The Western Case
In the last couple of decades there has taken place a shift in the perception of the relationship between religion and public life. With the decline of the thesis of secularization and the progressive abandonment of the thesis of religion as private, there have come about new equations between religion and public life. Instead of going into an analysis of how this has taken place, what I intend to do is to examine two most significant voices in the West —Jurgen Habermas and John Rawls — whose position on the relationship of religion to public life has become the core issue in public theology today, and at the same time most vigorously discussed and debated.
From Denial to the Recognition of Public Role for Religions
We could identify three phases in the thinking of Habermas in relation to religion. a) Suppression of religion through communicative reason; b) co-existence of religion and reason; c) cooperation of both for upholding the gains of modernity. The new turn to the third phase can be discerned in his works since 2001: The Future of Human Nature, On Faith and Knowledge, Between Naturalism and Religion. In the third phase of his thinking, Habermas shows his openness to the contribution of religion to the public sphere, challenging the claims of a narrow secularity. He notes:
Secularized citizens may neither fundamentally deny that religious convictions may be true nor reject the right of their devout fellow citizens to couch their contributions to public discussions in religious language.(1)
By way of example, I may adduce here how Habermas shows the importance of Christian doctrine of creation for the strengthening of human dignity and rights. He also sees its importance in addressing biomedical technological issues such as the genetic enhancement. Theological beliefs could throw light on this intricate question and contribute to the present and future wellbeing of humanity.
The Question of “Comprehensive Doctrines”
John Rawls speaks of “comprehensive doctrines” and “overlapping consensus”(2). By comprehensive doctrines he means articulated systems of thought or explanations that claim to give a full-range of ultimate explanation of the world, nature, society, bearing upon their origin, value, their future, etc. And this is done by philosophy, religion, moral beliefs etc. In simple terms, comprehensive doctrine means a theory of everything. Religions are habituated to present such a theory of everything — about God, humans, the world and so on. These comprehensive doctrines shape the way we look at the world, others and ourselves. To be able to understand Rawl’s political theory and his conception of the role of religion in relation to public life, we need to grasp how he transforms Kant’s ideal of moral autonomy (Critique of Practical Reason), in an inter-subjective manner. Here is a question of abiding by those laws and arrangements that find acceptance among all concerned in a polity on the basis of their public use of reason. Moral autonomy is not simply a matter of freedom from coercion; it has a necessary reference to the other and to the public. This moral autonomy is linked to political autonomy. A religious group is politically autonomous not simply when it is free from any coercion with regard to the profession and practice of its beliefs, but when it is able to abide by what the common good requires and what finds acceptance among all concerned in a particular society. In this sense, religious freedom today needs to be defined not in isolation from the other, but in relation to the other and to what concerns the general good of all concerned.
Religion and Public Reason
In the context of the discussion on public theology, a question of paramount importance is the relationship of religion to public reason.(3) Here is an issue that allows a wide interpretation but also raises many intricate questions. Contribution to public reason means that religious traditions. Do not get bogged down by their internal convictions and belief-systems but raise their heads above and hold before their eyes the general interest of the people. It would also involve a kind of translation into secular language of those beliefs that have public significance. The beliefs and convictions held by religious groups require to be supported by public reason, if they are to have any role in public life. The creation narrative of the Bible, for example, can support the equality of woman which is a secular issue in the polity. The same creation story can be deployed to support the cause of human rights. According to Christian belief, human beings are endowed with dignity since they have been created in the image of God. The question then is, should religions be stripped off their beliefs to reach a common ground of neutrality where they could enter into conversation with other similar religious groups. Don’t we lose, in this way, the richness the religious beliefs, myths and symbols contain. Why not the religions carry these roots with them and enter into conversation with others, and thus through a mutuality that touches deeper chords reach consensus and understanding? This is a point which some Western theologians like Linda Hogan and Nigel Biggar contend, when responding to the position of Rawls and Habermas in relation to public reason or overlapping consensus. Linda Hogan notes, for example: “A fundamental flaw in the idea of public reason lies in the manner in which it requirs the speaker and listener to believe both the self and the other to be, or to act as though he or she is rootless” (4)
The Normative and the Factual
The positions of Rawls and Habermas are at the level of the normative, and are abstracted from concrete context. They follow a procedural reasoning in determining the relationship of religion and public sphere. But the factual reality does not correspond to this theorizing. As a matter of fact, in many European countries, there are the so-called established religions. The clearest example is that of U.K. There, the bishops form part of the House of Lords. Similarly in the Scandinavian countries Lutheranism is the established religion. In these cases as well as in Germany, Belgium and Holland what we find is a kind of accommodation of religions and its continuing role in the public sphere. It is expressed in different forms, such as state-funding for educational institutions managed by Catholics, Protestants, Calvinists, etc., and collection of tax for the Church by the state.(5)
Reference:
- As quoted in Maureen Junker-Kenny, Habermas and Theology, London: T&T Clark, (2011): 137; see also William Outhwaite, Habermas, Cambridge: Polity, (2007): 157ff.
- Cf. John Rawls, Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
- Cf John Rawls, The Law of the Peoples Revisited, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, (2001): 129-180 (“The Idea of Public Reason _ Revisited”)
- Nigel Biggar — Linda Hogan (eds), Rekgious Voices in Public Places, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009): 223.
- C£ José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.