"Our Pluralism Project"

READING

Diana Eck and other scholars and students of religion started The Pluralism Project at Harvard University in 1991 to survey the changing American religious landscape. Since then the Project has gone global, reflecting the growth and significance of religious pluralism everywhere.

Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, wrote “What is Pluralism?” to introduce the mission and work of the Project.

What is Pluralism?

The plurality of religious traditions and cultures has come to characterize every part of the world today. But what is pluralism? Here are four points to begin our thinking:

• First, 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.

• Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.

• Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. 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.

• Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table” will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table -- with one’s commitments.

—Diana L. Eck

SERMON

It was just about two years ago that David and I got lost in a Berber village at the edge of the Sahara desert. We had picked up a rental car in Marrakech, and driven through the Atlas Mountains all the way to Ourzazate, where we spent several days exploring the kasbahs and oases nearby. This part of Morocco is remote, but popular with European tourists and film crews in search of an exotic locale.

David spotted some interesting looking mud buildings in the distance and soon we were off the highway, following a dirt road into a small village. There weren’t many people around – it was hot out, and the middle of the day – and as we took the winding paths towards the center, we could tell we wouldn’t be able to find our way out. We weren’t too worried, however. And it wasn’t long before an old man stepped out of the shade, offering to get in the back seat of our car and guide us out to the highway.

But something happened before we left there that made a strong impression on both of us. It was the sight of a father holding his young child by the side of the dusty road, watching us approach in our car. When we passed them, he held his hands over the child’s face.

The gesture held more than one meaning. No doubt it was a preemptive move to keep his child from being seen or worse, photographed. But it also appeared that he didn’t want his child to see us. We didn’t belong in that village; we were not part of that child’s world. The father was doing the only thing he could to keep his way of life unchanged by an encounter with strangers.

And yet the world grows closer together. Cultural and religious diversity is a reality, affecting people everywhere. Some see it as threatening; others as a challenge to grow and learn.

Our faith community has actively sought the challenge of encounters with different religions since the nineteenth century. When translations of Eastern sacred texts became available to Westerners, Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists were among the first to read and write about them. They realized that their world – and their faith – would change, but they never looked back. Rather they saw a new world and a new faith open up to them, one that was generous enough to offer many paths and many truths.

It wasn’t long before their enthusiasm spread among religious liberals, resulting in unprecedented east-west interfaith dialogue. Unitarians sponsored the participation of Hindu swamis and other world religious leaders at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. We have been known as advocates for interfaith dialogue ever since, teaching “Neighboring Faiths” to our children and welcoming people of all backgrounds to our sanctuary.

This is why the world religion banners mean so much to so many members of our congregation. They make the statement that we are open and aware of religious diversity. They welcome strangers. They place our tradition alongside others. They represent our history, our values, and our search for truth. They also continue to challenge and teach us.

Today’s presentation of the new banners represents the culmination of another dialogue, one among ourselves. For we did not simply undertake to replace the old banners. We asked ourselves what they mean to us now; and whether we still found them as relevant as we once did. We became our own pluralism project, energetically engaging with our own diversity of opinion and commitment. We wrestled with the question of our relationship to these other traditions, and how we would characterize ourselves. These questions have led to another question, whether we should call ourselves a “church” or not. Such debates surface from time to time here, triggered by something as practical as the need to replace worn out banners; but quickly snowballing into much larger concerns about who we are and what we represent.

The dialogue has not been comfortable for everyone. There are tensions among us about our differences. Then again, what we are trying to do is not easy. That is how we learn from it.

Diana Eck wrote in her essay “What is Pluralism?” that it “is the encounter of commitments. It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.”[1]  Differences among Unitarian Universalists may not be all that profound; certainly not as profound as those between the Berber tribesman and the American tourists. Yet they are heightened by our individualistic style and outspokenness.

“The language of pluralism,” Diana Eck adds, “is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism.”[2]  It is taking a significant risk: knowing we won’t all agree with each other, and willing to say what we believe anyway. But it works if we agree that such dialogue can lift us all to higher ground. It calls us to move beyond the exclusive claims of one position or another, to listen and to be changed by what we hear each other say. It is the give and take that leads us to universal truth.

Pluralism is a humbling way to be in community. It is good for us. For we need to remind ourselves that how we live our lives and get along with each other have a higher value than how well we defend our personal beliefs.

Around the same time as Unitarians began exploring interfaith dialogue, another formative trend developed among them. It was the understanding that who we are as a religious people cannot be defined by our “creeds” – that is, our beliefs, or even what we think – but rather by our “deeds” – the way we live our lives and get along with each other. This shift in thinking about religion – the “deeds not creeds” position we have wholeheartedly adopted – has implications for the pluralism project we have today. The higher ground we seek in dialogue and community with each other has little to do with who prevails in one congregational decision or another. It has to do with how we conduct ourselves so that relationships are sustained. Our encounter with difference – whether among ourselves or out in the world – means little if we do not reflect on our own actions. We arrived at the decision to hang new banners by the democratic process. Our current dialogue about whether to call ourselves a “church” will also be settled by a vote. But before that vote takes place, we will all have the opportunity to express ourselves, and encounter each other’s commitments. The diversity of opinions about this question will get a thorough airing. But we will succeed at our pluralism project only if everyone who has spoken feels heard, and then – whatever the outcome of the vote – remains part of the whole as we move on. That is what it means to be a religion of “deeds not creeds.”

I’ve given a lot of thought to our fleeting encounter with the father and son in the Berber village.  It’s a good lesson in the many sensitivities we must cultivate to be good citizens of the world. We had become accustomed to Moroccan hospitality and didn’t think twice about turning off the road to enter a place we had not been invited. And though we were respectful of their culture – my head was covered and we took no pictures – we had crossed a boundary with our rental car and our money to buy our way out when we got lost. I thought it was sad the father didn’t want his son to see us. But what right did I have to expect it to be otherwise?

The pluralism project we have here is a starting point for learning what it means to move from tolerance to understanding, from diversity to relationship. It is good to affirm the work we have done to bring back our world religion banners and to explore the depth of their meaning for us. But the challenge is far from over. As Diana Eck writes, “In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.”[3]  We need “real encounter and relationship,” a willingness to take risks, admit our insensitivities, and a commitment to stay together, even when we do not agree. That is our pluralism project. Let’s make it thrive.

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1 Diana L. Eck, “What is Pluralism?” in The Pluralism Project of Harvard University. http://www.pluralism.org/pluralism/what_is_pluralism.php
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.