Is it possible to follow more than one distinct spiritual tradition?

 

 

by Yvonne Aburrow

 

Introduction

An increasing number of people are beginning to identify themselves as belonging to more than one spiritual tradition – not merely in the sense of selecting attractive ideas from each tradition, but trying to be faithful to the ethos of both traditions.

This practice may seem like a new development related to the massive 'subjective turn' identified by Heelas (2005: 2) and others, but it seems to be much older, as some form of syncretism may occur whenever two or more distinct spiritual traditions come into contact (Grayson, 1992: 199).

Questions that might arise about dual or multi-faith practice are whether and how it is possible to combine them, especially if there is potential conflict between their worldviews, or their worldviews are mutually exclusive; how a particular person came to follow more than one tradition; what constitutes membership of a tradition; whether identification with a tradition is sufficient; and whether practising more than one faith is merely part of the 'subjective turn' of modern culture. There has been criticism of dual-faith practitioners (e.g. Thurston, 1994), and this may also shed some light on these questions.

In many religions, the idea of practising more than one tradition is uncontroversial – for example, many people practice Wicca and Druidry alongside each other (Carr-Gomm, 2002), or Paganism and Unitarian Universalism (Sealy, 2006), or Buddhism and Shinto (Kuroda, 1981: 3) – but for those faiths which claim the exclusive loyalty of their followers, practising more than one tradition may be seen as deeply problematic.

 

 

Combining worldviews

Hayes (2003: 8) identifies four models for an encounter between a missionising religion and an indigenous one:

1.      Rejection. The traditional knowledge is rejected as purely evil.

2.      Dvoeverie. Two incompatible beliefs or worldviews are held side by side, with little or no interaction between them.

3.      Syncretism. The two different beliefs are mingled, to make a third, and new belief, which is different from either component.

4.      Inculturation. Where the original local culture is transformed, and the Christian belief becomes part of it.

He is writing from the perspective of Orthodox Christian missionary endeavours, which seek to respect as far as possible the pre-Christian beliefs of the culture being evangelised, and acknowledge that there is good in indigenous traditions. Nevertheless there is a fifth possibility, that instead of trying to convert people of other religions, the traditions agree to co-exist, whilst engaging in dialogue.

A similar example of an encounter between a missionising religion and an indigenous one can be found in the interaction of Buddhism and Shinto. According to Kuroda (1981: 3), Shinto was not a distinct religion prior to the arrival of Buddhism (Shinto was originally a Chinese word signifying any and all folk religion in China, Korea and Japan). In Japan, it is possible to be both Buddhist and Shinto at the same time, because neither world-view necessarily denies the other. This is perhaps similar to Hayes' (2003) model of inculturation, whereby the incoming tradition transforms the indigenous one (though I suspect the process is actually one of mutual transformation).

Examples of religious encounter range from explaining one religion using the symbolism and terminology of another, to a full-blown mingling of the two traditions. The original meaning of dvoeverie (double faith) – a term describing “the syncretistic religious practices of ordinary believers who, in their daily lives, blended elements of Eastern Orthodox doctrine and practice with pre- or non-Christian folk beliefs and rituals” (Crummey, 1993: 701) – has been recently disputed (Rock, 2001), as it may have meant simply people who were wavering in their Orthodoxy, and was generally meant pejoratively. Nevertheless, it may be a useful concept for understanding contemporary dual- or multi-faith practitioners.

There have been various historical instances of rejection, syncretism, dvoeverie and inculturation. An example of rejection is the Protestant evangelisation of indigenous cultures, where there is a tendency to view the indigenous culture negatively (Hayes, 2003: 8). An example of dvoeverie is the simultaneous belief in Christian and Pagan entities allegedly held by many Russian peasants (Crummey, 1993: 701). Examples of syncretism are the mixing of Buddhist and Shinto themes in Japanese culture (Grayson, 1992: 202), or the practices of Santeria and Voudun. Examples of inculturation include the continuation of pre-Christian ideas within Christianity (McGinn, 1999: 282), or the incorporation of Bön practices within Tibetan Buddhism (Kvaerne, 1972). Of course, the boundaries between these four models will be rather blurred.

