Then, still sitting on cushions on the floor, its members say blessings over candles, and the rabbi gives a sermon. New Jersey s Episcopal Bishop John Spong triggered a storm in 1996 when he suggested Christians adopt a midrashic, or interpretive Jewish, approach to reading the New Testament. When the Methodists revised their Book of Worship in 1992, they discussed including both Jewish and Native American festivals in their liturgy, though they ultimately included neither. The Unitarian Universalists officially made paganism part of their world view in 1995, thus giving Judy Ellis, a minister's daughter and nursery-school teacher in Wellfleet, Mass., the opportunity to observe Imbolc, a pagan festival, in her church last week. I like a more spontaneous, joyful experience of the sacred.
Many traditionalists remain just that, saying the spiritual hybrids are inauthentic.
Some of these critics accuse practitioners of what amounts to spiritual tourism. It s not OK to be a Jew and a protestant or a Jew and a Catholic, says Rabbi Jerome Epstein, chief executive officer of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. And it s not OK to be a Jew and a Buddhist. She says she was especially rankled at year s annual meeting when a minister from New Mexico led the assembly in a Native American prayer, with soothing sounds and movement.