Lost in Translation? Multiple Religious Participation and Religious Fidelity

Religious rituals and practices are an advantageous context for interfaith engagement and building dialogical relations. Some scholars argue that participating in another religion's practices and/or rituals is an integral component of interfaith dialogue and interaction. Leonard Swidler suggests that in order for comprehensive dialogue to occur one must "pass over and return," that is, experience one's dialogue partner from within that person's tradition and then return to one's own tradition enriched. Since a religious tradition is cognitive assent not solely to beliefs and doctrines but also to sacred rituals and practices, then one needs to participate to sonic extent in a religion's practices in order to experience the emotional and symbolic impact of that tradition. This experience carries the potential to enrich one's own spiritual life and the practice of one's own religious tradition. In a sense, one "translates" practices and rituals from another religion into one's own spiritual life. Here, Holmes discusses multiple religious participation and religious fidelity.