Toward a Global Covenant of Peaceable Neighborhood: Introducing the Philosophy of Covenantal Pluralism

Abstract

The global challenge of living together peacefully and constructively in the context of deep religious/worldview differences will not be met through bumper-sticker slogans about “tolerance.” This essay provides an introductory overview of a richer approach called covenantal pluralism, which has been developed over the last few years at the Templeton Religion Trust. The philosophy of covenantal pluralism is a robust, relational, and non-relativistic paradigm of citizenship that emphasizes both legal equality and neighborly solidarity. It calls not only for a constitutional order characterized by equal rights and responsibilities but also a culture of engagement characterized by relationships of mutual respect and protection.

Keywords:

• pluralism
• relativism
• covenant
• engagement
• religious freedom
• religious literacy
• tolerance

Having made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with the sachems and natives round about us, and having, in a sense of God’s merciful providence unto me in my distress, called the place PROVIDENCE, I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience.

—Roger Williams, 1636¹

Our world is increasingly beset by problems of violent extremism, religious and ethnic nationalism, cultural polarization, scapegoating of minorities, and other divisive trends. According to the Pew Research Center (2018), 83% of the world’s population now lives under conditions where there are high levels of government restrictions on religion and/or high social hostilities involving religion. Pew also reports that 11% of governments around the world use “nationalist rhetoric against members of a particular religious group.” Given these figures it’s perhaps not surprising that the world is now experiencing the highest number of refugees since World War II. Right-wing cultural populism, left-wing secularist extremism, anti-immigrant hostility, and religious and ideological tribalism are on the rise in numerous nations around the globe. Freedom House warns that liberal democracy itself is receding. According to their annual tracking, 2019 marked the 14th consecutive year of declines in global freedom (Repucci 2020).

The persistent and inevitable fact of deep diversity lies at the heart of these challenges. “Tolerance” of such diversity is noble and necessary—as far as it goes. But it is increasingly evident that tolerance alone is not sufficient as a pathway to solutions for the complex struggles we face. Problems of this nature and magnitude will not be overcome simply through earnest calls for everyone to “co-exist” and “celebrate diversity.” We will need more than pluralism-lite. That is, in a world of deep difference we need a normative philosophy of pluralism that does more than paper over the challenges of diversity with bumper-sticker slogans of tolerance.²

In this essay we provide an introductory overview of a richer concept of pluralism called covenantal pluralism (Stewart 2018; Seiple 2018a; Seiple 2018b), which has been developed over the last few years at the Templeton Religion Trust.³ The philosophy of covenantal pluralism reaches beyond banal appeals for peaceful coexistence and instead points to a robust, relational, and non-relativistic paradigm for living together, peacefully and productively, in the context of our deepest differences. Covenantal pluralism offers a holistic vision of citizenship that emphasizes both legal equality and neighborly solidarity. It calls for both a constitutional order characterized by equal rights and responsibilities and a culture of engagement characterized by relationships of mutual respect and protection.

This vision of pluralism is, to be sure, ambitious. The covenantal-pluralist paradigm describes an ideal end-state featuring mutually-reinforcing legal structures and social norms. Yet, we maintain that covenantal pluralism is not just a theoretical abstraction or utopian speculation. It is not merely a figment of a political philosopher’s imagination, ahistorical and unconnected with real-world conditions and religious teachings. Rather, the covenantal pluralist paradigm we propose is a realistic socio-political aspiration, one with relevance, appeal, and precedents across the world’s many religious/worldview traditions.

As such, in what follows we begin not with a formal theory of covenantal pluralism (as important as that is), but rather with a brief historical illustration of covenantal pluralist values in practice. We do so via the case of Roger Williams (c.1603–1683), perhaps the most important nonconformist ever to be kicked out of Puritan Massachusetts. Williams would go on to found Rhode Island on principles of robust pluralism, freedom of conscience, and cross-cultural respect. He championed these principles not in spite of his own Christian faith but because of it—and he applied them not just with other Christians, nor just with those from Abrahamic faith traditions, but also with those from Native American religious traditions. While the 17th-century Rhode Island experience was of course not a perfect representation of such principles, it is nevertheless an important and instructive example, even if in embryonic form, of a civic order self-consciously seeking to be a place where people of radically divergent religious/worldview perspectives could live together constructively and cooperatively—as both a function of their respective faith traditions (the right thing to do), and their common need for stability (the self-interested thing to do).

Following this introductory illustration, we outline in more detail the concept of covenantal pluralism that informs the Templeton Religion Trust’s Covenantal Pluralism Initiative. First, we discuss the pitfalls of approaching “pluralism” as if it is synonymous with mere relativistic tolerance, breezy ecumenism, or an eclectic syncretism. Second, we provide a brief overview of how the resurgent salience of religion in global public life since the end of the Cold War has catalyzed a proliferation of theories of pluralism. Third, we elaborate on what precisely is (and is not) meant by the modifier “covenantal,” and what key conditions enable covenantal pluralism. Finally we conclude with some reflections on the global applicability and adaptability of the covenantal-pluralist vision.