It seems that, whenever a religion encounters another religion, a need is felt to make some form of accommodation with the truth claims of the other religion, sometimes by denying them, sometimes by recasting them in the language of one's own tradition, and sometimes by assigning the other religion's holy figure a position in one's own tradition; for example, Hindus regarding Jesus as a supremely religious soul (Woodburne, 1927). The outcome of this process depends on the willingness of the faith communities to co-exist. At the level of the individual, religious belief is always more 'messy' than a cursory examination of the creeds and teachings of the religion would lead one to think:

Inter-religious encounters and the changes that they bring are, of course, wider than those between individuals and through conferences. They are part of the whole social and political ambiance of the world in which we live. Intensive meetings can influence and affect religious positions and bring about long-term change to the religions themselves. People's maps of belief are complex and they are shifting all the time. Interfaith encounter is one factor in those shifts, in the mutation of religions. People listen and try to explain. (Morgan, 1995: 163)

More than one form of syncretism can be identified, depending on the relative political and cultural status of the two systems being syncretised:

Figure 1. High and low syncretism. Grayson (1992: 204)

 

 

Grayson (1992: 200) defines syncretism as the accommodation made by a world missionary religion (in the context he is discussing, Buddhism) to an 'autocthonous religion' (in this case, the indigenous folk religion of Korea). He further defines two forms of syncretism, 'high' and 'low'. High syncretism is when the core values of the indigenous religion are retained, with only a veneer of the foreign religion; low syncretism is when only the surface trappings of the indigenous religion are retained, and its core values are replaced by those of the foreign religion; this latter form seems similar to Hayes' (2003) idea of inculturation.

Reverse syncretism (Grayson, 1992: 205) is when an indigenous religion begins to voluntarily incorporate elements of foreign religion into its practice (rather than the missionising religion making a compromise with the indigenous religion).

Another form of syncretism is 'coinherence' (Corless, 1994: 182), where two religions that both make sense to the practitioner are followed side-by-side. In the case of Corless (1994: 181) and other Christo-Buddhists, this seems to be because of the similarity of the two faiths. Corless (1994: 183) holds the two traditions in a creative tension, an internal dialogue. This may sound superficially similar to dvoeverie, but in dvoeverie there is said to be little or no interaction between the two faiths in the mind of the practitioner, whereas in coinherence practice, the two are held in dialogue.

There have also been examples of deliberate syncretism, such as Ryōbu Shinto, a formal mixture of Buddhism and Shinto (Grayson, 1992: 202); the reorganisation of Roman paganism in response to Greek and Etruscan paganism (Grayson, 1992: 201); the Romanisation of indigenous deities, for example the cult of Mercury and Rosmerta (Webster, 1997: 326); and the creation of the syncretistic Din-I-Ilahi religion by the Mughal emperor Akbar (Lawrence, 1973: 61).

Modern examples of syncretism include Unitarianism in the UK and Unitarian Universalism in the USA, which draws on a number of sources. According to the British Unitarian (GAUFCC, 2007) website, “Unitarianism has its roots in the Jewish and Christian traditions but is open to insights from world faiths, science, the arts, the natural world, and everyday living.” The Unitarian Universalist statement of principles and sources acknowledges six sources and seven principles (UUA, 2007) which include a number of strands and make for a liberal tradition, affirming the worth of all religious traditions (but not accepting them uncritically).

In a global and post-colonial culture, encounters between faiths no longer occur at the boundaries of their traditional heartlands, but everywhere. The interfaith movement is growing, both in order to make peace between conflicting traditions and to explore the idea that all religions are honouring the same Divine, or numinous (Morgan, 1995: 163). There is a huge amount of information and opportunities for interaction and discussion available on the internet, especially with the growth of social networking tools such as blogging, Facebook, forums and mailing lists.

At the same time (possibly due to biases in media reporting), there seems to be a widening polarisation between liberal, tolerant and inclusivist views of religion, and ecstatic or evangelical practices which are frequently associated with fundamentalist and exclusivist views. Heelas and Woodhead (2005: 146) say that

congregations of experiential difference have an advantage over other forms of congregation in that they may be able to attract those who seek the sacred in external obligation, but those who also wish to encounter the sacred in the depths of inner experience. They seem to have secured a competitive edge by virtue of the fact that they both resist the subjective turn by offering clear normative guidance and cater to it by offering intense personal experiences of the sacred.

