Religious Syncretism: Combining Beliefs, Conflicting Polytheism - Essay Sample

Introduction

Religious syncretism involves the combining of two or more religious faith into a new structure or the introduction of beliefs from different religions in one's religious tradition and practice. The concept of multiple religious affiliation and polytheism, respectively, conflicts with religious syncretism. Religious syncretism usually occurs in places where there are many religious beliefs in close proximity and actively work in society, or when religion is conquered by other superior conquerors (Capone 480). The conquerors may also bring with them their religious convictions and beliefs. Still, they struggle to eliminate the old beliefs or, in particular, the customs in the areas they conquer. In a phenomenon called religious syncretism, religions, traditions, and practices bounce off and mix.

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Some of Haitian Vodou's customs and practices are the consequence of the syncretism that occurred when the French colonial powers forcefully transformed slaves of West African to Christianity in the colonies of the West Indies. Rather than converting entirely to Christianity, the African slaves disguised their religion and values as legitimate Catholic saints. Many examples of religious syncretism include Gnosticism (a dualistic belief philosophy incorporating elements from the sects of the Oriental mystery), Judaism, Christianity, and the theological ideas of Greek faith (Capone 483). During the Hellenistic period, these religions were particularly prevalent. Some of the reasons which contribute to religious syncretism include, among others, cultural exchange, the expansion of classical empires, and trade networks.

Religious syncretism did not emerge in the former southeastern slave-holding territories of the U.S. because the African customs and values had deeply invested in these areas. These slaves did not want to give up their faith to practice other religions. For example, the Protestants had heavily dominated these areas, while the southern and western parts of the state were primarily Catholic. It was hard to convert these sects because they believed deeply in their faith (Capone 479). African theological beliefs and practices at the start of the transatlantic slave trade were diverse and varied. There were some common traits throughout ethnic groups, given diversity.

For example, Western African cultures, America's largest slave source, held a belief in a Supreme God, a supreme deity among the lesser gods to whom they stood up and made sacrifices. West Africans sought a cohesive balance between both the natural and religious worlds via laws and customs meant to honor the gods, the ancestors of one's people, and the elderly. Moreover, they found music and dance to be crucial elements of their rites of worship. Oppressed men and women kept Africa's traditions, practices, and cosmological models alive in America through tales, healing arts, songs, and other modes of religious practice, establishing a sacred space beyond the White European World (Gavrilova 237). Missionaries operating in the South were particularly dissatisfied with the slave preservation of traditions like polygamy in Africa and what they considered heretical dancing.

In reality, even blacks in America who embraced Christianity did not abandon the Old World religion altogether. Instead, they participated in syncretism, combining Christian traditions with traditional African rituals and creeds. Symbols and objects, such as crosses, have been paired with charms held by Africans to protect against evil spirits. Throughout the New World, African spirituality and Christianity mergers have led to distinct new traditions among slave communities, including Voodoo or vodun throughout Haiti and Louisiana in Spain (Gavrilova 243). While African theological effects among the Northern blacks were also significant, exposure to Old World faiths was more extreme in the South, where the black population concentration was more significant.

Looking at the differences in the systems of slavery in English-speaking and non-English speaking parts of the Americas provides better insight in understanding religious syncretism. These systems exhibit how different slaves reacted to religions that different colonialists tried to impose on them. Other slaves were forced to adopt Christianity, while others were forced to adopt Buddhism and Islamic, among other religions (Gavrilova 245). Slaves in different places adopted doctrines that they master commanded them to follow. On the contrary, other African American slaves did not fully embrace such religions as they still followed the African cultures that they had adopted from their ancestors.

Paper Two

Voodoo is a magical word linked to various stereotypes, negative connotations, and misunderstandings that help clarify the mystery in religion. In the film "Divine Horsemen," Voodoo or Vodoun is the chosen term for faith. Voodoo is a dramatized parody of like on pop-culture, an African-Caribbean religion rooted in Haiti, with adherents in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the United States, and the world at large. Voodoo aims to cultivate and nurture fear among people that makes them obey those beliefs without challenging them (Roberts 671). People tend to be scared of the unknown. Voodoo is used to scare off, and its (Hoodoo) rituals are depicted as evil. Voodoo is exhibited in several horror / dramatic tension films, for instance, "Devine Horsemen," which has come into American pop society through music, movies, art, and other media.

