Omen of Compassion
May 10, 2010 
4 Comments
After living in New York I moved to Spokane during the first of two winters which were soon referred to as “The Snowpocalypse.” (Religious terminology is everywhere!) When I arrived I did what many newly-minted Spokanites do, I went church shopping. My only requirement was that I had to agree with the bumper stickers on the cars in the parking lot.
Spokane is like one of those hologram pictures that you got in the Cracker Jack box as a kid. If you hold it one way it appears to be one image, yet when you shift your viewing angle you get an entirely different scene. There are so many layers, so many different expressions of faith here I am often pleasantly surprised by their diversity.
Just the other day I was treating myself to a little retail adventure in a lovely second hand store called Area 58. Such thrifty retro shops renew my imagination and invite me to remember a past to which I did not belong. You can always find something strange and interesting in these eclectic stores. This time I found a statue of Guan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion. I thought to myself, “How oddly fantastic! A statue of Guan Yin in Spokane!”
Despite the fact that the majority of local churches are some branch of Christian, Spokane is the kind of place where non-Christian religious relics may be found. The ideal of religious pluralism is to have many different religions on the ground, with the people who profess them living more or less peacefully with each other. This does not dilute the essence of the different faiths as some deterrents might claim, rather it can enhance the perspectives and worldviews of people where religious pluralism is thriving. Not to mention it makes for far more interesting thrift shopping.
About the Author
Theologist wrote:
“When I arrived I did what many newly-minted Spokanites do, I went church shopping. My only requirement was that I had to agree with the bumper stickers on the cars in the parking lot.”
So let me get this straight: You are going to trust your soul and it’s place in the hereafter base on bumper stickers in a parking lot?
Hmmmmmm.
Personally I tend to favor a more scientific approach to religion….
So, hi Spowind! thanks for commenting.
three things –
1 – Shorthand! Many people object to the idea of “church shopping,” and rightly so. Religion, contrary to how people behave, is in fact not a buffet line. Coming from New York, I thought that I would have problems fitting in. (Oddly enough, there are many New York ex-pats here!)
Because all religions and philosophies can be boiled down to pithy statements which can fit on a bumper sticker, placed on the back of one’s car, (sarcasm! my apologies) I figured looking at bumper stickers in the church parking lot might be the easiest, least invasive way to discern what churches I ought to visit. Truth be told, I already had a church in mind: the agreement with the bumper stickers was really a bonus.
2 – I thank you for your concern about my immortal soul. However, for many reasons, I am not particularly troubled by “the hereafter.” I imagine I will discuss this in further posts.
3 – what “scientific approach to religion” do you use? I’m very interested in hearing about it.
cheers, the theologist
Theologist –
My favorite actually Xian bumper sticker quotes a 12 year old mishearing the OT – “They will beat their swords into lawnchairs.”
Coming from a tradition that seems to need libraries to explain our understanding of faith as opposed to tracts, i understand your desire for making it pithy.
Also to those who aren’t so big into pluralism from a specifically Christian perspective, may i suggest reading Diana Eck?
Question – Regarding religious pluralism in our society, have you observed that much of it is a dominate culture appropriating other social locations in order to find meaning, or just be trendy? Because on my snarkier days, i sometimes wonder.
Jon,
I think the participants and institutions of dominant cultures are rarely, if ever, held accountable for their actions.
However, when people hold particularly strong beliefs, they tend to think they are the only ones with “the answers.” When these strong believers bump up against something foreign, they generally do one of many things:
reject e.g. “It’s HERESY! Heresy, I tell you!”, which can often result in serious aspersions cast on ‘the heretic’s character, and/or death;
assimilate This happens a lot, actually, and it tends to take decades, if not centuries. Like the pagan holidays which are now Christian holidays – Spring Equinox=Easter, Winter Solstice/Celebration of Mithras=Christmas, etc.); or
schism “Hey, we were doing great with our ‘traditional’ beliefs, but now that there’s this new knowledge/belief/event, we’re going to incorporate that into our system.” This is most apparent in the American religious history with the advent of Darwinism: there was the Scopes Trial, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial) sure, but there were also new branches of traditions, like Unity, and I think it also affected either the Unitarians or the Universalists somehow, but I can’t quite remember. Most recently, September 11th polarized Muslims all over the world into calling themselves “non-extremists” or “peaceful moderates,” especially to distinguish themselves from the fundamentalist extremist terrorist activities.
That being said, the goal of a healthy level of religious pluralism is for people of different religions to live together peacefully.
A little trendyness is probably unavoidable.