A Most Flourishing Civil State: The Example of Roger Williams and a “Covenant of Peaceable Neighborhood”

In American mythology Puritans crossed the Atlantic for religious freedom, but in fact they did not actually want to live within a regime of religious liberty for all (an environment that Holland had to a significant extent already offered them). Indeed John Winthrop was quite clear in what he sought: “a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and ecclesiastical” (Gaustad 1999, 23). As one Massachusetts minister put it, the colony would “endeavor after Theocracy as near as might be to what was the glory of Israel” (quoted in Barry 2012, 169). As theocracies go, Massachusetts may have been relatively soft. But it would not have looked that way to the Baptists who were outlawed, the Quakers who were hung, and the “witches” who were executed on the Puritans’ watch.

Williams dissented from the ruling political theology in numerous ways. He believed, among other things, that the churches in Massachusetts should be separate from the Church of England, that church and public officials should not swear an oath to God, that the King of England had no right to give away the land of the Native Americans, and that tax money should not be given to ministers. Above all Williams believed in freedom of conscience—and that the well-being of both religion and the state ultimately depended on it.⁴

By 1636 the Boston magistrates had had enough of the nonconformist Williams and decided to banish him to England. Williams fled, eventually settling among his Native American friends at the headwaters of Narragansett Bay, where he paid them for the land on which he lived. He called the place Providence because he “made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with the sachems [leaders] and natives round about us” and had “a sense of God’s merciful providence unto me in my distress.”⁵ Williams hoped the new colony might provide “shelter for persons distressed for conscience” (quoted in Barry 2012, 220).

His model was not only remarkably inclusive for his 17th-century context, but also expansive, as he envisioned it extending beyond his own colony. He wrote, “It is the will and command of God, that (since the comming of his Sonne the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, bee granted to all men in all Nations and Countries” (quoted in Rowley 2017, 69). At the same time, however, he was no anarchist. He understood the need for stability and security of the state, and envisioned that, under the right conditions, liberty and security would work together hand in hand. Williams summed it up this way in a January 1655 letter to the city of Providence:

It has fallen sometimes that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks may be embarked on one ship. Upon which supposal I do affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor secondly, [be] compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any. I further add, that I never denied that notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of the ship ought to command the ship’s course, yea, and also to command that justice, peace, and sobriety be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and the passengers. (quoted in Davis 2008, 278)

In other words, those with political authority had no right to tell citizens how to believe (which Williams denounced as “soul rape”), even as there was a requirement of citizens to exercise their right to believe, and live out that belief, responsibly. He held that forced worship “stinks in the nostrils of God” (22 June 1670 letter to Major John Mason, as quoted by Barry 2012, 336) and leads inevitably to civil unrest, whereas liberty of conscience leads to true citizen solidarity and loyalty. Accordingly, the Rhode Island Charter of 1663 confidently declared that the colony would “hold forth a livlie experiment, that a most flourishing civill state may stand and best be maintained … with a full libertie in religious concernments” (see Seiple and Hoover 2004, vii).⁶

Crucially, Williams was not a political pluralist because he held his religious beliefs less confidently than the Puritan theocrats held theirs. His religious convictions and political intuitions were deeply rooted in his understanding of the Bible. Williams scholar John Barry (2012, 225) notes that “hardly a single paragraph in any letter [by Williams] fails to mention God. Faith, longing for God, and knowledge of Scripture are ingrained in his writing. … His life revolved around seeking God; that search informed the way he thought, the way he wrote, what he did each day.” Historian Matthew Rowley (2017, 68) notes similarly that across six volumes of collected works and two volumes of correspondence, Williams “rarely goes a paragraph without citing from, alluding to, or making an inference from scripture or theology.”

In fact, Williams shared many of the Puritans’ theological doctrines (Davis 2008) but came to starkly different conclusions about religious pluralism and political order. As Miroslav Volf (2015, 151–152) concludes, both Williams and John Winthrop “were religious exclusivists. Yet Winthrop’s religious exclusivism led to political exclusivism, and Williams’s to political pluralism.” Three examples illustrate how Williams was simultaneously a religious exclusivist theologically but a pluralist socio-politically.

The first example is Williams’ attitudes toward and relationship with Native Americans. On the one hand, Williams believed firmly in the truth of the Christian gospel and in a mandate and duty to evangelize—to actively seek converts. But on the other hand, he did not translate his views on the Great Commission into a posture of generalized disrespect of Native Americans. Williams insisted that “Nature knows no difference between Europeans and Americans in blood, birth, bodies, &c., God having of one blood made all mankind” (Gaustad 1999, 28). He also refused to share his faith with the Native Americans until he learned their language. Barry (2012, 157) explains that Williams “believed that one could not become a Christian without a full understanding of what Christianity meant, and he refrained from any efforts to convert Indians until his fluency in their language was adequate to explain Christ’s message.”

The second example is Williams’ attitudes and policies toward Quakers. Theologically, Williams stood with other Puritans regarding Quakers—that is, he despised them (Barry 2012). He argued that Quakers “preached not Christ Jesus but Themselves,” and that their teachings were an abomination (Gaustad 1999, 183). Yet Williams never let these serious theological differences translate into political persecution of Quakers. Unlike in Massachusetts, Quakers were welcomed in Rhode Island. He also debated Quakers respectfully. For instance, his written summary of the Quakers’ theological position was not contested by the Quakers (Barry 2012).

