[Pluralism]

Like it or not, religion exists.

Harvard's Diana Eck likes it.

Professor Eck directs The Pluralism Project, with its mission "to help Americans engage with the realities of religious diversity through research, outreach, and the active dissemination of resources."

A self-described Methodist who has spent decades participating in the religious life of various peoples, Eck lectured on pluralism at Westminster College in Salt Lake City on Thursday 18/03/2010. I'm an atheist: I didn't want to hear about religion, but my professors canceled class so we could attend the lecture instead.

Pluralism, Eck makes clear, is more than diversity. Diversity exists whether we do anything about it or not--religious ghettos are a form of diversity. Pluralism, on the other hand, is actively getting to know each other. It requires religious education and communication between different groups.

Eck started zir lecture with a discussion of how America developed its Constitutional freedom of religion. Intriguingly, ze suggested that a certain theological perspective had a role in this. If I interpreted zir correctly, the perspective is that belief cannot be imposed upon a non-believer (and here Eck mentioned that Muslims can also cite some part of the Koran forbidding coercion). If the will to worship has to come from within, then religious freedom is a no-brainer.

But this freedom offers challenges. It's not always clear where freedom of religion starts and freedom from religion ends. Eck emphasized America's civic religion--we have no established church, but we're always praying on civic occasions. To me, this seems like an obvious violation of our secular principles, but Eck thinks there's no way it's going away. And maybe, from the pluralist perspective, this is a good thing: Official recognition of various religions may aid dialogue and compromise. But Eck didn't directly address that, and I have no way of knowing whether that's how it actually works out.

Eck brings up other questions: Should French Muslims have the right to wear headscarves? Should taxi drivers who refuse to carry alcohol on religious grounds be accommodated--or should they be forced to accommodate passengers who do not hold the same convictions? Should religious emblems be removed from historically religious, now secular colleges?

I don't have easy answers to all of these questions. And so I support Eck's cause and look forward to increasing my religious literacy and engagement.

[Edit: Forgot to enter anything in the title field!]