Interfaith Exchange and the Western Overculture
August 10th, 2006
Two separate events precipitated the birth of this series of essays on the topic of interfaith exchange.(1) The first was reading the phenomenal book The Jew in the Lotus, one of those life changing reads that challenges while affirming many beliefs eclectics and syncretics hold near and dear to their hearts. The second was my enrollment and participation in Cherry Hill Seminary’s Cultural Forum course, where we discussed the very real and very widespread phenomena of syncretism, eclecticism, and cultural appropriation.
The first essay in this series, Cultural Appropriation and Responsible Eclecticism, addresses some of the basic problems and pitfalls that people encounter in their spiritual quest for fulfillment with regard to borrowing from other religions and cultures. I would here like to delve deeper into some of the issues that prevent us from bridging the gap between our background and culture and the “other” we seek.
As the world becomes an increasingly smaller place, and as access to information comes more readily than ever before, increasing contact between cultures has resulted in an increased amount of cultural sharing. Cultural exchange and sharing isn’t a new phenomenon, of course. Cultures have always interacted with each other, leaving their DNA in their footsteps and picking up new ideas, methods, and philosophies from the peoples they interacted with. Religion and religious ideas are no exception. The proliferation of similar myths and holy celebrations throughout the world are a testament to the sharing and exchange that occurred between different cultures and peoples throughout history. Holidays, rituals, and even gods migrated from their birth lands to become integral parts of cultures different and removed from those that created them.
However, times have changed. Western imperialism has taken its toll, and in order to preserve the integrity of their communities and avoid being absorbed by dominant European and American cultures, many minority communities have grown more insular and wary of outsiders. It has become commonplace for many people to feel protective of their cultural identity, refusing to divulge information that might be pilfered by outsiders, altered, or misunderstood. Many people have bemoaned this development, claiming that such attitudes are elitist or contrary to the efforts to promote understanding and cooperation between people. If cultural sharing has always taken place, then what gives rise to the new upsurge against perpetrators of cultural appropriation?
While it is true that cultural sharing has always taken place, much of the practices that indigenous peoples take issue with have little to do with true sharing. Cultural sharing is just that-a cooperative effort between two or more groups of people. It is a good-faith exchange that benefits for both parties. It requires a mutual respect and a common understanding along with forward vision and a desire to expand the horizons of both groups.
Appropriation, on the other hand, is something altogether different. At its core, appropriation is nothing more than a dressed-up word for stealing. In fact, many victims of cultural appropriation have denounced the phrase, claiming that is de-emphasizes the true nature of what they consider a crime. Appropriation occurs when one party takes upon itself to uncover and absorb the practices of another culture without proper understanding, training, respect or permission. More importantly, there is no exchange. Appropriation is completely one sided. It fails to honor the inherent integrity of the source culture by violating it, dissecting it, and lifting bits and pieces from it without an understanding of the whole.
It can be very difficult for westerners to understand why many people are sensitive about the subject of cultural identity and the crime of appropriation. This is largely due to the fact that we are working under the very assumptions that indigenous cultures object to. Western culture has, for better or for worse, instilled in us certain value systems, morals, and political philosophies that color the way we look at the world. This is, of course, part of the purpose of culture; it anchors us to the world and to each other. But it also becomes such an ingrained part of who we are that we take it for granted. We assume, wrongly, that the cultures that we wish to engage with are necessarily built upon the same symbols and philosophies that we have inherited from our own culture, simply because we fail to realize that there could be another way. Our ideas about fairness, gods, morality, etc. are things we don’t usually take time to consider. Assumptions we make about these and other topics provide huge obstacles for those wishing to engage in cultural exchange. Before we can truly engage other cultures, we have to be able to identify some of the major stumbling blocks that we may have in seeking the other.
