Intellectual Responses To Religious Pluralism

Streams in the Valley

The presence, power, and richness of religious traditions has vigorously entered human awareness in today’s world. Our contemporary intercommunication and interdependent planet has made us aware, more clearly but also more painfully than ever before, of the multiplicity of world religions and the many different ultimate answers given by these religions.  Because of this fact we, as human beings, are facing questions and challenges we never have before confronted.  The challenges of this awareness of religious diversity have led thinkers to explore the meanings of religious pluralism.  Interestingly, many religious traditions are also internally plural, fluid, and evolving. They can be responsive to new interpretations by gifted religious leaders and capable of forming individuals, social movements, and communities that practice and promote religious pluralism.

Given that the world is moving in the direction of religious pluralism, one of the first steps needed to ensure a smooth transition is a “cultural audit” to identify the core values and indigenous elements in each society.  Eliade’s genuine works teach that the interpreter of religion must be willing to interpret the claim to the attention of the other in order to understand even the self.  Pluralism tells us that homogenization is not the answer.  Pluralism recognizes a plurality of means to achieve the same ends.  It is not people’s choices that need to change, but rather the ability of institutions within societies (e.g., government, law, the educational system) to reflect and process those choices.  The chairwoman of the Commission on Gender Equality in South Africa, Thenjiwe Mtintso, in discussing how South Africa should deal with religious practices that might conflict with women’s rights, agrees: “Of course you can't simply legislate against these things. The challenge is how to change some of these cultures and some practices which are supposedly our culture.”[^51]

Wilfred Cantwell Smith urges the necessity of learning each other’s language and thought forms.  In other words, pluralism means accepting not just that religions are many but they are different: they are so different that they can not be boiled down to a system, common sense, or common ground.  Clearly, the next step is not the unification of different religions into one to form some kind of new global religion. On the contrary, a plurality of diverse religions is positive and valuable.  The variety around the world of different ways of being human is something to celebrate and understand, not something to try to iron out.  In the words of Diana Eck, “…the encounter of a pluralistic society is not premised on achieving agreement, but achieving relationship.”  Pluralism will always demand that we share our particular understanding of religion with one another.  If done in sympathy and respect for the integrity of the other, such sharing, as past and present examples demonstrate, can result in spiritual growth and enrichment for all.

Harold Coward believes that there is a basic prerequisite for religious dialogue: all participants should have accurate information about each other’s religions.  Fulfilling this task is probably the single largest obstacle to the success of this dialogue.  He therefore perceives that the academic

discipline of religious studies has a major role to play in fulfilling this prerequisite.  He also acknowledges that the intellectual knowledge of the facts of all religions is needed, but alone that will not be sufficient.  So we might urgently need a more sophisticated concept of dialogue than the one prevailing today. Our shared human values remind us that it is vital to recognise the humanity of the other in order to affirm our own humanity.  In that sense, dialogue must be linked practically and meaningfully with political dialogue. It must be a parallel process rather than a pleasant afterthought.  This is how we can restore the peaceful role of our pluralism when it is needed most. Jonathan Sacks developed a notion of languets to address the challenges of nurturing commitments in parochial communities, characterized by race, religion, and ethnicity as well as the broader society.  To achieve this, Sacks claims that we have to learn two languages.  He writes, “…there is a public language of citizenship that we have to learn if we are to learn to live together.  And there is a variety of second languages which connect us to our local framework of relationships.”  We need to talk to each other not only talk at each other.

“I have always believed,” the Dalai Lama once commented, “that people can change their hearts and minds through education, and turn away from violence.”  In the past, the “three Rs” (Reading, Writing and [A]rithmetic) were considered the essential basic skills needed by children at the early stages of their learning experiences.   Learning to live together in a pluralistic world would necessitate emphasis upon a fourth skill, or, rather, a group of skills - namely, life skills. Such a group of skills is the backbone of pluralist education, which encompasses the education of the learner as an individual and as a member of society with a pluralistic and global outlook.  The concept of “learning to live together” has been eloquently referred to by Jacques Delors and others in their well-known work,Learning: The Treasure Within , as one of the four pillars of education along with the concepts of “learning to know,” “learning to do,” and “learning to be.” As basic prerequisite for future dialogue to promote pluralism, these four pillars can be rephrased as follows: learning to live together - democratically; learning to know - for the future; learning to do - usefully; learning to be - peacefully.  Effective religious studies education can be secured through its integration into all social and human sciences, as well as through curricular and extracurricular activities.  It should be designed to lead, rather than follow, the practices and values of the pluralistic society by promoting high-level intellectual skills in the learner such as critical thinking, and problem-solving.  But there is a challenge: How do we reconcile this with those who believe that religious education goes against the separation of state and church, mosque or synagogue?

We live in a world characterized by growing and vital religious pluralism*,* religious skepticism, religious resurgence, and religious ambivalence, peopled by those who are deeply committed to a particular faith tradition and regard it as exclusive, people who are champions of ecumenical and inter-faith efforts, people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” and people who are avowedly secular.  We should draw a clear distinction between promoting pluralism and

encouraging the development of “open” societies. Both, in the end, reinforce each other, but the proper sequencing is essential.  The necessary first step, acceptance of diversity, must come from within a society; it cannot be imposed by outsiders.  In this context, Jonathan Z. Smith believes that we need to develop a capacity to make familiar that which at first encounter seems strange. Conversely, he feels that we need the ability to make strange what we have come to think of as all-too-familiar.  Smith points out that each of these endeavors needs to be practiced and refined in the service of an urgent civic and academic agendum: that difference be negotiated but never overcome.