Despite an ever-widening door to the growing tent of interreligious engagement, there remains work to do. Interreligious studies in the academy as well as the interfaith movement in the wider community have blossomed over the last few decades in the West. The forces of globalization and migrations continue to bring people of vastly different religious, cultural, and spiritual identities closer together in neighborhoods, communities, and places of work. To be sure, the world is growing more religiously diverse, bringing new opportunities and challenges for living in a pluralist society. Once focused mostly on the interaction between and among the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), interreligious studies and dialogue now include the major non-Abrahamic, or so-called Eastern (or Dharmic) traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Sikhism) as well as Bahá’í, and LDS Christianity.
It is now common for atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNRs), and “the nones” to be present at the table of interreligious engagement. However, there are still groups missing. These include Native indigenous traditions, new(er) religious movements, polytheists, and contemporary Pagans.
Western non-indigenous polytheists and Contemporary Paganisms (mono-, heno-, and polytheist) include Druidry, Heathenry, Wicca, and others. Their absence at the interfaith table may be due, in part, to their relatively low numbers in the West. However, it also probably has to do with the reluctance of those already at the interfaith table to take them seriously and/or to invite them to join and lead. Even interfaith activists sometimes harbor prejudiced stereotypes about unfamiliar groups. New Religious Movements (NRMs) may be similarly feared, so that newly created spiritual identities such as Wicca or reconstructed once-dormant traditions such as Druidry or Ásatrú are kept out.
Though Native indigenous traditions are often absent from the table, less present than most, my sense is that there remains a great openness to having them join. The 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City featured an “Indigenous Peoples Program” as central to the gathering. The upcoming Parliament in Toronto this November will also features indigenous representation and speakers, hopefully setting a norm for future Parliament gatherings. In fact, the historic 1993 centenary Parliament of the World’s Religions was the first international interfaith event to welcome Pagan and indigenous traditions, and they have remained presenters at all the modern Parliaments. Nevertheless, the interfaith movement has a long way to go before all feel welcome.
At the Salt Lake City Parliament I was able to attend, “Staving off Ragnarök: A Heathen Response to Climate Change.” attracted a rather small audience of 15 to 20 people (out of 9,800 at the Parliament) in room suited for 300. A generally confused attitude toward contemporary Pagan groups sometimes permeates the air of the Abrahamic tent.
Eboo Patel and the Interfaith Youth Core have popularized the trendy definition of interfaith encounter as “interaction between people who orient around religion differently,”[1] and the American Academy of Religion’s Interreligious and Interfaith Studies group defines the study of such encounters as “critical interdisciplinary engagement with interfaith and interreligious studies, which examines the many modes of response to the reality of religious pluralism.”[2] If we take Patel and the AAR group seriously, questions surface about the size of the interfaith tent today. How big is it, and how big should it be? If everyone orients around religion in some way, regardless of whether or not they identify as religious, then everyone ought to be able to identify with religion in some manner; that is, everyone can, if they wish to, articulate their relation to religion (which includes “non-religious”).
This article challenges those in the West who tend to own the interfaith table (those often in the majority Abrahamic monotheistic traditions) to welcome marginalized traditions to the conversation as equals, leaders, and teachers. This includes Native indigenous traditions, polytheistic religions, reconstructed pre-Christian European traditions, and other contemporary Paganisms. Page DuBois, UC-Berkeley professor of Classics and comparative literature, writes, “Beyond condescending to polytheists, beyond tolerating polytheists, the so-called monotheists, the ‘Christian nations,’ the U.S. and the U.K., have a great deal to learn from them.”[3] After all, interreligious encounter is not primarily about agreeing to, or obsessing over, theological commonalities and similarities. It is just as much, if not more so, about learning the differences and distinctions among the traditions. It’s about being challenged to listen to others and to rethink views and actions in the face of those who differ. Above all, isn’t it about learning while being open to the possibility of growth and change?
Image: ©Hans Gustafson, 2006
Note: A version of part I of this series was published in adapted form to www.theinterfaithobserver.org under the title “Enlarging the Interfaith Tent” on May 15, 2018.
Endnotes
[1] Eboo Patel, Interfaith Leadership: A Primer (Boston: Beacon Press, 2016), 39.
[2] “Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Group: Statement of Purpose,” American Academy of Religion, accessed October 6, 2016, https://papers.aarweb.org/content/interreligious-and-interfaith-studies-group.
[3] Page DuBois, A Million and One Gods: The Persistence of Polytheism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 166.