One of the major reasons that exchange fails is because one or both parties are unable to make the exchange transpersonal. In interfaith exchange, all participating members must be open to the possibility that the exchange will change them, for this is the true nature of exchange. Even in dialogue, each person truly engaged in the exchange offers up something of himself in order to make the engagement transpersonal and in order to arrive at the center of understanding. Speaking of interfaith, Rabbi Jonathan OmerMan said, “True dialogue must change the speakers from you and me to we and us all.” (2) Similarly, Christian psychologist and scholar James Fowler writes that, “Krister Stendahl is fond of saying that no interfaith conversation is genuinely ecumenical unless the quality of mutual sharing and receptivity is such that each party makes him- or herself vulnerable to conversion to the other’s truth.” (3) These are key points, and points that many people fail to see. In successful cultural exchange, though the transition is rarely easy, it happens naturally as each participant puts himself in the mindset of those with whom he is engaged . All people are willing and able to give up something of themselves in order to knock down the barriers that require “us” and “not us”. Furthermore, the participants of true interfaith are open to the possibility that what is true for the “other” might be true for themselves as well, even if that mitigates an entire restructuring of one’s inner and outer configurations. Those of us who go looking for the other may be ready to make this transition. We may be ready to lose ourselves and uproot our most sacredly held positions for the sake of the exchange. What we fail to realize however is that not all cultures and people are willing or able to engage at this level. While many neo-pagans adhere to the postmodern thought that globalization is a positive thing, this isn’t an ideal that everyone accepts. Many people are blissfully unaware of the true harm that philosophical, economic, and cultural imperialism of western Europe and the United States has caused. We may not think anything of the fact that anyone can walk into a Pizza Hut in the middle of Prague or that localized religions all over the world have been largely subdued by Christianity, but for the people that have lost their very identity, this imperialism cuts deep. (As evidenced by the fact that all over the buildings of Prague one can find the scribbled message, Ami, go Home!) If we recognize that true interfaith, whether in dialogue or in the exchange that makes responsible eclectism and syncretism possible, requires a kind of transpersonal openness, then we can begin to understand why many indigenous and First Nations people are not willing to engage with us. While I believe that what Rabbi OmerMan said is quite true, such a position also comes from a place of privilege. White Americans and Europeans have enough identity and notion of self to be able to give something up for the benefit of exchange. But not all cultures do. Many cultures, especially those in diaspora or those that have suffered under the ills of colonization and industrialization, feel that enough of their identity has already been taken from them by White culture. They have nothing left to give.
This is the main way in which interfaith with indigenous people fails. But there are other pitfalls that we face in seeking exchange, and most of them merely require a shift in our process of understanding to overcome. The first step, of course, is in recognizing our own biases.
A constantly recurring problem that seems to plague westerners in particular is the notion of borrowing gods and pantheons from other cultures. For those who are not reconstructionists, the practice makes perfect sense. If a god or a pantheon of gods calls out to a specific individual then naturally that person has the right to seek out and explore that god and any of the cultural trappings that might go along with it. After all, as many neo-pagans are quick to point out, the gods do not belong to any particular group of people.
This may or may not be true depending on what our definition and understanding of the gods is. There is a basic assumption made by most neo-pagan syncretics and eclectics, and this assumption is that words and symbols translate seamlessly from culture to culture without any need to unpack these words and symbols. The notion of deity, a concept readily available almost everywhere, must surely be portable from one place to another. However, this basic assumption is deeply flawed. The notions of deity that most neo-pagans cling to are inherited from the Graeco-Roman traditions and, though they might not readily admit it, from the Abrahamic traditions as well. For most neo-pagans, the concept of deity implies “personhood”–Deity has a personality, is a being, may have a will, may interfere in the world as we know it, etc. These deities are usually seen as separable from places, people, or groups–entities in their own right. But while this image is deeply ingrained in us, we have to recognize that this imagery or understanding of deity may not be the same in the cultures with which we seek exchange. When we come to other cultures expecting from the outset that their very concept of deity will translate into our paradigm we are already working under a prejudice that will color the way we perceive and attempt to interact with that deity.
