Ritual Systems

Abstract The concept of occasional religious practice facilitates the re-examination of rituals as embedded in ritual systems. This chapter outlines and extends the theory of ritual systems introduced by Catherine Bell and developed by Kimberly Belcher: ritual practices relate to other ritual practices in systems; relationships within and among systems interpret and reinterpret ritual practices, informing the meanings and functions of rituals for participants, as well as how rituals change over time. These relationships of repetition, opposition, and centrality are connections that ritual participants make themselves. However, participants positioned differently within systems may interpret the same system quite differently, especially those who have different degrees of power, such as occasional practitioners and clergy. This is especially true when attending to nesting and overlapping relationships among multiple ritual systems. The overlap between the Christian ritual system and the family ritual system in the occasional practice of baptism is considered throughout the chapter, including questions of choice and agency, religious and nonreligious godparenting, and the baptism candle.