Religious Pluralism - Essay Example

Summary of the article In her article, Dr. Diana Eck quotes that, the most religiously diverse nation is the United States. Since the elimination of quotas by the immigration act of 1965: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and new varieties of Catholics and Jews have been arriving in the country from all over the globe, thus, altering the country’s religious landscape. The new religious diversity contributes to the main street phenomenon, yet Americans do not know the changes that are taking place in their societies. Perhaps the most important question facing the society or one of the biggest questions is how the contemporary diverse Americans can engage with one another to bring appositive shape of pluralism. Therefore, from her article she summarizes that pluralism is like an engagement. It helps in bringing a common society from different diversity together. It is considered to be among the possible responses to the new diversity. Pluralism in our society is not welcomed fully, some look at it with extreme hostility while others feel threatened by it. Other people in our society are looking forward to the days when the differences seen in our society will fade away into the predominantly Christian culture landscape. These voices of the past are now being echoed in the current America’s religious and cultural discussions. The diversity has produced fault lines in America’s religions, and these lines of weakness indicate how American society is with huge cracks of separation. Ecks sees the pluralism alone is not the cause of Americas diversity hut it plays an active engagement role in diversity. It is more than just tolerating the religious differences in our society, what pluralism requires is knowledge for one to understand it and fully appreciate it. Religious pluralism It is an act of individuals respecting what others believe in pertaining a given religion. It is also used to refer to different beliefs that are held by more religious views to be acceptable by the beliefs or appear equally valid. Religious pluralism is considered an expression that tries to accept any religion that is in existing or that relates to each in certain ways. It is more than just mere tolerance of other views that are being put forth by other religions (Chaves and Gorski, pg. 261). Pluralism in religion tends to admit the fact that the name put forth by the various religious views throughout the world is not regarded as the ultimate and exclusive source of truth. What this tries to portray is that some elements of truth do exist in religion as much as it exists in other sources of individuals beliefs. Religious pluralism is dynamic. It transcends beyond the acceptance that there exist different routes to reaching God and gods. What it tries to put out is there is no single path to God or gods as believed by people who hold their religion dearly hence different religions should learn to accommodate each other in that perspective (Ahlin et al, pg. 403.). Historical background of religious pluralism The history of both cultural and religious pluralism is long. Its development stretches back reaching from antiquity to the contemporary trends of post-modernity. The existence of religious pluralism dates back from the seventeenth century. The concept that holds religious pluralism gained momentum across the northern America and Western Europe since the late twentieth century. From historical perspective, it is thought that the earliest proponents of religious pluralism were the Buddhists and the Hindus. The two religions from time immemorial have always been granting their believers with religious freedom where they are expected to make choices concerning their individual faith that will help them make constructs based on religion at a more personal level (McBride, pg. 77). In addition, other ancient religions such as the ancient Indian religion of Jainism and Daoism for long have been flexible and religiously inclusive. What the two religions have been doing is offering pluralism in religion to any believer who in any reason had development disagreement with their religious teachings. The period that led to the enlightenment of religious pluralism across Europe triggered a transformation religion in addition to the segregation that was seen to be taking place among religions and their believers. This transformation swept the whole region and ultimately led to an increase in acceptance in the existence of pluralism with the various religions existing today. To be in particular, since the beginning of the eighteenth century, pluralist started trending on the thoughts of the westerners. This greatly helped the mainstream to bring Judaism and Christianity together to share same traditions that existed in the philosophical pluralism among the several countries of Asia. As compared to the past years, there is an increasing growth that has been noted in terms of ideas that are relating to pluralism among the vast population of citizens in the United States (Sandal, pg. 196). Example of incidents of religious intolerance across the world Religious intolerance issues have been taking place within