reinventing religious traditions
|| may, 2022
Religious traditions serve as one of the most important and present features of all religions. As one of the universal aspects put into practice across faiths, religious traditions serve as a tool to reaffirm an individual’s beliefs and connection with their religion. This tradition encompasses beliefs, how a religious institution operates, and even specific practices that a religious community uses to relay and reaffirm its faith. There are various traditions that fuel all religions– ceremonies, spiritual practices, community gatherings, and space, which all reveal the importance of tradition serving as a basis of unity and understanding amongst religious communities.
Over the last century, a myriad of political movements, historical events, and significant shifts in American demographics have contributed to an influx of minority religions entering American society. Each religion has its foundation and unique history based upon hundreds of years of cultural and societal practices brought to the United States through both individuals and small pockets of religious communities that exist in a Christian-centered nation. There are also minority religions that have existed within the fabric of American life and have evolved and changed domestically. The evolution and reinvention of religious traditions serve as a unifying factor between religious minorities in the United States. It is a crucial feature of maintaining relevance in American civil society, emphasizing the importance of adapting and incorporating changes in political and civic culture in the United States to religious practices and traditions to remain prevalent. There are many ways in which to go about analyzing the reinvention of tradition within minority religions. Looking at case studies from both minority religions from other countries and those that have existed within the United States allows for a larger perspective on this issue, ultimately emphasizing the implications of reinventing traditions for minority religions as a whole.
The practices and traditions within Hinduism have existed for thousands of years. While it would seem like the longevity of these practices would prevent changes or reinvention, those immigrating to the United States as Hindus are adapting both their religious traditions and approaches to the challenges and inherent differences that exist in this new environment. Authors Anjana Narayan and Bandana Purkayashta explore changes in Hinduism in the United States in Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans. One clear example discussed is the changes in how temples function in India in comparison to the United States. Hinduism in India is so embedded in Indian culture and society that while going to temples is an essential practice, Hindus can find places to worship in public spaces such as streets or roadsides.
Moreover, temples are non-congregational in India. The absence of a prominent Hindu demographic in the United States makes it so that those in need of a space to practice Hindisum conform to one specific temple and place of worship. This lack of access to ample places of worship and religious spaces is an inherent quality of being a minority religion in America. Religions have to adapt to what is available to them, given both demographics of faith and the concentration of a particular population in a specific geographic location (Narayan and Purkayashta, 187). These factors contribute to how drastically traditions must reinvent or adapt over time to survive in a new space.
Another way to see how Hinduism has had to reinvent both religious culture and tradition in the United States is in their ceremonial practices. Traditionally, Hindus follow a calendar based on lunar and solar calendars. This calendar dictates all auspicious events and cultural and religious holidays, festivals, and days of worship. Because this calendar is widely used in India, it is embedded into the culture to ensure that all areas of Indian life– school, work, and the government as whole respect and recognize holidays in the respective regions that they are practiced. These practices transcend Hinduism as a religion and instead shift an emphasis on societal support of traditions. Support across Indian regions in utilizing the Hindu Calendar is the predominant factor in understanding how these traditions and these holidays can be practiced without the worry of aspects of civic life such as work or school being compromised; a huge benefit of practicing Hinduism in a country that is majority Hindu.
However, in the United States, where Hindus are a minority religious group, these holidays and auspicious events are treated much differently. The decentralization of Hindu and Indian regional practices and the lack of a concentrated Hindu population prevents uniformity in tradition amongst Hindus. Because of this, traditions are reinvented to still allow for celebration and ritual. Temples schedule celebrations of cultural and religious holidays on Saturdays and Sundays, and far fewer temples also homogenize the diversity and vastness of spiritual and religious practices. Ultimately, both the decentralization of Hindus and the lack of uniformity in cultural and religious practices force reinvention of how these practices manifest in America. Without adapting to modernity and the challenges faced with being a minority religion in a new country, it would be complicated to find comfortable ways to practice traditions and connect with one’s faith in ways at least a little similar to India’s practices. How Hinduism has manifested and adapted to the United States is significant in analyzing religions that also have a profound cultural aspect about them, drastically affecting how religions go about adapting and reinventing their traditions in a new space.
Another case in which one can analyze the reinvention of tradition is by looking at changes within the Church of Latter-day Saints. The way the Church of Latter-day Saints exists as a religion originating in America starkly contrasts the specific framework in which Hinduism exists in the United States– the intertwining of culture and religion, the immigration this centuries-old religion has taken from India, and the sheer regional differences of Hinduism that have resulted in the decentralization of practices to sustain itself in America. While both Hinduism and the Church of Latter-day Saints exist and remain as minority religions in the United States, the Latter-day Saints in specific both started and grew predominantly within the United States for decades. However, how they are reinventing themselves is much more overt and vastly different than Hinduism.