Congregations of experiential difference are usually charismatic and evangelical (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 19). The people who are attracted to such congregations tend to long for a stable and ordered society but also want to feel their faith inwardly; however there is evidence for a decline of such congregations in England since the 1990s (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 146). Church-going in general has sharply declined in both Britain and the USA (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 56), whereas subjective-life spirituality in the holistic milieu has been on the increase (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 42). Perhaps the increase in fundamentalism in parts of the congregational domain is due to fear of its own decline, fear of secularisation, and fear of the inner-directed view of spirituality?

Fundamentalists do not simply believe; they fight to defend their beliefs against those who seek to dilute them. (Munson, 2005: 342)

So it seems there are a range of possible responses to diversity: to embrace it and celebrate it; to tolerate it; or to reject it and seek to impose norms. However, no matter how a particular tradition responds to it, it is impossible to ignore it:

In modern and recent times, confronting the enlarging pluralism within the religious world, we can no longer easily dismiss the variant forms of religious practice and cultivation. Religious pluralism, like other forms of diversity, must be taken seriously, and the spiritual horizons and understandings of all religious traditions must be expanded to account for the wide variety of beliefs and practices. (Bloom: 1994: 164)

One way of predicting a particular group's response to diversity is to apply Heelas and Woodhead's (2005: 17-23) model of the different types of congregational religion.

Congregations of difference are those where there is a strong emphasis on the difference between Creator and created, the moral disorder of the world and the divine order of things; authority is derived from external sources. (These are more likely to reject diversity.) Congregations of humanity are those which stress service to others as the highest moral good. (They tend to stress corporate values over individual values, but to be tolerant of other faiths.) Congregations of experiential difference are more charismatic and tend to stress that an inner experience of God is possible, but must be checked with the authority of scripture. (These are also likely to reject diversity.) Congregations of experiential humanity also stress inner experience, but steer subjective-life in a humanitarian direction. (These are likely to embrace diversity.) They contrast all these forms of congregational religion with subjective-life spirituality, whose practitioners tend to form small groups, and who are interested in developing subjective well-being (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005:24) rather than obedience to an external authority (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 63). It should also be borne in mind that there is a broad spectrum between complete obedience to external authority and complete subjectivity. 'Subjective-life' spirituality can often seem like a 'pick and mix' approach, where someone with no particular faith 'shops around' to find the kind of spiritual practices that appeal to them, whilst ignoring the context of the traditions they are drawn from. Dual-faith practitioners, however, generally begin in one faith and then adopt an additional one (Corless, 1994; Chapin-Bishop, 2007).

 

 

The 'subjective turn'

Can the practice of syncretism and dual faith be explained simply by the theory of subjectivisation?

The theory of subjectivisation proposes that “'the massive subjective turn of modern culture' favours and reinforces those (subjective-life) forms of spirituality which resource unique subjectivities and treat them as a primary source of significance, and undermines those (life-as) forms of religion which do not.” (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 78)

'Subjective-life' is life lived as an unique individual with an emphasis on self-expression, whereas 'life-as' is life lived according to a specific role or identity (wife, mother, Christian, etc.) The turn towards subjective-life has affected not only religion and spirituality, but also the world of work and the family (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 79).

However, 'subjective-life' spirituality is often characterised as a pick-and-mix approach (Stephenson, 2005), whereas practitioners of dual faith appear to desire fidelity to the traditions being followed (Corless, 1994: 182). Clearly, in feeling a vocation to follow both faiths, such practitioners are responding to a subjective inner feeling, but trying to do so within the framework of a tradition.

The practice of coinherence is, for me, what Christianity calls a vocation. I did not sit down in a cool hour of the day and rationally decide to practice Buddhism and Christianity simultaneously, in precisely measured proportions. I found myself equally attracted to the truth of, and therefore equally at home in, both traditions. (Corless, 1994: 182)

Heelas and Woodhead (2005: 144-5) suggest that the decline in congregational and traditional faiths may be halted if they start to cater for subjective-life approaches, and that the growth in Eastern Orthodoxy in Britain is “due to its attracting 'cultured' inner-directed selves”. The same seems to be true for 'congregations of experiential humanity' such as the Unitarians and the Quakers, whose attendance figures rose during the 1990s (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 66).

