Spiritual Beliefs Being Appropriation? How to not appropriate beliefs?

This!

OP, the problem is most often not what a person internally believes, but whether that belief is expressed in accountable and culturally/socially aware ways.

Worshipping a particular entity, following a certain personal practice, working on healing through specific modalities-- those aren't the problem so much as people who are 1. more privileged than the average practitioner of that tradition, and 2. less inherently familiar or culturally steeped in that tradition, doing the following:
- Taking up the mantle as spokesperson for that tradition/speaking for, and over, the peoples by whom that tradition is currently being tended and passed down
- Making money off of that tradition's practices or vying for positions of power (which includes 'whitewashing' and commodifying it)
- Spreading misinformation about the tradition/being uneducated on an authentic level, yet still asserting authority or injecting oneself in bigger issues that are not really about them
- Forcing themselves into spaces they are not welcome/insisting upon pursuing closed traditions

These are a few examples, anyway!

/r/religion Thread Parent