A third example is an episode demonstrating how Williams’ commitment to freedom of conscience was in some cases strong enough to trump even pervasively patriarchal norms. Two years after the 1636 founding of Rhode Island, Joshua and Jane Verin, next door neighbors to Roger and Mary Williams, stopped attending church, held in the Williams’ home. Jane wanted to attend but Joshua forbade it. It became a communal concern, however, according to the covenant to which all had agreed. In the end the community kept its covenant to itself and its members; Jane Verin continued to attend church—without her husband, or his approval (Eberle 2004).

A great deal more could be said about Williams, of course, but the above sketch should suffice to make clear that Williams’ ideas about freedom of conscience and “peaceable neighborhood” were a kind of foreshadow of the philosophy we are today referring to as covenantal pluralism. We would even go so far as to say that Williams’ vision was “exceptional.” However, by “exceptional” we do not mean to suggest any of the triumphalist meanings that are oftentimes part and parcel of the rhetoric of “American exceptionalism” (Hoover 2014). In our view, Williams’ 17th-century version of covenantal pluralism was exceptional not because it captured something uniquely “American,” but because it was an exceptionally early articulation of a paradigm that remains globally relevant and practically achievable today in diverse cultural contexts.

Williams blazed a path that—unfortunately, to judge by the current state of American political culture and institutions—the United States has struggled to follow in its pursuit of a “more perfect union.” Consider, for example, the Pew Research Center’s two global indices of restrictions on religion, one of which measures government restrictions on religion and the other social hostilities involving religion (Pew 2018). The United States does not rank in the “low” tier on either of these indices. Rather, the United States—along with several other Western liberal democracies—ranks in the middle of the pack. There are numerous non-Western countries, from every Global South region, with similar or lower levels of religious restrictions and hostilities as the United States. The upshot is this: All countries, regardless of geography or GDP, face ongoing choices about the path they will take in dealing with the challenges and opportunities presented by religious/worldview diversity.

Further, a covenantal-pluralist path is not necessarily a “new” or uncharted one. Indeed there may be ample signposts already embedded in diverse cultures and historical experiences worldwide. For instance, a famous example from India’s history is the Mughal emperor Akbar (1542–1605), who is renowned for the benevolent approach he took to religious diversity. As A.L. Basham (1954, 482) argued,

[Akbar] fully realized that the Empire could only stand on the basis of complete toleration. All religious tests and disabilities were abolished, including the hated poll-tax on unbelievers. Rajput princes and other Hindus were given high offices of state, without conversion to Islam … . If the policy of the greatest of India’s Muslim rulers had been continued by his successors, her history might have been very different.

Pluralist precedents can of course be found in more recent Indian history as well—including in India’s 1949 constitution⁷—but unfortunately they are often overshadowed by India’s contemporary challenges of religious violence and religious nationalism.

Put simply, answering the call to covenantal pluralism may in some contexts be more a matter of rediscovery than discovery, of restoration rather than revolution. Regardless, however, the path of covenantal pluralism is indeed a demanding one to tread. For starters, covenantal pluralism requires a thick skin—that is, a comfort level with disagreement and difference that goes beyond mere “tolerance.”

Why Tolerance is Not Enough

In our fast-globalizing world of ever-growing diversity, “tolerance” is certainly necessary as a general norm of civility. And there are important international human rights documents dedicated to defending tolerance, such as the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Still, tolerance, in and of itself, is not sufficient for the challenge of living well with deep diversity. Indeed, minimalist and uncritical versions of “tolerance” can actually run counter to genuinely authentic and sustainable pluralism. The problems are threefold.

First, to frame the imperative in terms of granting “tolerance” can suggest a posture of privilege, even condescension. No one wants merely to be “tolerated,” as if their presence is only grudgingly and tenuously accepted within the socio-political order. We “tolerate” things we are hoping to get rid of as soon as the opportunity arises, such as back pain or toothaches. Instead, all people want to feel that their equal standing and inherent human dignity are universally respected. This kind of empathetic egalitarianism is, moreover, vital to social flourishing, especially in a democracy. George Washington acknowledged as much in his famous August 18, 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”⁸

A second difficulty in platitudinous appeals for “tolerance” is that they can reveal an alarming degree of religious illiteracy. An undifferentiated ideology of tolerance can at times be indicative of oversimplified, if not outright naïve, assumptions regarding the very nature of religion and religious differences. Any serious study of religious traditions and comprehensive worldviews immediately brings into sharp relief the realities of deep diversity. All religions are not the same; some disagreements are irreconcilable.

A prominent scholar who has long made the case for facing multi-faith realities with eyes wide open is Stephen Prothero, author of God is Not One (Prothero 2010a). In an interview with Religion Dispatches about the book, Prothero (2010b) concisely summarized the problem of religiously illiterate tolerance:

[In graduate school] I repeatedly heard from professors that all religions were different paths up the same mountain. That sentiment never made any sense to me. I had Jewish and Muslim and Christian and atheist friends, and none of us was under the illusion that we agreed with each other. … The main argument [of God is not One] is that the world’s religions are climbing different mountains with very different tools and techniques. One perspective that new atheists and liberal multiculturalists share is that all religions are essentially the same (false and poisonous on the one hand, and true and beautiful on the other). I think this view is dangerous, disrespectful, and untrue. Christians do not go on the hajj to Mecca, and Muslims do not affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, going on the hajj is not peripheral to Muslims—in fact it is one of Islam’s Five Pillars. And the belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not inessential to Christians—in fact it stands at the heart of the Christian gospel. … The bottom line? Tolerance is an empty virtue if you don’t even understand what you are tolerating.