our society for years. Both the authorities of the state as well as the different groups of religion have conducted tolerances in several countries globally. United States has remained a country being marked by two things throughout its history since it was founded: a country of migrants and a country that has unchanged diversity in its religions. As compared to many countries across the world that had to endure horrible conflicts between their religious differences for years, United States history in religious conflict seems nonexistence. America did endure conflict among its vast religious sects. United States has come a long way to endure violence, intolerance, persecution, as well as discrimination throughout its historical development. Experience of the Shia Muslims Prejudice against the Shia Muslims, anti-Shi’ism, has for long been directed towards the religion heritage of the Shia community. Shia and Sunni conflict emerged after the death of Prophet Muhammad, and the problem arose on who was to succeed the prophet. Both sects have evidence that helps to support their understanding of Islam through drawing different accounts creating religious differences. The differences reflect social and wider disparities (Bader, pg. 265). In Iraq, the Shia Muslims planned to capture the country that was put under the leadership of the Sunni leadership by the British ottoman. When Saddam Hussein came into power, he introduced a terror leadership that was aiming at oppressing the Shia communities in Iraq that was growing in a large number. The Shia communities were assaulted ruthlessly by the Saddam’s regime, and most of the Shia festivals were banned whereas most popular Shia leaders were executed. The Shia Muslims endured tormenting times under Saddam Hussein. They were only supported by the ayatollahs since they did not have any representatives in Saddam’s regime (http://irr.buiaa.org/2013/04/the-sunni%C2%AD-shia-conflict-in-iraq-a-cultural-perspective/). The Mormon War, the Utah War A different religious group was facing eviction at the same period when the violence against the catholic community was taking place in the northeastern part of United States. The Mormon, who emerged as a religious community after the discovery of the Mormon book, were facing eviction from new York, Ohio, Missouri among several other states and finally settled in Utah. The Mormons was under threat, constant attacks and hostilities from their neighbors forcing them to be under constant watch and eviction (Breault, pg. 1048). Early Religious Persecution America experienced a lot of infighting that happened after the revolutionary war. This infighting majorly took place between the different states and the Christian denominations. One of the scenes that caught the attention of religious persecution took place in Virginia against those who laid their faith to Presbyterians and Baptists. The state of Virginia had the largest number of Anglicans who were wholly loyal to the Church of England. The Anglicans assaulted the Baptists physically at that time. This period was also evident by manifestation of politics in conflicts of religions that were more at a time. Churches were fully abolished in some states. During this period of religious persecution, some states law pertaining religion differed greatly. Persecution of religions took place until 1789 when there was the adoption of the constitution and the amendment of the first religion (Bender and Klassen, pg. 341). French Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) The revolution that was made by the Nantes marked one of the most incidences of religious intolerance in France. The Catholics in France were conducting campaigns that were against the Huguenots. The Nazis persecution of the Jews can be compared to this, but the experience of the Nantes was worse because the largest proportion of France was made up of Huguenots. After several years of living under persecution, Lous XIV revoked the Nantes. Most Protestants lives in France started becoming intolerable because of this. They suffered most because of the inability to exercise freedom religion. The state refused to make acknowledgement of protestant marriages leaving children born of these marriages to be illegitimate. Property rights, as well as the rights to inheritance, were severely affected because of this. As a result, large Huguenots numbers fled away from France to several other European countries (McGarvie, pg. 991). Religious leaders who have advocated peace and religious tolerance Different religious leaders have come forth to preach the need of unity despite the differences among the religions. Examples of the leaders who have come publicly to preach unity include Dalai Lama, mother Teresa of Calcutta and Reverend Martin Luther king junior Sayyid Ali Sistani He had carried hopes for most Iraqi Shia Muslims and acted as Marja. The words and writings of Sistani encouraging Muslims to live together happily with Muslims and non-Muslims. He advises Muslims to take non-Muslims to be their friends so that they can help them fulfil the needs of their lives. As opposed to other Islamic teachers like Wahhabi, who prohibits such