We Live in a World of Buffet-Style Religion: Highlights from SENT Conference

January 5, 2015

Back in July I traveled to Detroit for the Lutheran Hour Ministries Global SENT Outreach Conference where I was invited to speak on the topic of Christian encounters with the world's religions and sundry spiritualities.

I remember a few things from the trip: 1) I loved Detroit, its food/beer culture, its waterfront, and its people; 2) I spent the night in the airport with a guy who talked about Dungeons & Dragons at 2am in the morning (lovely); 3) it gave me an opportunity to share my "theology of religion" with a wider audience.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

The conference was organized by Lutheran Hour Ministries who shared in their conference report:

More than 1,000 people gathered on July 24-27 in Detroit, Mich. to hear speakers, musicians, and entertainment...these photos, quotes, and videos tell an abbreviated story of how God worked through the Lutheran Hour Ministries SENT Outreach Conference...

Along with Rev. Gregory Seltz, speaker of the Lutheran Hour, Rev. Dr. John Nunes of Valparaiso University, Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann of Concordia Seminary St. Louis, Rev. Dominic Rivkin of LINC Los Angeles, Jon Acuff, Jon Dansby, and others I was included in LHM's Storify highlights.

Reflecting on the feedback provided to me from conference participants and from the Storify, I want to ruminate on the major takeaways from my approach to a "theology of religion." Here goes.

I love this. Why? Because I stole it. Author and interfaith activist Eboo Patel gets all the credit for this one. In his book Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America Patel wrote of the need for us to flip the script in our theology from one of antagonism and conflict to one of affinity and compassion. His quote was in reference to the need for Christians to befriend Muslims. While mine referenced Hindus in this presentation the point is the same -- inspired by Christ's actions in John 4 with the Samaritan woman at the well we must endeavor to befriend the "religious other."

Indeed, we must cease thinking of the "religious other" as "other." Instead, recognizing the imago Dei -- image of God -- within each of us, we must see others as part of the same human story, unique in their formation, important in God's creation. In the words of Lesslie Newbigin, it is recognizing that "no human life can be rightly understood apart from the whole story of which each life-story is a part." This posture can lead to mutual understanding, bonds of friendship and solidarity, and common efforts toward peace.

Of course, this can, and will, be hard. Why?

People often ask me what the fastest growing religion in the U.S. is. Is it Islam? Mormonism? Evangelicalism? Which "-ism" is it Ken?

It's Me-ism.

Due to forces of individualization, "normal nihilism," and a general belief in the supernatural and the importance of the spiritual we are all on our own spiritual journeys, mixing-and-matching our religious sentiments like patrons at a Sizzler buffet.

Because, as Paul W. Robinson wrote, “the assumptions, attitudes, & understandings that lead to the practice of mix-and-match religion surround us" we tend to pick-and-choose what we like, and what we want, from each and every religion and/or spirituality. A little bit of Hindu meditation? Sure. Some Buddhist prayer beads? Heck yeah! Christianity's Jesus? Bring it on. Sufi poetry for meditation? Two helpings please!

While I make light, the truth is that it is difficult to navigate the religious landscape we encounter because it is so stunningly diverse. Not only do we live in a pluralistic context outside of us, but we also wrestle with pluralist tendencies and tensions within our own spiritual journey as we choose between various spiritual perspectives, orthodoxies, heresies, and practices delivered to us on websites, podcasts, apps, sermons, and publications.

Despite the stunning diversity, our challenge remains the same. Again, Patel wrote, "The question is how to have a vertical relationship with one’s own understanding of the divine and a horizontal relationship with the diversity of the world." We must not only ascribe to truth as we know it, but be comfortable enough with a plurality of truth-claims to hold peaceable conversations with others and together work toward the resolution of conflict and the blessing of our communities.

Although we may struggle with our own journey and others cannot quite explain their "spiritual-but-not-religious" perspective, we must still lean into these relationships with mercy, truth, love, patience, and grace.

