This volume explores the inherent pluralism of Hinduism through ethnographic and philosophical evidence as presented in the Journal of Anthropological Society of Bombay. The essays dated 1886-1936, represent a period that marked the emergence of a European-educated native intelligentsia with a rationalist outlook. The essays cover a wide range of topics from Tree Worship in Mohenjo Daro, the origin of the Hindu Trimurti, interpretation of Avestic and Vedic Texts; to a second set of more localized papers that cover the (...) Muhammadan Castes of Bengal, the Tenets and Practices of a Certain Class of Faqirs in Bengal, the Theoretical History of the Goddess Yellamma, and much more. Written during a particular historical as well as intellectual period that reflected certain key patterns - a period just following the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century that ushered in the ideologies of a reformative Hinduism - this volume highlights how religions of all denominations have influenced each other and appear to have mingled beliefs and practices from multiple sources. It shows how tolerance and inclusiveness along with syncretism have been part of India's religious and social history. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of religions, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, and sociology of religion. It will also be useful to those interested in inter-religious dialogues and civil society. (shrink)

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 non-constitutional 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. (shrink)

Debate over the adequacy of John Hick's conception of religious pluralism is engaged in a comparative manner.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} In the course of the founding history of America, the American Sacred Ground has been a contested territory where people who do not share a single history or a single religious tradition have engaged in the common tasks of civil society to broaden the contours (...) of religious pluralism in the US. This paper studies the post 9/11 phase of the public debate on America’s religious identity as the Muslim moment in the long-standing pilgrimage in American religious history towards participatory pluralism. It underscores the challenges that both Americans and American Muslims have had to face to help one another make sense of the startling religious diversity incurred by the 1965 immigration reforms. My contention is that, compared to the Jewish and Catholic experiences, it is only since 9/11 that American Muslims have carried through the traditional role of religious outsiders, abiding by the principles of the American Sacred Ground. (shrink)

Religious pluralism (as a disputed philosophical theory about the undisputed empirical fact of religious pluralism) has evoked lively debate. I make three observations. First, there is a striking similarity between postmodern and earlier modern responses to religious difference insofar as each represents an a priori refusal to let religious believers disagree with each other cognitively. Second, the rejection of theo-logical exclusivism by religious pluralism presumes that its account of religious difference is (...) true, while that of theo-logical exclusivism is false. Third, religious pluralism (pace Hick) does not follow from the premises of Kantian anti-realism. I suggest that religious pluralism is motivated by the terrible history and contemporary specter of religiously sanctioned violence. I argue that we should look directly at the content of religious belief in order to break the link between religious truth claims and religiously sanctioned violence and domination. (shrink)

For the philosopher of Rotterdam, religious coercion has two essential sources of illegitimacy: the linking of religious and ecclesiastical belief and the use of politics for religious purposes. Bayle responds to it, with his doctrine of freedom of conscience, on one hand and by means of the essential distinction between voluntary religious affiliation and political obligation, on the other hand. From my perspective, his doctrine of tolerance does not involve an atheist state, nor does it mean (...) the rejection of the presence of religion in the public space or its displacement to the intimate sphere of the conscience. This paper proposes a reading of Baylean tolerance as a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience, minority confessions, and official religion. Thus, the Baylean theoretical model could be considered a proposal to provide a normative form to the practice of toleration present in the seventeenth -century Netherlands. (shrink)