The third and arguably most significant problem with mere tolerance is that it is too easily coupled with indifference. Sir John Templeton, founder of the Templeton Religion Trust, was acutely aware that much of what passes for “tolerance” can be rather flimsy. He believed strongly that human progress in all areas, including religion, depends in large part on constructive competition—that is, respectfully engaging differences, not dismissively ignoring them. Sir John wrote that

Tolerance may be a divine virtue, but it could also become a vehicle for apathy. Millions of people are thoroughly tolerant toward diverse religions, but rarely do such people go down in history as creators, benefactors, or leaders of progress. … Should we not desire to have our neighbour share insights and try to convey to us the brilliant light that has transformed his life—the fire in his soul? Why settle for a least-common-denominator type of religion based on tolerance alone? More than tolerance, we need constructive competition. When persons on fire for a great gospel compete lovingly to give their finest treasures to each other, will not everyone benefit? (Templeton 2000, 122–123)

In their 2016 book Living with Difference: How to Build Community in a Divided World, Adam Seligman, Rachel Wasserfall, and David Montgomery argue that contemporary pieties of tolerance often treat religious differences as though they are matters of mere aesthetic preference—and consequently not matters requiring principled engagement.

We continually deny difference rather than engaging with it, so much so that nonengagement is the very stuff of our social life. In a certain sense, denying difference by relegating it to the aesthetic or trivial is itself a form of indifference toward what is other and different. By framing our difference from the other’s position, or action, in terms of tastes or triviality, we exempt ourselves from engaging with it and can maintain an attitude of indifference. … [Such approaches] are in fact less than tolerant, because they actually disengage from difference rather than attempt to come to terms with it. They are perhaps nothing more than a way to elide the whole problem of difference in modern society rather than realize it. (Seligman, Wasserfall, and Montgomery 2016, 8–9)

In short, a “tolerance” that amounts to little more than apathy and crude relativism is insufficient to meet the challenges of our times.

The “Return” of Religion and the Need for Pluralist Theory

An important background condition that helps explain the enduring popularity of cheap bumper-sticker “tolerance” is the lingering cultural power of secularization theory, along with its methodological implications, especially within the academy. Secularization theory’s core premise was that modernity undermines religion culturally and epistemologically—that is, in modern conditions, religion is either abandoned entirely or is radically privatized and relegated to the psychological, cultural, and political margins. “Tolerance” toward religious faith and practice of any sort is a natural outgrowth of pervasive popular assumptions about the ineluctably receding significance of religion.

The irony is that most social scientists no longer subscribe to secularization theory. A prominent case in point is the late Peter Berger, an eminent sociologist whose early work helped elevate secularization theory to near-paradigmatic status. In the 1990s, however, Berger famously renounced his adherence to secularization theory, and began arguing that a theory of pluralization should decisively displace secularization theory as the paradigm for understanding contemporary religion.

In The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age, Berger (2014) argued that modernization does not necessarily result in the decline of religion, but it does mean that more people than ever before must live amidst cacophonously competing beliefs, values, and lifestyles. This need not and should not be conceived as strictly a “Western” phenomenon. Global South contexts are experiencing pluralization as well, especially in the wake of increasing urbanization and migration. The process of pluralization necessarily forces the modern person into more-frequent encounters with deep differences. For some this can be a source of anxiety and irritation.⁹ It can be interpreted as undermining epistemic and moral certainty, forcing matters that might otherwise have remained in the background of consciousness instead to be dealt with in the foreground. Globalization and technological change accelerate these dynamics and can foster feelings of spiritual and psychological dislocation.

Berger also discussed two commonplace but highly problematic strategies for dealing with the modern predicament: fundamentalism and relativism. A fundamentalist, according to Berger, is someone who attempts to restore moral/epistemic certainty through various social and political means. At the opposite extreme, a relativist is one who makes an ideology out of moral equivalence, non-judgmentalism, and “tolerance.” With the poles so defined—the former as dangerous and the latter as vacuous—Berger (2014, 15) argued for “the maintenance and legitimation of the middle ground between fundamentalism and relativism.” Berger rightly (in our view) suggests that this happy middle ground will be a form of pluralism.

But any argument for “pluralism” must immediately confront a significant terminological problem. Namely, in the context of religion today, the word “pluralism” is most often used in ways that are synonymous with relativism. In both scholarly and popular discourse, when “pluralism” is invoked without specific qualifiers, the default meaning usually attributed to the word is that of relativism. This is the “we’re all climbing the same mountain” attitude of breezy equivalence that Stephen Prothero (2010b) rightly dismisses as “pretend pluralism.”

The question, then, is this: What is real pluralism? And how should we qualify it, if the word “pluralism” on its own is, at best, ambiguous?

The Many Faces of Pluralism

For a fleeting moment in the immediate post-Cold War period there was heady optimism about the “end of history”—the global triumph of liberalism and its constitutive attributes of individualism, rationalism, legalism, proceduralism, etc. But the gods refused to die, and particularistic identities roared back into prominence, sometimes violently. The future quickly became one not of universalization of liberal order but of cultural and political balkanization. Theorists from both the “left” and “right” have increasingly recognized the need to articulate a philosophy of pluralism that corresponds better to empirical facts on the ground, and that has better prospects for normative coherence and functional consensus across deep global diversity.

