Face to faith

All faiths must accept pluralism if we are to defuse strife caused in the name of religion, says Jay Lakhani for The Guardian

Saturday November 3, 2007

Not long ago, interfaith dialogue in this country was based on the idea of "tolerating" other religions. This was clearly a derogatory attitude, suggesting that other religions had to be given permission to exist. The dialogue has since moved on and is now framed in terms of "respecting" other religions. This may appear to be a more mature approach suited to the needs of a multi-faith society, but in reality this terminology is a camouflage, shielding an exclusivist, non-negotiable agenda of the Abrahamic faiths. A sarcastic interpretation of the idea of "respecting" other religions is: I know that my faith alone is right and the others are in error, but I will not make a fuss about it. While this may reduce the chances of open confrontation between people of different faiths, it is hardly a prescription for community cohesion. Recently Pope Benedict declined to participate in a joint prayer meeting with people of other faiths because that might have given the impression that the Catholic church considered all religious traditions equally valid. This can be interpreted as "Catholicism alone is right; the rest of the religions are in error".

One of the greatest challenges we face this century is how to defuse strife caused by people in the name of religion. Continuing to shield exclusivist agendas is no way forward. The solution lies in an innocuous-sounding word: pluralism. In a nutshell this is an acceptance that there can be many pathways for making spiritual progress. It can be made in a theistic mode, a non-theistic mode, and even in a non-religious mode. We are all different and this difference shows up in the way we relate to ideas of spirituality. Down the centuries, different prophets have promoted different pathways for spiritual progress, tailored to suit the needs of the society they inhabited. Over time these teachings ossified as various religions. Every religion can be seen as a particular pathway promoted to suit the needs of the time. The destination they promise may be glorified as absolute, but the pathways can certainly not be absolute. They are always relative because they have to relate to us.

Every religion is entitled to make claims about its pathway and promote it to its adherents, but when it attempts to impose its pathway on people of other faiths or no faith, a religion can turn into an explosive device. One would think that mature theologians would recognise the seriousness of the situation and be happy to affirm that there can be many pathways for spiritual progress, their religion being just one of them. But my experience suggests otherwise. In the view of those theologians who are committed to exclusivist claims, God has been well and truly encapsulated within their system of doctrines and dogmas, so how can He escape and make an appearance in another religion? But if any system, however esoteric, captures God within its framework then by definition that system has superseded God. So a God easily confined by a religious system is hardly worth bothering with. The exclusivists also see pluralism as amounting to relativism - a dirty word to them because it suggests there is no absolute truth, hence anything goes. But pluralism does not suggest that; it simply states that there will be a diversity of prescriptions adopted by different groups as they reflect different starting points, but crucially these prescriptions are binding in each case. This is not relativism.

If there are no absolutes in religious teachings then pluralism too cannot be an absolute injunction. But pluralism has never claimed absolute status. It is simply an instrument to address a need: how can people of different religions coexist without thumping each other? One casualty of pluralism would be the proselytising agendas of missionary religions. I suspect this is the real reason why there is such resistance to this simple but potent concept - and that it is not spiritual but monetary considerations that prevent pluralism from being allowed to address the needs of a pluralistic society.

[Sounds like a plan to me. Of course if all religions are an equally valid way of finding a path to God doesn’t it also mean that none of them are – in the same way that where everyone is ‘special’ no one is? Will it also mean that all religions will have to admit that they are equally in error as well as equally right? Never going to work is it?]