The history of America’s openness to immigration from diverse regions has advanced the course of religious pluralism. Many religious groups existed in America, yet only a few were publicly significant in advancing the course of pluralism from tolerance of differences to inclusion and participation. Their public significance was contingent upon their ability to help develop models of religious pluralism. Such models reflect structures that evolved as a result of attempts to formulate responses to (...) diversity and to assert that there is religious unity to America. At first, this unity was Protestant; at some point in US history it evolved into Judeo-Christian; then it came to be “potentially” multi-religious with an Abrahamic overtone. Since 9/11 some scholars of Islam have be- come more articulate in advancing the pluralist state of mind toward becoming global in perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 741 pointedly, what he is asking for is " the ' planned dissolution ' of the Latin Church into a considerable number of distinct, autonomous ' patriarchates ' " (p. 132). These suggestions, although not original, are intriguing. They deserve, however, more than three pages. What is needed is a detailed presentation of these changes, indicating their historical context, their advantages and disadvantages, and their practical implementation. (...) Despite the criticisms given above, there is much good material to be found in this crisply written book. I agree in general with Hill's judgment that Church authority should embody a collegial rather than a monarchical ecclesiology. He shows that the MC ecclesiology has a solid foundation in scripture and tradition and its cornerstone is the theology of the local Church. Furthermore, he is correct in insisting that the doctrines of collegiality and the priesthood of the faithful are urgent questions in contemporary ecclesiology and that they have broad ecumenical ramifications. He speaks convincingly of greater lay participation, local autonomy, consultation, and accountability. At the same time, his partisanship leads him to caricature the MP view. He will not persuade many MP supporters by criticizing their "highhanded authoritarianism and paternalism " (p. 53) and " ecclesiastical dishonesty " (p. 127) or by claiming that the Roman Curia " is neuro· tically obsessed with the matter of papal authority" (p. 114). Hill makes many valid and important points, but, on occasion, he weakens them by exaggeration. At times his partisan style overcomes his theo· logical substance. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. pATRICK GRANFIELD Many Paths: A Catholic Approach to Religious Pluralism. By EUGENE HILLMAN. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989. Pp. 95. A Christian theology of religions raises fundamental epistemological and methodological questions. Hillman comes to the debate from what Lindbeck has called an " experiential expressivist " background, that is, there is a tacit assumption that reality is experienced and then expressed, that reality precedes language rather than being disclosed and shaped through language. When such an outlook is applied to the theology of religions, the outcome is often the " discovery " of a common experience underlying all religions, despite their different expressions. The latter can be seen to vary according to climate, history, temperament, and so on. Such expressions are loose symbols for a 742 BOOK REVIEWS greater reality, which takes on an increasingly vague shape with the demise of the signifier. History can offer very little resistance to such a model, and the conflicts, differences, intractabilities, and real problems of religious plurality are slowly silenced, almost numbed into a drowsy calm. That history refuses to play this role, while theologies of religion are often demanding it, is indicative of the difficulties with such a model. Hillman's first book on this topic (The Wider Ecumenism, 1968) showed him to be a follower of Rahner. He stressed the universality of grace and its mediation through the historical and particular; he thereby argued for a wider ecumenism with regard to the world religions, in a model analogous to intra-Christian ecumenism. In this book, Hillman advances the same position, but now infused with a strong dose of Wilfred Cantwell Smith. He does not confront the theological criticisms made against either of his mentors. The book is divided into four lucid chapters. The first considers the meaning and role of religion, and much of Hillman's discussion is helpful. However, as the chapter proceeds, one finds that the definition of religion is not controlled by the particularities and intractable dif. ferences presented by the subject matter but rather by an experiential essentialism. Hillman uses Smith's distinction between "faith" and " belief " to two ends, one descriptive, the other evaluative. However he, like Cantwell Smith, conflates description with evaluation. Furthermore, he is untroubled that the subject matter under inspection does not easily yield to such distinctions. Descriptively, " belief " or the " cumulative tradition " involves the " myriad historico-cultural par· ticularizations " that go to make up a religion such as liturgies, doc· trines, ethical systems, practices, histories, and so on {20). Faith is basically an experience of " the tr,anscendent, which is presumably the same for every person," and can be distinguished from the "cumulative tradition, which is different for each people, nation or... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:One True Ring or Many?Religious Pluralism in Lessing's Nathan the WiseChristopher AdamoIn the Central Scene of Nathan the Wise, Nathan responds to Saladin's pointed question pertaining to the "true religion" with the famous parable of the three rings.1 As John Pizer notes, Lessing deliberately crafts ambiguous fables to cultivate the reader's capacity for autonomous exercise of hermeneutic skill.2 That Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise evokes a (...) wide variety of interpretations, therefore, should be no surprise.3 However, for Pizer, Lessing's use of fable additionally represents a "key to his Enlightenment ideals, the inculcation of the idea that individuals are responsible for their own actions and for their own maturation as social beings, as later articulated by Kant" (Pizer, p. 101). If the genre of fable itself, for Lessing, serves as a pedagogic tool to cultivate in his readers the rational autonomy as envisioned by Kant in the opening lines of "What is Enlightenment?," then might that suggest Lessing's ring-parable is best read as an Enlightenment-humanist response to the theological and political problem of the plurality of revealed religions?Several recent Lessing scholars have taken this line. In his study Lessing's Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, Toshimasa Yasukata approvingly reads the parable of the rings as illustrative of Lessing's view of a "true religion" that "transcends all of the historical religions and yet underlies the truth of each.... [A] religion based on real and universal humanity."4 Astrid Oesmann, in her article "Nathan der Weise: Suffering Lessing's 'Erziehung,'" develops a similar interpretation but then, based upon it, turns a critical eye toward such a project as it requires Nathan to suppress his Judaic identity—not merely in his confrontation with Saladin but additionally by suppressing his suffering [End Page 139] at the hands of a Crusader pogrom that took the lives of his wife and seven children.5 For both these commentators, Lessing's Nathan the Wise champions a vision of a universal religion based on reason alone, for good or for ill.With this interpretation of Lessing's Nathan in the background, I intend to highlight moments in Lessing's Nathan that invite a more pluralistic reading. Both readings above interpret the ambiguous ending of the parable in light of the teleological history of revealed religion constructed by Lessing in "The Education of the Human Race" thus, implying there remains a singular, genuine, ring, i.e., a "true" religion that even may be identifiable with one of the three in question. The reading developed here interprets the ambiguous ending of the ring parable in light of the final scenes of Nathan, focusing on Recha's rich genealogical origins and her universal regard among persons of diverse faiths. The question as to which is the correct [recht] ring gives way to the question of which bearer(s) possesses a genuine [echt] ring, a significant shift in focus and reflective of Lessing's "primacy of ethics" over explanation in an approach to the plurality of revealed religions.6 Second, though both an Enlightenment reading and the present reading move the focus of religion away from orthodoxy towards a primacy of ethics, the present reading would be better equipped to respond to a charge like Oesmann's that defusing inter-religious tensions in a multicultural polity can come only by the sacrifice of one's cultural and historical particularity as Jewish, Muslim, Christian.INathan the Wise is set in Jerusalem during the close of the Third Crusade (1189–1192). A cease-fire has just been breached by the Knights Templar. Each side prepares to resume the hostilities. Previous acts of internecine violence reverberate throughout the play. Several of the play's characters suffer from (Nathan) and perpetrate (the Templar, the Sultan) sectarian violence. We discover in the first act that Saladin has just executed nineteen prisoners of war, sparing only one Templar. We discover in the fourth act that Nathan's entire family had been murdered by Crusaders roughly eighteen years previous. The political, pragmatic peace between rival parties is unraveling.The action begins when Nathan, a wealthy Jewish merchant, returns from his... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 723 tremely incisive judgments on a range of modern writers and tendencies. What is outstandingly useful here is the way Dupuis shows how the most conservative of high Christologies can also he the most open and critically fruitful in engaging with other religions. The final chapters contain a fine exegesis of Vatican II and postconciliar documents regarding the confused and fluid status of interreligious dialogue in relation (...) to evangelization and mission. Dupuis promotes the view of dialogue as mutual evangelization and as essential to the mission of the church, although there is slight ambivalence in his comments that dialogue does not involve explicit proclamation (228). Why not, in some instances? While Dupuis's hook is an excellent statement of an orthodox inclusivist high Christology, there are certain weaknesses within his approach. First, the clash of faiths and the fragmented discontinuities so clearly evident are too easily harmonized in an evolutionary picture of salvation history. Second, his Christology could he more trinitarian and ecclesiocentric. For example, he neglects the apophatic elements of Christianity and its possible relation with traditions like Buddhism, and while he denies any real difference between eastern and western pneumatologies, his own preference for the western tradition could have been more starkly contrasted with some dangers that have entered the debate by those trying to utilize an allegedly more eastern pneumatology. His ecclesiocentric neglect diverts attention from the way in which communities are so deeply shaped by their practice of texts and the consequent difficulties of comparison across different textual world views. Such problems should not however obscure Dupuis' incisive and powerful vision of Christ at the center of all salvation history. University of Bristol Bristol, England GAVIN D'COSTA Dissonant Voices: Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth. By HOWARD A. NETLAND. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1991. xii + 323 pp. $17.95 (paper). This hook, written by an assistant professor of religious studies at Tokyo Christian University who is also an Evangelical Free Church missionary in Japan, contains a lucid and coherent argument in defense of Christian exclusivism. Its author values clarity and reasoned argument over sentiment, and has faith in the power of those virtues to solve deep problems, such as those set for Christians by the facts of 724 BOOK REVIEWS religious pluralism. This faith has enabled him to produce a book of considerable power; it has also led him at points to oversimplify exceedingly complex problems. This is scarcely surprising since oversimplification is a perennial temptation for those who value clarity. Netland understands Christian exclusivism to assert at least the following claims: that the "defining beliefs" of Christianity-nowhere listed, but defined formally as that set of beliefs whose acceptance is entailed for any individual just by being an "active Christian in good standing "-are all true; that the defining beliefs of non-Christian religious communities are false where they conflict with those of Christianity ; that salvation is to be had only through hearing and properly responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ; and that evangelization-the active proclamation of the gospel to those who have not yet accepted it-is an unavoidable duty for faithful Christians. Netland further thinks that Christian exclusivism, understood in this way, requires and rests upon a high christology and a strong view of the truth and divine inspiration of the biblical text. None of these positions is uncontroversial, as Netland recognizes, and the cluster of views that he calls Christian exclusivism has long been out of favor in the mainstream of Christian theological thought, both Catholic and Protestant. It carries conviction, indeed, only among evangelical Protestants and small cadres of unreconstructed pre-Vatican II Roman Catholics. Netland thinks Christian exclusivism deserves a wider hearing, and that it should finally be adopted by all Christians as the proper way to think about religious pluralism. He therefore needs to meet the standard objections to the position, and this book is largely an extended attempt to do so. In the first five chapters Netland meets objections which, if successful, would make both Christian and other varieties of religious exclusivism untenable. If the arguments in these chapters are successful they establish only the modal claim that Christian exclusivism is possibly... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 157-161 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. By Jacques Dupuis, S.J. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. 1997. xiv + 433 pp. There may not be another individual more qualified than Jacques Dupuis to write this book. He has not only spent a lifetime teaching and serving in (...) a part of the world where the encounter between Christianity and other faiths has been particularly pressing (India), but he has also previously reflected intensively and published widely on this topic. Even more impressive, however, is the fact that the scholarship that emerges in this volume reflects Dupuis as a faithful Catholic Christian, both in the sense of paying sincere heed to the wide range of the Roman Church's official teachings on this and related topics (he taught for years at the Gregorian University in Rome and edited, with Josef Neuner, the massive The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church 1 ) and in the sense of thinking along with others in the universal community of faithful Christians. Here we have a master theologian practicing his craft, working within a community of theological inquirers, bringing out, displaying, and putting to work old things and new in the effort to understand one of the most crucial issues of our time.The result is a comprehensive and lucid discussion of Christian theology of religions that is indispensable as an introduction to students without any knowledge of the landscape even while it also serves as a handy status questionis to those already [End Page 157] familiar with the terrain. The first half of the book (part 1) is an overview of the history of Christian approaches to other faiths, beginning with the biblical material, continuing through the Logos spermatikos theology of the early Fathers, the developments surrounding the Extra ecclesiam nulla salus ("no salvation outside the Church") axiom over the centuries, and the pre- and post-Vatican II attempts to develop a theology of religions in the Catholic Church. This part concludes by summarizing the paradigm shifts from ecclesiocentrism to (in order) christocentrism, theocentrism, and regnocentrism/soteriocentrism. Throughout the discussion--especially of the pre-twentieth-century history that focused much more so on the fate of the unevangelized--Dupuis manages to provide important connections to developments in Christian thinking about the role of the religions in the divine scheme of things.The second half of the volume (part 2) presents seven of the most difficult theological questions in Christian theologia religionum today. First, concerning the covenant: is there only one, or are there many? Is salvation history particular, or universal? Dupuis' provisional response is that there is one cosmic covenant that is never revoked. This covenant is revealed according to what he calls a "trinitarian rhythm" whereby God covenants through his Word, in his Spirit, and this covenant includes the witnesses of God left in other religions as well. Second, concerning revelation: does revelation come to us from "without," or emerge from "within" ourselves? What about the sacred texts of other traditions? How are Christians to understand the fullness of the revelation in Jesus Christ vis-à-vis other faiths? Dupuis' answer is that divine revelation is indeed scattered among the various religions, even if fully captured only in Christ, and that these revelations are thereby differentiated but complementary. 2 Third, concerning the divine mystery: is the "Real" beyond the categories of "personal" and "impersonal"? Is God one, or many (triune)? Dupuis responds that the religions have complementary and converging insights into the divine reality. Fourth, concerning Jesus Christ: is he one among many savior figures? What does the uniqueness of Christ mean? Is there a distinction or an absolute identity between Jesus and Christ? Is the Christ particular, or universal? Dupuis posits a "searching christology" whereby God reveals Godself in and through the images and symbols of the religions and through which humankind therefore responds to the divine graciousness. Jesus' uniqueness is thereby both "constitutive" (of universal significance) and "relational" (inserted in the overall plan of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Monopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious PluralismRita M. GrossMonopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism. By Jeannine Hill Fletcher. New York: Continuum, 2005. 155 pp.Given that most practitioners of Western feminist theology, whether Christian or some variety of post-Christian, display remarkably little interest in issues of religious diversity and interreligious dialogue, I was both curious about this book and delighted (...) to see someone combining the words “feminism” and “religious pluralism” in a book title. However, I was also curious as to what this author might construe as a “feminist” approach to religious diversity. These days it is fairly common for a book written by a woman to contain the word “feminism” in the title, even though there may be little specifically feminist content in the book. Additionally, I have been [End Page 205] somewhat skeptical that there is a specifically feminist approach to issues of religious diversity. My issue with many other feminist theologians is not especially their lack of a specifically feminist approach to issues of religious diversity but their lack of knowledge about and interest in any religion other than Christianity and its near relatives.What I found is a good addition to the rather considerable library of theologies of religious pluralism written by Christian theologians. And there is a specifically feminist angle to the arguments made in this book, or at least an angle on issues of religious diversity that I have not seen utilized by others, the vast majority of whom are men, who have written such books.The five chapters of this book follow a predictable outline. The first chapter is devoted to framing the contours of the Christian theology, which will be the basis for Fletcher’s entire approach to religious pluralism. An informative chapter on the history of the encounters of some Christians with members of other religions follows this. The third chapter, predictably, reviews and critiques the by now familiar Christian theologies of religious diversity—exclusivist, inclusivist, pluralist, and particularist. These chapters of review and critique are followed by two constructive chapters, one of which offers Fletcher’s specifically feminist suggestions and the other of which discusses how a Christian could honor both specific loyalty to Christianity and the ethical requirements imposed when one recognizes the theological legitimacy of religious diversity.The approach to Christian theology outlined in the first chapter frames Fletcher’s inquiry throughout the entire book. Given that the author is a Christian, it is not surprising that her theology of religious pluralism turns on her understanding of the terms “God” and “Jesus of Nazareth.” According to her, Christian theology revolves around two poles. The first of these is that God is an “incomprehensible mystery” (p. 9), which, for her, opens the possibility that people who are not Christians might have valuable insights into that which Christians call “God.” The other pole of Christian theology is the distinctively “Christian affirmations about what is known of God through Jesus” (p. 16). Balancing the incomprehensibility of God and the specific affirmations about God is the difficult task of someone seeking to construct a Christian theology of religious pluralism. According to Fletcher, a third component is also needed in a theology of religious pluralism. Theologians must also take account of the “complex nexus of personal, social, political, and religious contexts” (p. 21) in which their work occurs.The second chapter of this book contains an interesting account of some historical encounters between Christians and members of other religions. Much of the information contained in this chapter would be unknown to many readers of this book. One of the encounters supplied the title for the author. In 1609, a Hindu debater challenged Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), a Jesuit missionary to Southern India who lived the lifestyle of a Hindu saṅnyāsi (mendicant). The debater said of de Nobili’s theological claims: “Does this man alone know God? Does he alone have a monopoly on salvation?” (p. 51). Though Fletcher speculates that early Christian encounters with people of other religions may have involved a measure of mutuality and equal interchange, by the time Christianity had become well established in Europe and [End... (shrink)

