Faith in the Neighborhood

Lucinda Allen Mosher

Description

This series of books explores what it means to live and worship among the many faiths unique to America's neighborhoods. Each book in the series illuminates the questions Christians have about other faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Baha'i, Zoroastrianism, Afro-Caribbean religions, Native-American religions, Confucianism, and Shinto. Different faiths have different ideals of community, and different kinds of rules. In Belonging Lucinda Mosher explores the vocabulary of America's many religions, the theologies and rituals that create a sense of belonging, and how these religions handle life's stages--welcoming babies, rites of passage for adolescents, initiation, and conversion.

Interwoven with interviews and personal stories, Belonging is intended for interfaith education of all kinds. A quick guide to each religion, a glossary, and recommended reading are included.

Sujets

• Comparative Religion
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Church Publishing Incorporated
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781596271517
• Langue: English

Extrait

FAITH IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
UNDERSTANDING AMERICA S RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY
VOLUME ONE
Belonging
Belonging

LUCINDA MOSHER
For Barrie
Copyright 2005 by Lucinda Mosher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-1-59627-010-7
Seabury Books
445 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016
www.churchpublishing.org
An imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Series Preface
1. Membership
Being Versus Joining
Born-into then Becoming
Born-into and Brought-into
Professing Faith
Congregationalizing
2. Entries
Baby- Welcoming
Assuming Responsibility
Choosing to Join
3. Exits
Breaking a Promise and Breaking the Rules
Marrying Out
Abandonment
4. Distance
Rules for Eating
Fasting
Clothing Customs
Acknowledging the Boundaries
5. Embrace
Concentric Circles
Improving the Comfort Zone
Overlapping Circles
Faiths in the Neighborhood
Endnotes
Resources
Quick Reference Guide
For General Reading
Glossary
Acknowledgments
CYNTHIA SHATTUCK, MY EDITOR, thought up the idea of the Faith in the Neighborhood series, and the notion that the first volume should be about belonging. Without her brainstorm, her belief that I could execute it, and her subsequent firm guidance, there would be no Book One. And so, the first round of thanks is for her-and for everyone at Church Publishing who allowed this book to be.
The Interfaith Center of New York collaborated with me on an educational initiative for Episcopal parishes called the Neighbor-Faith Project; the Rector, Church Wardens, and Grants Board of Trinity Church-St. Paul s Chapel (New York City), by virtue of their generous underwriting of that project, provided research support for Faith in the Neighborhood. To both agencies and their officers go my deep appreciation-not just for the financial backing, but for their enthusiasm and creative input as well.
The Rev. Daniel Appleyard, Dr. Claude Jacobs, and all who make the Worldviews Seminar happen each summer in Dearborn, Michigan, have in no small way informed this series and this book. So, obviously, have the numerous people who participated in research conversations: I dare not try to list them all for fear of omitting one or several of them! Social researcher Alice Fisher shared her own data and helped me gather more. Seminarian Mark Furlow assisted with interviewing. Many thanks go to all of these people, and to the battery of folks who helped transcribe research recordings. The Rev. Chloe Breyer and Dr. Kusumita Pedersen read early drafts and made valuable suggestions. Thanks go to them as well.
I am grateful to the schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, and parishes that have, during the past decade and a half, given me opportunities to teach about the world s religions, America s religious diversity, and a Christian theology of the neighbor. Each venue and each crop of students has helped me refine my ability to assess what it would be helpful for an outsider to know, and how to articulate this vast and complex material more clearly. I am grateful to the authors and producers of audio-visual aids whose works I have digested, whose ideas and ways of explaining things have so become a part of the way I teach. Where I have made good use of them, I do so with great respect and a deep sense of indebtedness. The responsibility for any factual or conceptual errors rests with me.
Finally, there are no words for the depth of gratitude due my partner in everything, whose support for this project-as always-is constant, very skilled, and unconditional: my husband, Barrie Mosher.
Lucinda Mosher Easter 2005
Series Preface
