Skip to content
BY-NC-ND 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access January 13, 2017

Playing Many Religion-Games: a Wittgensteinian Approach to Multiple Religious Belonging

  • Rhiannon Grant EMAIL logo
From the journal Open Theology

Abstract

Using resources from Ludwig Wittgenstein and George Lindbeck, this paper develops a new conceptual tool for the understanding of religious identity: the ‘religion-game’. Although related to Wittgenstein’s language-games and drawing on Lindbeck‘s cultural-linguistic model of religion, this conceptual tool produces new results when applied to examples of multiple religious belonging. Drawing on the existing literature about the practice of multiple religious participation in Western countries, two realistic examples are developed at length and it is shown that the concept of a religion-game can help people to express their religious belonging in more positive ways. In particular, the many everyday choices made by people with more than one religious affiliation are clarified as choices to participate in some religion-games but not others. This de-emphasises the role of identity, often assumed to be singular, in religious belonging and enables an emphasis on behaviour which both fits with the turn towards ‘lived religion’ and permits a vivid and accurate account of the experience of at least two common paths to multiple religious belonging.

References

Carlson, Jeffrey. “Pretending to be Buddhist and Christian: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Two Truths of Religious Identity.” Buddhist-Christian Studies, 20: (2000), 115-25.10.1353/bcs.2000.0003Search in Google Scholar

Cornille, Catherine. “Double Religious Belonging: Aspects and Questions.” Buddhist-Christian Studies, 23: (2003), 43-49.10.1353/bcs.2003.0007Search in Google Scholar

Drew, Rose. Buddhist and Christian? An exploration of dual belonging. Oxford: Routledge, 2011.Search in Google Scholar

Goodman-Malamuth, Leslie and Margolis, Robin. Between Two Worlds: Choices for Grown Children of Jewish-Christian Parents. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.Search in Google Scholar

Goosen, Gideon. “An Empirical Study of Dual Religious Belonging.” Journal of Empirical Theology, 20: (2007), 159-78.10.1163/157092507X237327Search in Google Scholar

Goosen, Gideon. Hyphenated Christians: Towards a Better Understanding of Dual Religious Belonging. Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2011.10.3726/978-3-0353-0151-9Search in Google Scholar

Grant, Rhiannon. Wittgensteinian investigations of contemporary Quaker religious language. Leeds: University of Leeds, 2014.Search in Google Scholar

Knitter, Paul F. Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian. Oneworld, 2009.Search in Google Scholar

Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. London: SPCK, 1984.Search in Google Scholar

McGuire, Meredith B. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press via Amazon Kindle, 2008.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172621.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Miller, Susan Katz. Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family. Beacon Press, 2013.Search in Google Scholar

Rhees, Rush. “Wittgenstein’s Builders.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 60: (1960), 171-86.10.1093/aristotelian/60.1.171Search in Google Scholar

Rockquemore, Kerry Ann and Brunsma, David L. Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008.Search in Google Scholar

Sen, Amartya. Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. Amazon Kindle: Penguin Book, 2007.10.2307/j.ctvndv992Search in Google Scholar

Thatamanil, John J. “Eucharist Upstairs, Yoga Downstairs: On Multiple Religious Participation.” In Many Yet One? Multiple Religious Belonging, ed. P. J. R. Rajkumar and J. P. Dayam. Switzerland: WCC Publications, 2016.Search in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Chichester: Blackwell, 2009.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2016-3-24
Accepted: 2016-7-11
Published Online: 2017-1-13
Published in Print: 2017-1-26

© 2017

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Downloaded on 29.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/opth-2017-0001/html
Scroll to top button