rendered
Raymond or Raimundo) was one of the first to take a scholarly approach to
multiple religious belonging, but he began in his own experience: “I left Europe as
a Christian; found myself a Hindu; and I returned as a Buddhist, without having
ceased to be a Christian” (in Hall, 2004). In a recent essay on religious identity (in
Cornille 2002:121-144), Pannikar emphasizes the subjective, self-reporting
dynamic of this phenomenon. Multiple religious belonging is real and valid, he
would argue, if the individual’s religious experience is authentic in more than one
tradition. The only measure of this is the subject’s own testimony. The opinion of
theological authority or social scientist is not relevant. Religious belonging, and
therefore religious identity, are defined by subjective experience and self-reporting.
DEFINITION OF “IDENTITY”
These stories raise the problem of definition in vivid and specific ways. How shall
we define “religious identity” and “religious belonging” – in fact, how shall we
define “Christian,” “Buddhist,” etc? Pannikar sees self-reported Christian identity
as problematic in two ways: it is subjective; and Christian identity is itself
pluralistic. He attempts to solve the issue by saying, “A christian is one who both
confesses oneself to be such and as such is accepted by a community (usually
christian)” (Pannikar 2002:123). Of course, not all Christians agree on the concept
of Christian identity (a Baptist may say that a Catholic or an Anglican is “not a
Christian”); and, as Pannikar goes on to discuss in his essay, the concept of Hindu
identity is also quite pluralist. I know from experience that Jewish identity is
problematic. There are several conventional ways to define religious identity:
1. Biological or existential
Omar derives his identity and sense of MRB from his parents. In another context,
it can be said that someone is a Jew if his or her mother was a Jew.
2. Practice
A Roman Catholic identity is related to attendance at mass, for example. Keisha
and Zelda say they are Buddhists, in part, because they participate in Buddhist
rituals and devotional practices.
3. Doctrinal assent
Converts to Christianity either confess the faith in the language of certain creeds or
indicate their substantial agreement with such historic statements of faith. Even for
those born into Christian families and baptized as infants, confirmation of their
parents’ baptismal vows and creedal assent are part of the process of “becoming
Christian.”
These different definitions will derive different data. Consider the distinction
between an emphasis on belief and an emphasis on practice: “about 65 percent of
Japanese people have told survey-takers in repeated surveys that they have no
religious beliefs” (Bowen 2005:32); and yet when Japanese practices are measured,
the resulting statistic exceeds 100% of the population.
RELIGIOSITY
Religiosity is another aspect of religious identity, and a measure of degrees of
belonging. Multidimensional measurement of quantitative indicators of religiosity
were developed within a Christian framework in the United States during the
second half of the Twentieth Century, originally as a means of evaluating Sunday
School curriculum: was it effectively socializing the children of Christian families
to become believing, practicing Christians? Some of the major names in this form
of scholarship are Charles Glock, Rodney Stark, William Sims Bainbridge and the
Canadian, Reginald Bibby. (An excellent bibliography of this literature can be
found in Bibby 2002).
At its fullest expression, this survey approach would formulate five dimensions of
religiosity, and for each dimension several questions would be asked:
1. Belief
(Do you believe in God? Do you believe that Jesus...? Do you believe that the
Bible...?)
2. Practice
(Do you ever pray? How often do you go to church, read the Bible, etc?)
3. Experience
(Have you ever had a sense of God’s presence?)
4. Knowledge
(How many disciples did Jesus have?)
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5. Consequences
(Do you consume alcohol, give to charity, etc?)
Obviously, each world religion needs its own set of questions. This still depends
on self-reporting and a certain amount of subjectivity, but it can be very revealing,
especially when large groups are studied over time. Bibby has conducted
essentially the same survey of the mainline Christian denominations in Canada
every five years since 1975, measuring both decline and transformation (six
national surveys, each including a random sample population of between 1500 and
2000 cases). Scores can be generated for each of the five indices for each
respondent and for populations of respondents. Comparison over time is
interesting. Comparisons can be made between male and female populations,
urban and rural, different age groups, and different levels of education. In a large
country like Canada or the United States, regional comparisons can be made.
