Religious Pluralism in an Undecidedly Secular World

Author(s): Rosalind I. J. Hackett

Source: Human Rights , Summer 2006, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer 2006), pp. 21-24
Published by: American Bar Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27880543

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Religious Pluralism in an
Undecidedly Secular World
By Rosalind I. J. Hackett
Although civilizational clashes
and religious extremism are
the current staples of news
coverage in the mass media globally, the
growth of religious pluralism and sec
ularism?and the tensions created by
them?are more likely to stir up heated
debate at the national and local levels.
Religious organizations the world over
are competing more aggressively than
ever for space and voice in today's rapidly
changing public spheres.
This development was well evidenced
at a recent conference in Romania on
the religious history of Europe and Asia.
The Romanian president, Traian Basescu,
whose government had the wisdom to
support this regional gathering of scholars
of religion, took pains to emphasize his
country's policy of freedom of expres
sion and of religion and his belief and
noninterference in religious debates.
Yet the U.S. State Department's
September 2006 Annual Report on In
ternational Religious Freedom details
the ongoing low-level discrimination
experienced by minority religious groups
in Romania, primarily in connection with
registration, land use, and permission to
proselytize. The report implies that this
unequal treatment of religious minorities
can be attributed in part to historical
hangovers from the country's Commu
nist past and to bureaucratic misman
agement, and also to a privileging of
majoritarian religious identity.
Managing Religious Diff?rence
If religious discrimination in Romania
has not been eliminated, it at least is rec
ognized. In other countries, the role of
state actors in managing new religious
diversity can be far less equitable. In
fact, the free exercise of religious belief
and practice can be subjected to egre
gious restrictions?whether it is the
Summer 2006
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111'-'
government's re*
pression of the
Falun Gong move
ment in China or the
OPSAN
Hindu nationalists'
persecution of Mus
lims and Christians in
?KCUS?D 73*
India. We should not
forget the initiatives
of some European
MUSLIM UHA^y
governments, in
cluding those of
WWML
Belgium, Austria,
France, and Ger
many, to limit the
activities of sects or
cults and other non
conventional reli
gious groups or to
restrict the wearing of
religious symbols,
such as Muslim
headscarves. Supporters of a Pakistani religious party protest the
publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad
Scholar James T. in a Danish newspaper in 2006.
Richardson in his
discrimination or exclusion as a way of
2004 book, Regulating Religion: Case
Studies from Around the Globe, and managing religious difference are a
entities such as the Organization for less viable option now than they used
Security and Cooperation in Europe, to be (although threats to public order
the U.S. State Department's Office of and security are still invoked in some
International Religious Freedom, and settings). The legal route may be un
the U.S. Commission on International workable for other reasons. Groups or
Religious Freedom are among the in individuals seeking to challenge their
dividuals and organizations that have marginalization may face unreliable
highlighted regulation and recognition legal systems or absence of jurispru
of religion and religious practices as dence on religious matters.
factors central to the changing patterns
of coexistence both between religions Media as the New Interface
and between religions and the state. As a result, modern mass media
Because the majority of states world have emerged as a significant?and
wide are signatories to international on occasion, the primary?interface
human rights documents that promote available for the negotiation of religious
and protect the freedom of religion identities, symbols, and the social
and belief and, for the most part, have functioning of religious communities.
incorporated these norms into their The influence of stereotypical portrayals
modern constitutions, legal forms of of religious groups on the perceptions
21 humanrights
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 and actions of government officials,
let alone members of the wider public,
is well documented.
Upon arriving in the United States
in September, former Iranian President
Khatami wasted no time in attacking
what he called "media Islam" in the
Western popular press. Accusations of
Islamophobia derive largely from com
plaints about the mass-mediated circula
tion of negative representations of Islam,
whether in national or global contexts, in
cartoons, or in medieval texts.
In a similar vein, state and nonstate
actors can deprive religious actors of
the right to serve their own communi
ties and represent themselves to a
wider public through mass-mediated
forms of religious expression. For ex
ample, in Nigeria, Christians living in
the predominantly Muslim northern
states are frequently denied access to
the airwaves. In South Africa and
Ghana, traditional religious practitioners
complain that the "Christian gatekeepers"
of many of the media outlets inhibit
their public participation by demoniz
ing them in mainstream programming
and charging prohibitive fees for groups
to purchase broadcast time.