The U.S. is suffering from a case of multi-generational and multi-cultural religious illiteracy —what Stephen Prothero calls, “religious amnesia.” The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles. Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even our own.

To the rescue come “world religion Bible studies” that attempt to help Christians navigate their world’s stunning religious pluralism. The problem is, most “world religion Bible studies” are terrible.

While most of the leaders of these studies start with the intention to help their parishioners learn more about the world’s religions, the way they go about it usually leads to nominally increased religious literacy. Even worse, these studies often exacerbate pre-existing prejudices or presuppositions about studied worldviews.

Instead of informed, generous, and balanced studies most devolve into bullhorn-style, biased, polemic, opinion-infused and horribly misinformed misadventures into religions and worldviews.

Still, there is a need for Christians, and others, to study the world's religions -- to listen and learn, to dialogue, to work together, to dine with one another, and build bridges of understanding, friendship, and common cause.

These are the highlights that LHM shared. There was other feedback as well and I could spend days writing about it, but if you want to dig deeper into my "theology of religion" and the approach I advocate for Christians to take toward other religions and worldviews please take the time to read, and respond to, my recent paper, "Building Bridges: Toward Constructing a Christian Foundation for Inter-Religious Relationships in the Shift from Religious Privilege to Spiritual Plurality."

I want to thank LHM again for inviting me to come and speak. I pray that this conversation is both compassionate and constructive, building upon the church's theological foundations to construct a common path toward reconciliation and peace-making in the world today.

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood.

Why "world religion Bible studies" are awful

September 30, 2014

The U.S. is suffering from a case of multi-generational and multi-cultural religious illiteracy —what Stephen Prothero calls, “religious amnesia.” The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles. Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even our own. It seems, “[m]ost Americans remain far more committed to respecting other religions than learning about them.”

To the rescue come "world religion Bible studies" that attempt to help Christians navigate their world's stunning religious pluralism. The problem is, most "world religion Bible studies" are terrible.

While most of the leaders of these studies start with the intention to help their parishioners learn more about the world's religions, the way they go about it usually leads to nominally increased religious literacy. Even worse, these studies often exacerbate pre-existing prejudices or presuppositions about studied worldviews.

Granted, not all world religion studies are horrible, but many I've been to, or heard of (and, admittedly, some of the ones I've taught), were dreadful. While I confess that I'm a culprit of creating crappy curriculums for a "world religion Bible study" or two, I humbly suggest that I have learned the error of my ways (mostly) and want to propose some strategies to remedy the oversights of well-meaning pastors and educators.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

So, below are THREE REASONS WHY WORLD RELIGION BIBLE STUDIES SUCK and a few accompanying action points to make them better:

1) Unschooled teachers

The number one issue with the vast majority of these studies is those who are teaching don't know much about the world's religions in the first place. Furthermore, they are not in the least bit trained in how to properly engage in religious studies, which is a topic altogether distinct from the task of theology.

While teaching can be a wonderful way to learn, we should not feign being an expert when we really have not spent the time to gain expertise in one religion other than ours, let alone multiple world religions. And do not, for a moment, think that because you read one book, watched a movie, or visited a temple that this makes you an expert on Buddhism, Islam, Scientology, etc.

This is the cover of a book I wrote on "twenty major world religions" in New Zealand. It isn't the best, but what was great about it was that I submitted every chapter to a practitioner of that respective belief system. They corrected much of what I… — This is the cover of a book I wrote on "twenty major world religions" in New Zealand. It isn't the best, but what was great about it was that I submitted every chapter to a practitioner of that respective belief system. They corrected much of what I got wrong and provided deep insight into how to (re)present religion.