Two foremost spokesmen for the German Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, continued the defence of the separation of church and state that was at the heart of the Enlightenment in general and advocated by such great predecessors as Roger Williams and John Locke and contemporaries such as James Madison. The difference between Mendelssohn and Kant on which I focus here is that while Mendelssohn argues against his critics that Judaism is the appropriate religion for a specific people without being (...) appropriate for all, thus implying more generally that different religions are appropriate for groups with different histories, Kant argues first that Judaism is not a genuine religion at all, second that Christianity provides the most suitable symbols or aesthetic representations of the core truths of the religion of reason, and finally that in any case all historical religion will ultimately fade away in favour of the pure religion of reason. Kant’s assumptions are tendentious and his conclusion implausible; Mendelssohn’s view that religion and differences of religion are here to stay provides a far stronger basis for genuine toleration and a strict separation of church and state. (shrink)

Major worldviews on ultimate reality and history -- Major worldviews on external reality -- Major worldviews on the nature and orientation of man -- Major worldviews concerning truth and ethics -- Major worldviews concerning the social location of religion -- The orders and root metaphors of the modern and postmodern condition -- Observations and strategies -- The true and false church.

Religious Pluralism Religious pluralism, broadly construed, is a response to the diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions that exist both in the contemporary world and throughout history. The terms “pluralism” and “pluralist” can, depending on context or intended use, signify anything from the mere fact of religious diversity to a particular kind of philosophical … Continue reading Pluralism, Religious →.

A transforming spirituality is needed to attend to the ‘third-millennial needs’ of Africa to address issues such as relationships, globalisation, ecology and social issues. It is argued that reformed theology, African spiritualities and a spirituality of creation need to be enriched by each other to bring about transformation in Africa. To discover a transforming spirituality of creation, participants need to listen to the different spiritualities and beliefs, without attempting to create a meta-narrative. Participants need to acknowledge the differences and even (...) tensions, and embrace these. As such, this article attends to the research question, how can a dialogue between reformed theology and spirituality of creation help to establish a transforming spirituality based on common values for the diverse African continent in ‘our third-millennial world’?Contribution: From a multidisplinary theological perspective, the article deals with ‘historical thought’ regarding spirituality and creation. This includes both the textual history from Christianity and oral history from Africa. A missional hermeneutics is used to bring different traditions and beliefs together. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 25 (2005) 9-14 [Access article in PDF] Religious Identity and Openness in a Pluralistic World David W. Chappell Soka University Guiding Issues How do I understand my own identity as a religious person in light of the fact that I am open to the validity of the beliefs held by other traditions?Has my understanding of my own religious tradition been transformed, purified, and enriched (...) by the ways in which I have come to understand the other traditions?Have I been changed by the dialogue, or do I remain the same? What difference has the dialogue made in my life, personally or theologically?How would I respond to this topic from the point of view that I am a religious person engaged in a specific area of expertise (environment, philosophy, etc.)? Thesis The increased mobility and diversity of relationships in the contemporary world has often made religious identity a complex issue, hardening it for some people and diffusing it for others. But in either case, I wish to challenge the view that highlights beliefs as a key to defining identity and instead propose that many other factors might be more important, and that in religious life identity is a secondary issue. Being Christian I was born, baptized, and raised in the Christian tradition. My father was a United Church of Canada minister and I became a United Church of Canada minister, while my mother was a Baptist and my brother became a Baptist minister. Religious values were important in my upbringing and throughout my adult life. While I have maintained a concern for ultimate values, however, my own beliefs have undergone radical changes. I am sure that many in the Christian community would say that I am no longer a Christian, but I have never taken that view and have never taken the step to renounce my ordination as a Christian minister. Instead, I question the assumption that beliefs are the best way to define a religious life or religious identity. [End Page 9]In 1961 I had the good fortune to go to McGill University to study with Wilfred Smith, and from him I have learned not to focus on the "beliefs" of others—namely, intellectual constructs—but on the "faith" of others as much more encompassing and important. Some religious communities—like the Jain and the Confucian—do not care about one's beliefs, only about one's practice, both ritually and morally. Wilfred Smith called it orthopraxy, rather than orthodoxy, and it provides an alternative means of marking religious identity.Why should I feel bound by the efforts of Emperor Constantine when he convened a church council in 325 CE to define Christian identity or by subsequent efforts of church institutions to do the same? Today, my Christian identity is nurtured and expressed by a constellation of moral values and cosmic trust, of faith and actions, that are connected to the early Jesus movement, especially as articulated by John Dominic Crossan. Living as we do in the modern era, we have very different beliefs about history and cosmology from these early Christians, as John Robinson discussed forty years ago in his book Honest to God. My affection for Christian church life and the early Jesus movement involves other factors than the concerns of those who formed Christian creeds. The Trinitarian doctrine makes sense as a conglomeration made from the conceptualization of several historical experiences important in the early Christian community, but the Trinitarian concept does not clarify or enhance my contemporary experience.In spite of the Trinitarian formulation, I still honor and value the powerful and enduring influence of my Christian upbringing. As a result, I have not renounced the name "Christian" or my ordination as a Christian minister, even though I have grown increasingly away from them. I am still the second son of Lynsin and Mary Chappell. Even though my parents may seem to be dead and gone, they are still alive for me. I treasure them and I still live my life in their embrace, as well as in the embrace of the fellowship of... (shrink)