By using the word "baggage," Luke meant that people are forced to believe in the religion that they are not willing to practice by being subjected to unnecessary fear. The baggage of prejudices, mints, and misconceptions and negative connotations attached to Voodoo makes people engage in such religious acts since they fear the unknown. Both persons in both religions worship a divine being and believe in a life after death and the presence of unseen evil spirits or demons (Roberts 680). Often, each religion centers its rituals on a central point, e.g., a Catholic altar, a pillar, or a tree in Voodoo. In Haitian Vodou, Papa Legba is a loa that acts as the conduit between the loa and humanity. He stands at a sacred crossroads and offers or declines authorization to communicate with Guinean spirits, and it is assumed that all human languages are spoken. He's the best elocutioner in Haiti. DAMBALLAH is the most famous Voodoo deity with the world as a whole. Even this demon lord who covers the Earth was the creator of humans and gods and governed wisdom and life-force.

Religions may have syncretic components that justify syncretism and syncretic religion to their values or tradition. The terms of syncretism and syncretic religion apply to Vodoun in that it poses baggage, which determines how people will behave towards the adoption of religious practices intended to change their norms and spiritual practice (Rodell 325). But followers of so-called systems often frown at applying the mark, particularly adherents belonging to disclosed religious systems, such as the Abrahamic sects, or any system exhibiting an exclusivist method. Often these adherents see syncretism as a violation of their pureness. By this rationale, incorporating an inconsistent belief destroys the original religion, making it no longer true. Indeed, opponents of a particular syncretistic phenomenon may often use the word "syncretism" as a derogatory epithet, as an accusation suggesting that those who try to integrate a new view, belief, or practice into a religious system to distort the original faith (Rodell 328). According to Keith Ferdinando, the result is a catastrophic violation of the legitimacy of the dominant religion. On the other hand, non-exclusive belief systems feel very free to integrate different beliefs into their own.

Creolization seems similar to syncretism in that both processes involve the incorporation of foreign cultures, customs, and practices into people's lives, which changes their ways of life. Syncretism entails various types of religion, where new concepts, gods, and cultures are introduced into a pre-existing structure. On the other hand, creolization is the result of the introduction of African American cultures in the Modern World (Stewart 11). There was a combination of native, African, and European descent as a result of conquest, which came to be known as creolization. Creolization takes place when individuals select specific aspects from incoming or acquired cultures, according to sociologist Robin Cohen; endow them with meanings that are different from those they acquired in the initial cultures (Stewart 15). Then these people radically combine these to form new types that surpass the forms that preceded them.

The creation of new religious practices and customs in creolization makes it different from the syncretism process, which includes the adoption of spiritual practices of their colonies without superseding prior cultures. English developed into Gullah, Jamaican Creole, Guyanese Creole, and Hawaiian Creole (Stewart 17). Also, creolization requires a two-way cycle of lowering and lending that produces a new shared community that is open-ended, multicultural, versatile, and mobile. Unlike syncretism, creolization promotes multinational and transcultural efficiencies, rather than regional or intercultural.

Creolization is a better anthropological analysis of religion since it allows people to choose specific essentials from incoming or inherited cultures, which seem too favorable to them. These people will then endow these elements, traditions, and customs, which are different from those they acquired in the original beliefs, and then innovatively use these elements to come up with new cultures and forms which are much better than the previous ones (Stewart 6). People have an opportunity to choose which components they feel to be worthy of being adopted, unlike as it is in the syncretism process. Anthropologists argue that creolization is a significant characteristic of cultural globalization as it provides a more comprehensive argument of new understandings of creolization in most parts of the world, including Brazil, Africa, and the U.S.

Creolization provides better guidelines that are important in various anthropological studies as compared to syncretism, which is biased. According to anthropologists, creolization is a discipline that explains better aspects of colonialism and mass movement of people from one point to another. People have an opportunity to adopt practices that they deem necessary to them (Stewart 19). They have the freedom to emerge their new practices without any restriction, unlike it is in the synchronization process. These aspects highlighted in the creolization process places creolization learners, who engage in the anthropology analysis, a better place anthropologically.

Works Cited

Capone, Stefania. "Re-Africanization in Afro-Brazilian Religions: Rethinking Religious Syncretism." Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. Brill, 2017. 473-488.

Gavrilova, Yulia, et al. "Religious syncretism as a sociocultural factor of social security in cross-border regions." Mental Health, Religion & Culture 21.3 (2018): 231-245.

Roberts, Kodi. "The Secret and Irreligious Doctrines of Voodooism: Institutionalization versus Cultural Stigma in New Orleans Civil Court." Journal of Church and State 60.4 (2018): 661-680.

Rodell, Paul A. "A syncretic culture." Routledge Handbook of the Contemporary Philippines. Routledge, 2018. 321-329.

Stewart, Charles. "Creolization: history, ethnography, theory." Creolization. Routledge, 2016. 9-33.