Admittedly, several pastors confessed to me that they do not know much about the world's religions, but decide to teach on them anyways because, "my parishioners are asking me to." Granted, you, as a pastor or teacher, are in a tough place when people ask you to lead a study in an area you feel you know little about. I feel for you. But then there are other pastors who took one class on world religions, watched one documentary, or read one book and decide, "My people need to know this!" and like a crusader gallivanting off to slay the pagan hordes they announce a study to equip their congregants for the spiritual battle at hand. #Facepalm. Maybe you are the former, maybe you're the latter. Either way, you aren't an expert — I implore you to stop acting like one.

Nonetheless, I feel for you. The problem is that we pastors and teachers are expected to be weekly experts on a wide variety of topics. Every Sunday a pastor is meant to churn out a sermon wherein he/she expounds on a relevant topic from a deep knowledge of the biblical text. People listen to the pastor as if he/she is an authority on the given topic (marriage, parenting, politics, etc.). While most pastors (certainly not all) are adept at interpreting Scripture, they are not mavens in every field. It's unfair to expect them to be an expert on everything — especially religions they were not trained in. Too often we pressure them to act as if they are. Likewise, teachers and educators are expected to cover a broad range of topics week-in and week-out, even if their knowledge on some of these topics is exhausted within the confines of the text they use to teach. This problem becomes paramount in teaching on world religions.

With untrained teachers and unqualified pastors diving head first into a study where they are presumed to be specialists, but are effectively faking even basic facility, what most world religion Bible studies become are cesspools of collective religious ignorance not classrooms prepped for increased religious literacy.

Sometimes, in an effort to sidestep an educator's insufficiency for the task, an ex-member testimony is favored. Oh Lord have mercy, this is even worse. Certainly, ex-members have a voice to bring to the table and their perspective is a valuable one to appreciate in our study of religion. But it is only one voice and an extremely biased one at that. Ex-members are ex-members for a reason. While they may not "have an axe to grind" they will most definitely present a prejudiced perspective on a religion they now eschew.

Imagine this -- an atheist meet-up group wants to learn more about Christianity. To do so, they bring in a former evangelical who no longer believes in God to talk about their former faith. Would you, as a Christian, say that the atheists in that group necessarily got a fair picture of Christianity? Would you want them to perhaps balance out their learning with some supplementary teaching or a current member's testimony? If not, you should. Relying on ex-member testimonies or teaching is a sure way to get a skewed impression of a world religion.

So, how do we fix this? Three ways:

The fix: Get an education. Take a class, keep reading, enroll in a master's program. Become the expert you are pretending to be. Even a few classes on one religion will equip you to better teach that topic. However, do not think that taking one intro class on world religions or reading one book is enough. Dive deep into one religion before you endeavor to teach it. Enjoy that process? Keep going deeper or expand your knowledge to include other religions. Repeat as necessary.

The fix: Study in the presence, or even under, the "religious other." While I do not like the fertile terrain for prejudice that "othering" a people group creates, the reality is that most Christians feel that Muslims and Mormons, Jews, Jains, and Jedis are "the religious other." They feel uncomfortable talking about these other faiths in the presence of "the other" (cue creepy sci-fi music here). So, they round up the wagons, close the parish hall doors, and "study" them from the safety of their own sanctuaries. As an educator, your task is to bust those doors down and make the learning environment an uncomfortable one. Bring in a Muslim to team-teach on Islam, invite an atheist to present their non-religious ways, visit a local mosque, temple, or place of worship to engage in experiential education, make your study public, or at the very least ask a Buddhist to sit in on your teaching to call you out or offer further food for thought. Yeah, it will be awkward, unsettling, and a bit "weird," but that's a good thing. In that environment learning is probably going to take place on all sides.

The fix: Bring in the experts. f all else fails, ask the experts. Bring in a local professor or your denomination's resident religious scholar, anthropologist, or sociologist. As mentioned before, bring in a Buddhist monk to share their practice, an imam to elucidate their beliefs, etc. Shameless plug: invite me to come and speak. While I can't speak to EVERY religion with expertise, I can at least point you in the right direction or start you off with the right tools/perspective.