Heelas and Woodhead (2005) make much of the oppositional tension between 'subjective-life' spirituality and 'life-as' religion, but Thomas (2000: 42) suggests that the distinction between spirituality and religion – the “assumption that whereas religion deals with the outer life, that is, institutions, traditions, practices, doctrines, and moral codes, spirituality treats the inner life, which thus tends to be individualized and privatized” – may in fact be a false dichotomy, arising out of Western discourse. Taylor (1989: 111) explains:

In our language of self-understanding, the opposition "inside-outside" plays an important role. We think of our thoughts, ideas, or feelings as being "within" us, while the objects in the world which these mental states bear on are "without."

. . . But strong as this partitioning of the world appears to us, as solid as this localization may seem, and anchored in the very nature of the human agent, it is in large part a feature of our world, the world of modern, Western people. (cited in Thomas, 2000: 42-43)

Thomas (2000: 43) adds that there is both a tradition of inwardness and a tradition of outwardness in Christianity, but argues that the outward should be considered primary, and a major source of the inner.

'Subjective-life' spirituality seems mainly focused on the inner as the primary source for validating experience. Hence it is likely to conflict with solely outward-focused religions (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 18).

However, dual-faith practitioners seem to be answering an inner call whilst attempting to be faithful to the whole package and spirit of their chosen traditions. Corless (1994: 181) says:

Both Buddhism and Christianity recommend that practice be done for others rather than oneself, and speak of some way in which one's true self is not oneself as ordinarily experienced. ... The witness of the traditions is, then, unanimous that the true or ideal practitioner-subject is not the limited, sinful, or suffering self that senses a lack and that longs for salvation or liberation. Insofar as the coinherence practitioner looks for the practice to aid him- or herself on the way to salvation or liberation, or to be of benefit to oneself in any way whatever, just to that extent is one's practice faulty, deficient, or sinful. Insofar as the coinherence practitioner seeks only to be of service to the Christian and Buddhist traditions, and whatever aims they wish to set forward, just to that extent is one's practice meritorious, authentic, and righteous.

What is significant about this passage is the way in which Corless denies that the practice is intended to be of benefit to himself, as is characteristic of subjective-life spirituality (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 30); instead it is about benefiting others – a characteristic of 'congregations of humanity' (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 18).

In a discussion of her dual-faith practice of being a Quaker and a Pagan, Cat Chapin-Bishop (2007) says:

But that's just what keeps me Quaker--we center down, and I can find you, Friend, in the shining place: you and the sea of limitless Light. And that's what keeps me Pagan--I go out into the woods, and the trees are not things but friends, and the moonlight makes what is sacred shine out all around me.

I can't prove love. I can't prove music. I can't prove I'm Quaker, or Pagan, or anything else I deeply care about: a good parent, a good teacher, a good friend...

But that isn't the point, really. No matter how the labels fit or don't fit, my job is to keep walking... just keep walking. Herne on my right hand, Jesus on my left (if the Spirit should so insist!). Just... keep going the way I'm led.

("But I wanna be in the Quaker club, too, dammit. Why don't I ever get to sit at the cool kids' table?" A small voice asks. Shut up, voice. This isn't about that. Keep walkin'.)

Here, it seems, the emphasis is on the path rather than on the one walking it, and on making connections with others (whether trees or Friends) which is as important as the inner sense of vocation.

Peter Chapin-Bishop (2007), also a Quaker Pagan, echoes the idea that the Divine is outside and permeating inwards, and is more important than the social norms and conventions of the respective faiths, and that the core or defining aspect of belonging to the tradition is that a connection to the numinous happened in that context:

God (the Divine, the Gods…whatever you want to call Him/Her/It/Them) calls to us. Divinity “bleeds through” from the realm of the Divine into our world. Pagans invoke it loudly, Quakers listen for it quietly, both have to work at discernment but can usually recognize sooner or later when it whacks them upside the head. And both groups have formed enduring, vibrant communities centered on the experience of the Divine. Like all communities, Quakers and Pagans have social norms and expectations, and they each have their interplay between the group's values and the values that individual members bring. But Pagans and Quakers also share direct input from Outside, and this changes EVERYTHING. ... When I say I am a Quaker, it is because I have been a conduit for the Divine in that context. Once I'd had the experience of…well, call it “drawing down the Light,” the rest was just a formality. My clearness committee tested that leading and concurred, but I’m not a Quaker because they said so. I’m a Quaker because I listened for the presence of Spirit in the silence, and It spoke through me, and that’s what Quakers do. Just like I’m Wiccan because I invoked the presence of the God in circle and He came to me, and that’s what Wiccans do.

