Religious diversity talks about the glaring differences which are common world over among religious beliefs and practices. Religious diversity is recognized and appreciated even by people in the smallest and minority communities. There are pluralistic exclusivist, and inclusivist theories concerning religious and spiritual diversity (Freist, 2016). Pluralistic theorists have it that in diverse religions, any religion serves as much good as the other (Freist, 2016). Contrastingly, exclusivist theorists argue that there must one religion has to be more valuable than the other. Inclusivist approach tries to arrive at a middle ground among all the religions in that the virtues of every religion can be used to build one humongous religious establishment.
The first theme in religious diversity is representation. As argued by Freist (2016), when we consider representation, we have to consider diversity within religions as well as between religions. Diversity between particular religions can be very different. From a theoretical co-religionists perspective, all religions of the world vary, be it Catholicism, Muslims, Protestants or Buddhists. The second theme useful in understanding religion and spirituality better is cultural identity. The engagement of the members of spiritual and religious groups do not always reflect what they hold most but rather the beliefs of the cultures they identify with (McKim, 2015). Explained better, immigrant families will identify their beliefs with the traditions of their countries of origin. The third theme which contributes to diversity in religion and spirituality is the geographical location (Richards & Bergin, 2014). According to Richards and Bergin (2014), people will identify with the religion which they find being practiced in the areas they grow up in and that means that certain religions are only found in specific regions and not others. Suffice to say that religion is region-motivated.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
A Christian counselor would need to approach counseling from a multicultural multi-religious lens as those seeking counseling services are often coming from diverse religious backgrounds (Garzon, Lewis Hall, & Ripley, 2014). One of the biggest challenges in Christian counseling would be to accommodate the views of the people being counseled who do not necessarily have to be Christians while they remain rooted in their religion.
References
Freist, D. (2016). Living with religious diversity in early-modern Europe . Routledge.
Garzon, F. L., Lewis Hall, M. E., & Ripley, J. S. (2014). Teaching Christian integration in psychology and counseling courses. Journal of Psychology and Theology , 42 (2), 131-135.
McKim, R. (2015). Religious ambiguity and religious diversity . Oxford University Press.
Richards, P., & Bergin, A. E. (2014). Handbook of psychotherapy and religious diversity . American Psychological Association.
