Intellectual Responses To Religious Pluralism

An Overall View: the Meanings of Religious Pluralism

Before beginning to discuss the intellectual responses to religious pluralism, some definitions and common challenges in today’s world of religious pluralism should be briefly identified.  Discussing pluralism is a complex matter.  The term pluralism is used to cover many aspects of the society in question - ethnicities, political ideologies, economic theories, genders, religions, and even, as found in some religious educational literature, a variety of methodological techniques, teachers, students, and philosophies of education.  The term religious pluralism, which is now in widespread use, reflects various realities and has different meanings.  Classical approaches in religious and sociological studies to understanding religious pluralism offer two possible models: the assimilation model of a cultural melting pot and the functionalist model of social disorder.  Neither appears adequate in the task of understanding contemporary religious pluralism.  For example, new religious immigrants are not steadily assimilating into the Western way of life, but are actively engaged in a process of transforming it.  Most importantly, most of us wish to avoid social chaos as a result of religious pluralism. We would rather prefer the emergence of society that celebrate religious pluralism and social and religious systems that increasingly accommodate plurality.

For some scholars, pluralism points to a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in the development of their groups within the confines of a common civilization.  In certain contexts, religious pluralism can also refer to the plurality and pluriformity of societies, which have been a reality since long ago.  Historians point out that pluralism as an ideology was stressed most vigorously in England during the early 20th century by a group of writers, including Harold Laski and R.H. Tawney, who were reacting against what they alleged to be the alienation of individuals under conditions of unrestrained capitalism.[^5] They argued it was necessary to integrate the individuals in a social and religious context which could give them a sense of community.  A historical example of such a society was the medieval structure of guilds, chartered cities, villages, monasteries, and universities in Europe of the 16th century.

For the British sociologist James Beckford, the religious pluralism characteristic of “Western democratic” societies to date has been a pluralism based on the right to religious freedom.[^6]   This right, at the collective level, means that religious diversity is not simply de facto but alsode jure .  In this sense the various policies of tolerance in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which to a varying extent enabled minority faiths not to disappear, were not yet a product of religious pluralism, Beckford argues.  In other words, religious pluralism is inseparable from the political modernity which was established in Europe and the United States near the turn of the eighteenth century.[^7]

For Beckford and other scholars, religious pluralism is understood as a political principle.  Strong pluralism needs to be based on the right of individuals to religious freedom.  Some scholars distinguished between

several forms of religious pluralism.  In the diachronic perspective, a distinction is drawn between an emancipatory pluralism pertaining strictly to the individual’s right to religious liberty (and entailing, in particular, a de-ethnicization of religion), and a pluralism of identities marked by the demand from different religions for full and equal recognition of their individuality.  The real diversity of national models of emancipatory pluralism is also explained by the antithesis between individualistic pluralism and communitarian pluralism. “Individualistic pluralism” is founded on the freedom (independence) of individuals, whereas “communitarian pluralism” is a reaction to the assertion of modernity (rise of secularization and establishment of societies based on the individual).[^8]  Since this reaction is forced to take cognizance of the new situation with regard to religious pluralism, it (re)creates, within society as a whole, a faith-based community that is closed and hostile to modernity.

Ole Riis, a Danish sociologist, has observed that the concept of religious pluralism may be used “in a descriptive and evaluative sense.”[^9]   But, for Beckford, religious pluralism signifies a social and political system which grants every religion equal respect and facilities for individuals to practice their own religions without hindrance.  This involves allowing for the individuality of each religion and not turning the specific features of the dominant religion into the standard practice.  In fact, such pluralism would be “strong pluralism,” according to Beckford’s term.  In Beckford’s opinion, fact and value should be kept separate from each other for the sake of clarity.  He therefore believes that the term “religious diversity” should be used to describe empirical reality.  On the other hand, religious pluralism is a very specific way of considering this diversity, being “an ideological or evaluative response to empirical diversity” based on mutual respect between different religious systems with the aim of peaceful coexistence for the various religions.

Much of the philosophical discussion on religious pluralism continues to center on the works of John Hick.  Hick has focused his attention on the differences between the various world religions.  His basic pluralistic contention is not that different religions make no conflicting truth claims.[^10] In fact, he believes that the differences of beliefs between (and within) the traditions are legions and has often discussed these conflicts in great detail.  His basic pluralistic claim, rather, is that such differences are best seen as, different ways of conceiving and experiencing the one ultimate divine reality.” However, if the various religions are really “responses to a single ultimate transcendent reality,” how then does one account for the significant differences among these basic theistic systems?  Hick’s explanation is that this limitless divine reality has been thought and expressed by different human mentalities forming and formed by different intellectual frameworks and devotional techniques.[^11]

Some scholars note that religious pluralism is more likely to generate conflict in societies where the dominant religion retains sovereignty as the operative religion of the social system.  Religious pluralism is less likely to generate conflict in societies in which the value of religious freedom is upheld by the operative religion of the social system, whether or not the

dominant religion retains sovereignty as the operative religion.[^12] For years, sociologists of religion used to point out that pluralism undermined participation in religion and agreed that the relationship was negative.  The best-known version of this theory was advanced by Peter Berger.[^13]   He argued that religious pluralism reduces religious vitality through its effect on plausibility.[^14]  The more worldviews there are, the less plausible each seems, and as a result, the less religious belief and activity there will be.  Over the last decade, this theory has been challenged by advocates of religious economics or a “supply-side” model of religious activity.  Led by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, the challengers have argued that the traditional view is backwards; religious pluralism can be positively associated with religious participation.  For them, the key mechanism is not plausibility, it is competition.  Starting from the assumption that “religious economics are like commercial economies,” they argue that competition among religious groups increases the quantity and quality of religious products available to consumers and, consequently, the total amount of religion that this consumed.[^15]

Religious pluralism can assume many different forms.  To be more precise, pluralism can refer to an ideological or normative belief that there should be mutual respect between different cultural systems and freedom for them all.  It holds that peaceful coexistence between different cultural systems is preferable to enmity between them.  It sometimes suggests that a state of balance in the importance attached to different religious systems is better than an ideological monopoly or a very one-sided relationship between a dominant system and subordinate systems. Pluralism is not diversity alone, but an energetic engagement with diversity.  Pluralism is not just tolerance*,* but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference.  It means holding those deepest differences, even our religious ones, not in isolation, but in dialogue and a relationship with one another.