Throughout the medieval period law was seen as the product of social groups and associations that formed legal orders, as Max Weber elaborates, "either constituted in its membership by such objective characteristics of birth, political, ethnic, or religious denomination, mode of life or occupation, or arose through the process of explicit fraternization." During the second half of the Middle Ages, roughly the tenth through fifteenth centuries, there were "several distinct types of law, sometimes competing, occasionally overlapping, invariably invoking different (...) traditions, jurisdictions and modes of operation." Types of law included imperial and royal edicts and statutes, canon law, unwritten customary law of tribes and localities, written Germanic law, residual Roman law, municipal statutes, the law of merchants and of guilds, and in England the common law, on the continent the Roman law of jurists after the twelfth century revival of the Justinian Code. The types of courts included various imperial and royal courts, ecclesiastical courts, manorial or seigniorial courts, village courts, municipal courts in cities, merchant courts, and guild courts. Serving as judges in these courts, respectively, were kings or their appointees, Bishops and abbots, barons or lords of the manor or their appointees, local lay leaders, leading burghers, merchants, and members of the guild. These various positions were not wholly separate-many high government officials were in religious orders, while Churches held landed estates that came with local judicial responsibilities. "Bishops, abbots and prioresses, as lords of temporal possessions, controlled manorial or honorial courts at which they sometimes, though not generally, presided in person, exercising responsibility for criminal and customary law." "The result was the existence of numerous law communities," Weber wrote, "the autonomous jurisdictions of which overlapped, the compulsory, political association being only one such autonomous jurisdiction in so far as it existed at all." Jurisdictional rules for judicial tribunals and the laws to be applied related to the persons involved and the subject matter at issue. The personality principle linked law to a person's community or association, and under feudalism property ownership came wrapped together with the right to judge those tied to the property. "Demarcation disputes between these laws and courts were numerous." Jurisdictional conflicts arose especially in relation to ecclesiastical courts, which claimed broad jurisdiction over personal status laws (marriage, divorce, inheritance) and moral crimes, as well as church property and personnel, matters which regularly overlapped with the jurisdiction of other courts. Furthermore, different bodies of law could be applicable in a given court in a given case. "It was common to find many different codes of customary law in force in the same kingdom, town or village, even in the same house, if the ninth century bishop Agobard of Lyons is to be believed when he says, 'It often happened that five mem were present or sitting together, and not one of them had the same law as another.'" In long settled areas, the personal law of communities became local customary law. People living within cities were subject to municipal statutes and customary law on certain matters (penal law, procedural), and the community law to which they were attached. (shrink)

3 Mart 1924 tarihinde ilan edilen Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu’nun uygulama boyutu Cumhuriyet Tarihi boyunca devam eden tartışmaların çıkış noktası olmuştur. Kanuna dayandırılarak medreselerin kaldırılması ardından açılan yeni din eğitimi kurumlarının da bir müddet sonra kapatılması ve din derslerinin de aşamalı olarak eğitim programlarının dışında bırakılması din derslerini uzun yıllar eğitimin bir parçası olmaktan çıkarmıştır. Çoğulcu demokrasi fikrinin ortaya çıkardığı ifade hürriyeti ve bunun sosyal ve siyasi hayattaki yansımalarının bir sonucu olarak din dersleri yeniden gündem konusu haline gelmiştir. Bu makalede Türkiye’de (...) çok partili hayata geçişin sağlanmasıyla birlikte din dersleri konusunda yaşanan gelişmeler ve din eğitimi veren kurumların geçirdiği yeniden yapılanma süreci kronolojik bir yöntemle sunulmuştur. Makale çerçevesinde 1924’ten 1946 yılına kadar olan süreçte din dersleri konusunda yaşanan gelişmeler kısaca anlatılmış, ardından 1960 yılına kadar olan süreç incelenmiştir.As we analyze the history of Republic of Turkey, the year 1946 and the following years have become the milestone for the transition process to pluralist democracy. This period of time could be regarded of a crucial influence on political and social transformation. Within the article, developments taken place in religion classes and re-construction period of the institutions taught religion after the transition process to pluralist democracy from single party regime have been chronologically presented. The article looks through the developments in religion classes from 1924 until 1946 and then analyzes the period up until 1960. (shrink)

The Journal of Religious Ethics (JRE) was established at a particular moment in the United States in the early 1970s. This article investigates how that moment—in the institutional milieu of academic theology and religious studies in which the (JRE) emerged—influenced its founding. It does this through attention to three main sources: (1) the original charter and bylaws of the JRE, (2) publications from the JRE and other scholarly outlets in the period, and (3) a collection of interviews with (...) scholars who occupied editorial roles in the first 10 years of the life of the journal. The article suggests that the JRE's early period was driven by three key forces: the emergence of Christian ethics as a field of academic theology, deepening engagement with academic philosophy among students of Christian ethics, and growing attention to the pedagogical requirements of increasingly pluralist tertiary educational environments. In conclusion, I describe my own place in this history, asking how the dynamics around the founding of the JRE shape my participation in the practice enacted in its pages. (shrink)

This book brings together international scholars of Islamic philosophy, theology and politics to examine these current major questions: What is the place of pluralism in the Islamic founding texts? How have sacred and prophetic texts been interpreted throughout major Islamic intellectual history by the Sunnis and Shi‘a? How does contemporary Islamic thought treat religious and political diversity in modern nation states and in societies in transition? How is pluralism dealt with in modern major and minor Islamic (...) contexts? How does modern political Islam deal with pluralism in the public sphere? And what are the major internal and external challenges to pluralism in Islamic contexts? These questions that have become of paramount relevance in religious studies especially during the last three-four decades are answered as critically highlighted in Islamic founding sources, the formative classical sources and how it has been lived and practiced in past and present Islamic majority societies and communities around the world. Case studies cover Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand, besides various internal references to other contexts. (shrink)

This article, part of a Common Knowledge symposium on “the consequence of blur,” concerns the place of religion in the historical literature on Asia. It finds a minimalist approach to religion in the case of Buddhism and a maximalist approach in the case of Islam: historians of Asia have little to say about Buddhism, while they exaggerate the role of the Muslim religion. This problem is acute when treating historical circumstances in which Buddhism and Islam are involved in tandem. Although (...) people of the two traditions interacted throughout Asia for more than a millennium, which would suggest that pluralism or something like it was operative, there is virtually no mention of the other in the religious corpus of either tradition. This essay recommends and demonstrates a historical approach more alert to the possibility that religious pluralism may best be found in the past by exploring examples of cross-religious interaction that were not religious but, simply, performed by religious people. The case examined here is of a Buddhist-Muslim interaction that changed the history of the world. The successful spread of Buddhism was tied to the technological prowess and especially the advanced hydrology of its followers, which enabled irrigation for crops, including above all cotton. The sudden “cotton boom” in ninth-century Iran, which enabled the subsequent Muslim takeover of the global cotton industry, was enabled by Buddhists who were fleeing economic collapse and political turmoil in northwest India. This transfer of technology and expertise took place even though Islam is (thought of as) fiercely resistant to alien religious influence. Religious pluralism appears to have been at work when creedal specifics were left blurry, vague, and unstipulated. (shrink)