One of the challenges for this quantitative analysis of religion in society has been
to develop instruments for increasingly pluralist, multifaith populations.
Now the possibility of Multiple Religious Belonging raises the need to administer
more than one questionnaire to a subject. For someone like Omar, for example, it
would be interesting to generate two statistics, one measuring his Christian
religiosity, the other his Muslim religiosity.
DEFINITION OF “BELONGING”
The other point Pannikar raises is the question of community recognition: if you
claim to be a Muslim, do other Muslims recognize your claim? Do all Muslims
accept you as Muslim? It becomes another matter of degree: to what extent does
each community recognize your claimed sense of belonging?
This is problematic because there are formal, historic groups of Christians that do
not recognize each other as such. Jewish identity is contentious. People will say to
each other in the mosque, “You are not a true Muslim!”
The Carleton people have quite distinct senses of belonging.
Omar has sprung from two family trees, practices in both religious cultures and is
claimed by both, and is quite balanced in proclaiming the essential values of both
Christianity and Islam while condemning certain aspects of Church history and
certain acts done in the name of Islam. Christians and Muslims seem equally
comfortable and uneasy with him.
Zelda has Jewish identity by birth, practices Buddhism, and is a mystic who relates
easily to mystics of many religions, and does relate well to doctrinaire adherents of
any religion. She is at the heart of the non-Asian Buddhist community in Ottawa.
The Jewish community doesn’t know her, but (in my experience) would “welcome
her back.”
Keisha claims Buddhist identity and practices Buddhism, but when she talks about
her personal spirituality, religion in general and ethical or social issues, a Christian
vocabulary emerges. The Buddhist community recognizes her fully, but for many
of her Christian relatives, she is “lost.”
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON ONE GOD?
All three Carleton cases have a monotheistic starting point, and each has a way of
saying that there is only One God or one divine existence. Each sees the different
religions as equally viable windows on one Divine Truth.
That noted theologian and scholar, George W. Bush, has said that he believes
“Muslims and Christians worship the same God” (Levenson 2004:32; Sanneh
2004:35; Woodberry 2004:36). Omar would agree, and so would most of the other
hyphenated religionists I have had conversation with. They all either articulate or
seem to assume what John Hick has called “the pluralistic view that the Godfigures
of the great theistic religions are different human awarenesses of the
Ultimate” (Hick 1995:39). A summary of their perspective might read:
There is one divine being, known in different ways by the different
world religions. Whether I express myself as a Buddhist or a Jew, I
am in relationship with the same God, the one God. Whether I
worship as a Muslim or a Christian, I am worshipping the same God.
The best elements of each religion are similar and of value. No
religion is perfect: the imperfections of each religion have been
vividly shown in history. It is good to have the variety of approaches
to and experiences of the sacred. It is too bad that the various
perspectives have organized themselves into competing parties
expressing imperialism and violence toward each other.
MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS BECOMING
After considering the cases of Omar, Zelda and Keisha, and a few online
testimonies, it might be better to change the focus from “Multiple Religious
Belonging” to “Multiple Religious Becoming,” because
1. the people are spiritually dynamic, and may be on journeys not at destinations;
2. they are drawing from multiple religious sources (personal syncretism);
3. their religious lives tend to be personal not corporate – not necessarily attending
group life of any specific world religion.
There is really no question of “membership” in any formal sense. They come and
go individually, according to a sense of accountability only to themselves.
Emberley’s most negative critique of fusion faith comes to mind: individual
consumerism, eclectic syncretism, lacking ethical or communal commitment.
This would be congruent with the late-twentieth-century paradigm shift with
respect to the concept of belonging. Many of the institutions of the Twentieth
Century are declining in participation rates among people born after 1975, at least
in the post-industrial West: political parties, voting, service clubs, local churches,
mainline denominations, etc. There are so many examples of this: the Book of the
Month Club is destroyed by Amazon.com; bowling leagues disappear but bowling
establishments remain open 24/7 for people who bowl alone at 3 am or 3 pm; video
rentals; the demand for single rooms in university residences, etc. (See Putnam
2000 for example.)
