The current examination of religious diversity highlights the problem of religious plurality, whereby traditions fundamentally different from each other yet able to maintain historical adherence, sometimes for millennia, contend on which provides ultimate truth. While Race’s threefold typology depicts three different responses to a religious plurality within a modern comparative study of religions, Schleiermacher’s review of the nature of religion served as a foundation for this emergent scholarly field. In the latter’s account, a broader understanding of religion within a multicultural context emerged, which still guides the relationship between personal religious experience and religious beliefs. While political polarization undermines this relationship by promoting societal divisions, the long-lasting US jurisprudence tradition that supports theoretical discourse and proposals is a testament to religious pluralism’s advancement.
The current theological framework for responding to religious pluralism was significantly shaped by Alan Race’s threefold typology, which presents types of attitudes, particularly of Christianity, towards other religions. These differing responses to the divergent plurality of religions include exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism (Race 139). While the latter holds that all religions can equally provide paths to truth and salvation, the former presents a diametrically opposing view, whereby only one religion can ultimately be true and correct. In contrast, inclusivism is at the midpoint on the pluralism-exclusivism spectrum, maintaining that while all religions may be valid in nature, one tradition conveys absolute divine truth most profoundly. From the inclusivist Christian perspective, although non-Christian religions may contain mutually inclusive features, significant discrepancies in traditions would render their relationship essentially mutually exclusive in the larger pluralist context. Along similar lines, Christian exclusivist and pluralist would position themselves at the two extremes on the spectrum, asserting that the divine truth can be ascertained in either one or all traditions, respectively. Depending on the extent of the plurality in a believer’s particular context, inclusivism may present as a confined pluralism or generous exclusivism.
A broader understanding of this extent of the plurality during the Enlightenment enabled a more inclusive, academic analysis of religious diversity, which was substantially propelled by Schleiermacher’s innovative framework for the comparative study of religion. Schleiermacher’s 1799’s Reden, also referred to as Speeches on Religion, served as a precursor to the development of an entirely new academic field, comparative religion, which introduced foundational principles of the scholarly study of religions. Schleiermacher was not only able to broaden the hitherto narrow understanding of religious plurality due to the “intolerance” of the Judo-Christian outlook but also provide an “academically acceptable” examination of religious divergence (Prozesky 2). As the author remarks, Schleiermacher’s studies of ancient Greek philosophy that concurred with the analytical reasoning of Enlightenment philosophers helped him internalize the “heritage of critical thinking about religion as a problem” (Prozesky 2). This would later enable him to develop a new understanding of the concept of religion within a broader multicultural context but also identify and critically reassess the constraints in the significantly exclusivist Christian tradition.
In this reexamination of the dogmatic explanation of religion, Schleiermacher accurately determined a core aspect of religious traditions anchored in the subjective inner dimension of religious experience rather than outer representation. Schleiermacher’s arguably most significant contribution was his proposal of viewing religion as “sense and taste for the infinite,” being essentially a “feeling of God’s operation by means of the universe” (Prozesky 3). In Schleiermacher’s explanation, in perceiving the infinite universe as a manifestation of God within the finite boundaries of human comprehension, the diversity of religious traditions is representative of individual articulation of personal religious feelings. Furthermore, in Schleiermacher’s account, metaphysics and morality, which historically composed the dogmatic approach to religion, serve as rather conceptual outlets for religious experience and “not the heart of religion at all” (Prozesky 3). Essentially, Schleiermacher pioneered a conceptual framework for understanding the divine reality grounded in the emergent religious plurality, whereby personal experience with the divine orients the personal religious beliefs, not the other way around. His account helped address the theological problem of the contrast between the divergent plurality of religious traditions and their shared ability to evoke and sustain devotion.
While the US systems are explicitly secular, the accommodation of this religious diversity under egalitarian principles ought to be accompanied by corresponding legal and political arrangements to satisfy plurality. However, the recent rise of conservative evangelicalism, particularly among radical rightists, fueled by declinist populism and religious extremism, is becoming a fault line in US politics, which raises concerns about sustaining pluralism. In the context of growing Islamophobic tendencies contrasted with the liberal progress towards greater inclusiveness, this political tension appears to hinder the legal advancement of religious normative orders (Taramundi 2). As Taramundi notes, this is further challenged by the controversial case of applying Sharia law in arbitration within the Anglo-American legal system in the UK (3). Nevertheless, unlike the UK and other European jurisprudence, the US legal system is characterized by the prominent role of pluralist constitutional arrangements as opposed to private international law in case law (Taramundi 3). In other words, while the political tension fueled by religious differences challenges the enactment of more equitable arrangements, the long-standing US jurisprudence tradition that endorses theoretical proposals and debates holds potential for greater religious accommodation.
In summary, while the problem of plurality concerns ascertaining divine truth, Schleiermacher’s proposal that this truth is essentially based on personal experience accounts for the diversity of traditions as various manifestations of the divine infinite. In addressing this problem, Race’s threefold typology offers three different responses to the extent of religious plurality based on the comparative differences between traditions. While these differences, combined with political division, threaten the development of equitable arrangements, the historical US jurisprudence tradition that underpins theoretical proposals and debate serves as a legal mechanism for ensuring progress towards greater pluralism.
Works Cited
Prozesky, Martin. “Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Reden and the Problem of Religious Plurality.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, vol. 75, no. 4, 2019.
Race, Alan. Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions. SCM Press, 1993.
Taramundi, Dolores M. “Legal Pluralism and Reasonable Accommodation of Religious Diversity.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 24, no. 4, 2017, pp. 467–83.