Being Fluent in Two Religions

Abstract

This article uses George Lindbeck's cultural-linguistic model of religion and the subsequent analogy between religion and language to explore issues arising from practices of dual or multiple religious belonging. Taking the concept of 'fluency' in religion as a way of thinking about degrees of belonging, it looks at the available sociological evidence about dual religious (mainly Buddhist-Christian) belonging and seeks to reinterpret the issues involved in light of the religion-as-language analogy. This analogy opens up new perspectives on sociological information about multiple religious belonging and reframes potential theological issues with it. The article weaves together sociological observations and theoretical ideas coming from a theological background to show how seeing 'belonging' in the light of 'fluency' can usefully reshape understandings of multiple religious belonging.