2) The category of "world religions" is problematic anyways

Even if a pastor/teacher is schooled in the ways of the world's religions, what is a "world religion?" Most studies pick out a few heavy hitters among the sundry spiritualities that are held and practiced around the globe. There are some usual suspects that pop up in almost every world religion study. Here's an example from the table of contents of a self-titled "world religion Bible study" curriculum: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Bahai Faith, Spirit Religions, Atheism, New Age Movement, and others. This is a generous list. Another "world religion" study I saw recently (at a Lutheran church) sought to teach the following: Catholicism, Islam, Anglicanism, Pentecostalism, Buddhism.... Yikes.

This was a fun study that we did at a local brewery in Houston, Texas. While I taught this one solo, I had people who were Christian, agnostic, atheist, "spiritual, but not religious," Confucian, and Buddhist come to the study. They called me out when I needed it. And then we had a beer together, so it was all cool.

The issue here is that these lists, and most other scopes and sequences of world religions studies make three mistakes: 1) ignore religions and spiritualities on the periphery (e.g. Sikhism, Yoruba, Juche, etc.); 2) lump together multiple world views and practiced spiritualities into general categories that obfuscate more than they educate ("Spirit religions" covers a wide, diverse, range of religions/spiritualities ranging from indigenous religion to hybrid spiritualities, New Age and "others" is necessarily ambiguous, and "Islam" and "Hinduism" obscure realities that exist in the margins); 3) make divisions where they need not do so (is a "world religions" class the proper place to present the differences between Catholics and Lutherans?).

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

These categories, meant to help simplify the study or book (however well-meaning they are) betray a dangerous unsophistication when it comes to apperceiving and appreciating the wild diversity of religious beliefs and spiritual practice around the world.

The fix: Teach the tools. For years, the archetypal format of religious studies tended to place different religious traditions, typically those deemed to be “the world’s ‘great’ religions,” in their respective silos and investigate them each according to some prescribed rubric based on the author’s own definition of religion. This pedagogical approach tended to dissociate individual traditions from the study of religion as a whole and, even, from the students themselves. Since, as authors George D. Chryssides and Ron Geaves noted, students “rarely come to study religion because they wish to be neutral social scientists or simply to describe religious belief and practice more accurately,” this method bequeaths a superficial knowledge of religion at best and exacerbated stereotypes of the spiritual at its worst. Hence, I suggest an initial approach that involves considering what it means, and looks like, to study religion from a disciplined, self-reflective, point of view rather than a theological one. In lieu of teaching the religions themselves, teach how to study religion in the first place. Teach how to ask questions, be a participant-observer, etc. The rules that apply to training apply here too. If you don't feel comfortable as a religious student, bring someone in who is.

3) Straw man studies

Now, if untrained leaders and unrefined categories are bad, this problem is the Satan-of-world-religion-studies incarnate.

I get what the leader of these studies is trying to do: help their flock better understand other religions so that they can witness to their neighbor, coworker, family member, or friend. Typically, the end game of these studies is to help the Christian better evangelize someone of another faith.

Putting the issues of hegemony, colonialism, and arrogance involved in discussions of Christian mission and evangelism aside for a moment, such an approach in a world religion Bible study is bad for the simple reason that in the rush to get to "what's wrong with this religion" that we usually end up skipping over "what this religion is" in the first place.

We either misapprehend, or misrepresent, world religions by presenting a "straw man" form of the faith (a hollow, or sham, version of the worldview that is easily defeated in an artificial argument without "the other" present) or do so by seeking first to pinpoint error rather than attempting first to understand.

This shot is from an event called, "Interview with an atheist," in which I invited two local, prominent, non-believers to share their story in front of a Christian audience. We then had a Q&A session that was uncomfortable, challenging, and wond… — This shot is from an event called, "Interview with an atheist," in which I invited two local, prominent, non-believers to share their story in front of a Christian audience. We then had a Q&A session that was uncomfortable, challenging, and wonderful in every way. It was not a debate. It was not a "bash the atheist/Christian" fest. It was a charitable dialogue, and everyone walked away changed.