The result has been a highly creative and intellectually productive profusion of pluralist theories, particularly in the last ten years. The many faces of pluralist thought in the literature today include, for example:

• confident pluralism (Inazu 2016; Keller and Inazu 2020)

• courageous pluralism (Patel 2016; Patel 2018; Geiss 2020; Patel 2020)

• pragmatic pluralism (L. Patton 2018; L. Patton 2006)

• deep/agonistic pluralism (Connolly 2005)

• principled/civic/structural pluralism (Monsma 1992; Skillen 1994; Chaplin 2016; Soper, den Dulk, and Monsma 2017; Carlson-Thies 2018)

• inclusive pluralism (Marsden 2015)

• “principled distance” (or “Indian model”) pluralism (Bhargava 2012)

• “religious harmony”/regulated pluralism (Neo 2020)

• “political secularism” pluralism (Taylor 2010; Maclure and Taylor 2011)

• “difference” pluralism (Mahmood 2016; Shakman Hurd 2015)

• “living together differently” pluralism (Seligman, Wasserfall, and Montgomery 2016)

• “encounter of commitments” pluralism (Eck n.d.; Eck 2020)

• “global public square” pluralism (Guinness 2013)

• and more

The array of contemporary pluralisms is itself pluralistic in several respects. For example, some brands of pluralism have long and formidable philosophical pedigrees whereas others are of more recent vintage. Some are more preoccupied with the structural and positive law dimensions of robust pluralism—the constitutional and statutory “rules of the game” for fairness across all religious and secular worldviews—whereas others are more attuned to the cultural, relational, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of living with deep differences. Some focus more on applicability in Western liberal democracy (particularly the Unites States) whereas others take a more abstractly universal or non-Western approach. Some take a broad view of the degree of consensus—political and/or theological—that is possible and desirable under pluralistic conditions, whereas others envision a minimalist, “thinner” consensus. (For a comparison of many of the different streams of contemporary pluralist thought, see Joustra 2020.)

However, some key commonalities across most of these pluralisms are that they eschew simplistic relativism, approach the challenges of diversity with realism but not fatalism, and envision a positive pluralism that calls not for mere side-by-side, arms-length coexistence but for a principled engagement across religious and worldview divides. Take for example the theory of “deep pluralism” developed by political theorist William E. Connolly. Connolly argues that a degree of conflict and competition is inherent to the human condition, but it is still possible for these inevitable tensions to have peaceful, productive, prosocial effects. According to Connolly, a realistic-yet-positive pluralism

does not issue in a simple universalism in which one image of transcendence sets the standard everywhere or in a cultural relativism in which one faith prevails here and another there. It is neither universalism nor relativism in the simple mode of each. It is deep pluralism. A pluralism that periodically must be defended militantly against this or that drive to religio-state Unitarianism. The public ethos of pluralism pursued here, again, solicits the active cultivation of pluralist virtues by each faith and the negotiation of a positive ethos of engagement between them. (Connolly 2005, 64–65)

Diana Eck, director of the Harvard Pluralism Project, also underscores the importance of principled engagement across faith/worldview lines. In her call for a “new paradigm of pluralism,” Eck (n.d.) argues that:

Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or among them. Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies. … The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments. It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.

We concur with Eck, but would add that new diction can be helpful, indeed even necessary, in conveying new perspectives and nuances. Again, nowadays the word “pluralism” is very often not used to signify a non-relativistic encounter of commitments, but rather a simple relativism typically promoted alongside bumper-sticker clichés of multiculturalism (Sacks 2007). As such, we believe it is useful to attach a modifier to the word “pluralism” that signals clearly from the outset that what is intended is something distinctly richer and more engaged than casually relativistic tolerance. We suggest that the modifier that most compellingly invites this more nuanced take on pluralism is covenantal.

What Covenantal Pluralism Is … and Isn’t

In our view the central virtue of the word “covenant” is that it evokes an easily understood, holistic vision that emphasizes not only rules, as important as those are, but also relationships. By contrast to a pluralism that is strictly “contractual” (or transactional), a covenantal pluralism is one that entails a deeper sense of moral solemnity and significance, and assumes an indefinite time horizon. A “contract” is a quintessentially conditional relationship governed by rational rules, violation of which nullifies the relationship. But a “covenant” endures beyond specific conflicts and beyond episodic departures from norms. It involves a more fluid relationship between rules and grace. Framing robust pluralism in this way is particularly resonant beyond the West, where many cultures are in practice far more communitarian than contractarian (Sacks 2002; Sacks 2007).

The concept of covenantal pluralism is simultaneously about “top-down” legal and policy parameters and “bottom-up” cultural norms and practices. A world of covenantal pluralism is characterized both by a constitutional order of equal rights and responsibilities and by a culture of reciprocal commitment to engaging, respecting, and protecting the other—albeit without necessarily conceding equal veracity or moral equivalence to the beliefs and behaviors of others. The envisioned end-state is neither a thin-soup ecumenism nor vague syncretism, but rather a positive, practical, non-relativistic pluralism. It is a paradigm of civic fairness and human solidarity, a covenant of global neighborliness that is intended to bend but not break under the pressure of diversity.

