Towards a Sociological Framework of Religious Syncretism in the United States

Survey data show that Americans are increasingly likely to combine and mix religious traditions and forge a more multidimensional religious path than the one they inherited from their families and/or communities. In this article, I offer four theoretical propositions about the social and organizational conditions that influence how religious syncretism occurs in this country. Specifically, I suggest that individuals have a particular "cultural availability" towards other religious traditions, or a socially and historically produced inclination towards trying out, borrowing from, or practicing other traditions. In the first three propositions, I show how this cultural availability is shaped by an individual's social location, religious history, and group perceptions about religious beliefs and practices. In the final proposition, I consider how the organizational rules of religious communities constrain or enable an individual to act on these inclinations. These propositions, taken together, provide new insight about who religiously mixes with whom, under what circumstances, and why.