Late May, early June is not a good time within University life to find time for blogs. With examinations, in my case the proof reading and indexing of the new book, and preparing papers for a series of one day workshops and conferences. However, much of that is now past and I have something of a backlog of issues to write about. Here is the first, coming out of the CARD network workshop in Aarhus in mid May. This also forms the first blog in the series on 'Towards a General Theory of Religion', although probably in itself it does not address that directly. I was at a workshop in London on Tuesday on Religion and Census, and I am going to Turku next week to present a paper at a European Sociology of Religion conference on religion and superdiversity. All these will focus on the issue of diversity and so I will try and bring them together after getting back from Turku and at that point I will link them into the wider theme. Enjoy the comments below...
In late May I was invited to Aarhus in Denmark as a guest of the Critical Analysis of Religious Diversity programme, sponsored by the European Union. At this event eighteen scholars from around the world gathered to share our understandings of religious diversity, to engage critically with the concept of religious diversity and to look at ways the study of religious diversity may develop in the future. The event consisted of a series of papers with plenty of time, between and following the presentations for conversation. The great thing about such workshops is, of course, the limited number of people and the ability to develop a conversation over an extended period of time. I would like to express my gratitude to the organisers at Aarhus, both for my own invitation and for the excellent organisation of the event.
It is not my intention here to give a summary of every paper or in any other way to speak on behalf of others at the event. I simply wish to draw out a number of themes that I felt to be important and to develop them as appropriate. In doing this I want to address, for a very personal perspective, the central theme of the workshop and of the wider CARD programme, that is the critical reflection on what is meant by religious diversity and what we, primarily as sociologists, can do to engage with that concept in our work.
The first theme was raised right from the start in the excellent opening address delivered by Peter Beyer. I will not summarise the full background analysis that led to this point, or suggest that this was Peter’s primary point, but it was the issue that struck me from his talk and one which came back time and again during the workshop. This was the question of what level of diversity we might be talking about in our studies. There is clearly diversity at international, national, regional and local levels, although much of that is still framed in terms of what became known in the workshop as the ‘big six’, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Such a list of major global religions does not, even in itself, offer any real recognition for more local religious traditions, religions that sit between and across the big six, indigenous religions, new religious movements, or the many different positions that Peter highlighted as versions of ‘non-religion’, including the obvious secularist traditions, but also areas where culture and religion become confused. Beyond this issue, however, which may well be a question of definition, it was also noted that there was considerable variety within all of the big six, and the many other religious traditions out there, that sometimes had profound effects. We had an excellent paper on the variety of Muslims (whether between Suni, Shia etc. or in terms of national origin) in Australia and the very different attitudes of those who have these sometimes very different identities. Finally there was the question of possible religious diversity within individuals, whether because of dual heritage, or more likely in the contemporary world, because individuals choose what elements of religious traditions they find most helpful/comfortable/challenging. Religious diversity, therefore, needs to be more closely defined and delimitated before it can be used as an analytic tool.
The second issue was the question of whether we should be talking about religious diversity or pluralism. The suggestion was that ‘pluralism’ implied some kind of ideological commitment to the idea of religious diversity, that it was not just a good think, but something that we should actively work to implement. It also implied that the relation between religions should go beyond mere diversity to active engagement and even possible unity as an ultimate goal. Sitting behind this distinction, and the way the discussion played out more commonly within the workshop, is the question of the religious commitment of the researcher. Some at the workshop were keen to uphold the traditional sociological position of methodological atheism, or perhaps agnosticism. Others were fully committed participants who were looking for more theological engagement with the issues. What was clear, however, is that practically all those present agreed that positive religious diversity was a good thing and should be encouraged in and of itself, that the religious bodies should engage with each other in a positive fashion and that this was ultimately good for the society, and perhaps even for the government (a number of those present worked on government sponsored projects and the question of the paymaster in these discussions was never far from the surface). One really interesting take on this issue came from a study of interreligious activity in Germany. This was one of the more neutral papers, so far as any commitment to religious diversity as a good things in itself went, but the analysis of the context and performance of interreligious engagement, drawing on a Goffmanesque analysis passed on performative elements in the dialogue, offer for me a fascinating way of engaging with the wider discussion.
What, therefore, did we learn? First that religious diversity is a fact of life in the current globalised world, and that it is going to grow, however we actually define that diversity. Second, that we need to look beyond the big six religions and look both at internal diversity within the religions, and the much more complex issues of individual diversities among both religious and non-religious people. Third, that this is an explicitly political, and I would argue ‘theological’, issue and that the question of where we stand, and as I said in one of the discussions, our motives and what we wish to get out of the studies, is of central importance. There is no simple theory of religious diversity in a globalised world. Economics, population movements, political positioning, local government policies, individual senses of identity and many other factors all come into play. It is even more essential, therefore, that out of this context networks like CARD who can engage in the wider theoretical and critical debates about diversity are essential, and it is good to be able to report that they are looking to gather again next year to take the discussions forward.
