Christian and Sikh

A Practical Theology of Multiple Religious Participation

John Barnett

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781789591453
• eBook ISBN: 9781789591477
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

The growing number of mixed-faith families and personal cross-faith explorations is leading to a fluidity in religious engagement that would once have been considered undesirable or even impossible. This book gives unprecedented practical content to the reality of multiple religious participation, balancing and challenging the more theoretical descriptions that are developing.

The author, a Christian priest and practical theologian, has spent several years worshipping as a Sikh while continuing in his Christian ministry, and has made this the basis of a sustained piece of autoethnographic reflection. His frank presentation of the challenges and the joys he encountered is in places deeply personal but also engages with the expectations of the communities with which he was involved, and the widest themes of religious identity and loyalty. The author's own experience is supplemented by interviews with others who relate to both Sikhi and Christianity, by focus groups with colleagues, and by wide reading related to the issues involved. He encourages us to take part in similar boundary-crossing, reflecting in our own lives the self-giving friendliness of God.

Notes

1 I have followed the practice of using “Sikhi” (also spelled Sikkhi) instead of “Sikhism” to indicate awareness of the multiple ways of being Sikh and the complexity of Sikh identity beyond religious belief.

2 Although my mother’s grandmother came from a well-to-do family of bakers in Worcester, sharing their reserved pew in the cathedral until she eloped with the postman to Birmingham.

3 J. A. T. Robinson, Honest to God (London: SCM Press, 1963).

4 From my own note at the time. Any quotation without an attached reference is from my own notes of various occasions and meetings made near the time.

5 Smethwick Galton Bridge station, if you are reading this.

6 Which as well as Wolverhampton itself includes Walsall, West Bromwich and some other parts of the Black Country, as well as areas of South Staffordshire including Lichfield and Tamworth. I was later also appointed interfaith adviser to the Bishop of Lichfield.

7 “Interfaith” is the term used by the Church of England. I use it here in the narrower context of professional discussion, but generally prefer the term “interreligious”, as acknowledging the broader communal and cultural aspects of the engagement.

8 L. Casey, A Review into Opportunity and Integration (London: Department of Communities and Local Government, 2016), p. 149, her quotation marks.

9 S. Vukalić, “The Courage to Remember”, in Remembering Srebrenica, available at <https://www.srebrenica.org.uk/survivor-stories/the-courage-to-remember-safet-vukalic/>, accessed 3 March 2018.

10 M. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), p. 282.

11 J. R. Barnett, “Christian Dream Interpretation: Awakening the Interest of Practical Theologians”, in N. Rooms and Z. Bennett (eds), Practical Theology in Progress: Showcasing an Emerging Discipline (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018).

12 Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) Temple, Tividale.

13 R. Eddo-Lodge, Why I am No Longer Talking to White People about Race, extended edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 19–20.

14 J. V. Bragt, “Multiple Religious Belonging of the Japanese People”, in C. Cornille (ed.), Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), pp. 7–19, p. 10.

15 S. K. Miller, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).

16 J. Geldhof, “Epilogue: Inter-riting as a Peculiar Form of Love”, in M. Moyaert and J. Geldhof (eds), Ritual Participation and Interreligious Dialogue: Boundaries, Transgressions and Innovations (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 218–23, here at pp. 222–3.

17 A state reflecting movements of people from many different ethnicities, languages and nations and a growing complexity about where, how and with whom people live.

18 T. Ryan, Interreligious Prayer: A Christian Guide (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2008), p. 1.

19 Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Meeting God in Friend and Stranger (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2010), p. 51, available at <https://familyofsites.bishopsconference.org.uk/plain/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/meeting-god-friend-stranger.pdf>, accessed 7 July 2020.

20 P. J. R. Rajkumar (ed.), Current Dialogue 57 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2015), available at <https://www.oikoumene.org/en/what-we-do/current-dialogue-magazine/currentdialogue57.pdf>, accessed 27 October 2017; P. Jesudason, R. Rajkumar and J. P. Dayam (eds), Many Yet One? Multiple Religious Belonging (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2016).

21 P. Jesudason, R. Rajkumar and J. P. Dayam, “Introduction”, in P. Jesudason, R. Rajkumar and J. P. Dayam (eds), Many Yet One?, pp. 1–4 at p. 4.

22 Church of England Inter-Faith Consultative Group, Multi-Faith Worship? Questions and Suggestions from the Inter-Faith Consultative Group (London: Church House Publishing, 1992).

23 Presence and Engagement (2017), Clergy Experiences of Evangelism and Witness in Multi-Faith Contexts. A Presence and Engagement Research Project, May–July 2016, pp. 3f., available at <https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019–05/P%26E%20Evangelism%20and%20Witness%20Report.pdf>, accessed 7 July 2020.

24 See in Chapter 8 the difficulties felt over this issue by interfaith advisers.

25 C. Lewis, “The Argument for Interfaith Prayer and Worship”, in C. Lewis and D. Cohn-Sherbok (eds), Interfaith Worship and Prayer: We Must Pray Together (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019), pp. 17–31.

26 R. Hooker and C. Lamb, Love the Stranger: Christian Ministry in Multi-Faith Areas (London: SPCK, 1986); A. Wingate, Celebrating Difference, Staying Faithful: How to Live in a Multi-Faith World (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 2005); C. Chapman, Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenges of Islam, second edition (Nottingham: InterVarsity Press, 2007); R. Sudworth, Distinctly Welcoming: Christian Presence in a Multifaith Society (Bletchley: Scripture Union, 2007); R. Gaston, A Heart Broken Open: Radical Faith in an Age of Fear (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2009); T. Wilson, Hospitality, Service, Proclamation: Interfaith Engagement as Christian Discipleship (London: SCM Press, 2019); A. Smith, Vibrant Christianity in Multifaith Britain (Abington: BRF, 2018).

27 D. Premawardhana, “The Unremarkable Hybrid: Aloysius Pieris and the Redundancy of Multiple Religious Belonging”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 46:1 (2011), pp. 76–89; P. F. Knitter, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985); C. Geffré...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Why multiple religious participation matters
• Settling in
• Holding it together
• Challenges
• Community identities
• Becoming different
• What’s in a name?
• Changing interfaith practice
• An imaginative interlude
• The friendliness of God
• Taking stock
• Coda
• Under the bonnet
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Notes