what is pluralism?

UPDATE, January 9, 2009: A lot of visitors have arrived at this blog post after doing a search on the question "What is pluralism?" The post below merely quotes Diana Eck, a religion scholar at Harvard who heads up the Pluralism Project. It seems a shame that so many visitors arrive at this post and come away not knowing the blogger's opinions on the subject. For my own insights into the question of religious pluralism, see this post, which links you to my YouTube videos on the topic. And feel free to snoop around the blog: my sidebar links to videos I've done, and to transcripts of interviews I've had with some of the people I've met during my (still-ongoing) trans-American walk. Religious pluralism is also a major topic in my book, available here.

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Dealing with the word "pluralism" at a more general, abstract level than I did in my YouTube video, Harvard prof Diana Eck (who is a fantastic writer, by the way: get a hold of her Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras) writes the following:

The plurality of religious traditions and cultures has come to characterize every part of the world today. But what is pluralism? Here are four points to begin our thinking:

First, pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or among them. Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.

Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.

Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments. It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.

Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table” will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table -- with one’s commitments.

This comes from The Harvard Pluralism Project (the link has been on my sidebar for a long time), which I think I need to get more involved with. This resource, meanwhile, looks promising.


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