We use the “covenant” concept here in its secular sense, one accessible to people of any religion or no religion. To be sure, various religious traditions—in particular those within the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—use the word “covenant” in theologically particularist ways within their respective intra-faith contexts. But in the context of pluralism, the word “covenant” is used in a much different sense, one explicitly cognizant of the myriad forms of faith/worldview diversity around the world.¹⁰ Our usage is analogous to the inclusive way “covenant” is invoked in some international human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; or, even, a homeowner’s association of different families and beliefs who agree that everyone in their neighborhood should be governed by common rules.

Jonathan Sacks, author of the 2002 book The Dignity of Difference and former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, has long thought about the meaning of the term “covenant,” its spiritual origin, and its secular application on behalf of all faiths and none:

Covenants are about the larger groupings in and through which we develop identity. They are about the “We” in which I discover the “I.” Covenantal relationships are those sustained by trust. … Covenant is a bond, not of interest or advantage, but of belonging. … [A covenant is] where we develop the grammar and syntax of reciprocity, where we help others and they help us without calculations of relative advantage—where trust is born. (Sacks 2002, 150–151)

He explains further that:

[A covenant] reminds us that we are guardians of the past for the sake of the future. It extends our horizons to the chain of generations of which we are a part. … Covenants are beginnings, acts of moral engagement. They are couched in broad terms whose precise meaning is the subject of ongoing debate but which stand as touchstones, ideas, reference points against which policies and practices are judged. (Sacks 2002, 203)

In short, a pluralism that is covenantal is holistic (simultaneously “top-down” and “bottom-up”) and long-term, characterized by mutual reliance and, as a result, resilience.

Furthermore, we argue that covenantal pluralism is more genuinely plural—that is, more inclusive of the actual extent of diversity that exists—and consequently more likely to be received and perceived as normatively legitimate at the local level. There is room at the table of covenantal pluralism for a genuinely robust diversity of actors to engage one another. The invitees are not just an unrepresentative sample that consists only of self-selected cosmopolitans. Instead there is a more realistic range—secular to religious, fundamentalist to modernist, Western to Eastern, and so on. This is a pluralism that requires a humble posture of openness to people who make exclusive truth claims, who are deeply embedded in communities with particularistic identities and guarded boundaries, whose beliefs and practices are not as “negotiable” as consumer-market choices (J. Patton 2018). Covenantal Pluralism is inclusive of the exclusive.

There are, to be sure, limits; some religious (and ideological) actors may be so thoroughly illiberal and anti-pluralist that there simply isn’t a conversation to be had. Still, it is entirely possible, and indeed common, for some faith communities to retain internal beliefs and practices that are “orthodox,” and yet be pluralists in civic and political life (Volf 2011; Yang 2014; Volf 2015). The key is whether such communities embrace the spirit of covenantal pluralism and its parameters—which include, for example, respecting the right of individuals to opt-out of their community without fear of violence, and respecting the equal prerogatives of other communities with different internal practices (Hoover 2016).

A pluralism of this covenantal sort is neither easy nor natural for most people. It is not the path of least resistance. Once established, however, it holds realistic promise as a path for negotiating diversity in a way that advances both spiritual development and social flourishing. The philosophy of covenantal pluralism echoes a central tenet of the theory of social change espoused by Sir John Templeton, who believed that “progress comes from constructive competition” (Templeton 1998, 122)—that is, competition conducted in a certain spirit (loving and friendly) and under the right conditions (free and fair). Sir John held that constructive competition and principled engagement across differences are necessary to avoid stagnation and catalyze progress in religion and society. The benefits include broader and deeper understanding of spiritual realities, expanded social dividends and the social capital associated with religious faith and practice at its best, and greater overall vitality and dynamism of religious expression.

Constituting Covenantal Pluralism

We find it useful to conceptualize the key constitutive dimensions of covenantal pluralism in terms of “conditions of possibility”—that is, the enabling conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for a healthy and sustainable form of robust pluralism to exist.¹¹ These conditions can be grouped into several major categories.

The first is freedom of religion and belief (FoRB), which includes two dimensions: (a) free exercise of religion/freedom of conscience, and (b) equal treatment of religions/worldviews. Our definition of FoRB in the context of covenantal pluralism is shaped by Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.

In fact the history of the drafting and negotiation of this text by a highly diverse drafting committee could itself be seen as a case study of covenantal pluralism (Glendon 2001; Brink 2003.) The committee’s deliberations revealed considerable effort to make the text acceptable across very diverse political systems and cultures. One of the most influential framers of the UDHR, China’s P.C. Chang, defended these principles against the charge that they are somehow narrowly “Western” (Glendon 2001, 142).

A foundational premise of covenantal pluralism is that the impulse to spirituality and the yearning to seek answers about transcendence are universal. Any systemic repression or discrimination interfering with this expression therefore goes against the grain of human nature, and will very likely contribute to social and political instability (Seiple and Hoover 2013). A sustainable environment of covenantal pluralism requires robust protections for the freedom to explore the nature of ultimate reality, interrogate one’s own beliefs about transcendent/spiritual realities, organize (or reorganize) one’s life in accordance with one’s discoveries, associate (or disassociate) with others in the collective pursuit of truth about transcendent and ultimate realities, and express one’s core convictions in the public square—albeit in a way consistent with the requirements of public order and the equal rights of others.

