Syncretism

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Syncretism

Syncretism refers to the mixture of religious ideas or practices from diverse sources. The earliest use of the term is in the Moralia of Plutarch, who spoke of the alliances that brought fractious Cretans together (syn-Kretoi) against a common enemy. This togetherness among things that have not been, and perhaps should not be, together gives the term its energy and openness to controversy. Syncretism in religion implies crossed doctrinal, liturgical, and institutional borders.

Writers committed to religious institutions have generally been hostile to unauthorized blending of religious symbols and have seen syncretism as a challenge to the integrity of religious traditions. The word became fixed as a term of disparagement in seventeenth-century Europe, when those opposed to movements of theological reconciliation among Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism referred to unacceptable compromises as "syncretism." Today writers seeking respectful interreligious dialogue still may see the blurring of religious borders as "the threat of syncretism." (Wiggins 1996:64).

Theologians and missionaries have long used the term to deprecate new religious movements and folk religious initiatives as inauthentic or impure. Here the label of syncretism acts as a normative judgment that rests on notions of the superiority of an essential religious tradition and the need to protect it from dilution and adulteration. Contemporary practitioners of new alternative, or minority religions often resent the condescension connoted by the label of syncretism with its implications of confusion and inferiority.

The controversy surrounding the label of syncretism reveals a number of psychological, social, and cultural dynamics that illuminate how religions develop. By focusing on the arrangement of disparate elements in religious symbolism, the observer may see how social and personal religious experience is organized in a concrete historical situation. In particular the idea of syncretism illuminates the location and importance of borders in the construction of identity in religious communities and individuals.

The social dynamics behind the idea of syncretism reveal contestation about boundaries and power. Syncretism may be seen to originate "from above" or "from below," particularly in situations of religious mission, where issues of translation are paramount (Sanneh 1989). Elites seeking to "inculturate" Christianity among Native Americans or Buddhism among white Coloradans may self-consciously adapt ideas and practices in order to make them more readily understood and acceptable to the indigenous populations. Often this missionary quest to build local theologies still seeks to restrict access and religious expression within institutional boundaries. On the other hand syncretism may also arise "from below," in the ways that the missionized construct new meanings from the symbols that arise from different social contexts. Thus the Catholic saints take on new significance among practitioners of santería and the Christian cross speaks at several levels to members of the Native American Church. This phenomenon of reinterpretation was highlighted by American anthropologist Melville Herskovits as a two-way process of cultural interaction, in which familiar symbols take on new meanings and new symbols can be reinterpreted in the light of familiar associations. (Herskovits 1948: 553; also Apter 1991). In this way syncretism is the way that people can live in different semiotic worlds, allowing both their blending as well as their juxtaposition.

Syncretism can thus be seen as an adaptive strategy on the part of many different individuals and social groups to both cross and maintain boundaries. Syncretism may be the self-conscious attempt to integrate experience as seen in the rise of such traditions as Sikhism or Baha'i. Or it may be an accommodation to power as well as a critique of it, a kind of "cultural judo" in the words of Jamaican-American historian of religion Leonard Barrett. Here the folk on the margins of power accept the symbols of the elite only to subvert them with additional, unauthorized, and often ironic meanings.

It may be that the term "syncretism" is indelibly tainted with the politics of claims to and resistance against cultural hegemony. Several contemporary scholars have suggested abandoning the term, either because of its pejorative connotation, or because it is a universal process in the history of all religions, or because the precise boundaries of traditions simply cannot be determined. (Baird 1971; Ringgen 1966). Scholars have put forth alternative terms using words or phrases such as "combinatory" "mixing and matching," or even "religion à la carte"—all intended to highlight the processes of religious formation and boundary definitions.

Whether or not the term itself proves to be viable, the type of religious creativity that syncretism attempts to describe is real, important, and relevant to American religious life at the beginning of the new millennium. With the growth of global communications and travel, Americans are experiencing unprecedented cross-cultural contact and exchange. Identities are being simultaneously globalized and localized as individuals and groups struggle to connect to, and separate themselves from, a new world order. Parents of interfaith marriages are raising children simultaneously in two or more traditions. Individuals and groups are organizing their religious lives by freely blending and juxtaposing religious symbols from African, Asian, European, Native American, and even extraterrestrial sources. Individuals are claiming to be Buddhist Jews and Hindu Africans are forming voodoo ashrams. The rise of American Neopaganism, the growth of traditions such as Wicca, and the cluster of beliefs and practices associated with New Age spirituality attest to the fluency with which Americans are constructing new symbolic worlds. In the analysis of these traditions, the issues addressed by the term "syncretism" yield significant insights into the integration of experience by individuals and the construction of boundaries by groups.

Bibliography

Apter, Andrew. "Herskovits's Heritage: Rethinking Syncretism in the African Diaspora," Diaspora, vol. 1, no. 3, 1991.

Baird, Robert D. Category Formation in the History ofReligions, 1971.

Barrett, Leonard E. Soul Force: African Heritage in Afro-American Religion, 1974.

Droogers André. "Syncretism: the Problem of Definition, the Definition of the Problem," In Dialogueand Syncretism, An Interdisciplinary Approach, edited by Jerald Gort, et al., 1989.

Herskovits, Melville J. Man and His Works, 1948.

Ringgen, Helmer. "The Problems of Syncretism." In Syncretism, edited by Sven S. Hartman, 1966.

Sanneh, Lamin. Translating the Message: The MissionaryImpact on Culture, 1989.

Schreiter, Robert J. Constructing Local Theologies, 1985.

Stewart, Charles, and Rosalind Shaw, editors. Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, 1994.

Wiggins, James. In Praise of Religious Diversity, 1996.

Joseph M. Murphy

Contemporary American Religion