Tensions between the ideals and the realities of coexistence in an increasingly religiously diverse world have been at the centre of major social and political developments in recent decades. Although still championed by many, the ideals often subsumed under the banner of pluralism âtypically defined as the positive embrace of, and enthusiastic engagement with, diversity âare coming under increasing pressure. In the West , alongside growing anti-immigration sentiment, the recent âMuslim travel ban â in the United States has served to undermine the long-held ideals of religious tolerance and inclusion (Chertoff and Allison 2018; Mislin 2015). Across Europe , too, elections in the 2010s augured a significant resurgence of ethno-nationalist and anti-immigration parties, many of which emphasise their hostility to immigrants and religious or cultural others (Bock 2018; Narkowicz 2018). Europeâs Jewish communities have also faced renewed hostility (Schwarz-Friesel et al. 2010). In Germany , a country with a particularly horrific history of anti-Jewish sentiment and persecution, the former President of the countryâs Central Council for Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, compared the situation of German Jews in 2018 with the violently anti-Semitic situation of the late 1920s (Spiegel Online 2018). In increasingly exclusionary public debates about national identity , belonging or the trajectory of European nation states, religious difference and the social openness towards othersâ values and beliefs have often been singled out for rejection, with supporters accused of either naĂŻvetĂ© or even malicious intent on destroying native culture (Goodhart 2017; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010).
In many respects, of course, these debates are not new. In France, for instance, the strict separation of state and church (laĂŻcitĂ©) early on resulted in awkward encounters between resurgent religious sensibilities and secular statehood, especially in the wake of large-scale post-colonial immigration and an ensuing religious revival (Balibar 2018; Göle 2015; Roy 2007). In the 1990s, the âheadscarf affairsâ first shed light on the lives of overtly religious French citizens, when some schools forced female Muslim students to decide between removing their headscarf or leaving the classroom (Jones 2012; Wallach Scott 2007). The debate turned on the question of when and how secular republicanism morphs into religious discrimination. On a legislative level, the claims put forward by religious groups unearthed difficult questions about law-making in liberal democracies, which struggle with religious traditions that promote anti-liberal views or practices , such as traditional gender roles or anti-abortion activism (Beckford 2008; Peach 2002; Woodhead 2008).
And it is not only in the West that ideals of religious pluralism are being challenged. In India , for example, a country with a long tradition of inter-religious conviviality , the recent success of Hindu nationalist politics has contributed to a growing sense of marginalisation among non-Hindu minorities, and Muslims in particular (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012; Varshney 2014). Communal violence, such as the Gujarat massacre in 2002, which resulted in the death of around 2,000 Muslims, has cast doubt doubt on the extent to which Indiaâs proud history of diversity might inform a shared contemporary commitment to the protection of minority religious groups in the subcontinent (Doniger and Nussbaum 2015). Meanwhile, in the Middle East , the place of Christian and other minority religious communities appears more precarious, and violence has accelerated emigration from the region (Flamini 2013; Fox 2013; OâMahony 2018; Scott 2010). Repeated attacks against Coptic Christian churches in Egypt , for example, left dozens dead in the mid-2010s, leading to claims that the âwave of persecution is so severe that some fear it may bring about the end of Christianity in the region where it was bornâ (Akyol 2017).
Around the globe, governments are grappling with the question of how to accommodate religious diversity (Banchoff 2006). At the centre of ongoing efforts to manage difference within, and, at times, beyond, national borders, the concept of pluralism has featured prominently. In debates about the appropriate attitude and response towards diversity , however, pluralism plays a double role. For those who are weary of recent demographic trends towards increased religious diversity , pluralism represents a threat to the social fabric. The increasing visibility of religious others is taken to represent the erosion of what is perceived as national culture or âtraditional values â (Goodhart 2017). For advocates, or those who view diversity as a positive development, on the other hand, pluralism is mobilised as a solution to bigotry, or a blueprint for peaceful coexistence (Bender and Klassen 2010). Debates about both the ideals and emerging realities of coexistence, then, encompass competing social aspirations and political imaginations for managing difference .
This volume addresses a range of questions that cohere around emergent conceptions of, and commitments to, the challenges of both imagining pluralist ideals and creating pluralist realities in a changing world. How, our contributors ask, are the ideals of religious pluralism changing in light of contemporary social and political transformations? Are there identifiable âmodesâ of religious pluralism emerging in different parts of the world? How do the ideals of religious pluralism correspond to the experience of religious difference in everyday interactions? What kinds of responses to growing religious diversity are espoused in different settings? Beyond the state, what role do religious actors or laypeople play in ongoing debates about coexistence ? How are theological and social resources engaged across religious boundaries to promote coexistence?
Of course, different settings produce different understandings of, and commitments to, religious diversity . Difference , in other words, is configured and contested in different ways in different places. Pluralism is far from a monolithic concept, and its contours depend on a range of social, historical and political factors that together inform approaches to managing diversity (Bender and Klassen 2010; Fox and Sandler 2005; Stepan 2000). Taking as its starting point the fact that pluralism âmuch like the similarly contested category of secularism , for exampleâdoes not describe a singular phenomenon, but rather a range of historically, socially and politically embedded responses to particular demographic conditions , this volume explores how ideals of religious pluralism are being conceived, constructed and contested in different parts of the world. Before returning to a...