Friends and foes of liberal neutrality assume that neutrality presupposes pluralism. On this view, the state should be neutral among the many permissible conceptions of the individual good that citizens affirm. I argue that neutrality need not be construed as a response to pluralism. I focus on the case of specifically religious neutrality and argue that it can be an appropriate political response to what I call “the fact of religious hegemony,” which is a social scenario (...) in which a particular religion is unanimously recognized as dominant. Religious neutrality, in this kind of context, requires the state to avoid all religious words and symbols that can be taken as an expression of endorsement or criticism of religion. I take this conception of religious neutrality from both political history and current political practice and discourse. Neutrality was originally conceived of as a proper political response in contexts of religious hegemony both in France and in Mexico. Today, and despite the growth of religious pluralism, this conception continues to be a live political posture in the places where it first originated. I call it “neutrality as independence from religion” and argue that it differs from liberal neutrality in crucial respects. (shrink)

Pluralism is among the most vital intellectual movements of the modern era. Liberal pluralism helped reinforce and promote greater separation of political and religious spheres. Socialist pluralism promoted the political role of trade unions and the rise of corporatism. Empirical pluralism helped legitimate the role of interest groups in democratic government. Today pluralism inspires thinking about key issues such as multiculturalism and network governance. However, despite pluralism's importance, there are no histories of twentieth-century (...) pluralist thinking. Modern Pluralism fills this gap. It explores liberal, socialist, and empirical ideas about diversity in Britain and the United States. It shows how pluralists challenged homogenous nations and sovereign states, often promoting sub-national groups as potential sites of self-government. In it, intellectual historians, political theorists, and social scientists collectively explore the historical background to present institutions and debates. The book serves to enrich our understanding of the history of pluralism and its continuing relevance. (shrink)

This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of cultural pluralism and the requirements of American democracy. Based partly on a survey of the literature on interest-group pluralism and critical perspectives on the politics of globalization, the monograph argues for reasoned caution concerning the practical effects of the revival. Undercurrents of “vulgar pragmatism” including both moral and (...) epistemic relativism threaten the intellectual and moral integrity of American thought – and have contributed to the present sense of political crisis. -/- The text chiefly contributes to the evaluation of the contemporary influence of the philosophy of John Dewey (1859–1952) and his late development of the classical pragmatist tradition. In comparison to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), William James (1842–1910), and earlier currents of American thought, Dewey’s philosophy, dominated by its overall emphasis on unification, is weaker in its support for the pluralism of cultural and religious contributions which have lent moral self-restraint to American policy and politics, both foreign and domestic. With all due homage to Dewey’s conception of philosophy, centered on human problems and the need for our ameliorative efforts, the argument is that in the contemporary revival, Dewey’s thought has been too often captured by “post-modernist” bandwagons of self-promotion and institutional control. -/- This work defends democratic individualism against more collectivist and corporatist tendencies in contemporary neo-pragmatism, and it draws upon up-to-date political analysis in defense of America’s long republican tradition. Pragmatism will not and cannot be removed from, or ignored, in American intellectual and moral history; and its influence on disciplines from law to politics, sociology and literary criticism has been immense. However, pragmatism has often been weak in commitment to cultural pluralism and in its accounts of truth. (shrink)

This article offers a vision for work at the intersection of science and religion over the coming seven years. Because predictions are inherently risky and are more often than not false, the text first offers an assessment of the current state of the science-religion discussion and a quick survey of the last 50 years of work in this field. The implications of the six features of this vision for the future of the field are then presented in some detail. Rather (...) than bemoaning the current diversity of approaches and conclusions as a negative result, I endorse it as a healthy sign—if acknowledged honestly and managed well. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

In an episode in the Bhagavadgita Arjuna refuses to fight that would involve killing his teachers, elders, relatives and friends. Krishna argues that he should fight because it is the special duty of a soldier to fight in a just war, one should do one’s duty regardless of the consequences, one should act for the common good, one should build an unwavering character taking victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, friend and foe in the same way, etc. Some of these (...) reasons may be taken to promote deontology, others utilitarianism, yet others virtue ethics that are often viewed contemporarily as incompatible ethical theories. We argue that these three theories are not necessarily incompatible and may be linked to three sides of human nature: deontology to cognitivity, utilitarianism to dynamism and virtue ethics to affectivity. We also argue that Krishna may be taken to promote ethical pluralism just as he may be taken to promote religious pluralism by recommending the path of knowledge, the path of action and the path of devotion from an inclusive perspective. (shrink)

Relationship-oriented questions have always been at the crossroads of ethnoreligious identity, religious freedom, religious conversion, religious prejudice, and religious pluralism throughout Muslim-Buddhist co-existence in the sixth century within the Malay Archipelago. Other faiths could be freely practised except for propagation towards Muslim communities with Islam being the religion of the federation. This study aimed to explore Muslim-Buddhist relation types and the issues underpinning the following themes: history, identity, and concerns. Content and thematic analysis as (...) well discourse analysis were utilised as the study method for data collection and evaluation. Resultantly, the Muslim-Buddhist interaction pattern in Malaysia has occurred (culturally and religiously) from the early establishment of both religious communities. This relation, which has shifted in ethnoreligious orientation at every interaction level, opens more avenues and complexities requiring holistic management. (shrink)

Contemporary bioethics generally stipulates that public moral deliberation must avoid allowing religious beliefs to influence or justify health policy and law. Secular premises and arguments are assumed to maintain the neutral, common ground required for moral deliberation in the public square of a pluralistic society. However, a careful examination of non-theistic arguments used to justify euthanasia (regarding contested notions of human dignity, individual autonomy, and death as annihilation) reveals a dependence on metaethical and metaphysical beliefs that are not universally (...) accepted in a pluralistic society. Such beliefs function in non-theistic arguments in the same way that foundational beliefs justify moral convictions in religious frameworks of belief. This parallel is apparent when religious belief is defined broadly (_a la_ John Reeder) as ‘the search for the good in light of the limits and possibilities of the real.’ Seen through this interpretive lens, frameworks comprising Secular foundational commitments function, in ethically relevant respects, like the guiding beliefs found in the comprehensive frameworks of traditional religions. When conscientious practice in healthcare is reconsidered in light of this foundational similarity between the religious and the secular, it is clear that those who object to the foundational beliefs underpinning Secular arguments for euthanasia should not be required to provide, participate in, or refer patients for euthanasia (or other ethically controversial practices similarly dependent on contested frameworks of belief) in pluralistic societies that prize moral freedom as a primary human good. (shrink)

