ABSTRACT
Surprising as it may seem, such radical departures are probably largely unnoticed by the host community. One might compare the phenomenon of religious adaptation with what often happens when a work of art is copied or forged. The copy may look identical to the generation in whose time it was copied, but with hindsight copying is more readily detected. This is because a generation has its own sets of conventions and expectations, to which it is so close and so attached that much of the time it is not even apparent what these conventions and presuppositions actually are. A similar phenomenon occurs when religious migration takes place: the new host culture often does not recognize that it is superimposing its own ways of seeing the world on the incoming religion. Those who are being asked to embrace the new immigrant religion for the first time may be unfamiliar with that religion and not understand even its fundamental teaching. And it is often unclear whether an indigenous practice is compatible with the incoming religion, whether it is fully religious or partly cultural or, indeed, whether it might be possible to follow the old and new religious paths simultaneously.
