Speaking from UU'ism, where honouring a variety of beliefs and traditions is commonplace, It needs to be done with respect and with knowledge of that tradition. If you're not sure, ask someone.

As discussed in the RC wedding thread, if you're at an RC service (e.g. a wedding) find out what that priest's practices re. non-RC Christians taking communion. More broadly, if you're going to be going to a place of worship where you're unfamiliar with the practices, do some homework. By participating in an appropriate way, you will be honouring them. Don't be put out if you aren't allowed to participate in some element. It's their tradition, not yours. It didn't bother that I couldn't take Mass at my friend's son's wedding.

If you're going to do another tradition's ritual in your own service or incorporate something from that tradition into a service, talk to someone from that culture. For instance, some of our UUs here have connections to a local native elder so we have had him come in to lead services (not in a longtime, alas). If we want to incorporate pagan elements into a service, we have a couple practicing pagans in our fellowship who do maybe one service a year (one of them is doing the Oct. 31 service and will likely be looking at the relationship between Halloween and Samhain in some way). When I talk about non-Christian/UU traditions & cultures in services that I do, it's usually ones that I've studied (I took a lot of RS course in university) or have a connection to (eg. Chinese culture).

All that said, doing your homework counts for something, too. If you think you're going to incorporate something from another culture into a service of other event, research it. Find a good book by a practitioner of that tradition and read it through. See if you can find someone online to answer questions if there's nobody local. Just because you don't have someone from that tradition handy doesn't mean that you can't honour them in your service, it just means that you have a lot more homework to do. In the end, be mindful that you're "honouring" them, and that using common stereotypes and misunderstandings of that tradition in your service is not honouring them.

Mendalla

Here is a book that might be handy for such a discussion:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/How-Be-Perfect-Stranger-Volume-Arthu...