W. Cole Durham Jr - Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference

We live in an increasingly pluralized world. This sociological reality has become the irreversible destiny of humankind. Even once religiously homogeneous societies are becoming increasingly diverse. Religious freedom is modernitys most profound if sometimes forgotten answer to the resulting social pressures, but the tide of pluralization threatens to overwhelm that freedoms stabilizing force.

Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference is aimed at exploring differing ways of grappling with the resulting tensions, and then asking, will the tensions ultimately yield poisonous polarization that erodes all hope of meaningful community? Or can the tradition and the institutions protecting freedom of religion or belief be developed and applied in ways that (still) foster productive interactions, stability, and peace?

This volume brings together vital and thoughtful contributions treating aspects of these mounting worldwide tensions concerning the relationship between religious diversity and social harmony. The first section explores controversies surrounding religious pluralism from different starting points, including religious, political, and legal standpoints. The second section examines different geographical perspectives on pluralism. Experts from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East address these issues and suggest not only how social institutions can reduce tensions, but also how religious pluralism itself can bolster needed civil society.

W. Cole Durham, Jr., Susa Young Gates University Professor of Law, Founding Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, USA; recurring Visiting Professor of Law at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary; Co-Editor-in-Chief, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

Donlu D.Thayer, Publications Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, USA; Associate Editor, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

ICLARS Series on Law and Religion

Series editors:

Silvio Ferrari, University of Milan, Italy, Russell Sandberg, Cardiff University, UK, Pieter Coertzen, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, W. Cole Durham, Jr., Brigham Young University, USA, and Tahir Mahmood, Amity International University, India

The ICLARS Series on Law and Religion is a new series designed to provide a forum for the rapidly expanding field of research in law and religion. The series is published in association with the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies, an international network of scholars and experts of law and religion founded in 2007 with the aim of providing a place where information, data and opinions can easily be exchanged among members and made available to the broader scientific community. The series aims to become a primary source for students and scholars while presenting authors with a valuable means to reach a wide and growing readership.

Religious Freedom and the Australian Constitution

Origins and Future

Luke Beck

Islam, Law and the Modern State

(Re)imagining Liberal Theory in Muslim Contexts

Arif A. Jamal

Atheist Exceptionalism

Atheism, Religion, and the United States Supreme Court

Ethan G. Quillen

Lutheran Theology and Secular Law

The Work of the Modern State

Edited by Marie A. Failinger and Ronald W. Duty

Religious Freedom and the Law

Emerging Contexts for Freedom for and from Religion

Edited by Brett G. Scharffs, Asher Maoz and Ashley Isaacson Woolley

Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference

Edited by W. Cole Durham, Jr. and Donlu Thayer

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ICLARS-Serieson-Law-and-Religion/book-series/ICLARS

First published 2019

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2019 selection and editorial matter, W. Cole Durham, Jr. and Donlu D. Thayer; individual chapters, the contributors

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Durham, W. Cole, Jr., 1948-, editor. | Thayer, Donlu D., editor.

Title: Religion, pluralism, and reconciling difference / edited by W. Cole Durham, Jr., Donlu D. Thayer.

Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: ICLARS series on law and religion | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018033987 | ISBN 9781472464071 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH: Freedom of religion. | Religion and law. | Religious pluralism. | Sociological jurisprudence.

Classification: LCC K3258 .R445 2019 | DDC 342.08/52--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033987

ISBN: 978-1-472-46407-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-60504-3 (ebk)

Iain T. Benson holds a BA (Queens University, Ontario, Hons), an MA Law (Cambridge UK), a JD Law (University of Windsor, Ontario), and a PhD Law (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa). He is Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney; Professor Extraordinary, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, and Barrister and Solicitor of the Bars of British Columbia and Ontario, Canada. He serves on the Board of the Global Centre for Pluralism, a joint project of HH the Aga Khan and the Government of Canada, and was a member of the draft committee for the South African Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms. He was retained by the Government of Canada to author material concerning Religion and Public Policy as an aspect of Federal Multi-Culturalism Policy. Author of more than 40 academic articles, he has been cited with approval by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Author of Living Together with Disagreement: Pluralism, The Secular and the Fair Treatment of Beliefs by Law Today (2012). He is editor, with Barry W. Bussey, of Religion, Liberty and the Jurisdictional Limits of the Law (2017).

H. Victor Cond is a California lawyer whose legal ministry focuses on international law and freedom of religion and churchstate relations issues, particularly in the United Nations and Council of Europe human rights systems. He received a BA in Classical Languages from the University of California Irvine, Juris Doctorate from UC Davis Law School, LLM in International and Comparative Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, England, MA in International Human Rights Theory and Practice from Simon Greenleaf Law School, Diplme in International and Comparative Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He is a former professor of human rights law at Trinity Law School in California, and has taught human rights in the United States and in Europe, most recently at the University of Strasbourg, France. He has traveled to Canada, Nepal, Sudan, and Iraq to train lawyers in international religious freedom law and has served as an expert legal consultant on international human rights law to the Permanent Representative of the Holy See to the United Nations Human Rights Council.