An increasingly prominent and potentially contentious phenomenon, religious diversity is intimately associated with contemporary issues such as migration, human rights, social cohesion, socio-cultural pluralisation, political jurisdiction, globalisation, and reactionary . But others teach that the ultimate reality is a perfect self, a being capable of knowledge, will, and intentional action. Some authors, usually ones who wish to celebrate these facts, call them religious pluralism, but this entry reserves this label for a family of theories about the facts of religious diversity. Thus, Christian exclusivists usually allow that those who die as babies, the severely mentally handicapped, or friends of God who lived before Christian times may avoid hell and attain heaven despite their not being fully-fledged, believing and practicing Christians. Other Buddhists experience Amida Buddha, while Christians experience Christ, and Jews Yahweh, Hindus Isvara, and Muslims Allah. It is a mistake, Abe holds, to regard any god as ultimate, and monotheists must revise their understanding as above, if true inter-religious dialogue and peace are to be achievable. But doesnt Christian tradition demand that each person eventually either achieves fellowship or union with God, or is irrevocably damned? 4. All the theories discussed in this article are ways that (usually religious) people regard other religions, but here we discuss them abstractly, without descending much into the details of how they would be worked out in the teachings and practices of any one religion. More Empathy Equally, Advaita Vedanta Hindus must let go of their insistence on Nirguna Brahman as ultimate. It is also allowed that each major religion really does deliver the cure it claims to (for example, salvation and heaven, Nirvana, Moksha), and is entitled to operate by its own moral and epistemic values. From African Americans to Russian Americans . Starting as a traditional, non-pluralistic Christian, Hick attended religious meetings and studied with people of other religions. Dabblers and hobbyists freely stitch together unique quilts of religious beliefs and practices, but such constructions seem to make little sense once a believer has accepted any particular religion. Race Race is a protected characteristic that refers to an individual's race, colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins. Or what sense would it make for an Orthodox Jew, whose religion teaches him to be fruitful and multiply, to employ the Buddhist practice of viewing corpses at a burial ground so as to expunge the unwanted liability of sexual desire? (Netland 2001, 23-54) Theories of religious diversity have largely been driven by attacks on and defenses of such claims, and discussions continue within the realm of Christian theology. The Many Gods of Hick and Mavrodes,, Hick, John. Hick realizes the incoherence of dubbing all religions true, for they have core teachings that conflict, and most religions are not shy about pointing out such conflicts. (Netland 2001), Others object that Hicks pluralism requires arbitrarily reinterpreting religious language non-literally, and usually as having to do with morality, contrary to what most proponents of those religions believe. (Peterson et. Thus, for example, the earliest Buddhist and Christian sources prominently feature staunch criticisms of various rival teachings and practices as, respectively, false and useless or harmful. The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity engages with one of the most characteristic features of modern society. On this view, all the religions are right to the same degree, that is, all versions of monotheism (or perhaps, ethical monotheisms, or Abrahamic monotheisms). Diversity also includes characteristics such as professional skills, working style, location, and life experiences. Carefully worked out theories of religious pluralism often sound all-inclusive. A more inclusive and equitable workplace can lead to increased employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Colour includes, for example, being black or white. This transformation, Hick theorizes, is really the point of religion. A plurality of different religions, major and minor, exist in the world, each believing different things. 