Documents

Fides et Libertas

The Journal of the International Religious Liberty Association
1998 Fides et Libertas

Pluralism: The Pathway to Peace 

Lee Boothby

President

International Commission on Freedom of Conscience

Washington 

                History has proven that religion does not always bring peace. Rather, religion often generates political discord and conflict. Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland are contemporary examples of how religion can produce bloodshed between and within countries.

                It was the lack of respect for pluralism in Europe and resulting religious persecution that caused individuals who were adherents of minority religions to flee to America. Such groups included, among others, Puritans, Quakers, Mennonites, and Roman Catholics. They came to America in search of a place where they could practice their religion without fear of the persecution they had experienced in Europe.

                But those who came for religious freedom had not completely learned the lessons of the past. They sought to protect only their own beliefs. They set out to reproduce the European model of religious establishment and oppression.  Thus, in America’s early history, the principle of religious pluralism was again rejected. Laws discriminatory of religion were widespread. In Colonial America the very thought of what we now regard as religious pluralism was treated as a disease--a problem that had to be eradicated by government.

                Colonial Virginia passed legislation prohibiting Catholics from bearing arms or even owning a horse worth more than five pounds sterling. In 1700 New York Colony enacted a law which labeled any clergyman who practiced or taught Catholic doctrine or rites a “disturber of the public peace and safety and an enemy of the true Christian religion.” Such a clergyman was to be permanently banished from the colony.

                In 1704 Maryland, originally established as a haven for British Catholics, passed a law to prevent any Catholic priest from practicing his religion, baptizing a Protestant child, or attempting to proselytize. But by the end of that year, because the law was deemed too strict to enforce, priests were permitted to practice their faith, but only in private.

                Catholics were not the only ones whose religious freedom was denied by the laws of Colonial America.  Because they were few in number, Jews in some colonies were prohibited from holding office. Perhaps the most blatant form of anti-Jewish legislative bigotry during the Revolutionary period in Maryland occurred in 1776 following the adoption of the state’s constitution. The Maryland Declaration of Rights stated in part:

                That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons, professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; . . . yet the Legislature may, in their discretion lay a general and equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion. . . .

                A notable example of the difficulties arising from the colonies’ rejection of the benefits of pluralism is illustrated in the banishment of Roger Williams who declined to minister in a Massachusetts church because it did not formally separate itself from the Church of England. The general court of Massachusetts exiled Williams in 1635. He fled to the territory that was to become Rhode Island. There he formed the first Baptist church in America and began his campaign for freedom of religion and church-state separation.

                Because Baptists were champions of church-state separation and opposed to the established Anglican Church in pre-Revolutionary America, they were, particularly in Virginia, victims of great oppression and persecution. Baptist clerics were arrested, fined, whipped, and imprisoned ostensibly for disturbing the peace. But the punishment really resulted from the preaching of their faith.

                Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, primarily responsible for the Bill of Rights, both concluded that while religious disagreement would never be completely eliminated, the negative effect of such conflict on society and its political institutions could be contained through sectarian diversity or, as we call it, religious pluralism. In Jefferson’s handy formula, “The several sects perform the office of a sensor morum over each other.” Jefferson and Madison held that religious pluralism, with each church standing on equal footing, would protect against the abuses of the past. No nation, Jefferson felt, could survive religious turmoil, religious wars, and religious persecution without true religious pluralism. Religious pluralism has the positive effect of (1) removing the excuse for bloody conflicts between neighbor nations justified on the basis of religion, and (2) reducing conflicts within a country resulting from individuals being viewed--and viewing themselves--as political outsiders because their religious faith is not that of the established church.

                Many in positions of power in various countries, particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe, now view with alarm the prospects of dealing with religious pluralism. While embracing the general concepts of democracy and a free economy, they do not understand the positive effects that can result to society from embracing rather than fearing vibrant religious pluralism. Many of these countries have taken only the first step. They carefully accept the idea that religions other than the historical religions of their country should be given the right to exist. This is mere toleration.  But although sometimes claiming to provide equal rights to all religious groups, they then adopt legislation that denies that very principle. I remember a time in the United States when some American citizens, on the basis of the color of their skin, were required to ride in the back of the bus and drink from separate water fountains. Presently--and unfortunately, it appears some countries have concluded that not only must some religions ride in the back of the national “bus,” but in fact have no right to get on the “bus” at all.

                True religious freedom for a truly pluralistic society cannot exist when the state continues to support regulations that deny privileges to, or impose sanctions on, specific religious organizations or their members. Just as democracy has brought deregulation of the economic marketplace, religious freedom for a religiously pluralistic nation  can only take place in a deregulated religious marketplace.

                Baylor University’s distinguished professor, Dr. James E. Wood, Jr., who is president of the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief, has observed:

                Although religious pluralism was not something desired by the American colonists, nor was this religious pluralism generally met by toleration in the colonies, the absence of religious uniformity contributed to the guarantee of religious freedom in the founding of the American Republic. It was, in fact, the diversity of “multiplicity,” as James Madison expressed it, that was the best guarantee against the tyranny of a majority, whether that majority be characterized as secular or religious. For this reason, Madison wrote in The Federalist, the new country should secure civil and religious rights since both belong to the coin of freedom, guaranteeing “the multiplicity of interests” on the one side and “the multiplicity of sects” on the other side.

                Religious pluralism is not a problem simply to be coped with. Rather, it is a principle protected by international standards. Pluralism is not an aberration to be tolerated, but rather a right to be guaranteed. Those nations that have truly embraced religious pluralism and provided the full course of religious freedom have enjoyed both religious revival and reduction of internal tensions that otherwise exist as a result of such diversity.

                The American democratic experience has proven to be successful in a land rich in religious pluralism. It has provided an arrangement whereby religion has flourished with little discord and has brought richness to the lives of its people. Less than ten years ago American leaders in government, religion, and business, representing the widest spectrum of religious and political views, met in Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the American Bill of Rights. Each of those attending signed a charter which included the following statements:

                (1) Religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is a precious, fundamental and inalienable right. A society is only as just and free as it is respectful of this right for the smallest minorities and least popular communities.

                (2) Religious liberty is founded on the inviolable dignity of the person. It is not based on science or social usefulness and it is not dependent on the shifting moods of majorities and governments. . . .

                (7) The religious liberty clauses [of the Bill of Rights] are both a protection of individual liberty and a provision for ordering the relationship of religion and public life. They allow us to live with our deepest differences and enable diversity to be the source of national strength. . . .

                (10) Central to the notion of the common good, and of great importance each day because of the increase of pluralism, is the recognition that religious liberty is a universal right joined to a universal duty to respect that right. Rights are best guarded and responsibilities best exercised when each person and group guards for all others those rights they wish guarded for themselves.

                These are commendable thoughts. Without full acceptance of the principles of religious pluralism where each religion is guaranteed equal access to the religious marketplace, religion can bring division and discord to a nation.  Religious freedom can, however, bring unity within a country and respect for all of its citizens when religious pluralism is accepted, protected, and respected.

                Mr. Boothby presented this paper to the IRLA’s Fourth World Congress on Religious Liberty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1997.