Reporting on the New Syncretism

During my years in Egypt I often visited Coptic Orthodox churches. I have always enjoyed the atmosphere and liturgy in the churches and the dedication among faithful believers. However, I was often puzzled by the number of Muslim women (with headscarves) coming to that Christian church, and staying to pray for some time.

What was really going on? Where they Christians in hiding, or was this something else?

Some Coptic Orthodox friends gave me an interesting explanation. They said the women were married but childless, and they were desperately praying to become pregnant. Coptic Orthodox churches were commonly known in that area to be special places to pray for fertility.

It turns out that the behavior I witnessed is not at all unusual. Muslims often participate in Christian festivals in honor of holy men and women from the past (called Mulids). Indeed, some of the women may well experience answers to their prayers, due to a (often very private) belief in Jesus as Christ or a Christian saint.

Local ‘folk religion’ practices around the world frequently feature customs and cultural traditions mixed with the theological framework of the ‘official’ religion. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are strongly monotheistic and make a strong claim of being the only true faith. Most other religions - particularly in Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - have large parts of their population saying they adhere to more than one religion.

“More and more individuals confess to being partly Jewish and partly Buddhist, or partly Christian and partly Hindu, or fully Christian and fully Buddhist...In the wider history of religion, multiple religious belonging may have been the rule rather than the exception, at least on a popular level,” writes Catherine Cornille in the introductory chapter of “Many Mansions?: Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity”.

As the role of religion gains strength in societies worldwide, journalists also face a growing challenge of reporting on religious issues in societies where people say they believe more than one religion to be true.

U.S. religious landscape changes

According to a recent survey from the Pew Forum, one-third of Americans (35%) say they regularly (9%) or occasionally (26%) attend religious services at more than one place, and most of these (24% of the public overall) indicate that they sometimes attend religious services of a faith different from their own. Aside from when they are traveling and special events like weddings and funerals, three-in-ten Protestants attend services outside their own denomination, and one-fifth of Catholics say they sometimes attend non-Catholic services.

Many also blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects. And sizeable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts, according to the December 2009 report.