In such instances, the media are
more than barometers for new patterns
of religious pluralization and coexis
tence around the world; they actively
determine public attitudes of religious
tolerance or intolerance. They also factor
into growing debates about the actual
role of religion (and, by the same token,
what counts as true or false religion) in
the public spheres of modern states.
These debates frequently center on the
issue of secularism, a concept much
misunderstood as a threat to religion.
Ironically, as many modern states
seek to disengage from former ties with
religious monopolies and promote new
pluralist and secularist democracies,
they encounter new forms of religious
resurgence and resistance.
Sociologist Jose Casanova, in his
landmark text, Public Religions in the
Modern World (2004), argues that
since the 1980s many religious groups
have been making their way, sometimes
forcefully, out of the private and into
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the public spheres of modern societies.
Many would link this return of religion
to political and economic frustrations.
In other words, the universalization of
rights talk, and the creation of con
comitant expectations that states and
religious authorities will meet the needs
of their citizens and members in rapidly
changing societies, have not resulted in
improved living conditions?or a real
ization of these expectations?for much
of the world's population.
At the same time, the global forces
of late capitalism, in conjunction with
the current information and communi
Clearly, the modern media play a significant
role in mediating these critical questions
of sociocultural identity and the public and
private roles of religion.
cations revolution, have helped increase
the visibility of local and transnational
religious organizations in many a sec
ular state. With the trend toward media
deregulation and privatization, religious
groups now can purchase airtime or even
the television and radio licenses that
permit them to create and widely broad
cast their messages themselves. In many
African and South American countries
today, for example, Christian evangeli
cal and Pentecostal groups are taking
full advantage of this newfound medi
um of expression and dissemination.
While the notion of a religious free
market appeals to many, others question
the enclave cultures that one would foster
(that is, why should or would listeners
turn to public service broadcasting
when their favorite channel's program
ming reflects their personal religious
affiliation?) and the imbalance that re
sults from specific religious groups'
domination of the airwaves, whether
from economic or political privilege.
Such dominance can generate resent
ment among other, less privileged reli
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gious communities, along with advocates
of a less public role for religion, all of
whom feel that they are losing out in
the new competitive marketplace of
the state.
Rethinking Secularism
With the media's tendency to sensa
tionalize and polarize positions in many
instances, it is not surprising that divi
sions between religious orientations,
as well as between secularist and reli
gious perspectives, are perceived as
more marked now than in the past. Yet
this development is in contradistinction
to current and recent academic debates
about the meaning and saliency of sec
ularism in the face of major demographic
shifts, societal restructuring, and
changing subjectivities.
Talal Asad, in Formations of the
Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
(2003), challenges the notion of reli
gion and secularism as competing ide
ologies. In his examination of how the
secular was thought about in colonial
Egypt, he finds that reconfigurations
of law, religion, and ethics created new
social spaces in which "secularism"
could grow. One of his most important
conclusions is that a "secular state is
not one characterized by religious in
difference, or rational ethics?or political
toleration. It is a complex arrangement of
legal reasoning, moral practice, and
political authority. This arrangement is
not the simple outcome of the struggle
of secular reason against the despotism
of religious authority." Id. at 255.
Historian Nikki Keddie's comparison,
in a special issue of Daedalus (2003) on
"Secularism and Its Discontents," of the
Summer 2006
rise and fall of secular and religious
politics in various parts of the world
discusses contextual factors that influ
ence these trends. For example, Muslim
countries have negative views of secu
larism because they associate it with
autocratic rule and Western influence.
She notes that contemporary India, by,
contrast, has produced what is probably
the largest body of writing in the modern
world debating the merits of secularism.
With the controversial efforts of the
present Indian government and the ruling
party to promote Hindu nationalism to
the detriment of religious minorities,
numerous observers have advocated
the need to move beyond current un
derstandings of secularism in order to
protect minority interests effectively.
This questioning of the Western Euro
pean secularist paradigm in several post
colonial states such as India and Nigeria
is echoed by several American scholars.
In Why I Am Not a Secularist (199%
distinguished political theorist William E.
Connolly argues that secularism, al
though admirable in its pursuit of free
dom and diversity, too often undercuts
those goals through its narrow and in
tolerant understandings of public reason.
