ABSTRACT
Modern criticisms of religious individualism fault contemporary seekers for their heterodox and insufficient loyalties to religious traditions and communal religiosity. Robert Bellah’s presentation of “Sheila Larson” in the 1985 book Habits of the Heart exemplifies this criticism, interpreting Sheila as an illustration of the accelerating privatization of religion in late twentieth-century America and privatization’s accompanying ignorance of spiritual traditions. Drawing upon two of the author’s own experiences in which normative institutional affiliations and formal typological categories failed to account for the fluctuations within ecumenical dialogue and interreligious theology, this chapter provides a more sympathetic understanding of Sheila. Incorporating Kurt Richardson’s claim that subjectivity does not necessarily entail relativism, I argue that religious individualism provides a potential boost to ecumenical and interreligious relations. There is value in beginning dialogues with the experience of participants rather than normative doctrines that for many contemporary people have been declining in plausibility. In a society dominated by global capitalism, theologians should appreciate how rational-choice theories of religion, even those that explicitly use consumerist paradigms, can give needed attention to the inescapable reality of human agency in choosing, discarding, or syncretizing religious affiliations.