Since the 1970s, sociologists of religion have had to develop the new concepts of
“audience cult,” “electronic church” and “virtual church” to describe religious
phenomena that had participation and participants but no meetings, no concept of
membership, no relationship among the members.
EXTENDING THE SPIRITUAL SPECTRUM
So, is MRB perhaps a new location on a wider spectrum of religious expression
than we previously knew? Is MRB enough of a distinct and unified experience to
be considered a “type” of religiosity, in the Weberian sense of Ideal-type? What
would the list of types of religiosity be? Perhaps:
NR – No Religious Affiliation (“No religion”)
TP – Traditional association in the Past (“lapsed Catholic”)
SX – Single Identity with Exclusive claims (forms of Christianity, Islam, etc.)
SO – Single Identity with Openness (ecumenical Christianity, non-imperial
religions)
SYN – fusion faith; aboriginal Christian ceremonies; forms of magic, voodoo;
cults;
MRB – people who claim multiple religious belonging
Would the display of these types in a spectrum of spirituality make sense? MRB –
SYN – SO – SX – TP – NR
This adds MRB; but are there expressions of religiosity that have not been included
in the list or spectrum? On the basis of further interviews and other research, we
might conclude that the spectrum is a circle, and that the No Religion population is
close to MRB. We might want to locate Emberley’s concept of fusion faith in a
separate type, giving more attention to the variety of New Age expressions.
QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, IDEAS FOR FURTHER STUDY
For Christians considering the phenomenon of MRB, the essential theological
struggle is one of Christology: who is Jesus Christ, and how is he Saviour?
Various surveys of Christian thought may outline three or four “types” of
Christology, all based in Scripture, all articulated by well-known theologians (eg
Ingham 1997; Okhom and Phillip, 1995). An exclusive Christology forbids
multiple religious belonging and proclaims “One Way.” Some Christologies
respect other religious worldviews as legitimate for their adherents or even worthy
of Christian study.
There is a rich body of theological and sociological literature critiquing syncretism.
Does it apply to MRB? What is the difference between syncretism and MRB?
Syncretism is the unique worldview of an individual or social group. It is derived
from more than one source: it is a merging of the beliefs and practices of two or
more religious systems. But it is one worldview. The individual who claims MRB
or dual religious belonging claims to have more than one cosmology. Syncretism is
a singular form derived from plural sources. MRB is a plural form derived from
plural sources. Syncretism is commonly a shared group expression. The cases of
MRB that have been recorded are fairly individualistic.
Might the MRB people play a helpful role in interfaith dialogue and multifaith
relations? They may not be bridges between groups, but they might help build
bridges of understanding if they would participate in interfaith conversation and
cooperative social action. We need more cases to consider, more experience with
the phenomenon, more knowledge of the personalities involved, more time to
measure the stability or volatility of MRB status.
CONCLUSION
Catherine Cornille has done the most and best work on this phenomenon,
collecting and synthesizing isolated and specialized scholars from around the world
into one conversation. Her summary emphasizes that this is a significant
phenomenon in quality and quantity, one that deserves to be studied and taken
seriously. But she also speaks forcefully to anyone who is so offended by MRB as
to oppose or condemn it. It is here, she says. Get used to the idea. Or in her own
words,
In a world of seemingly unlimited choice in matters of religious
identity and affiliation, the idea of belonging exclusively to one
religious tradition or of drawing from only one set of spiritual,
symbolic, or ritual resources is no longer self-evident. Why restrict
oneself to the historically and culturally determined symbols and
rituals of one religious tradition amid the rich diversity of symbols and
rituals presenting themselves to the religious imagination? ... A
heightened and widespread awareness of religious pluralism has
presently left the religious person with the choice not only of which
religion, but also of how many religions she or he might belong to ...
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This sense of conviction of belonging to more than one religious
tradition is thus clearly growing, at least in the West. It may be
argued that in this, religion in Europe, America, and Australia is just
coming to terms with a practice or a form of religiosity that has been
prevalent for ages in most of the rest of the world, and especially in
the East (Cornille 2002:1).
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