1933) and English convert to Islam, Martin Lings (1909-2005) who was a biographer of Muhammad. Yet other religious mystics perceive the Cosmos, that is, the totality of finite things (the body of the World Soul). In Mahayana Buddhism, the ultimate reality, a formless but active non-thing, is Emptiness, or the Truth Body (Dharmakaya). (OConnor 1999) This exclusivism is compatible with both exclusivism and inclusivism in this article. Since the latter twentieth century many Roman Catholic theologians have explored non-exclusivist options. Nevertheless, the homeownership rate is on the rise among Asian Americans, increasing from 53% in 2000 to 59% in 2019. Contrary to widespread depictions of religious blocs of uniform practices, values and concerns, it is essential to emphasize the plurality of . This naive pluralism is refuted by accurate information on religious differences. Religious Diversity and its Challenges to Religious Belief.. Finally, Hick revises his view: the monotheistic gods people experience are mental projections in response to the Real, and not real selves, but since religious people really do encounter great selves in religious experience, we should posit personal intermediaries between humans and the Real, with whom religious people interact. Roughly, pluralistic approaches to religious diversity say that, within bounds, one religion is as good as any other. In the second, even a virtuous pagan might be a church member. This led to both the questioning and the defense of various exclusivist traditional Christian claims. You are protected under the Equality Act 2010 from these types of discrimination. RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY. Subjectively, those other people have similar grounds for belief. In this article, religious pluralism refers to a theory about the diversity of religions. (1995, 2004) All the major religions are equal in that they (1) refer to and facilitate cognitive contact with a single, transcendent reality, (2) each offers a similarly moral- and eternal-oriented cure, and (3) each includes revisable and incomplete accounts of this transcendent reality. At the same time, they argued that many people who are outside the one church cannot be blamed for this, and so will not be condemned by God. This is not compatible with his thesis that Vishnu and others are phenomena of the Real, that is, culturally conditioned ways that the Real appears to us. In some sense these three are one, however, the Truth Body manifests or acts as various Enjoyment Bodies, which in turn manifest or act as various Transformation Bodies. This seems incompatible with Heims agnosticism about which, if any, of the diagnosed problems is the fundamental one. In the first case, a person who is killed in an accident on her way to be baptized would nonetheless be in the church. Religious diversity is the fact that there are significant differences in religious belief and practice. Another naive exclusivist view which is rejected by most theorists is that all who are not full-fledged members of the best religion fail to get the cure. It would seem that that, for example, a Christian to accept this ultimist pluralism, she will have to reinterpret what many Christians will regard as a core commitment, namely, that the ultimate reality is personal. On the other hand, others seem to make little or no sense outside the context of the home religion, and others are simply incompatible. Thus, the Hindu intellectual Ram Mohun Roy (1772/4-1833) held that Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, when understood in their original, non-idolatrous and non-superstitious ways, all teach the important truths about God and humankind, enabling humans to love and serve God. pregnancy and maternity. One asserts not merely the possibility, but the actuality of salvation for those who are inculpably ignorant of the gospel but who seek God and try to follow his will as expressed through their own conscience. This was a polemic against non-Mahayana versions of Buddhist dharma (teaching). Characteristics of cultural diversity : Multiplicity of cultures Each worldview is the product of the individual development of a people. However, he maintained that people in the religions interact with it indirectly, by way of various personae and impersonae, personal and impersonal appearances or phenomena of the Real. Water baptism, from the beginning, had been the initiation rite into Christianity, but it was still unclear what church membership strictly required. (Heim 1995, 163) This is consistent with the Christian thinking that the end pursued by Christians is in fact better than all others; thus, heaven is better than Nirvana. Instead, Hick downgrades the importance of true belief to religion. In principle, it would seem that an exclusivist or inclusivist may have all or most of the good qualities, and one who accepts a theory of religious pluralism may have all or most of the bad qualities. This sort of core pluralism was propounded by some members of the Theosophical Society such as co-founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91) in her widely read The Secret Doctrine (1888), and by French convert to Sufi Islam Ren Gunon (1886-1951) and those influenced by him, such as the eclectic Swiss-German writer Frithjof Schuon (1907-98). (Hick 1995, ch. For example, both Christians and Buddhists have adopted religious-diversity-celebrating rhetoric while clearly denying anything described above in this article as a kind of pluralism about religious diversity. Theorists nearly always loosen the requirement with regard to what they view as the one most true and/or