However, FoRB alone does not exhaust the conditions of possibility needed for covenantal pluralism in its fullest sense. Codifying legal protections for religious freedom is vitally important yet not the same as achieving covenantal pluralism. Covenantal pluralism presupposes not only the “rules” that should govern a regime of religious freedom but also the relational norms within which rules have (or fail to have) any actual purchase. In other words, in the absence of any “covenantal” relationships and/or commitments that transcend religious and worldview divides, it is unlikely that sound rules for religious freedom will be discerned in the first place. And even if some proposed rules are logically “correct,” when large segments of the population do not share any covenantal solidarity or fellow feeling, they are apt to just dismiss such rules out of hand.

A second category of enabling conditions is religious literacy. As noted above, religious illiteracy is widespread and contributes to an enfeebled public understanding of pluralism. What we mean by religious literacy is more than just general knowledge sufficient to pass a quiz on “world religions.” Instead we mean a religious literacy that includes awareness of real-world cross-cultural contexts, along with skills to engage such contexts. An apt analogy here is the contrast between proficiency in abstract maths vs. mathematical literacy, the latter of which requires real-world problem-solving skills.

Religious literacy in this application-ready sense has at least three dimensions. To be religiously literate one needs to have a working understanding of (a) one’s own belief system or faith tradition, especially what it says about (engaging) persons outside that tradition, (b) one’s neighbor’s moral, epistemological, and spiritual framework, and what that framework says about engaging the other, and (c) the historical and contemporary particulars of the specific contexts in which multi-faith collaborations may (or may not) be advisable—that is, the spiritual, ethnic, and/or organizational cultures relevant to developing and implementing a project or program collaboratively.

Finally, a third set of enabling conditions, closely related to the second, is the embodiment and expression of virtues that a positive ethos of nonrelativistic pluralism requires. Covenantal pluralism is hard work, and there is no retirement age. It promises no utopia, no end of history. The global business of living together with our differences is ongoing, and it is the duty of each generation to bequeath it to the next, and teach the virtues that make it possible. As such, covenantal pluralism requires a praxis and continual cultivation of the character traits needed for robust, sustained engagement between people of different religions/worldviews—foremost, virtues such as humility, empathy, patience, and courage, combined with fairness, reciprocity, cooperativeness, self-critique, and self-correction.

The wider the underlying divides, the more vital such virtues become. The politics of pluralism do not always conform to a simple script (Brink 2012) with a happy ending of “common ground.” The real world of engaging across deep difference is riskier, and messier. Usually some common ground will be identified and strengthened, but there will also be cases in which disagreements will merely be defined in greater detail. To live peacefully and amicably with these less-than-tidy realities—to “agree to disagree, agreeably” wherever possible—requires a maturity of character. Such dialogical virtues are crucial to what Sir John Templeton meant by “humility in theology.” Sir John argued that progress in the context of religion depends in large part on a respectful manner of engagement of those with whom one disagrees (Herrmann 2004).

Key to this requisite disposition is mutual respect. As Lenn Goodman (2014, 1) argues in Religious Pluralism and Values in the Public Sphere, “Religious tolerance does not mean homogenizing. Pluralism preserves differences. What it asks for is respect.” Respect values the essence of the other’s identity, without sacrificing the substance of one’s own. In other words, “respecting” the other does not necessarily lend moral equivalence to any and every belief. Indeed, to feign agreement when profound issues are actually in dispute can be a form of disrespect. Respect simply means that everyone should respect the inherent dignity of every human, including the innate liberty of conscience of the other even if the conclusions drawn are different from one’s own. Pluralism is, after all, the inevitable result of liberty of conscience.

Consequently, within a society characterized by covenantal pluralism, the kinds of bridges built between religions are better described as multi-faith than “interfaith.” “Multi-faith” more clearly signals the existence of irreconcilable theological differences between and among faiths and worldviews. These differences need not be foregrounded in every conversation or project, but in some contexts acknowledgment and principled engagement of such differences is important to, at a minimum, demonstrate respect for the essence of someone else’s identity. And, in our experience, once that moment arrives, the practical collaboration accelerates afterwards.

The word “interfaith,” by contrast, tends to suggest a blending of theologies. Too easily, interfaith dialogues steer clear of or (worse) effectively water down deep differences. While interfaith dialogues can helpfully highlight shared values, too often they end up focusing on banal commonalities rather than leveraging the contrasts between the rich and to some degree divergent traditions at the table. Discovering common beliefs and values only has meaning when the richness of the different points of moral departure are also understood.

Conclusion

In the history of social theory there is no shortage of pessimism regarding the effects of deep religious diversity and contestation on a society. Lack of moral/epistemological uniformity has often been feared as a source of political instability and social pathology. The philosophy of covenantal pluralism takes a more nuanced view, one that is conditionally optimistic about the possibility of living, and living well, with our differences.

