Pluralism and the Place of Religion in a Democratic Society: Emphasizing Rorty's View (original) (raw)

Religious diversity and democratic institutional pluralism

Political Theory, 2003

Debat es on the relationships between religion and society, politics and the state in recent political philosophy in the United States show two characteristics. First, there is a focus on limitations of religious arguments in public debate and political decision making. The more or less radical exclusion of religious reasons and arguments from public debate and politics in political liberalism has been extensively criticized as morally arbitrary, unfair, and

Democracy, religion and secularism: reflections on the public role of religion in a modern society

The present article focuses on the relationship between democracy and secularism and, in particular, the presumption that a secularist approach is the most practical solution to the problem of pluralism of beliefs. It raises the question of how far those countries in the West which claim to be democratic are justified in the way that they treat religion. Logical and pragmatic arguments are put forward suggesting that, in the name of the very values which they profess, secularists should extend a more generous hand to religion as opposed to continuing the suspicious, confrontational attitude inherited from the Enlightenment. The article finishes with some brief suggestions towards a practical solution for preserving the integrity of all, religious and non-religious alike, in the public arena.

Taking religious pluralism seriously. Arguing for an institutional turn. Introduction

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2003

Discussions of the relations between religions, society, politics, and the state in recent political philosophy are characterized, firstly, by a strong US American bias focusing on limitations of religious arguments in public debate. Even if the restriction or radical exclusion of religious reasons from public debate has recently been extensively criticized, secularist interpretations of liberal-democratic constitutions still prevail. Here it is argued that both strong secularism and weak or "second order secularism" are counterproductive for many reasons. Secondly, separationist interpretations of state-church relations are predominant, even if the severe "wall of separation" is criticized more often nowadays. Here it is argued that there are more and more interesting options than either separationism or accommodationism, that we should not exclusively focus at the constitutional relations between state and churches but address the full reciprocal relationship between society, culture, politics, nation, state and (organized) religions, and that we need more historical and comparative perspectives for the required institutionalist turn in political theory in order to overcome the obstacles inherent in predominant American political philosophy. The articles included in this volume are first, modest steps in this new direction.

Religious Difference and Democratic Pluralism: Some Recent Debates and Frameworks

Temenos, 2011

While until quite recently debates in political philosophy on questions of pluralism, tolerance, and liberal governance foregrounded notions of culture and cultural difference, today it is religion that increasingly provides the historical and conceptual resources for the contemporary reassessment of the pragmatic and philosophical conditions for pluralist democracy. Drawing on a few recent writings in the field of political theology, this paper explores some of the analytical directions that this repositioning of religion within contemporary narratives of modernity has opened up within political philosophy. As I seek to demonstrate, the domain of political theology has become the problem space, where the tensions and contradictions between a simultaneous insistence on Europe's secular identity and its Christian one are being elaborated. Through a certain double movement, secularism and Christianity have become productively fused within the writings I address, in a way that repeats the story of European exceptionality while inscribing the essential otherness of the Muslim populations within its borders. In the second part of the paper, I want to contrast these reflections from political philosophy with debates in postcolonial Egypt around issues of religion and the possibility of democratic pluralism.

Religions and States. A New Typology and a Plea for Non-Constitutional Pluralism

2003

Political philosophy has difficulties to cope with the complexity and variety of state-religions relations. 'Strict separationism' is still the preferred option amongst liberals, deliberative and republican democrats, socialist and feminists. In this article, I develop a complex typology based on comparative history and sociology of religions. I summarize my reasons why institutional pluralist models like plural establishment or nonconstitutional pluralism are attractive not only for religious minorities but for religiously deeply diverse societies in general. Most attention is paid defending associative democracy, the most flexible and open variety of institutional pluralism, against realist objections that group representation is incompatible with liberal democracy, that it leads to stigmatization and bureaucratization, that it strengthens undemocratic leaders, that it leads to an ossification of the status quo, and, most importantly, that it is inherently divisive undermining social cohesion and political unity. In my refutation of these objections I try to show that it helps to integrate minority religions into liberal democratic policies compatible with reasonable pluralism and to prevent religious and political fundamentalism.

Religion, pluralism, and democracy: a natural law approach

2008

This article argues for a democratic theory rooted in natural law. Humanity's earliest wave of democratization took place in the Axial Era and was intimately bound up with efforts on the part of ordinary people to gain full participate in deliberation regarding fundamental questions of meaning and value. Modern democratic theory, by comparison, tends to exclude deliberation around fundamental questions and focuses debate around the means to realizing a given end: the modern project of transcending finitude by means of scientific and technological progress. The paper argues for grounding democracy in the shared capacity of all human beings to deliberate around fundamental questions of meaning and value and for understanding democracy as just precisely such a deliberation.