most effective religion. Beginning in the late twentieth century, however, some Jewish thinkers have argued for pluralism along the lines of various Christian authors, revising traditional Jewish theology. In the Decree for the Copts of the General Council of Florence (1442), a papal bull issued by pope Eugene IV (r. 1431-47), for the first time in an official Roman Catholic doctrinal document the slogan was asserted not only with respect to heretics and schismatics, but also concerning Jews and pagans. Thus, it has been observed that identist religious pluralism (see 2e below) is essentially a Hindu position, and closely resembles Advaita Vendanta thought. A typical Rabbinic view is that although non-Jews may be reconciled to God, and thus gain life in the world to come, by keeping a lesser covenant which God has made with them, still Jews enjoy a better covenant with God. So too at least some other religions must still be means for salvation, though not necessarily to the same degree, for God wills the salvation of all humankind. (Datta 2005; Morales 2008) It has been argued that whether and how a Hindu embraces a theory of religious pluralism will depend crucially on what she takes Hinduism to be. In contrast, exclusivist approaches say that only one religion is uniquely valuable. While this trichotomy is sometimes thought of in terms of general attitudes that a religious person may have towards other religionsapproximately the attitudes of rejection, limited openness, and wide acceptance respectivelyin this article they figure as theories concerning the facts of religious diversity. One prominent scholar argues that the neo-Hindu position on religious diversity (that is, modern Hindu pluralism) is not the view that all religions are equal, one, true, or the same. (OConnor 1999; King 2008; Bogardus 2013), Others object that given the transcategoriality or ineffability of the Real, even with the above qualifications, there is no reason to think that interaction with the Real should be ethically beneficial, or that it should have any connection at all to any religious value. In other contexts, religious pluralism is a normative principle requiring that peoples of all or most religions should be treated the same. Particularly central to any religions teaching are its diagnosis of the fundamental problem facing human beings and its suggested cure, a way to positively and permanently resolve this problem. As to religious diversity, Abe suggests that we view the dynamic activity Emptiness (also called Openness) as ultimate, and as manifesting as various Gods, that is various monotheistic deities, and Lords, which are human religious teachers, whether manifestations of a god, as in the case of Jesus, or just pre-eminent servants of a god, as with Moses or Muhammad. (McDermott and Netland 2014, 148) But these are sometimes tempered with loopholes such as: a universal chance to hear the gospel at or after death, a free pass to people who die before the age of accountability, or the view that less was required to be saved in pre-Christian times. Literature since 1950 focuses on the truth or rationality of religious teachings, the veridicality (conformity with reality) of religious experiences, salvific efficacy (the ability to deliver whatever cure religion should provide), and alleged directedness towards one and the same ultimate religious object. Paradoxically, such pluralism is often expressed along with claims that Hinduism is greatly superior in various ways to other religions. Religious pluralism in some contexts means an informed, tolerant, and appreciative or sympathetic view of the various religions. The context of this statement was not a discussion of the fate of non-Christians, but rather a political struggle between the pope and the king of France. 1928) and Paul Knitter (b. (Burton 2010; Kiblinger 2005; and section 4c below) But in modern times, some have constructed a novel and distinctively Buddhist pluralism using the Mahayana doctrine of expedient means (Sanskrit: upaya). The exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist trichotomy has become standard since the 1980s. In his earlier writings, monotheistic concerns seem important. (Long 2005) The slogan may also imply that all religions feature veridical experience of that one object, by way of a non-cognitive, immediate awareness. A vast diversity of religious and spiritual traditions exists, and your clients may be affiliated with any of them. Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: The Tripolar Typology Clarified and Reaffirmed., Sharma, Arvind. Local variations in Protestant practices and ethnic differences among the white settlers did foster a religious diversity. At bare minimum, the slogan that all religions are true means that all religions are in some way directed towards one Truth, where this is understood as an ultimate reality. Further, it is really Creativity that is ultimate, and it is embodied in and does not exist apart from or as an object in addition to God and the Cosmos. race. Heim notes that pluralists like Hick insist on one true goal or salvation which is achieved by all the equally valuable religions, a goal which is proposed by the pluralist and which differs from those proposed by most of those religions. Diversity is the differences in colour, ethnicity, abilities, age, gender, beliefs, interests, socioeconomic (class), marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, geographic, academic/professional backgrounds, opinions, backgrounds, thinking, experiences and many other characteristics. This, he will not do. Finally, some authors use descriptive religious pluralism to mean what is here called religious diversity, calling normative religious pluralism views that are here called varieties of religious pluralism. While the trichotomy has been repeatedly challenged, it is still widely used, and can be precisely defined in various ways. Such a person is outside of the tradition, yet obtains the cure taught by the tradition. It is a mistake, he now holds, to suppose that the personae (that is, Vishnu, Yahweh, Allah, and so on) are angel-like selves. Hicks claim that no human concept applies to the Ultimate Reality has been criticized by many, whove pointed out that Hick applies these concepts to it: being one, being ultimate, being a partial cause of the impersonae and personae, and being ineffable. (On the majority inclusivism, see section 4b below.) (Hick 2000, 2004), As to Hicks idea that the correlation of birthplace and religious belief somehow undermines the rationality of religious belief, it has been pointed out that religious pluralism too is correlated with birthplace. (Yandell 2013), Again, it has been objected that Hick, contrary to many religions, downgrades religious practice and belief as inessential to a religion, the only important features of a religion being that it is a response to the Ultimate Reality and that it fosters the ethical transformation noted above. [This entry examines the origins and differing patterns of development of the world's major religious traditions, as well as the varying patterns of interaction between these religions and the social, political, and economic frameworks with which they coexist. Thus, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533) interpreted the slogan as implying that all non-Christians are damned, because they bear the guilt of original sin stemming from the sin of Adam, which has not been as it were washed away by baptism. What values are at issue? It is only modern people who are blinded by the misunderstanding that science reveals all, who have forgotten it. Appropriating Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian language, Smith says that this spirit is the Atman that is Brahman, the Buddha-nature that appears when our finite selves get out of its way, my istigkeit (is-ness) whichwe see is Gods is-ness. (Smith 2003 ch. Rather, he only argues for the equality of what he calls post-axial religions major religious traditions which have arisen since around 800 B.C.E. (Krkkinen 2003, 197-204, 309-17). What sense, for instance, would it make for a Zen Buddhist to undergo the Catholic rites of confession and penance? While there have been Buddhist teachers and movements who have been exclusivists, in general Buddhism has been inclusivist. Some forms of naive pluralism suppose that all religions will turn out to be complementary. It is a matter of dispute whether certain famous Sufi Muslims such as Rumi (1207-73) and Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) have held to some form of religious pluralism. Further, it respects and does not try to eliminate all these differences, and so makes genuine dialogue between members of the religions possible. Religion is a system of beliefs and moral norms that serve as spiritual guide for the human being; the mythology that composes them and their main characteristics vary between culture and culture. (Legenhausen 2009), The term religious pluralism is almost always used for a theory asserting positive value for many or most religions. (Sometimes, however, Hick makes the weaker claim that were unable to pick any religion as best at effecting this transformation.) (Smith 1992, 2003 ch. Finally, because of their fit with many traditional religious beliefs and commitments, sometimes exclusivism and inclusivism are considered as two varieties of confessionalism, views on which one religion istrue andwe must view other religions in the light of that fact. (Byrne 2004, 203). (Burton 2010). 3) To say that it is either, Hick realizes, would be to hand an epistemic victory to either the monotheists or the absolutists (ultimists). sex. Religion and religion diversity are expressed by believers to cause strong opinions and emotions in all environments. Age diversity Age diversity means working with people of different ages and, most importantly, generations. 