GLOBĀLĀ TEOLOĢIJA UN RELIĢIJAS HIBRIDIZĀCIJA: PLURĀLISMS VERSUS EKSKLUZĪVISMS
GLOBAL THEOLOGY AND HYBRIDIZATION OF RELIGION: PLURALISM VERSUS EXCLUSIVISM

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to the question of double or multireligious belonging and global theology. Multireligious belonging means that a person being an adherent of one religion can also practice another one. Joantine Berghuijs, a Dutch expert in the field, has defined multireligious belonging as the involvement in one or more aspects of a foreign religious tradition. Religion has nine aspects: affinity, practice and material culture, holidays, ideology, narrative, origin, experience, ethics, social participation, and self-identification. Berghuijs notes that multireligious belonging doesn’t mean a person should be completely involved in foreign religious traditions. Usually, he/she does not participate in the life of the religious institution but rather chooses aspects of the religion, such as individual practice, material culture or affinity with the religion. Global theology supports the paradigm of multireligious belonging. According to it, the world’s religious traditions are experiencing the process of hybridization on a global scale. This means the borders among various religions disappear, giving way to a plural culture space. This short research is supposed to dispute the idea of radical hybridization of religions on the global scale. Making use of phenomenological structural analysis the context of the three world religions, i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, is discussed. Even though mentioned religious traditions are supposed to convert all peoples, in practice those are radically intolerant to other religions and foreign ethnic groups. The episodes of intolerance are supported by argumentation suggested by Russian theologians and experts in religious studies. The first episode of the exclusivist attitude concerns Buddhism. Aleksander Agajanian underscores that in Europe a new Western form of Buddhism coexists with the archaic, i.e., ethnic one. The old Buddhism dominates and is not involved in global processes. A similar situation can be noticed in Russian cities. Buddhists from Buryatia, Kalmykia, or Tuva establish their own communities and do not mix with Russian neophytes. Hence, the traditional Sangha is linked to ethnic identification. Similarly, there are episodes of exclusivism in Islam. Leon Moosavi underscored that the attitude of ethnic Muslims toward Western converts in Great Britain is negative. They think that Europeans involved in Islam are hypocrites. Knowledge of the Arabic language is one of the most important criteria determining the authentic belonging to Islam. English converts, on the other hand, demand that their status in Islam is recognized in order they are not expelled from the community. Therefore, belonging to the authentic Islam is linked to the ethnic self-identification. Immigrants from Islamic countries try to be involved in familiar religious institutions to keep and translate their religious and ethnic values. Usually, they do not accept the local values and integrate the European society with great difficulty. Russian Orthodox exclusivism is interesting because of its argumentation. Not only participants of Orthodox tradition but also Russian experts in religious studies take part in the discussion. In contrast with the argumentation of Perry Schmidt-Leukel in favour of interreligious or global theology, the expert in Indology V. Shokhin stresses that a religious tradition can’t be enriched by other religions and simultaneously preserve its borders. He considers that exclusivism is a healthy form of resistance against foreign cultural influences. S. Horuzhy underscores the incompatibility of anthropological patterns in various religions, whereas V.V. Shmidt thinks that any religious idea or practice taken out of its cultural context secularizes and thus loses its sacred meaning. The mentioned episodes of religious exclusivism and arguments in favour of it show that the endeavour to cultivate the phenomenon of multireligious belonging and to create theology without walls is the evidence of a religious crisis in Europe when local Christianity is no longer vital and ready to accept the elements of other religions. These processes have nothing in common with the pluralization of religions on a global scale.

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