One way we see a reinvention of tradition is in individual followers straying away from ideas and sentiments reflected by church leaders while still maintaining a connection to the religion as a whole. Typically, if followers of religion find disagreement with views shared by leaders within a religious institution, the action that is followed is to leave or distance themselves from the church or the religion. Washington Post author Emily Kaplan discusses this cognitive dissonance between followers and leaders in her article “The Rise of the Liberal Latter-day Saints.” In most religions, one unwavering tradition is the strong relationship between religious leaders and the community. Kaplan discusses how individuals, incredibly progressive and liberal Latter-day Saints, are not only straying away from this tradition but finding ways to intertwine their faith with progressive ideas in the last few decades. This political radicalization from church members reveals a reinvention in authority sources and faith as a whole. She mentions various stories of Latter-day Saints who came to a disagreement with church leaders about things ranging from gay marriage to women’s rights. At the same time, some members chose to end their relationship with the church, while many others maintained their membership with hopes of advocating for their faith and beliefs internally. These beliefs, of course, are inherently tied to historical movements and the political climate of recent decades that has fostered an environment where those affiliated with the church are still able to be activists and engage politically in ways that they couldn’t prior. The reinvention of traditions, like the tradition of a strong maintained relationship between a church and an individual in the case of the Latter-day Saints, is only possible with external circumstances that encourage a change of thought.
While analyzing two individual case studies of minority religions and how they reinvent traditions in the United States, it is also incredibly important to recognize that the majority religion, Christianity, has found ways to reinvent and evolve tradition as a result of the fervent changes of political and civic life in America through the decades. The reinvention of traditions exists in all religious spaces. However, Christianity’s privilege of being the majority religion is that adapting to the inherent need for modernity is more covert and less extreme. Kristin Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne explores the evolution of White Evangelical Christianity and how, over recent years, practices and traditions within the denomination have evolved and adapted through several means. In concurrence with post-war America, she draws upon how various features of Evangelicalism in America, including heroic white manhood and masculinity, family values, gender roles, and more, have evolved slowly to maintain traction and consistent support from followers in both the political and cultural spheres of American life. This consistency allows for sources of authority in Evangelicalism– pastors, politicians, and celebrities such as John Wayne to maintain power and popularity and mobilize Evangelical communities towards different agendas. Even combining religious traditions and practices with resurgent nationalism during the Cold War created unifying rhetoric that allowed Evangelicals to feel concurrently patriotic and religiously moral against Communism. Reinventing tradition in these spaces, as Du Mez discusses, is vastly different because of how widely popular and well-supported Evangelicalism was. Compared to Hinduism or the Church of Latter-day Saints, the reinvention of traditions in Evangelicalism follows a more subtle evolutionary path because of being a part of a majority religion in the United States. There are no challenges in adapting the overlapping religious and cultural practices in Hinduism or how specific movements can drastically separate a follower from the church’s structure of authority like in the Church of Latter-day Saints. While there are evident changes in tradition and practices within Evangelicals, there has been more bandwidth to reinvent traditions and evolve in subtle ways to respond to both political and social movements in the United States.
Ultimately, the reinvention of religious traditions and practices are inherent to an ever-changing society. Without modernity and adapting to changes in civic, political, and cultural atmospheres, it is hard to remain relevant and thrive in America. However, religious minority groups in the United States show a unique set of challenges and how they have adapted and reinvented their traditions. Culturally emphasized religions such as Hinduism have had to adapt to the changes they have in their religious spaces and how they celebrate and practice auspicious events. Other religious minority groups that have existed within American society, such as the Church of Latter-day Saints, have opted into reinventing traditions surrounding their sources of authority and how they engage with political and social movements in their faith. The future of all religions in the United States is in some way, shape, or form dependent on the reinvention of traditions, both to stay engaged and adapt to changing political and social circumstances but also to maintain a relevant connection between faith and community with their followers. Hinduism must adjust to the inherent changes that exist in a “host country,” and the Church of Latter-day Saints needs to reinvent its traditions for individuals to maintain their faith and membership in this space. While minority religions approach the reinvention of traditions in vastly different ways, one thing is clear: the reinvention of religious tradition and practice is an essential function of religion in the United States.
Works Cited:
Kobes, Kristin. Jesus and John Wayne : How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division Of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2020.
Narayan, Anjana and Bandana Purkayashta. “Modernity in the Service of Tradition.” Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans, edited by David K. Yoo and Khyati Y. Joshi, University of Hawai’i Press Honolulu, 2020, pp. 184–195
“The Rise of the Liberal Latter-Day Saints.” Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/09/27/rise-liberal-latter-day-saints/.
essay written for pple-314 (religion & politics in the u.s.) final exam