This collection of essays by major scholars analyze the religious diversity in Chinese religion, bringing together topics from traditional and contemporary contexts and Chinese religions' encounters with Western religion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pluralism ConferenceJohn HickIn September 2003 a conference was held at Birmingham University, UK, of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs who all hold the "pluralist" view that no one religion is the one and only true or uniquely salvific faith, but that, in the words of the thirteenth-century Sufi thinker Rumi, "The lamps are different but the Light is the same: it comes from beyond." The conveners (...) were Professors Perry Schmidt-Leukel of Glasgow University, Paul Knitter of Xavier University (Cincinnati), Leonard Swidler of Temple University (Philadelphia), and John Hick of Birmingham University. My own account of the purpose of the conference is that we are academics who are committed and practicing believers within but not official representatives of (in rough order of origin) the Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian (both Catholic and Protestant), Muslim, and Sikh faiths.We are acutely aware that throughout history almost all human conflicts have been validated and intensified by a religious sanction. God has been claimed to be on both sides of every war. This has been possible because each of the great world faiths has either assumed or asserted its own unique superiority as the one and only true faith and path to the highest good—in familiar Christian terms, to salvation. These exclusive claims to absolute truth have exacerbated the division of the human community into rival groups, and have repeatedly been invoked in support of oppression, slavery, conquest, and exploitation.The second half of twentieth century saw both a worldwide development of interreligious dialogue, coinciding with considerable east-to-west migration, and also a strong contrary growth of aggressive fundamentalism in powerful elements within each tradition. But dialogue has led to a much greater mutual knowledge and appreciation between the world faiths, so that it is now possible for leaders of the religious institutions to meet in mutual amity and respect. However they still, for the most part, retain as their bottom line a conviction of the unique centrality and priority of their own tradition. Sharing in this way the same fundamental conviction as their militant fundamentalist elements, they lack any principled ground on which to oppose them.We offer for discussion, as the fruit of our deliberations, a step beyond this unstable situation. We note that the world religions share the basic belief in a higher reality, of limitless importance to us, that transcends the material universe and yet can [End Page 253] be encountered through the depth of our own being. They also share the basic belief that this present life is not the entirety of human existence but part of a much larger life. And they share the central values of love, compassion, and justice within the human community here on earth.We note that the deepest thinkers within each tradition express a profound sense of mystery, insisting that the ultimate reality to which their faith is oriented lies in its fullness beyond the range of our comprehension. We humans can describe it, not as it is in itself, but as great revelatory moments have caused it to be variously conceived and experienced within the different ways of being human that are the great cultures of the world. The religions, then, are different and unique totalities, each with its own founding events, paradigmatic figures, sacred writings, remembered history, spiritual practices, intellectual formulations, distinctive ethos, and institutional forms. We believe that they are different responses to the universal presence of the ineffable ultimate reality.Although individual conversions between the faiths have always occurred, in the vast majority of cases religious believers are born into and are formed by a particular tradition. It therefore fits them and they fit it, so that it is for them the right and true religion. We should therefore each normally stay within our inherited tradition, using its spiritual resources to the fullest. We must also, however, recognize that the same principle holds for the hundreds of millions who have been born into and formed by other traditions. We should see those religions as independently authentic and valid, of equal value with our own, welcoming mutual enrichment from one another's traditions and also allowing for the raising of critical questions about... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 135-157 [Access article in PDF] "That We May Know Each Other": The Pluralist Hypothesis as a Research Program Paul O. Ingram Pacific Lutheran University When an African American Muslim named Siraj Wahaj served as the first Muslim "Chaplain of the Day" in the Unites States House of Representatives on 25 June 1991 he offered the following prayer, the first Muslim prayer in the in the (...) history of the House of Representatives: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful. Praise belongs to thee alone; O God, Lord and Creator of all the worlds. Praise belongs to Thee Who shaped us as and colored us in the wombs of our mothers; colored us black and white, brown, red, and yellow. Praise belongs to Thee who created us from males and females and made us into nations and tribes that we may know each other.1Siraj Wahaj's prayer is a direct reference to one of the most cited verses of the Qur'an: "Do you not know, O people, that I have made you into tribes and nations that you may know each other." Of course, "knowing each other" is an important goal in the practice of interreligious dialogue, but Muslims often move on to cite further Qur'anic advice about religious pluralism: "If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people," the verse reads, "But His plan is to test you in what He hath given you; so strive as in a race in all virtues."2 According to Siraj Wahaj and many like-minded American Muslims, Islam and pluralism go hand in hand and respect for the dignity for each person, no matter what religious or secular label he or she wears, rests on Islamic foundations. Of course, this interpretation of the Qur'an is rejected by radical communities within the House of Islam as well as by fundamentalist communities within Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. Nor are the foundations of pluralism only found in the Qur'an; Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, and aboriginal traditions support religious pluralism as well.This essay's thesis, what John Hick first posited as the "pluralist hypothesis," offers us the most coherent theoretical framework—minus Hick's Kantian epistemology—from which to interpret contemporary postmodern experiences of religious [End Page 135] diversity. Furthermore, I shall argue that the pluralist hypothesis constitutes a coherent history-of-religions research program from which to investigate and interpret the facts of religious diversity.3 In order to demonstrate the adequacy of my thesis and argument, I shall appropriate the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos's account of the methodology and structure of scientific research programs, guided by Nancy Murphy's application of Lakatos's work in the construction of theological research programs. But first, some preliminary clarifications about what I mean by "religious pluralism" and "religious diversity."4 The Structure of the Experience of Religious Pluralism In a recent book on the lives of four Catholic writers—Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy—Paul Elie provides one of the most accurate descriptions of the structure of postmodern experience of religious diversity in English print: We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, and are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto ourselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty, but the problem of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it should be.5Assuming that Elie's description is an accurate one, certain implications follow that will serve as working assumptions of this essay."Pluralism" is not just another name for "diversity." Diversity names the fact of the existence of differing... (shrink)