friendships, the Sistani promotes peace and tolerance among different religions with Islam (http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1098/the-good-ayatollah). Reverend Martin Luther king junior His aggression against the persecution of black Americans and the teachings of love and togetherness in a country that was torn between race and differences in religion bore fruits. Martin Luther king is known for preaching peaceful coexistence among human beings despite differences noted in races and religions. Mother Teresa of Calcutta Mother Teresa worked hard during her time to ensure the promotion if religious tolerance in countries that were torn part due to religious conflicts such as Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia among others. Her teachings; living together as human beings and not as different religions, helped countries overcome their internal differences in regard to religion and pick up from scratch. In Albania, her teachings were notable when Muslims and Christians decided to cooperate to open up mosques and churches to be used by the public. Achieving peaceful pluralistic society Today, in a contemporary modern society conflicts between religions do occur, though silently. The conflicts that are occurring between different religion beliefs can be reduced through the need to understand the quest for the liberation of human beings. In addition to this, a peaceful society can be created through answering questions that for long have been troubling humanity. As individuals in several countries are maturing and looking into different ways, through which they can bring changes in the society to be more humane, those who are given the mandate to educate the society have huge responsibilities. First, they need to recognize that their work extends just beyond teaching the subject matters, their inherent goal is teaching the sole purposes of the existence of our societies (Filoramo, pg. 31). The aspect of unity creation by each generation is key in the teachings to address the key purpose of human existence towards whom they believe to be the true God. A union that is more fully, richly and creatively democratic in the way it becomes open to the needs and the gifts of its people. To address the question of diversity of religion and religion pluralism in the society, the society must learn on ways through which they can adapt to live with the fact that there exists several ways to reaching God or gods and work with them. This will help individuals try to avoid compressing everything into one piece and force their belief to be accepted by others. At the same time trying to accept that there exists several other ways of beliefs (Filoramo, pg. 31). The various religious offices in the education institutions have important roles to play. This is through inventions of different ways that people can use to celebrate their religion as well as spiritual life without putting his or her neighbor’s belief at jeopardy in a diverse community. Through these ways, the society and its members have to accept and offer respect to each other’s despite difference in belief. This mutual respect, understanding and acceptance of the fact that there are people are affiliated to different religions and thus have different beliefs in what they consider to be sacred. If people learn to tolerate one another in regard to diversity in religion then, it will lead to a peaceful society in the long run (Davis, pg. 189). Works cited Ahlin, Lars et al. “Religious Diversity and Pluralism: Empirical Data and Theoretical Reflections from the Danish Pluralism Project.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 2012 : 403–418. Bader, Veit. “Religious Diversity And Democratic Institutional Pluralism.” Political Theory 2003 : 265–294. Bender, Courtney, and Pamela E Klassen. “After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement.” Religion, culture, and public life 2010 : viii, 341 p. Print. Breault, Kevin D. “New Evidence on Religious Pluralism, Urbanism, and Religious Participation.” American Sociological Review 1989 : 1048. Chaves, Mark, and Philip S. Gorski. “Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation.” Annual Review of Sociology 2001 : 261–281. Davis, Andrew. “Defending Religious Pluralism for Religious Education.” Ethics and Education 2010 : 189–202. Filoramo, Giovanni. “Religious Pluralism and Crises of Identity.” Diogenes 2003 : 31–44. McBride, Michael. “Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation: A Game Theoretic Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 2008 : 77–106. McGarvie, Mark D. (Mark Douglas). “Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism (review).” The Catholic Historical Review 2007 : 991–992. Sandal, Nukhet Ahu. “Religious Pluralism, Globalization and World Politics.” Insight Turkey 2011 : 196–198. Voas, David, Alasdair Crockett, and Daniel V. A. Olson. “Religious Pluralism and Participation: Why Previous Research Is Wrong.” American Sociological Review 2002 : 212. http://irr.buiaa.org/2013/04/the-sunni%C2%AD-shia-conflict-in-iraq-a-cultural-perspective/ http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1098/the-good-ayatollah  Read More