Sabine MacCormack in her book Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Colonial Peru shared how missionaries in colonial Peru set out to comprehend Incan religion as it was practiced in both in the centers of power (i.e. Cusco) and in the rural Andes. In their accounts, they made two fatal mistakes: 1) by setting out with the primary purpose of extirpating (destroying) these beliefs and practices and 2) interpreting these religions through their own spiritual lenses. These approaches meant that the missionaries completely misinterpreted the religion as it was presented to them. They misconstrued myths, received a false impression about beliefs, and misread rituals. All the while, the Andean beliefs and practices survived and even thrived, whether under the guise of Catholicism or out in the open, and often with greater emphasis than before. Setting out to eradicate the religion of the Andes, the missionaries misunderstood it completely. Too often, world religion Bible studies do the same.

The fix: Study in the presence, or even with, the "religious other." Again, there is nothing better for our mutual learning and understanding than having a Muslim present when you teach on Islam. Give permission for them to correct you where they think you are wrong. Maybe you're not and they just don't like the way you put it. But, maybe you are. Have the guts to have a practitioner of the faith you are studying call you out. Assume insiders are the experts, you would expect the same from someone studying Christianity. Your study will be MUCH BETTER because of it.

The fix: Seek understanding and relationship. The primary goal of your study should be understanding and bridge building, not apologetics or polemic. Before you call the heresy police, hear me out. While we often see our friendships with people of other faith as a means to an end, I am proposing that we see the relationships as ends unto themselves. Part of God's grand plan is a restoring of what was lost in our fall from grace. Part of Christ's redemptive work is to bring together that which was torn asunder. Understanding other religions, and building relationships with "the religious other," is part and parcel to the resurrective, restorative, and recreative kingdom of Jesus -- to bring unity and fellowship where there was disharmony and division. This does not mean forsaking witness, but it does mean not orsaking friendship for the sake of witness. Witness to the worldview, sure. Share your faith, certainly. But the friendship must endure, the understanding must be the primary goal, and the first step in evangelizing needs to be shutting our mouths, and opening our ears, to listen and learn.

*Was this post helpful? Hurtful? Have a suggestion? Want to accuse me of heresy or worse? This blog is meant to be a provocation toward deeper understanding. It's a beginning. There will certainly be revisions in my own thought -- additions, subtractions, and perhaps a crumpling of the entire project and a total re-write before we can, together, build a “strong, benevolent Christianity” (a la Brian McLaren) that can successfully engage other religions, spiritualities, and worldviews in a context defined by religious pluralism. So, please share your thoughts with me below or via e-mail.

*For more on religion and culture, follow @kchitwood

The most (ir)relevant field of study

July 31, 2014

Dinner conversation can be dangerous. Especially when you are new to a college town and everyone inquires, “What are you studying?”

Yes, I am a PhD student. I am studying religion in the Americas.

The follow-up question is predictable, lamentable, and unnerving — “What are you going to do with that?”

The assumptions behind the question are frightening. The presumption is that studying religion is impractical, unemployable, & irrelevant.

Maybe they are right. After all, the first piece of advice I received from a mentor when I started the process of applying for my PhD was, “Don’t do it.” Why? There is no money, great opportunity, or vast interest in the topic of religion these days.

And that’s horrifying.

I am not worried about my reputation. I am not even concerned about job prospects. What I am fearful of is a multi-generational, multi-national, and multi-cultural case of religious ignorance — what Stephen Prothero calls “religious illiteracy.”

The United States, in spite of its established secularism, is a thoroughly pluralistic nation with robust expressions of myriad world religions everywhere from the wheat fields of Iowa to the buckled asphalt of Los Angeles.

Yet, we are simultaneously “a nation of religious illiterates” who flunk the most basic of quizzes on religion — even missing questions from our own traditions.