Religious freedom is included among the basic liberties to which persons are entitled in John Rawls’s account of Justice as Fairness. Rawls’s revised presentation of this as a political conception of justice in Political Liberalism aims to show how it can be (along with the other parts of Justice as Fairness) the focus of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. As an example, Rawls contends that his understanding of religious freedom is consistent with that of the Roman (...) Catholic Church, at least since the Second Vatican Council. I argue that he was mistaken in this in so far as other aspects of his political conception, especially its characterization of citizens as normatively having the power to form their own conceptions of the good, puts it at odds with the teaching of the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis humanae. This suggests more generally that the limits of consensus in modern pluralist societies are greater than Rawls’s theory holds. (shrink)

In her book Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum joins a chorus of American intellectuals who have criticized France and other European nations for their failure to embrace the concept of cultural pluralism. In Nussbaum's opinion, the meaning that the French attach to egalité has remained stuck in circumstances peculiar to the eighteenth century. The concept is outdated and has not in the contemporary world been able to protect (...) cultural diversity in general and religious diversity in particular. Her book takes to task what she terms “the French tradition of “coercive assimilation” that is insensitive to what George Washington stressed as the “‘delicacy and tenderness’ that is owed to other people's ‘conscientious scruples.’” The French refusal to allow Muslim schoolgirls to cover their heads with a foulard, however stylish it might be, is linked back to the French emancipation of Jews that required, in Nussbaum's analysis, a heavy requirement of cultural erasure. The French, like most Europeans, grew used to the idea “that citizens are all alike,” an idea that now haunts France as it tries to figure out what to do with its Muslim population. (shrink)

This paper examines a variety of intellectual responses to the religious and philosophical issues raised by religious plurality. While the specific questions raised by religious plurality differ across traditions, the more general problem that faces all religious intellectuals is how to provide a compelling theoretical account of the relationship between the various religions of the world. The paper briefly reviews religious exclusivism and inclusivism, before focusing upon theories of religious pluralism. After clarifying the (...) distinction between religious pluralism and relativism about religion, and comparing and assessing various forms of pluralism, the paper concludes that how compelling any particular theory of religious diversity proves to be will be dependent upon how convincing one finds the underlying understanding of religion. This implies that the real priority for scholars concerned with rival theories of religious plurality is to strive towards a common understanding of the nature of religion. (shrink)

Religious education (RE) has often found itself at the centre of debates about education's role in promoting social cohesion in contemporary multi-religious societies. The paper considers RE's relationship to religious plurality within the broader context of politics of curriculum and debates on pluralism. Drawing upon the recent works on the history of religion and using the teaching of the histories and cultures of Muslims in RE as a case study, it argues that RE has yet (...) to fulfill its potential in this regard. The paper examines reasons for this and recommends alternative approaches to content which may help RE rise to the challenges posed above. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth century, European philosophical theologians concerned about the perceived threat of secularity played a crucial role in the construction of the category of ‘religion,’ conceived as a transcultural universal, the genus of which the so-called ‘world religions’ are species. By reading the work of the late John Hick (1922–2012), the most influential contemporary philosophical advocate of religious pluralism, through an historically informed hermeneutic of suspicion, this paper argues that orientalist-derived understandings of religion continue to play (...) a significant (though often unacknowledged) role within the philosophy of religion today. Though couched in the language of pluralism, Hick’s later work in the philosophy of religion functions apologetically to maintain a version of the religious–secular distinction that, while theologically and politically loaded, is, I show, philosophically arbitrary. Moving the philosophy of religion beyond Eurocentrism, I argue, will require freeing it from the logic of the modern understanding of religion. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute with a reflection about religious pluralism and religious freedom into Lusophony. Reviving pieces of history since the 15th century to the current post-colonial Portuguese society, Lusophony is analyzed in two complementary perspectives: That of the colonizing people and that of the colonized nations. Evangelization, colonization and Lusophony are, and always will be, inseparable. In addition to linguistic uniformity, Lusophony gave its distinctiveness in acculturation, miscegenation, plasticity, and Christianization policy. Using the census (...) data in the 90’s, 2000’s, and 2010’s, with a documentary approach, it is established a general overview of religious affiliation in Lusophony. Moving from a faith of obligation to a faith of conviction, Lusophony is nowadays characterized by a pluralist position in religious matters. The current situation of religious freedom is analyzed from the AIS report and the GRI and SHI indexes. From multiculturalism to acculturation, the plasticity, eclecticism, and religious syncretism acted as moderators towards the imposition of a new belief. The article ends by appealing to the inclusion of religious freedom in the political agenda, in order to defend human rights and peace in the world. (shrink)

The article reveals the nature and manifestations of Ukrainian religious pluralism. Despite the constant interest in the topic - the plurality of religious life in Ukraine, science has not yet clarified the causes and roots of this phenomenon. The author analyzes the historical, psychological, socio-political factors that caused the religious diversity of Ukraine. The presence of many religious traditions within one ethnic and state territory promotes tolerant relations between bearers of different religious beliefs. Ukraine's (...) religious plurality distinguishes Ukrainians from other nations. This gives grounds to consider Ukraine a unique religious phenomenon of the European level. Religious plurality is a condition for the establishment of the principles of freedom of religion, freedom of choice. The author derives worldview plurality and polydenominationalism in Ukraine from the history of the Ukrainian people, looking for their origins in the pre-Christian and later early Christian era. The presence of heresy in Ukraine as a generalized form of coexistence of different worldviews explains the current richness of religious traditions, their syncretization. The article makes an intermediate conclusion that the history itself, living conditions, national character of the people formed Ukraine denominationally plural. Based on such a historical foundation, since gaining state independence in 1991, Ukraine has been self-determined in its priorities regarding the country's spiritual / religious development. The Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine created a legal basis for the equal existence and development of different religions in Ukraine. The plurality of Ukrainian society is enshrined in law. The basic principles of the plurality of religious life are confirmed by specific digital data that illustrate the richness of religious traditions in Ukraine quantitatively and qualitatively. The author provides statistics on all religions and denominations that exist in Ukraine, giving the number of communities, monasteries, schools, priests, publications and more. Detailed information seeks to form a holistic picture of the religious life of Ukraine. The analyzed data give grounds to single out the factors that determine the religious plurality of Ukraine. According to the author, at the beginning of the XXI century the denominational network of Ukraine has largely already formed. The mass emergence of new religious movements is unlikely. Nevertheless, Ukraine has not yet exhausted all the possibilities of religious pluralism. It can grow not only due to the emergence of some exotic, technological, syncretic religions, but also because of intra-confessional division or unity of communities. In Ukraine, there are structures that cultivate interreligious tolerance, which will ensure a high level of religious freedom. However, religious pluralism in Ukraine is periodically threatened by various circumstances - internal and external, general and local, collective and personal. In conclusion, religious pluralism is determined as a guarantor of religious freedom, the right of everyone to profess his chosen system of spiritual values. (shrink)