What the Chapin-Bishops and other Quaker Pagans, or Corless and other Christo-Buddhists, are doing does not seem to be 'pick'n'mix' spirituality, or even dvoeverie (the practice of two faiths side by side without any mutual feedback – if this is even possible). It is much more like Corless's idea of coinherence, whereby the two traditions mutually inform and enrich each other, and somehow this is of service to both communities, or in the case of the Chapin-Bishops, of service to the Divine, which encompasses both people and nature. Cat Chapin-Bishop is very clear that she is being led, and her job is to keep on walking; Peter Chapin-Bishop is very clear that the call comes from outside. Corless makes it clear that the practice of coinherence is painful, not something that anyone should choose deliberately (Corless, 1994: 181). The concept of walking a path, or being led, crops up several times in these writings. Their spirituality is not merely eclectic or inner-directed ('subjective-life'), nor is it entirely outwardly directed ('life-as'): it is about the connection of inner realities with outer numinosity. This sense of the inner being connected to the outer is an essential part of Quaker spirituality, which “rests on a conviction that by looking into their inmost hearts people can have direct communion with their Creator.” (Religious Society of Friends, [1985] 2003). Heelas and Woodhead (2005: 156) identify the Society of Friends (Quakers) as a religion of experiential humanity.

From the evidence of people's explanations of what they are doing in their coinherence practices, it would seem that they may well be evidence for the 'subjective turn', but that the practitioners are not entirely subjectively led or inner-directed, as they still feel the need for a community of practice and have a sense of the external promptings of the numinous.

The rise of feminism, the gay liberation movement and concerns about the well-being of the Earth are all factors in the emergence of new forms of religion and spirituality (Harvey, 1997: 72 and 202). Pagans in particular are concerned with embodied spirituality, not the cultivation of a 'higher self' (Harvey, 1997: 202 and 214). People's understanding of the world can shift as they encounter new ideas and experiences, especially if these do not fit within the framework of the tradition they are following.

 

 

Criticisms of dual-faith practice

Much of the criticism of dual-faith practice seems to revolve around the issue of authority, and whether this is derived from the individual, the group, the tradition, or the Divine.

Other possible criticisms include the idea that each tradition is complete in itself and does not require input from outside (Bloom, 1994: 164-5); and the possible danger of 'pick'n'mix' spirituality, which might mean that the dual-faith practitioner chooses only the parts of each tradition that appeal to him or her, and avoids aspects which seem difficult or repellent now but may later turn out to be useful, or which the tradition insists are necessary. Brooks (2003) writes:

There is minimal intellectual or moral rigour to "bespoke belief" that knits together the cosiest aspects of the systems on offer and ignores any broader inconsistencies.

There are also issues like loyalty to one's tradition and to the martyrs who died for the principles espoused by that tradition (Thurston, 1994: 178).

The degree of difficulty in combining two or more traditions depends on how exclusive the truth claims of each tradition may be. Bloom (1994: 164-5) distinguishes between exclusivism (claims of completeness) and sectarianism (claims to sole possession of the truth):

Exclusivism may appear to be a negative feature of religious faith. However, I believe it can be distinguished from sectarianism, which is more an attitude that denies any validity or truth in other views. On the positive side, the exclusive character of a religious faith may indicate the conviction that the faith is comprehensive, complete, needing nothing from the outside to justify itself. It is my personal observation that religious traditions are integral wholes, growing up out of the experience of founders and members and evolving through the centuries. Though they may appear to outside observers as lacking in some dimension, the participants in these traditions may not experience that lack. What appears to be lacking to some observer may, for historical or other reasons, be latent, though not fully articulated within a tradition.