This particular problem is magnified when we add specific western ideologies to the mix like pluralism and feminism, both concepts so familiar to us that we don’t stop to think about their not existing in some cultures. Many spiritual seekers may subscribe to the belief that there are many ways that a deity may be perceived and that each experience of a particular deity is valid, even when those experiences may diverge from other experiences or from mythology. We relish pluralism and may often consider pluralistic philosophy to be superior to “one right true way” philosophies. But this kind of pluralism is linked with a western love of individualism–every individual is highly valued and should seek to carve out his own path. But many cultures, notably Asian cultures but certainly there are others, do not hold individualism in such high regard and as a result may not see pluralism in a favorable light. Similarly, many postmodernist seekers seem to be quick to condemn cultures that place the masculine above the feminine or that do not outwardly revere a feminine divine. While feminism certainly serves a purpose in our society, it has also made us hyper-sensitive to gender and gender-related issues. I recall one particular instance when I was teaching a class on Judaic Kabbalah a student asserted that the only reason she could think of that the Chokmah (a masculine aspect of the divine) would come before Binah (a feminine aspect) was because the Jews were patriarchal. To her mind there could be no other explanation. When I explained to her the reason for it (which had nothing to do with patriarchy but rather with mammalian procreation), she was embarrassed and admitted that ever since she became Goddess-oriented she saw chauvinism everywhere, even when there was none. In seeking the other, we have to be able to able to see deities on the terms of the cultures we are trying to engage if we expect them to be consider entering into exchange with us. Anyone can steal a god or a rite from a culture, but it takes a truly patient, open-minded and diligent individual to properly prepare himself for cultural exchange.
The urge for many spiritual seekers to make a connection with peoples and cultures that are not their own is a very strong one. Many of us, for all intents and purposes, are people in exile. Especially in America, many people are cut off from their ethnic heritage and may not even speak the language of their forebears. We have little in our birth culture to hold onto spiritually, because Christianity is such a monolithic presence in western culture and many neo-pagans feel, if not directly threatened, then at least wary of some of the fundamentals of Christian theology. Cut off from the land, language, and customs of our bloodlines and surrounded by a faith we have little connection with, the seeker in exile seeks the other not with any malicious intent to appropriate his culture, religion or gods, but to gain a sense of self and to add meaning to his own faith and practice. Often, instead of turning to a culture that currently exists, we will turn to the past, to an ancient people long dead and gone in order to find some answers there. But even in doing this we cannot be completely true to the nature of the gods, the people, or the religion of the past because none of these things exists in a vacuum. All of these things are interrelated and heavily dependent upon the time period. People change. Their gods change. We can never completely go back to the ancients, even if we share their blood. As Bishop Spong writes, “Exiled people know that there can be no return to the past, so they must be prepared either to give up or to look in some other direction.” (4) The success of religions like Kemeticism and Hellenic and Celtic Reconstructionism gives some hope–there may not be a return to the past but the spirit can be reawakened. The tedious part is in ensuring that the old blends with the new in ways that are respectful, adequately researched, and do not infringe upon the people currently living that may still practice the remnants of the parent religion. If we fail to recognize that our time period, our overculture, and our own biases necessarily change the way we interact with the ancient gods and present our newly-created versions of old practices as authentic as opposed to valid, then we will continue to make the same mistakes that incite minority cultures to create documents like the Lakota Declaration of War. Instead of exchange, our ignorance promotes division, anger, hurt, and hatred.
Cultural appropriation is very real and potentially damaging. And while the individual search for meaning and a relationship with deity is of utmost importance, these things should not be accomplished to the detriment of others. Even if we don’t agree with the ideas of ownership of gods, religions, rituals, etc, we should be open to the fact that many people hold these ideas sacred. Interfaith exchange can be an incredibly beautiful engagement and much can be learned from interacting and sharing with other people. But that exchange must occur willingly and must come from a place of mutual trust and understanding-neither of which comes easily nor cheaply. We do ourselves a great disservice to the entire interfaith movement by not examining the philosophies and biases that color our ability engage fully in the exchange. The first step in avoiding appropriation is in recognizing that we will not always be welcome. Not all people will willingly open themselves up to our inquiry-nor should they be expected to. Understanding the damage that an absorptive culture has done and continues to do should lend us a glimpse of an insider’s understanding of the sacredness of preserving tradition and culture in toto, even if that means keeping outsiders out. For in gaining the trust of those with which we wish to exchange, the first seeds will be sown.
(1) The catch-phrase that I will be using to talk about both syncretic religious systems and responsible eclecticism as well as interfaith dialogue. Both of these situations tend to share some serious pitfalls, so it seemed appropriate to address both of them within the same bodies of work.
(2) Kamenetz, Rodger. The Jew in the Lotus, p. 25
(3) Fowler, James. Stages of Faith, p.186