Secularism, in his view, has failed to
recognize the complexity of public
views because it has excluded religious
and theistic viewpoints. In doing so, he
claims, it has ignored an opportunity
to create public consensus.
Yale law professor Stephen Carter
contends in his book, God s Name in
Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion
in Politics (2000), that there would have
been no movement for abolitionism,
workers' rights, or civil rights without
religious activism.
Philosopher and ethicist Jeffrey Stout's
influential publication, Democracy
and Tradition (2003), calls for a more
appropriate place for religion in a mul
ticultural democratic context.
Many other parts of the world also
would benefit from being exposed to
these efforts to reconfigure the place
of religious belief and practice in the
public sphere and to offer more nuanced
interpretations of secularism. Among
Nigerian Christians and Muslims, for
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example, the concept of secularism
has been a bone of contention for the
last three decades.
As constitutional legal scholar Cole
Durham has shown, separation of reli
gion and state is no guarantee of free
exercise of religion and belief; in fact,
established religions sometimes can be
more accommodating of minority
groups. Norway, where the state-funded
Lutheran Church has been proactive in
recognizing the rights of Muslims and
humanists in the educational system,
presents a case in point.
Abdullahi an-Na'im, who has written
extensively on Islam and human rights,
argues persuasively for a more syner
gistic approach to the relationship be
tween religion, secularism, and human
rights. In an interview in the Septem
ber 11,2006, New Yorker, he remarks,
"I need a secular state to be a Muslim.
... If I don't have the freedom to dis
believe, I cannot believe." Id. at 69.
Renowned religion analyst Martin
Marty has even proposed a new paradigm,
namely "religio-secular world," to repre
sent these changing global dynamics.
New Media, New Conflicts?
In his latest work, Cosmopolitanism:
Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006),
philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah
addresses the challenges of our greater
interconnectedness but increasing
fractiousness. For him, neutrality in a
liberal democracy must entail equal re
spect and a conversation across lines of
difference. Clearly, the modern media
play a significant role in mediating
these critical questions of sociocultural
identity and the public and private roles
of religion. Although state acts are nat
urally the primary concern in this con
nection because of states' obligation to
protect the constitutional and human
rights of individuals and groups, these
acts can be undermined all too easily
by mass-mediated erasure of identities,
as well as by outright hate speech or
unfair broadcasting practices. In effect,
media liberalization can lead to new
forms of illiberalism.
In fact, the media sector arguably is
becoming as important as, if not more
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important than, the education sector in
managing diversity and nurturing civil
society values. As demonstrated by the
global backlash early in 2006 to the
Danish cartoons and the Pope's citation
of a historical text passage pertaining to
Muslims, the media have the power to
amplify and exacerbate inequities (per
ceived or real) with sometimes deadly
consequences. Yet it would seem that in
many countries, notably in emerging
democracies, there is more effective
monitoring of educational institutions
than of print and electronic media. Per
haps this situation is not surprising given
the explosion of new media technologies,
especially the rapid growth of local FM
and shortwave radio stations, and the
proliferation of video-film production,
in many parts of the developing world.
These small-scale media can escape the
scrutiny of national broadcasting com
missions, which often are ill-equipped or
ineffectively trained to deal with media
diversification and convergence.
Harnessing Media Power to
Create Religious Tolerance
In many countries, local and inter
national agencies have begun work
to improve media professionalism
with better training and education in
media rights and responsibilities. Re
grettably, the training often omits reli
gion because it is so controversial or
becomes conflated problematically
with ethnicity. The converse problem
is that those engaged in religious
peace-building neglect or trivialize the
role of the media. The United Nations
Commission on Human Rights' revised
resolution on Combating Defamation
of Religions, E/CN.4/2004/L.5 April
13,2004, provides ample evidence
that the media have played an increas
ing role in incitements to acts of
violence and discrimination on reli
gious grounds.
Finding the means to transcend earlier
perceptions of the media solely as
vehicles of ideology or cultural impov
erishment and the means to recognize
the power of the new media to imagine
and construct new, shared worlds is
vital to ensuring that the media
humanrights
enhance?rather than undermine?
religious tolerance.
South Africa provides a good exam
ple of how a semipublic broadcasting
authority can revamp its religious broad
casting system from one that entrenched
discrimination to one that promotes
cultural diversity as a national value.
