It is a commonplace that we all now live in pluralist societies in which different religions and opponents of all religion jostle for influence. This is not a new phenomenon. The Roman world at the time of the New Testament was a ferment of different religions and philosophies. No-one could think that they could have a monopoly. Even so, the Apostles, for example, were in no doubt that they had a mission to proclaim what was true for all, whether they recognised it or not. In the contemporary world, there is a comparable ferment of ideas, and with global travel and the mass movements of populations, no-one can retreat into the security of a group of like-minded people who can simply ignore the great religious differences around them.
This situation inevitably raises important issues of both a philosophical and more broadly political kind. If there is a God, why should He make it apparently so difficult to believe in Him, with different, and contradictory religions all competing to tell us what the truth really is? Could it be possible that, even so, we are all worshipping the same God, even though in different ways? These questions may be troubling even for those with a deep faith, but there are other issues too of a more immediate kind. In a democracy we are used to living with political disagreements. Indeed democracy is primarily a mechanism for dealing with them. Can religious disagreements feed into the democratic process, or is there something about the nature of religion, the way it is rooted in human nature, and its apparently exclusive claims, that makes it resistant to rational discussion?
In my new book Religious Diversity: Philosophical and Political Dimensions (Cambridge University Press, 2014), I am concerned with the way in which philosophical approaches to religion themselves can affect the way religion is approached in public life. There is, for instance, a wish by many to make ‘faith’ a private and subjective matter, something that may define a person’s identity, but which has no place in public reasoning. Those who do not share that faith, of whatever kind, can ignore it as it cannot contribute to public discussion. I have in previous books (Religion in Public Life and Equality, Freedom and Religion) argued against this, but in Religious Diversity I am particularly concerned with the way in which many see claims to objective truth as not only divisive, but as leading to intolerance of others. There have been over the last generation attempts made by philosophers of religion such as the late John Hick to reinterpret Christianity so that it does not make exclusive claims that put it at odds with other religions. The Incarnation , for instance could be seen as a ‘myth’ rather than a plain statement of God becoming man. He hoped thereby to soften differences between the main religions.
Behind all this lies the fear that a claim to truth, by implying that others are mistaken, leads to the kind of intolerance that was shown in the Inquisition, or indeed is still shown by extremist forms of religion in various parts of the world, such as the Sudan. Yet to deny that any religion claims truth, and is trying to articulate a vision of the nature of reality, is to change the nature of thatreligion, and to fail to take it seriously. However open, too, we may wish to be to the understandings of alternative religions, we must accept that not all religious beliefs can be admired, or even tolerated. If there is no truth, anything goes. All religion has to be tolerated. There can, though, be a ‘pathology of religion’, so that it can be twisted to evil purposes, to oppression and failure to respect human dignity. The latter concept is itself surely religious in origin. Our horror at the Inquisition surely comes because ideas that belief can be coerced, and that we need not respect a free will that is given by God, seem to be against the teaching of Christianity. The view that we are all made in the image in of God carries with it assumptions about truth, which themselves should uphold the very tolerance some see as put in danger by religion.
There are many examples of persecution and coercion, in the name of religion, present in the contemporary world. That, for some gives all religion a bad name, though many probably implicitly appeal to traditional Christian principles of human freedom and dignity when they react like that. For most of us, however, the issue is not one of resisting major persecution in our community, but how, on an everyday level, we negotiate religious diversity. In England, since 1689’s Act of Toleration the connection between a particular religious allegiance (in that case, membership of the Church of England) and citizenship was broken. This is still not the case in many countries where religious and national identity are seen as so closely linked that any liberty in religious allegiance seems to loosen national ties.
On a recent visit to Russia, it was stressed to me by Church officials how, in the context of religious freedom, both the Russian State and the Russian Orthodox Church are concerned about issues concerning identity and security. Indeed the Church was happy to leave such problems to the State. New religious movements, particularly when emanating from abroad, are seen as a threat. Even the Methodist Church is seen as coming from South Korea and the United States and thus as a threat to the State’s integrity. Yet, from a wider perspective, religious freedom and other democratic freedoms are closely entwined. One cannot contribute to public debate, or live as some chooses, if one cannot be guided by what one considers most important in life, and that, for many, will be their religion. It is not surprising that when religious freedom is compromised, other freedoms soon fall be the wayside.
In many Western countries the issues may not come in as stark a form. How though are we to wend our way through questions about the recognition of religion in a diverse society? Militant atheism adds to the mixture of competing religions and general indifference to religion as a whole. We may leave things to personal choice, but that does not settle the public approach to religion or its place in the public sphere. This is sometimes symbolised by, for example, rows about the place of public prayer. A couple of generations ago, this could be accepted as normal practice, but with so much divergence and the immigration of adherents to religions other than Christianity, it is a vexed issue. The problem is whether it is wrong to subject those who may not be believers to public Christian prayer. It has been the tradition in Britain for major national ceremonies to be specifically Christian. Parliament still begins the daily sessions in each House with prayers. Does all this imply that somehow non-Christians are not full citizens? The issue was raised in the English courts not long in connection with prayers at meetings of Bideford town council in Devon.
Intriguingly, precisely these kinds of question have been very recently posed in the Supreme Court of the United States, in a country where the separation of church and state is regarded as of paramount importance. In a case, decided in May 2014, concerning the conduct of monthly board meetings in a town called Greece in New York State, a majority of justices held that the giving of explicitly Christian prayers was constitutional. The Court thus went against the lower appellate court which said that prayer-givers , local clergy, in the town in question, should ‘resist the temptation to convey their view of religious truth and thereby run the risk of making others feel like outsiders’. Interestingly, it was not the giving of prayer as such that was being challenged but the giving of a Christian prayer. The long tradition of civic prayer in legislatures such as Congress no doubt was enough to deter objectors from demanding the removal of all invocations, even of the vaguest kind. The Supreme Court held, however, that it was not the business of the state to mandate a civic religion, any more than it should prescribe a religious orthodoxy. The government, the Court said, ‘may not seek to define permissible categories of religious speech.’ ‘Offense’, it claimed, does not equate to coercion’. The background of historical practice was relevant.
Thus in what is seen sometimes as an avowedly secular country, the right was upheld of individuals to speak sincerely in public and talk, even in a public prayer, of what they believe to be true. Public life is impoverished if people are prevented from sharing with others their innermost beliefs. If making some claims to truth is regarded as unacceptable in public, the existence of a pluralist society just ensures that all dialogue about disagreements becomes empty and ultimately pointless. Religion is eviscerated, and any possible good it could contribute to a wider society is removed.
In our society, we are often told, for example in the context of education, that we must ‘celebrate diversity’. If that means enjoying Chinese food that may be all well and good. If, though, it means that we should marginalise all religions and beliefs, and be unwilling to engage with them, learn from them and even criticise them, we lose a great deal. If truth is at stake, divergence and difference should not be accepted as a final, desirable state. We demean each other’s beliefs about what is true, if we pretend otherwise.
Image by Jyri Engrestrom from flickr.com under the Creative Commons Licence.