Drive for a mile on Military Road in Dearborn, Michigan, and you will pass at least four different churches, but continue on your way through town, and you will pass at least as many mosques. Walk down Bowne Street in Flushing, New York, and you will pass at least three different kinds of Hindu temples. You can t miss the Sikh house of worship when you take the main highway through Milford, Massachusetts. Travel twenty-five miles north from Seattle, and you ll come to a very busy Shinto shrine. Make your way along Alabama s Gulf Coast, and you ll pass four Buddhist temples. Where it used to be considered broad-minded to expand the local council of Christian clergypersons to include rabbis, these networks now include Muslim imams. Some also include local Hindu and Buddhist religious leaders-and more! America s increasingly fertile and colorful landscape of religious diversity is rich in variety and daunting in its complexity.
Getting a grip on the sheer number of religions represented by our neighbors is a fascinating and ongoing task. Religious scholar Catherine Albanese reminds us that although most Americans are aware of the religious pluralism around them, they tend to live in their own religious worlds. When Christians are the majority in the American neighborhood (and in most parts of the country this is still the case), to what extent do we take notice of the other religions in our midst? Do we know what their adherents prefer to be called? Do we know anything about our neighbors beliefs and practices, and have we ventured inside their worship spaces? How aware are we of the variety within the religions of our neighborhood? Faith in the Neighborhood is for Christians who have noticed the religious complexity of our neighborhoods and are ready to dig below the surface to understand our neighbors as those neighbors understand themselves.
Most college textbooks on the world s religions tell the story of one religion at a time. In real American life, however, our many religions intertwine (or collide) in the factory, the office suite, the boardroom, the classroom, the shopping mall, the sidewalk, the street fair, the city park, and the potluck supper. Faith in the Neighborhood does not work through a menu of religions, but instead listens to the voices of America s many religions as they glide in and out of the narrative-just as they do in our daily lives. That is why this series proceeds thematically, with each volume devoted to a different topic: belonging, worship, family life, learning, social activism, and death and dying.
Throughout this series we will move from theme to theme, but with the awareness that for years practitioners of the academic study of religions have urged us to go lightly on making comparisons. Better to observe a religion on its own terms, rather than insisting that it conform to our own religion s categories. Yet our own commitments do shape our questions, the technical terms we use when we voice them, and the definitions we bring to those words. Christians will ask Christian questions, and it is not surprising that they will use Christian categories and Christian vocabulary when they do. But it is also true that to move beyond this is a Christian endeavor-to delight in the differences around us and learn about our neighbor s concepts, categories, and vocabulary, becoming (as Martin Forward puts it) theologically and religiously multilingual. 1
How so? The Ninth Commandment prohibits us from false witness against our neighbor, and we will be hard-pressed to bear truthful witness to the religion of our neighbors if we have little sense of what their religion is about. For Christians, the very life of God is being with. When we are commanded to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are commanded to be with our neighbors. How are we going to do that? We can begin by thinking of every encounter with neighbors whose convictions differ from ours as an opportunity to eavesdrop on their own dialogue with the divine. Christians know that all humanity has been created in God s image. We are therefore called to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. We can be of better service-more loving, more respectful of dignity, more likely to establish justice and peace-if we understand how our neighbor establishes, maintains, and celebrates a meaningful world, which is what religion does.
With these principles in mind, Faith in the Neighborhood engages more than a dozen of America s religions: Hinduism and related movements (such as Krishna Consciousness); Jainism; Buddhism in its Theravada and Mahayana forms, including some of the distinct expressions that come to America from Tibet and Japan; Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto (the East Asian religions with which Mahayana Buddhism is so tightly intertwined); religions with roots in the Middle East, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Bah ; Sikhism (a revealed religion from India that emerged in a joint Hindu-Muslim context); and Afro-Caribbean spiritualities. The series also acknowledges the continuing presence and importance of the spiritualities of America s First Nations, although their variety cannot be presented fully in short volumes such as these.
America s religious complexity is enhanced by the wide variety and nuance within each religion. Almost every religion in this series is better understood as a mosaic rather than as a single constellation of beliefs, practices, and institutions. Viewed at a distance, a mosaic is a coherent picture; from close up, we are aware of the many individual pieces of glass or stone that make up the picture. Each piece has dist