Clearly, generating new forms of
what scholars such as Appiah prefer to
Religious Liberty
in America
continued from page 8
rather than a generally applicable way.
These restrictions are designed to en
sure that RLUIPA fits within specific
congressional powers, thus avoiding a
charge of excessive scope that led to
RFRA's invalidation. RLUIPA also
protects the free exercise rights of pris
oners in state prisons that accept federal
funds. State officials have bitterly re
sisted RLUIPA. In Cutter v. Wilkinson,
544 U.S. 709 (2005), the Supreme Court
Religion and the
U.S. Workplace
continued from page 20
religious beliefs.
But the courts have recognized that
a company may incur costs as well. For
example, in Farah v. Whirlpool Corp.,
No. 3:02-0424 (M.D. Temi. Oct. 16,
2004), a jury upheld Whirlpool's refusal
to permit forty Muslim workers to leave
the production line at the same time for
evening prayers because doing so would
create an undue hardship. Similarly,
the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadel
phia recently found that a clinical testing
company did not discriminate against an
Orthodox-observant Jew when it re
fused to accommodate his religious
prohibition against working on Satur
days because, although the plaintiff
had made out a prima facie case of
103.178.176.71 on Sun, 03 Sep 2023 09:48:30 +00:00
call "cosmopolitanism" requires a team
effort. It therefore behooves us to play
our humble parts, whether as religious
or political leaders, educators, lawyers,
media professionals, human rights
activists, or simple laypersons, and
whether as members of majoritarian or
minoritarian groups, to ensure that the
call for more public expressions of
religion in our ever-diversifying soci
unanimously rejected a claim that the
prison provisions violate the Establish
ment Clause. States also are arguing in
the lower courts, mostly unsuccessfully,
that both the prison and the land use
provisions exceed the scope of powers
delegated to Congress.
Continuing Controversy
Deeply inconsistent constitutional
visions make this area of law especially
susceptible to the effect of new Supreme
Court appointments. The cases on gov
ernment religious displays are in jeop
ardy. Another Republican appointment
could roll back some of the school
prayer cases. Another Democratic
religious discrimination, the cost of
revamping work assignments would
have posed an undue hardship for the
employer. Awn v. Quest Diagnostics
Inc., 174 Fed. App. 82 (3d Cir. 2006).
The Workplace Religious Freedom
Act (WRFA) is a recently proposed
federal bill that would increase em
ployer obligations under Title VII. The
proposed legislation would reverse the
presumption announced by the Supreme
Court in Hardison. Rather than finding
an undue hardship wherever a de min
imis cost arose, the WRFA would permit
employers to decline to make request
ed accommodations only if they
showed that they would incur identifi
able increased costs, either in the form
of lost productivity or in the cost of
retaining, hiring, or transferring em
ployees. In addition, the WRFA would
ratchet up an employer's obligations in
accommodating an employee by re
human rights 24 Summer 2006
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eties produces the most informed and
equitable response possible.
Rosalind I. J. Hackett is a distinguished
professor in the humanities andprofessor
of religious studies at the University of
Tennessee in Knoxville. She also serves
as president ofthe International Associ
ation for the History of Religions.
appointment could overrule Zelman
and invalidate vouchers again. Smith is
more likely to be eroded than overruled;
the disagreement there does not yet
track party lines. Especially on the
Establishment Clause issues, too many
justices are interested in promoting or
restricting religion. Not enough are
interested in protecting liberty for be
lievers and nonbelievers alike.
Douglas Laycock is the Yale Kamisar
Collegiate Professor of Law at the
University of Michigan Law School in
Ann Arbor.
.1
quiring the employer to modify any
job requirement that did not affect the
"essential functions" of the job.
At the moment, however, neither the
case law nor the statute provides suffi
cient guidance to employers regarding
the scope of accommodation obliga
tions. Given the proliferation of religions
within the United States, and until fur
ther guidance is available, the safe bet
for an employer is to treat each reason
able request for religious accommoda
tion as presumptively legitimate and
make an earnest effort to address the em
ployee's requested accommodation.
Samuel Estreicher is the Dwight D.
Opperman professor of law at New
York University School of Law and of
counsel to Jones Day in New York City.
Michael Gray is a partner in the
Chicago office of Jones Day.