Interfaith Doublespeak

(We are all one. Resistance is futile).

It occurs to me reading Helson’s latest article that this type of erasure is exactly what polytheists experience in the interfaith community. Diversity is all good and well, after all, so long as it doesn’t challenge the homogenization (read “globalization”) of a community.(1) Yes, I’m being sarcastic there because I think we’ve been fed one hell of a lie about “unity” and “globalization” being things that embrace diversity and difference when the very opposite is the case. Diversity—and I think this holds true globally as well as in the interfaith world– is only embraced when it begins the slow but inexorable slide into unification and sameness. (2) Keep your exotic costumes and practices so we can feel good about being inclusive but don’t actually believe or hold to anything that challenges our status quo. That’s interfaith work in a nutshell. This is one of the main reasons that I have little patience for interfaith work these days. It simply does not serve. At least, it doesn’t serve our agenda. I think it serves the monotheistic agenda quite nicely.

How many of you working in interfaith groups or communities have heard the following:

• Oh Spirit… (with great resistance to specifying which One. Exactly to WHOM are you praying? I once had a 45 minute argument with a group of students when I taught seminary because they didn’t want to have to name the Being to Whom they were praying. They couldn’t. Their spirituality was a nebulous thing of feel good platitudes. Gods or even one particular God had very little to do with it. )
• Mother/Father God (again, which Ones and are you talking about: One hermaphroditic being or are you trying to lump all different Deities into yours? They’re not all the same you know.)
• God, Goddess, All that Is (as though there is only ONE God or Goddess)
• Oh They’re all aspects of the One (um, no motherfucker, “They” really aren’t. Stop trying to foist your unexamined monotheism off on us).
• Or how many of you have sat with interfaith colleagues, maybe even friends and noticed that your polytheism was being treated with a deeply ingrained condescension hidden behind a veneer, a pleasant veneer, of tolerance? I’ve seen this even with friends, the idea that we’re simply not evolved enough for monotheism or worse “awww, look at the primitive little polytheist, isn’t it interesting? We just have to be patient until they grow up and accept Oneness.”(3)

I’ve been in interfaith gatherings where a great deal of lip service was paid to the idea of honoring all “paths” (and gods how I detest that word. I’m building a tradition not wandering lost in the woods) until it became clear that polytheism was not about erasing the differences between the Gods so that we could all “get along.” They were fine – and this has been across the board in my own interfaith experience—with the idea of polytheism until they were confronted by the reality of a group of people who actually believed in and venerated the Holy Powers and for whom it wasn’t some spiritual pabulum to make us feel good about ourselves but actual piety.(4) I had someone say to me once “ well how can you hold to the things your various Deities require over mine? Isn’t that going against the interfaith ideal?” (Y’all are welcome to imagine my response to that particular bit of self entitlement). It just goes to show the old adage is true: if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything).

More and more I have come to look at interfaith relations as a type of cultural appropriation. It is dominated by people who cannot commit to one religion, but who want the benefits and blessings of engaging with the Holy Powers within specific traditions, all without actually having to commit to those Powers or those traditions. Hence, you’ll often see people claiming titles in Hindu or Native American religions without actually having gone through decades of study and devotion and without actually having any type of devotion to any particular Deity. They smudge. Maybe they do yoga. All paths are one after all, dontcha know.

It becomes all about making the person feel good, about making them look “enlightened” and “spiritual” so they can get a pat on the head without ever having to challenge any oppressive status quo, especially any religious status quo. Their model is monotheistic. The model for their rites and rituals is, whether they acknowledge this or not: monotheistic and actual engagement with the Powers of any tradition is generally lacking. Most interfaith rituals I have observed are not just doggedly human centric but, despite whatever trappings the organizer might appropriate, devoid of Gods. I mean, you sort of need to name the Gods to call Them into a space and that might be exclusive. Everyone has to feel comfortable after all so let’s just go with the lowest fucking common denominator and call it a day. Hence you end up with what I call impious and unclean space.

More to the point, for all the lip service paid to diversity, it isn’t. Any diversity present is at best on the surface and at worst a complete illusion. This actually saddens me because I think that the idea of interfaith cooperation is a good one, perhaps even a necessary one but it’s one that’s never going to work until all parties are equal. Right now polytheists working in an interfaith setting are anything but. We are expected to sacrifice our religious integrity to make these people feel good about themselves. That, my friends, is never going to happen.(5) One of the things that I have learned as a tribalist is that there actually can be parity…when all groups are treated as sovereign equals. My tribe, your tribe, that person’s tribe are all different but we are each sovereign powers within the sphere in which we’re meeting. We can meet on equal ground. That’s a hell of a lot better than being expected to sacrifice actual diversity for the illusion of enlightenment.

 

Notes:

1. and we can be global citizens participating in a global economy without sacrificing our identities as individual nations, religions, and cultures.
2. Or in the interfaith world when it allows a new ager to feel good about how accepting of difference they can be.
3. So let me be blunt for a moment. Let me tell you something, my monotheistic, interfaith colleagues: your position is this: You are a polluted blip on the broad spectrum of religious life, history, and experience across the world, a single moment in the vast spectrum of religious history and your time in ascendancy is over. We as a world are waking up from the lies you told us. We’re recovering from the Stockholm syndrome our ancestors experienced when you GENOCIDED our fucking indigenous religions and co opted our ancestral cultures as your own. We are waking back up and returning to our ancestral ways. You are done. Take that to your next interfaith gathering and choke on it.
4. I’ve worked in the interfaith community since 1999, having taught at a local interfaith seminary, including becoming the first polytheist elected Dean at an interfaith seminary. It was very, very eye opening and while I started out thinking it was a good venue in which to find common working ground, I no longer think it useful at all. It will never be until monotheism is not looked up on as the default ‘norm.’
5. To do interfaith work well, there either cannot be a ‘norm.’ or we actually admit our differences and find common working ground despite them.