People who have had direct mystical experiences of the numinous often find it difficult to fit them into the norms of the traditions they are following. Various mystics, particularly women (Herzig, 2006: 25), attracted the attention of the Inquisition to determine whether or not their mystical revelations fitted in with Catholic doctrine, or whether their miracles or stigmata were genuine (Herzig, 2006: 31). Some revelations cannot be accommodated in the existing paradigm: new religions were founded on the teachings of Buddha and Jesus because they were not accepted by the traditions from which they emerged (Case, 1913: 64). Sometimes people will break away to form or join a new tradition because of dissatisfaction with some feature of their existing tradition; this may involve a total rejection of the existing tradition, and/or a return to an earlier tradition – as, for example, Goddess feminists' rejection of Christianity on the grounds of its patriarchal associations and their creation of new traditions (Harvey, 1997: 74). Alternatively, the new tradition may be a syncretic amalgam of the old with the new, as early Christianity was an amalgam of the new insights of its founders with its Jewish heritage and the Graeco-Roman religions that were contemporary with it (Case, 1913: 66).

Another possible criticism of dual-faith and syncretistic practice is the charge of cultural appropriation. This issue was first raised by Native Americans in objection to the 'borrowing' of Native American ideas, rituals and practices. They objected that this was just another form of imperialism. If using ideas from other cultures is not done respectfully and with a sensitivity to their original context, it can seem like theft to the originators of those ideas (Harrison, 1999: 11).

 

 

Membership and identity

Dual and multi-faith practice can also bring up questions of membership and identity.

Many people identify as being of a particular religion; but what constitutes membership? In Christianity, the boundary between membership and identity is fairly blurred – it could be measured by attendance, baptism, belief, or adherence to the Nicene Creed. Traditionally, Christianity has expected a clearly demarcated religious identity (Thurston, 1994: 177). In Paganism, identity and membership of the community are largely negotiated at festivals, which people attend both to discover the self and to develop the self (Griffin, 2001: 499):

Festivals bring followers together and create a community defined, in great part, in opposition to the outside world. Pike explores how this provokes criticism and sometimes conflict with neighbors and other religious communities. The fact that Neopagans are so diverse often causes conflict within their own community as well, as they struggle to create individual autonomy embedded in the interconnectedness they revere.

Peter Chapin-Bishop (2007) is clear that membership in a tradition consists of having received divine communication in that setting. Liz Opp (2007) writes that identity is a sense of one's personal values being close to the group identified with, whereas membership is participation in that group, its norms, values and social life. She adds that identity is the ground of a person's being, and may come into conflict with membership of a group. In her formulation, identity seems more important than membership, which might suggest that she is advocating a subjective-life approach rather than a life-as approach; but she also talks about experiencing an inner call. Like other members of 'congregations of experiential humanity', she seeks to balance the inner and the outer – perhaps even to bridge the apparent gap between the two (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 21). There is clearly a subtle balance between membership and identity whenever people participate in a group. Perhaps people join groups because they admire the values of those groups and want to become more like those who are in them. Perhaps people join because they admire the practices of the group, but then find that the values are different to what they are expecting, or that they are expected to transform their own identity, values and insights to conform with that of the group and its traditions to a degree which violates their identity. Either way, the formation of a person's identity happens in a social context (Edwards, 2005: 116), and groups that someone becomes involved in will reflect that identity.

Cat Chapin-Bishop (2007) comments:

Pagans, I think, look to bestow membership where identity as a part of a group already exists. Quakers, at least to judge by Liz and Marshall's discussion, look to develop identification with a group through the formal relations of membership. It's probably a chicken and the egg type of issue, really--membership shapes identity shapes membership.

It seemed to me that Liz Opp's view was that identity was the most important thing, and membership sometimes changes to accommodate it; but clearly membership involves dialogue among the members of a group, to ascertain what the core values of the group are, and how those are played out in the lives of its members – and often this does involve some kind of formal commitment to the group.

The issue of membership and identity is important in any discussion of a dual or multi-faith practice. A person may identify with a group, but if the membership requirements of that group are that its members do not belong to other groups perceived to be in conflict with its values or beliefs, can that person be said to be a member of the group? It could be argued that if a person identifies with a group, the criteria of membership need to expand to include that person; on the other hand, it might be held that the person has to adjust to the mores of the group in order to belong. However, if the practices of the group contradict its stated ideals and values, perhaps the newcomer is the very person best placed to call attention to that contradiction, since they are bringing a fresh perspective.