When asked who led the exodus out of Egypt, some will think Abraham was the man. What religion was Mother Theresa? She was Hindu…she worked in India right? What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? Trick question, surely. They don’t exist. What does the holiday Ramadan commemorate? What religion is it a part of? “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible. True or false?

You could continue with the line of questioning and the odds are that the average American will only get half of the questions right. That’s 50%. That’s an, “F.” A failing grade. Sorry, you’re going to have to take this one over.

When I teach students, I usually find that failing grades are symptomatic of apathy, not lack of effort. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s that we don’t care. We don’t think religion matters any more.

Although proponents of the secularization theory claim that as civilizations modernize so too do they, and should they say the “New Atheists,” secularize, the world remains a vibrant religious milieu.

Religion is a principal and permanent feature of humanity. As religion and American studies scholar Thomas Tweed wrote, religion helps us “intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and superhuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries.” Religion, through its embodied practices & global social networks helps us feel secure, it protects us from chaos. Religion is part of who we are, how we interact with others, and what we do in the world. It’s not going away. Religion will continue to shape global, and local, circumstances for millennia as we continue to come into contact with “the religious other” and cross borders and boundaries together in an ever more globalized and transnational world (see Thomas Tweed - Crossing and Dwelling).

Therefore, not only is rampant religious unenlightenment embarrassing, it’s hazardous.

Look to the crisis in the Middle East and its ancient religious motivations; to the battle over Orthodox-orthodoxy in Ukraine; to the intersection of religion and public life in the U.S. Supreme Court; and to your new neighbors next door. In each of these situations, religion matters. People believe. People believe things that effect, and affect, their entire lives and the lives of those around them. People orient themselves around symbols, myths and rituals. People ascribe value to what they see and experience based on their conception of what is sacred, what is secular. People believe things to protect their way of life from lawlessness. Sometimes, people believe things that cause them to marginalize, oppress, or attack others. Other times, belief and religious practice manifest the most magnificent examples of art, music, & human creativity.

Is my degree irrelevant? Impractical? Effectively useless?

Far from it.

The truth is, I’m not studying religion; I’m studying how the world works. I'm investigating what makes people tick. I'm, as Michelle Boorstein highlighted from Krista Tippett's recent White House honor, ‘thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.’ I'm exploring why we believe. I'm also fascinated with why many of us don't care about religion anymore.

Advocates of religious literacy say that one of the crucial components in combatting religious ignorance and its antecedents of bigotry and religiously motivated violence, is better education.

David Smock of the U.S. Institute of Peace wrote, “One antidote to hatred among religious communities is to teach communities about the beliefs and practices of the religious other.”

Yet, books and lectures alone are insufficient.

As Yehezkel Landau said, “we need to develop educational strategies to overcome the ignorance that leads to prejudice, which in turn leads to dehumanizing contempt, which in turn breeds violence.”

So, champions of religious literacy will encourage individuals to study other religions in the presence of “the religious other,” and to make sure that what they are learning is true to that religion’s own perspective and grounded in its local experience. Such experiences “re-humanize” the religious “other” more than any lecture or in-class discussion.

That’s why I need your help. I can’t be the only one studying religion. My job is to study, to learn, and to pass what I learn on in popular, as well as academic ways. But I can’t be everywhere to answer every question you have about religion.

Pay attention. Listen to, and learn from, your Buddhist neighbor. Visit a mosque when invited. Sit down for dinner with your Hindu co-worker. Have a conversation with your agnostic cousin.

Learning about religion can be dangerous and difficult, you might be changed by the conversations you have. But the flip side is even more perilous. The consequences of continued religious ignorance are too menacing to do nothing.

In addition, learning about other religions can be fun. It invites us to see the beauty in the strange and unknown, to journey with a sense of wide-ranging wonder, bridging worlds, cultivating our curiosity, and finding delight in humanity's differences. Plus, you will kill it on religion questions in Trivial Pursuit.

So let us enjoy learning and take delight in new discoveries, knowing all the while we are making the world a better, safer, more religiously literate place.