A few years ago, a manifesto from a group describing themselves as the Unitarian Jihad appeared on the internet:
"There is only one God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favour of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary … "
The Unitarian Jihad is, of course, a spoof, but academia is increasingly starting to look at religious practices that go right – like the example above, bending over backwards to accommodate other faiths – rather than those that go wrong. In this context, "wrong" refers to things like terrorist offences, Northern Ireland and the more egregious forms of the southern Baptist denomination. "Right" is a little harder to pin down, but Glastonbury, where I live, is increasingly coming under the scrutiny of academia.
We have a lot of sacred sites here: the Chalice Well, the abbey, the tor, the Holy Thorn tree (prior to its guerrilla pruning), and the Glastonbury Zodiac. All of these have something in common – an extremely nebulous ontological role. Relatively few people (at least those with any sense) claim that Katherine Maltwood's landscape zodiac is objectively real, for example: it's a subjective interpretation of field boundaries and streams. The "labyrinth" around the tor is almost certainly a medieval field system. The Chalice Well and the White Spring were just that – water sources, and there's no evidence for any ancient pagan priesthood, still less priestesshood. King Arthur's bones are almost certainly not buried in the abbey grounds.
But what we are now seeing here is the use of all these sacred sites by different groups. Christians and pagans, Buddhists and new-agers all flock to the well, the tor and to the abbey. Each of them gleans a different meaning from the same phenomenon.
These places are multivalent, like a kaleidoscope that shifts when you turn it. Christians focus on Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail. Pagans focus on the goddess and the Arthurian mythos. Christians see an ancient seat of Christianity; pagans see an ancient seat of paganism (with rather less historical justification, but we're talking about belief here).
That in itself is interesting, but what is intriguing to academics is the relative lack of acrimony. These are "contested" spaces in that different groups lay claim to them, but it's less a fierce struggle for theological supremacy and more of an "after you/no, after you" dialogue. It's very British. There's none of the venom that attends contested sites such as the Wailing Wall. That's not to say that everyone is running around like Down with Skool's Fotherington-Thomas, bleating "Hullo trees" and hugging one other; it's more a case of politely ignoring other people.
This is partly due to the positive approach taken by the churches in Glastonbury and to those members of the pagan and other communities who regard diversity and tolerance as a necessity rather than as weakness of character. Increasingly, we're under the lens of academia to try to understand why this should be, but a fundamental belief in other people's right to practise their religion as they see fit, as long as that doesn't interfere with oneself, seems to be part of it. There isn't, as far as I know, a huge amount of dialogue between the various groups, but more of a belief in getting on with one's own thing, whatever that is, and leaving other people alone.
One might claim that the "multiverse" use of sacred space in certain modern pilgrimage sites is less a reflection of an increasingly pluralistic society and more of a case of not having enough room.
But Glastonbury isn't the only place where this happens. I once came across a building in Kazan, Russia, which was a mosque on Fridays and a church on Sundays. Everyone seemed happy with this arrangement, although you do wonder whether there were rows about using one another's mugs, for instance. I spoke to a researcher last week who commented on the blandness of current prayer rooms in airports, and he questioned whether this was really the way to go. Perhaps it's best to let people who demonstrate a mutual goodwill (rather than the fundamentalists of whatever persuasion) to just get on with it. In Glastonbury, at least, it seems to be working. The Unitarian Jihad would be proud.