2) He was what we now call a pluralistic Hindu (and most Hindus would add that he was also an unorthodox Hindu). However, he thought that it is arbitrary and indefensible to hold that only ones own experiences or the experiences of those in ones group are veridical, while those of people in other religions are not. If the core is salvifically effective practice, then all will be equal in that each is equally well a means to obtaining the cure. Most people understand that the religious landscape is a very diverse place. 2; see section 3c below). While some characteristics of diversity include age, gender, the color of the skin. Research on religious diversity has found that when the percentage of a dominant religion and religious diversity are both included, the proportion of the dominant religion is an arithmetic component of the religious diversity measure (Chaves and Gorski 2001; Olson 1999), resulting in a misspecified model. 6). However, his theory seems to depend crucially on the existence of many human problems, each of which may be solved by participation in some religion or other. It can build strength of character, pride, and confidence. Beyond this is infinite, unlimited Being (also called Absolute Truth, the True Reality, the Absolute, God). (b. Again, if a Christian diagnosis is correct, that humans are alienated from and need to be reconciled to God, yet some manage to attain Nirvana, they would still lack the cure, for it is no part of Nirvana that one is reconciled to God. The nation's population is growing more racially and ethnically diverse - and so are many of its religious groups, both at the congregational level and among broader Christian traditions.But a new analysis of data from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study also finds that these levels of diversity vary widely within U.S. religious groups.. We looked at 30 groups - including Protestant . This unified consistency may be hoped for in terms of truth, or in terms of practice. It is difficult to make a fully clear distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist approaches. Some have urged that it be replaced by the more neutral terms particularism or restrictivism. (Netland 2001, 46; Krkkinen 2003, 80-1) This article retains the common term because it is widespread and many have adopted the label for their own theory of religious diversity. Thus Christians, for example, imagine that in prayer they interact with the ultimate, a monotheistic god, but in fact they interact with angels, and perhaps different Christians with different angels. Scholars distinguish seven aspects of religious traditions: the doctrinal and philosophical, the mythic and narrative, the ethical and legal, the ritual and practical, the experiential and emotional, the social and organizational, and the material and artistic. First, we have the protected characteristics, such as race, age, gender and sexual orientation. Many religious claims will be logically incompatible with the accepted diagnosis, and many religious practices will be useless or counter-productive when it comes to getting what one believes to be the cure. Judaism and Other Faiths., Datta, Narendra [Swami Vivekananda]. He switches to the term transcategorial, points out historical versions of this thesis, and urges that the Real simply is not in the domain of entities to which concepts like personal and non-personal apply. Griffin and Cobb seem to attribute the deepest insight to those who think the ultimate reality is an impersonal, indescribable non-thing. (Legenhausen 2002) Those who believe the ultimate reality to be a unique god object to Smiths view that the ultimate reality is ineffable, and so not, in itself, a god. Sometimes God and Cosmos are described as aspects of Creativity. Given that any core pluralism inevitably downplays the other non-core elements of the religions, this approach has also been called reductive pluralism. (Legenhausen 2006), The most influential recent proponent of a version of core pluralism has been Huston Smith. His theory is at least superficially clear, and is rooted in his own spiritual journey. Or are those gods mere fictions? 3) The highest level in some sense is the human Spirit, the deep self which underlies the self of ordinary experience. According to Pew, it has a Christian majority (52% of the population), while the other half of the population is formed by two sizeable minorities: Hindus (close to 20%) and Muslims (about 15%). Of adult Americans, 89% believe in God, down slightly from 2007. Among these purported facts, for Hick, is that the great religions equally well facilitate the ethical transformation of their adherents, what Hick calls a transformation from self-centeredness to other-centeredness and Reality-centeredness. As a result, he became convinced that basically the same thing was going on with these others religious followers as with Christians, namely, people responding in culturally conditioned but