Pluralism in a Multicultural Civil Society: Losing My Religion

I am honored to contribute to the generative conversation surrounding Lambert Zuidervaart's recent work highlighting the nascent and formative value of reformational philosophy, past and present. I want to weave my own comments in alignment with the valuable remarks already made. Jonathan Chaplin's detailed and probing analysis of this same chapter to which I am also responding covered the expanse of Zuidervaart's argument and details the promise and possibilities of his work within the broader scope of political theory. Given such a lucid account of the theoretical poles of Zuidervaart's argument, I feel free to make mine more narrative. In the analysis of the first chapter on social transformation Clinton Stockwell noted, " We live in a radically changing pluralistic world that is becoming even more urban, global and culturally diverse daily. So, how can I approach the question of what makes for a 'good city' as a Reformed Christian in the context of radical pluralism? " In my own contribution, I want to extend Stockwell's query toward the question Zuidervaart points us toward in his second chapter on social transformation, namely, to what extent should religion be a part of the state, the public sphere, and is it good in these spaces? In this posting I will flesh out such possibilities with the concerns of my own students and how to engage the dialectic Zuidervaart so aptly proposes. I suggest that Zuidervaart's work in this chapter is most compelling because it analyzes religion broadly, or as a universal human phenomenon, and offers a distinctly philosophical engagement, resisting a facile public/private relegation of religion. Such a natural account of religion permits individuals and groups from an extensive array of religious and non-religious commitments to dialogue with his work. I offer such an engagement with the particular microcosm of my own institutional setting. Like Clinton's multicultural neighborhood, I teach philosophy to disparate groups of religious and non-religious students at an urban two-year state college. With an average age of 28, our students speak over 86 different dialects, nearly half are Pell eligible (meaning they qualify in the U.S. as low-income) and one third are first generation college students. Like many of our growing urban communities, the diversity is truly global: Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Sikhs, Buddhists, shamanic practices, pagans, and atheist/agnostics all study, work, and collaborate on shared projects of social transformation via the institution of state sponsored higher education. Much of the philosophy of our department is centered appropriately on the concerns of our students, meaning our philosophical queries tend to contextualize the propositional nature of the discipline as embedded within issues of social and political struggle. I typically select readings and assignments that probe critiques of institutional racism, sexism, classism, post-colonialism, global inequity, environmental justice, mass-incarceration, GLBTQ rights, Islamophobia, and the rights of global migrants. In other words, we investigate the ways that " let suffering speak, " 1 particularly injustices that the state's power and purview complicate. Even in a state as " nice " as Minnesota, my students typically do not agree on the problems or solutions to these issues and concerns, and inevitably, they vary in their commitment that religion could be part of any public benefit. Recently a student stated, " Religion is intrinsically oppressive, irrational, and dangerous. " Another added, " There seems to be something especially wrong with the Christian religion in particular. " While I disagree, I can sympathize with these remarks. We had just concluded a unit on the Dakota genocide and the role of Christian missionaries in separating Dakota children from their parents; these same missionaries quipped that they needed to beat the " savage " out of the children in order to " save " their souls.2 Even the mention of religion and students may reflexively regurgitate the new atheist's familiar warnings of institutional religion as a " dangerous meme " 3 citing well-trodden examples: its collusion with colonialism and empire building; its justification of slavery and sexism; its decidedly homophobic stance; its lackluster response to environmental degradation; violent conflicts like the crusades, Israeli

Religious Pluralism, Public Sphere / Life and Democracy: An Exploration in Philosophical Theology

I Reality of religious pluralism 1 has become a singular experience of our times. It is " singular " in the sense that it is both momentous and unique to our contemporary global world, which, unlike the past that experienced unarticulated or relatively less articulated religious plurality, has come to actively constitute different religions and religious pluralism, impacting upon the dynamics of public life, generating new prospects as well as challenges to the practice of democracy. This " new " religious pluralism is being explored from different perspectives today: sociology of religion explores the way this phenomenon impacts upon social relationships; psychology of religion investigates how it becomes an integral part of the experiences of the self; political science deals with the way it intervenes into the domain of collective decision-making, throwing up new challenges and opportunities in national and international political practices; and, closer to our field of interest, theology of religion explores anew the salvific value of religious pluralism. During the latter part of the twentieth century, when the public experience of religious pluralism had grown thicker, Christian theologians responded to it with theologies which sought to engage with religious pluralism beyond the then extant ecclesial frameworks of exclusivism and inclusivism. Exclusivism, beginning with the era of the strict principle of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, extends up to the contemporary far-right evangelism; and, inclusivism, beginning with fulfilment theologies (J N Farquhar " s Christianity – the Crown of Hinduism being a typical example in India), has gone through Christocentric, theocentric, and kingdom-centric approaches and extends up to the theological-anthropological schemes of " anonymous Christians " (Karl Rahner) or of the " unknown Christ of Hinduism " (early Raimon Panikkar). Both these frameworks were proposed from " within " the Christian claim of the absoluteness of its religious validity (validated by revelation) and the relative validity of other religions. " Theologies of religious pluralism " , on the other hand, began to approach the truth claims of different religions more ecumenically. The documents of Vat. II (Nostra Aetate, Ad Gentes, etc.), for example, could speak of finding " truth and holiness " in other religions; Raimon Panikkar, in his later period, could speak of encountering other religions with radical openness; Jacque Dupuis could think of " Christocentric pluralism " rather than church centric ecumenism; and, Paul Knitter could locate the relevance of religious pluralism primarily in terms of its ability to address socio-ethical questions of poverty, social discrimination, and the like. This increasingly open theology of religious pluralism is an ongoing vibrant theological activity pursued today not merely by " official " theologians but also by " lay " , " unofficial " and even by theologians of different religions. Varieties of theological views are emerging in this regard. There are those like John Hick, Alan Rice and others who stoutly defend the possibility and the 1 The term " pluralism " is perhaps not adequate to signify the reality that we would like to discuss; it tends to stand for an " ism " , i.e. a kind of constricted ideology, or for an unrelated parallel of religions; both these significations are not adequate to the reality of religious pluralism. Going by Raimon Panikkar " s suggestion, I take religious pluralism to be that which stands " between unrelated plurality and a monolithic unity " which implies the human condition that " in the actual polarities of our human existence we find our being. " R. Panikkar, Intra-Religious Dialogue (Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 1984), 37.