Furthermore, the exclusion of certain categories of people from membership of a group may be of disservice to the group, as Cat Chapin-Bishop (2007) points out:

To the extent that my spiritual community does not accept my membership, or discounts it as merely individualistic "self-identification", I will be cut off from exactly what Marshall sees self-identifiers as withholding from their communities: that interdependence, the right not so much to make demands on the group or to shape it to my liking, as to serve the group, offer it my gifts, and be transformed by the experience of that mutuality.

A high-profile conflict of membership and identity is that between LGBT Christians and the churches that seek to exclude them. This is often seen as a clash of tradition and modernity (Tamney and Johnson, 1988: 246), but it could also be explained as a conflict of membership and identity. Both sides in the conflict are drawing on Christian values and virtues, but interpret them differently, and place emphasis on different aspects of the tradition to support their stance. LGBT Christians identify as Christians, but a lot of other Christians do not want to accept them as members of the tradition.

Identity seems to be approximately equivalent to 'subjective-life' and membership seems to be approximately equivalent to 'life-as' – but clearly membership and identity are closely intertwined, which does not seem to be the case with Heelas and Woodhead's (2005) definition of 'subjective-life' and 'life-as'.

The process of “conversion” (a rather loaded term) often plays a part in a change of religious allegiance. However, if the person finds truth in both their new group and their previous group, and the old group emphasises one thing that the person finds worth in, and the new group another thing, it will be difficult for the person to make a choice to leave the old group and join the new group; indeed, such a choice may not even be considered (C. Chapin-Bishop, 2007).

Lewis Rambo's (2000) model of conversion is more complex than the "road to Damascus" experience that most people think of when they think about conversion. In phase one, he says, people go through some kind of crisis (which could be dissatisfaction with their current belief system, or a mystical experience). In phase two, they go on a quest to find something that fits their new model of the world. The third phase involves interaction (learning how to do their chosen religious practice). The fourth phase is commitment ("rituals that create a new identity, a new set of relationships, a new set of roles that lead to a new and different kind of life"), and the fifth stage is consequences - the transformation effected by the commitment (which could be lifelong development in the chosen faith, or it could be disillusionment and going back to phase one).

In the case of dual or multi-faith practice, the conversion process may be experienced as an expansion of understanding, rather than a change of direction. Michelle Guinness (1994: 15), who was brought up Jewish, read the “forbidden bit” of the Bible and decided that Jesus was the Messiah – but when she became a Christian, she introduced many Jewish ideas and practices to her family and her church, feeling incomplete without the Jewish side of herself:

I wanted to feel as well as trust, use my body as well as my brain, every second of my existence, so that believing was like breathing. And that is the essence of Jewishness, the ideal. Shalom, the wholeness of body, mind and spirit I believed to be my birthright as a Christian, would elude me until I acknowledged and embraced the Jewish in me. Integrating a Jewish and Christian spirituality became a great adventure, spanning the years of childbearing and raising a family, discovering a career, the mid-life crisis and the beginnings of bodily disintegration. There have been dizzying, dazzling heights and endless, flat plains, craggy, skin-tearing climbs and gentle, lush valleys. I have been at odds with the Jews and at odds with the Church. (Guinness, 1994: 21)

The contrast between the life-affirming Judaism she grew up in and the asceticism of the Christianity she joined was too great; she had to find a compromise.

Ann Holmes Redding is an Episcopalian priest who became a Muslim (Tu, 2007). She was drawn to Islam after an introduction to Islamic prayer; she was profoundly affected by seeing a Muslim man in total surrender to God.

"At the most basic level, I understand the two religions to be compatible. That's all I need."

She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God — the meaning of the word "Islam."

"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.

"I could not not be a Muslim."

Many Christians and Muslims cannot accept that she can be both; others (including her local church and the Muslim centre she worships at) are happy for her to be both. Clearly, however, her experience is not exactly 'subjective-life' spirituality (she is looking for her identity in who she is supposed to be, not who she currently is). She says, "when God gives you an invitation, you don't turn it down." Rambo's conversion model is a better fit for her situation than Heelas and Woodhead's model; she was experiencing dissatisfaction with Christian doctrine, and then had a profoundly moving encounter with Islam (the crisis phase); this led to a quest for a new paradigm, and making a commitment; now she is experiencing the consequences of that commitment. However, her conversion experience is clearly an expansion of her worldview to include the truth claims of both religions, rather than an abandonment of one in favour of the other.