transformative ways to one and the same Real or Ultimate Reality. The following was edited from Brie Loskota's opening remarks at Reimagining Religion: A Conversation about the Future of Religion, held at University of Southern California on February 9, 2017.. We are in a period of flux, a period of rapid and continuous change, where the old order is being torn down, where people are disaffiliating from groups, and where institutional life is being . The various planes are not distinct from it, and it is the ultimate object of all desire, and the deepest reality within each human self. Still, given that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets, his teachings and practices should, and some day will supersede all previous ones. Moreover, it seems a necessary truth that if the concept personal doesnt apply to the Real, then the concept non-personal must apply to it. This is because they cannot be empirically verified, that is, their truth or falsity is not known by way of observational evidence. Abes views have been criticized by other scholars as misunderstanding some other religions claims, and as privileging Mahayana Buddhist doctrines, insofar as he understands these doctrines as being truer than others. No Wasted Journey: A Theological Autobiography., Stenmark, Mikael. the coexistence of various perspectives (political, religious), backgrounds (racial/ethnic, sexual orientation, nationality) gender) variety. In their view, those who confess experience of Emptiness, Nirguna Brahman, or the One (of Neoplatonism) behold the ultimate reality (Creativity) as it really is, in contrast to monotheists or cosmos-focused religionists, who latch on to what are limited aspects of Creativity. A common strategy here is to simply ignore disreputable religious traditions, only discussing the prestigious ones. It's also important because in the 21st century there are global problems and issues which seemingly have religious origins and which will take a concerted effort of people of different faiths to help resolve. same? Some theorized, for instance, that a baptism of blood, that is, martyrdom, would be enough to save unbaptized catechumens. It is more real than all that comes from it. Such views are consistent with exclusivism in the sense that Roman Catholic Christianity is the one divinely provided and so most effective instrument of salvation, as well as the most true religion, and the true religion in the sense that any claim which contradicts it official teaching is false. One goes so far as to say that the Holy Spirit offers to all [humans] the possibility of being associated, in a way known to God, with the Paschal Mystery [that is, the saving death and resurrection of Jesus]. (Gaudium et Spes 22, quoted in Dupuis 2001, 162) Some Catholic theologians see the groundwork or beginning in these documents for an inclusivist theory, on which other religions have saving value. Importantly, he construes the various religious goals as experiences obtaining in this life and continuing beyond. Religious Pluralism: Generic, Identist, Deep., Griffin, David Ray. However, such a person is probably only thinking of large, respectable, and historically important religions. A Cross-cultural and Buddhist-Friendly Interpretation of the Typology Exclusivism-Inclusivism-Pluralism., Griffin, David Ray. (Heim 1995, 154-5, 161) This is an important qualifier, as various religious goals clearly presuppose contrary claims. (Morales 2008), Within the pluralistic mainstream of Hinduism, a popular slogan is that all religions are true, but this may be an expression of almost any sort of positive religious pluralism. (Plantinga 1999, 288-303), Subsequent papal statements have moved cautiously in Rahners direction, affirming the work of the Holy Spirit not only in the people in other religions, but also in those religions themselves, so that in the practice of what is good in those religions, people may respond to Gods grace and be saved, unbeknownst to them, by Christ. But Stenmarks some-are-equally-right view can also be seen as a form of core pluralism, the core being truths about the one God and our need for relationship with God. Hick doesnt argue for the salvific or cure-delivering equality of all religions. (Smart 1996) Religious traditions differ along all these dimensions. And secondly, we have all the different: Experiences Talents Skills Opinions Personalities These differences, for example employees' talents, are less obvious and require the organization's effort and proactiveness to shine. Because of this, arguably exclusivism (or inclusivism, see section 4 below) is a default view in religious traditions. In this article exclusivism about religious diversity denies any form of pluralism; it denies that all religions, or all major ones, are the same in some important respect. He applies the Mahayana doctrine of the three bodies of the Buddha to other religions.
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