In contrast to the sometimes thin rhetoric of tolerance, the concept of covenantal pluralism acknowledges the complex challenges presented by deep diversity and offers a holistic conception of the structures and norms that are conducive to fairness and flourishing for all, even amidst stark differences in theologies, values, and lifestyles. Covenantal pluralism

• calls forth and is nurtured by common virtues indigenous to each tradition (e.g. humility, empathy, patience), encouraging self-reflection regarding theological/worldview differences and what one’s holy scriptures and ethics say about engaging the other;

• seeks a level playing field where all people—of any religion, or none—are treated with equal respect;

• leverages our difference, guided by the idea that the best solutions to the problems we face emerge most effectively amidst contrast and the competition of ideas, always in the interest of the common good;

• pursues the equal opportunity for everyone to propose their beliefs and behavior without imposing them on others;

• supports an inclusive notion of citizenship (including those who make exclusive truth claims) that is good for society and the state; and,

• results in the integration of the non-majority, not its assimilation, never insisting that minorities must think and act exactly like the majority.

Unfortunately, in many nations today—including even some of those that rhetorically trumpet religious liberty and diversity—covenantal pluralism remains a path not (fully) taken. Yet signposts for this path abound; precedents and potentialities of covenantal pluralism exist the world over. Further, the (re)discovery of covenantal pluralism is, we contend, not only the right thing to do in terms of universal moral ideals, but also a realistic strategy for progress toward a society’s enlightened self-interest. To the extent any nation follows (or recovers) the historically narrower, typically less traveled path of covenantal pluralism, it will redound to the long-term benefit of both religion and state. But when a people or state choose the historically wider, much more traveled path of “Puritanical” (whether fundamentalist or secularist) uniformity, there is less hope for the well-being of all citizens, all neighbors. Cultivating a context of covenantal pluralism increases the likelihood that people of profoundly different points of religious and epistemological departure nevertheless engage one another across their differences in a spirited way, and contribute to a peaceable neighborhood for all.

Acknowledgements

This article is part of a larger project sponsored by the Covenantal Pluralism Initiative at the Templeton Religion Trust.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

W. Christopher Stewart

W. Christopher Stewart (Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame) is the Vice President, Grant Programs and Chief Grants Officer of the Templeton Religion Trust, headquartered in The Bahamas. He joined the Trust in 2013, after 20 years on the faculty of Houghton College, where he served as Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Biblical Studies, Theology, and Philosophy.

Chris Seiple

Chris Seiple (Ph.D., The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy) is President Emeritus of the Institute for Global Engagement and Principal Advisor to the Templeton Religion Trust’s Covenantal Pluralism Initiative. A former U.S. Marine infantry officer, he is Senior Fellow for Comparative Religion at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, and Senior Advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives.

Dennis R. Hoover

Dennis R. Hoover (D.Phil. Politics, University of Oxford) is Editor of The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Research Advisor for the Templeton Religion Trust’s Covenantal Pluralism Initiative, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement. He is editor of Religion and American Exceptionalism (2014), as well as co-editor of Religion and Foreign Affairs (2012) and two Routledge Handbooks: Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security (2012), and a forthcoming handbook on religious literacy, pluralism, and engagement.

Notes

1 Quoted in Barry 2012, 220.

2 In the increasingly commonplace “COEXIST” and “TOLERANCE” bumper stickers, each letter is artfully rendered as a symbol of a different group or concept. In the “COEXIST” bumper sticker, typically the “C” is the Islamic crescent, the “O” is a peace sign, the “E” is a gender symbol, the “X” is a Star of David, dot of the "I" is a pagan pentagram, the “S” is a yin-yang symbol, and the "T" is a Christian cross. The “TOLERANCE” version—which for good measure includes the tagline “Believe in it”—adds Native American and Baha’i symbols, and even a nod to science (the last “e” is Einstein's formula e=mc²).

3 The Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/), headquartered in The Bahamas, is a global charitable trust established by Sir John Templeton (d. 2008) to support research and public engagement worldwide at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and the sciences, and to promote human flourishing by funding projects in the areas of individual freedom, free markets, and character development, and through its support of the Templeton Prize.

4 Portions of this section are adapted from Seiple 2012.

5 It’s worth noting that the theme of neighborliness would emerge in powerfully analogous ways centuries later in the thought of Halford John Mackinder, who argued in early 1919 as he tried to influence the Versailles Peace Treaty: “That grand old word neighbor has fallen almost into desuetude. It is for neighborliness that the world today calls aloud … Let us recover possession of ourselves, lest we become the mere slaves of the world’s geography … Neighborliness or fraternal duty to those who are our fellow-dwellers, is the only sure foundation of a happy citizenship” (Mackinder 1919).

6 Williams’ ideas about religious tolerance influenced John Locke, who in turn was a major influence on key founders of the United States. For an illuminating comparison of Williams, Locke, and Hobbes, see Bejan 2017.

7 For related resources see Singha 2017.

8 For the full text of this letter see the Founders Online section of the National Archives website: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135.

9 However it is important not to assume a clean binary contrast between pre-modern conditions of taken-for-granted religious “fate” and modern conditions of uncertainty and “choice.” As Robert Hefner (2016, 16) has argued, it is a mistake to “see all premodern actors as inhabiting densely religious worlds in which the natural and supernatural are so interwoven that there is little room for uncertainty or agnostic doubt.” See also Douglas (1970) on the “myth of the pious primitive.”

10 While there are insights that can be drawn from particularist covenantal theologies and applied generically by analogy, the philosophy of covenantal pluralism is secular.

11 The notion of “conditions of possibility” is adapted from the thought of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who changed the course of philosophy in the West by focusing not on whether it is possible for humanity to know anything at all but rather on the conditions of possibility for human knowledge.