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A few months ago I participated in a Traditional Latin Mass<\/a>. More traditional-minded Catholics will genuflect when walking by or across the Host. As a non-Catholic I hadn\u2019t considered what I should do until I found myself walking next to it and had to make a snap decision. On one hand as somebody who doesn\u2019t believe that the Eucharist is God\u2019s literal flesh, I thought it would be insincere for me to briefly kneel to it, and perhaps patronizing to those who do believe that; on the other hand it was very clear that that was the expectation, and it could possibly be offensive if I just casually strolled next to their Holy of Holies. I genuflected, but more out of a reflexive desire to not make things awkward than some coherent, well-thought out philosophy of interfaith engagement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Interfaith activities where somebody of one faith participates in the rituals, ceremonies, or services of another faith are tricky. In principle they can be fruitful educational and diplomatic activities, and every year or so I try to take my children to another service<\/a><\/span>. However, they have to be done gingerly, and I haven\u2019t seen a really good systematic take on when it is okay or not okay to participate in the rituals, ceremonies, or services of other faiths, so here\u2019s my attempt to outline one after taking some time to think it through.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The particular risks of any interfaith activity can basically be captured in two categories.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, as Latter-day Saints we have \u201cVisitors Welcome\u201d on our chapels, and people are more than welcome to come observe us taking the sacrament or baptizing people. My understanding is that people are also welcome and even encouraged to participate in Lent or Ramadan even if they are not Catholic or Muslim. However, they would not be welcome to, say, take a seat in the corner and observe the Endowment in the same way that non-Muslims are not welcome to participate in the elements of the Hajj that take place in Mecca (or maybe any elements of the Hajj, I don’t know), non-Catholics aren’t supposed to take Mass, non-priests to say nothing of non-Shintos are not allowed in certain shrines, and the ancient Jews weren’t exactly giddy about Pompey entering the Holy of Holies.<\/span><\/p>\n The details downstream from # 1 seem pretty straightforward\u2013simply ask somebody of that faith what is or is not appropriate. Of course, what is appropriate varies a lot within faiths, what might be offensive to one person might be less offensive to others, but in principle I would err on the side of conservatism here and relying on more authoritative sources. For example, BYU\u2019s passover seders (I don’t know if they still do them) might not be offensive to many Jews, but there are enough that I’d probably just not do it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, when I offered extra credit for attending a religious service they had never been to before, a Catholic student of mine informed me that Catholics could not attend Protestant services, even if only in an observer role; this seemed odd to me, so I asked Catholic acquaintances that had attended Catholic seminary, and they were quite confused about what he could possibly be talking about, so while I err on the side of conservatism, by the same token I\u2019m not granting an automatic veto to anyone that might have an issue with my participation if it\u2019s clearly outside the Overton Window of authoritative sources within their tradition. <\/span>(<\/span>Even though it’s not related to participating in their rituals themselves, I also want to visit the Temple Mount some day, even though I think there are some Orthodox Jews who would rather I not–for some reason the fact that they are not in charge of it is not insignificant for me, although I can’t clearly articulate why). Of course, these are rather unique contexts; in general it\u2019s hard to go wrong by just asking.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0#2 is more complex and requires some thought. Generally, it revolves around the question of \u201cwhat am I denoting or implying by being involved in this?\u201d The distinction is important even if not terribly obvious. Removing one\u2019s shoes at a mosque clearly implies respect for, but not necessarily adherence to the Islamic faith. Participating in Holy Week festivities such as the waving of palms does not imply acceptance of the Nicean Creed. Those are easy; but in my TLM example, is genuflecting towards the Host an act of worship, and therefore I am literally engaged in worshiping a God I don’t believe in, or is it a sign of respect?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This can interact with #1. For example, I believe the Church\u2019s current policy is that non-members can take the sacrament when visiting our services. Because they aren’t baptized there aren’t covenants to renew, so for them it’s just bread and water (if I’m understanding our position correctly). This could have implications for #2. If a Protestant visiting our services is hesitant about participating in a ritual worshipping a non-trinitarian Mormon Jesus, it might make them more comfortable to know that, for us they’re not really participating, and for them it’s just bread and water. So the question of what does this ritual mean is not answered in a vacuum, but relies on what the faith in question says it means.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, there are cases where surreptitious modifications can non-awkwardly resolve #2. Here I\u2019m thinking specifically of the practice in some Christian congregations of reciting the Nicean and\/or Apostolic Creeds. If you’re Johnny-on-the-spot and know your theology, you can discreetly go silent at the appropriate parts on the fly without being obnoxious. (Pope Francis and Pope Benedict did something along these lines when <\/span>they omitted the <\/span>Filioque<\/span><\/i><\/a>, a controversial part of the Nicene Creed, when reciting the creed while visiting Eastern Orthodox leaders, although in that case it was for diplomatic, #1 reasons).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In summary, if participation by a non-member is okay for the mainstream of the membership and its religious leaders, and participation does not imply any beliefs or devotions that I do not subscribe to (which again can be complicated), then I would feel comfortable participating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few months ago I participated in a Traditional Latin Mass. More traditional-minded Catholics will genuflect when walking by or across the Host. As a non-Catholic I hadn\u2019t considered what I should do until I found myself walking next to it and had to make a snap decision. On one hand as somebody who doesn\u2019t believe that the Eucharist is God\u2019s literal flesh, I thought it would be insincere for me to briefly kneel to it, and perhaps patronizing to those who do believe that; on the other hand it was very clear that that was the expectation, and it could possibly be offensive if I just casually strolled next to their Holy of Holies. I genuflected, but more out of a reflexive desire to not make things awkward than some coherent, well-thought out philosophy of interfaith engagement.\u00a0 Interfaith activities where somebody of one faith participates in the rituals, ceremonies, or services of another faith are tricky. In principle they can be fruitful educational and diplomatic activities, and every year or so I try to take my children to another service. However, they have to be done gingerly, and I haven\u2019t seen a really good systematic take on when it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":48154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comparative-religion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dp-261060-22.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48152"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50287,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48152\/revisions\/50287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n