Cat Chapin-Bishop's crisis moment was the destruction by terrorists of the World Trade Centre in 2001:

It was the morning of September 11 that I first knew in my body as well as my mind that deep and absolute conviction that war was just not the answer for anything. In a world where a half-dozen men armed with box-cutters can kill thousands, it becomes clear that no amount of force or the threat of force will ever save life. All killing will do is pile the bodies higher.

Today, I say it with words. On September 11, I felt it in my marrow, in my spine.

Between September 11 and that Columbus Day (ironically, the weekend when the bombing of Afghanistan began) I found the Quakers. I have been a Quaker ever since.

However, the crisis was an occasion for the expansion of her worldview, not a change of direction; she says, “I am still Pagan--my love for the earth and the Old Gods does not change. But other Quaker testimonies and practices have grown in me, about oaths, clergy, simplicity... and they have changed how I worship, if not what or why.” The quest phase was very short (between 11 September and 12 October), and the commitment phase began when she sought formal membership of the Religious Society of Friends. The consequences are still being worked out in the internal dialogue of the two faiths.

Roger Corless' conversion experience was occasioned by a growing awareness that both Buddhism and Christianity were true (Corless, 1994: 182); again, this seems like an expansion of his understanding, rather than a change of direction.

It is interesting that three of these people (Cat Chapin-Bishop, Ann Holmes Redding, and Michele Guinness) all talk about the importance of bodily feelings in making their spiritual choices; the crisis which led to the expansion was accompanied by bodily sensations. Clearly theirs is an embodied spirituality rather than merely abstract. Perhaps embodiment could be a useful tool for understanding these spiritual urges; Csordas (1999: 143) says:

If embodiment is an existential condition in which the body is the subjective source or intersubjective ground of experience, then studies under the rubric of embodiment are not 'about' the body per se. Instead they are about culture and experience insofar as these can be understood from the standpoint of bodily being-in-the-world. (cited in Harris, 2006)

Christianity and Buddhism have sought to privilege external revelations over the subjective promptings of the body and the inner life (Corless, 1994: 181); Paganisms and Judaism seek to integrate the life of mind, body and spirit by following the round of seasonal festivals (Harvey, 1997: 223). When someone who follows inner promptings engages in dialogue with someone who follows an external authority such as a tradition or a book, the result is usually mutual incomprehension (King, 1994). Those who experience an inner guide often relate it to an external entity which can also be found in the depths of the self (Harvey, 1997: 212).

 

 

Conclusion

Whatever models are used to describe or explain dual-faith practice, it is clear that fidelity to the traditions being followed (or to the spirit of them, if not the letter) is of paramount importance to dual-faith practitioners. They are not merely 'spiritual shoppers', but rather people who are attempting to follow what they have experienced as a call, coming from a source perceived to be external, but heard inwardly.

It seems that it is possible to follow two or more traditions simultaneously, but never easy, and sometimes painful, both because of contradictions which may be felt internally, and because of hostility from people whose religion is almost entirely a matter of external authority.

Various models may be offered to describe practising more than one faith: dvoeverie, inculturation, syncretism, and coinherence – but in reality, experience, practice and belief are always more complex than theology and theory might suggest. Beliefs and practices vary dramatically within faith traditions as well as between them, so it is sometimes hard to draw accurate boundaries on a map of faiths.

Heelas and Woodhead’s (2005) models of different types of congregation would seem to suggest that it would be a lot easier to follow two or more distinct faith traditions in congregations of experiential humanity, because they authorise subjective-life to the greatest extent among congregational forms of religion.  This is certainly borne out by the existence of Quaker Pagans and Unitarian Universalist Pagans.

In the end, I would argue that the practices of dual faith, coinherence and syncretism are worthwhile, in that it challenges people's preconceived ideas about the nature of the Divine and of the religious experience, and has the potential to break down boundaries between traditions which might otherwise be at odds with one another.

The increasing incidence of dual- and multi-faith practice may well be due to the subjective turn, but it is not just subjective-life spirituality, as the practitioners are certain that there is a connection between inner and outer experience. Indeed, they could be said to be to be breaking down the rigid boundaries between traditions and between inner and outer imposed by Western religious discourse.

 

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