Due to the
diverse culture, people, and religious beliefs, each religion interacts with
each other in America, and meanwhile different religious beliefs shape the mainstream
of American religion. In addition, traditional religious beliefs have been
challenged by socio-cultural phenomenon of American life. Eastern religions
first came to America during nineteenth century; however, Americans have
expressed religious expansion in turning to Eastern religious forms, and
Eastern believers have shown expansiveness by adopting aspects of an American
religious style. [1] The spiritual figures from Eastern religions have become some
popular icons in American culture. The fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibetan
Buddhism (Theravada) has become one of most recognizable spiritual figures in
American society, and indeed Americans love Dalai Lama. [2] Furthermore, the
minority monks of Tibetan Buddhism have a special political mission fighting for
their physical, cultural and spiritual existence, which leads Tibetan Buddhism
into the public eye.
Many other
spiritual figures and religious beliefs from Eastern countries also have
impacted public and cultural realities of American life. Individual religious
figures (gurus, sages, swamis, masters, teachers) from a variety of ethnic background
point to a diverse filed of encounter, but they are homogenized within American
popular consciousness and culture. [3] Meanwhile, the diversity of races and
religious identities brought a social phenomenon-racialization of religion in
American society. Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam are three different belief
systems, but they share some of the major outcomes of racialization in America.
Some South Asian American Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims are a problematically
situated “other”-brown-skinned, non-Christians who are therefore multiple
foreign. [4] Besides, their own traditional practices, such as hijab among
Muslim women, kufi worn by Muslim men, and the bindi or forehead “dot” worn by
Hindu women, are some cultural markers of their religious identities in
American society. As a result, the distinction of different denominations
within each religion has been ignored. As racial similarity allows for the
presumption that Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam are theologically related, and
the shared phenomenon of brown skin erased the difference between Sunni and
Shi’a Islam. [5]
The first
Africans came to America from West Africa, and some of them believed Islam and
many of practitioners followed their traditional African religions. However,
the African-American religion had been strongly influenced by Western religions
in America. Due to the enslavement and
isolation of African-Americans from those who came from their community or
spoke their language, African-Americans reconstructed a new situation of their
religion with materials from Christian traditions and the religions of their
masters. [6] African-American religious ritual expresses spiritual beliefs with
God in gesture, dance, and song. There was correspondence that obtained between
African religions and Protestantism. For instance, in the emotional preaching
and ecstatic behavior of Baptist and Methodist revival services,
African-American slaves encountered a ritual equivalent to the spirit
possession ceremonies of Africa. [7] Gradually, many African-Americans who were
converted to Christians embraced American Protestantism. Nevertheless,
African-American Christians suffered some unequal rights in American society, which
prohibited them entering white churches.
The segregation of black and white churches signified the existence of
two Christianities, and the deep chasm divided them across racial lines in
American society during that period. [8]
When Christopher
Columbus first arrived in North America, he brought some “New Christians.” They
were Spanish Jews, and in fear of the Inquisition, they had converted to
Christianity. [9] Hence, the Western religious beliefs began to form and later
dominate American religious history. The Native Americans developed own
cultures and religious beliefs, but by sixteenth-century, Spanish Catholics and
French missionaries started “interruption” with religious beliefs and
theologies among Native Americans. Some
politically active Christians encouraged Native Americans to develop Theology
of Liberation against injustice in American society. [10] However, Christians had
a different way of going about the struggle for justice than most Native
Americans in a variety ways. The liberation theology preoccupied with Exodus
story was inappropriate way for Native Americans to think about liberation.
[11] In addition, religious combination occurred between Native American
religions and Christianity. Different from traditional Native American beliefs
and practices, they added some Catholic ceremonies on the ceremonial calendars
in the various pueblos during eighteenth-and nineteenth-centuries. [12]
Meanwhile, some new religious practices of Native American occurred in American
religious history, and government passed American Indian Religious Freedom Act
that allows Native Americans to have own religious beliefs and practices.
Diverse
traditions and religious beliefs shape the structure of American religions. The
public and socio-cultural realities of American life also challenge traditional
religions from different countries in American society. Meanwhile, many new
religious practices and denominations have been created in American religious
history.
--------------------------------------
1.
Catherine L. Albanese,
"Manyness: Patterns of Expansion and Contraction" in American
Religions & Religion, (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 1999), 205.
2.
Jane Naomi Iwamura, “The Oriental
Monk In American Popular Culture” in Religion
and Popular Culture in America, edited by Bruce David Forbes and Jeffery H.
Mahan, (California: UC Press 2000), 26.
3.
Iwamura, 27.
4.
Khyati Y. Joshi, “The Racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and
Sikhism in the United States” in Equity
& Excellence in Education, (Routledge, 2006), 214.
5.
Joshi, 220.
6.
Albanese, 140.
7.
Albert J. Raboteau, “A Fire in the
Bones” in Reflections on African-American
Religious History, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 189.
8.
Rabotrau, 188.
9.
Albanese, 42.
10. Robert
Allen Warrior, “Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians Deliverance, Conquest, and
Liberation Theology Today” in Native and Christian Indigenous Voices on
Religious Identity in the United States and Canada, edited by James Treat,
(London: Rouledge, 1996), 94.
11. Warrior,
95.
12. Albanese,
36.
