Taryn Horwood - Religious Diversity and Pluralism

Rita Gross’s article, entitled Religious Diversity: Some Implications for Monotheism, is an essay that outlines the difficulties of religious diversity in the twenty-first century, and which seeks to establish genuine pluralism in order to achieve what Gross insists is necessary peaceful co-existence amongst the world’s religions. Demonstrated by the global nature of society today, Gross protests against religious ethnocentrism and its’ comparability to racial, ethnic, class and gender chauvinisms, and discusses the inappropriateness of superior religious attitudes in the modern world.

With a notable focus on monotheistic religions as being the most problematic of the world religions when faced with religious diversity, Gross provides several logical explanations of the presence of superiority in religious thought. She discusses religious historian Mircea Eliade’s theory that “homo religiosus strives to live at the centre of his mythological universe”, and suggests that the central monotheistic belief that a universal deity created the universe is a logical basis on which to assume that the pertaining religion is intended to be practiced universally (Gross 1999). This argument introduces Gross’s thoughts on universalising and non-universalising religions, whereby she explains the potential for religious superiority and intolerance when one is convinced their religion is universally relevant. Gross argues that an understanding of the genuine differences between religions is essential to genuine pluralism, and that this, rather than mere tolerance, is the most effective approach to religious diversity.

Gross discusses the benefits of genuine pluralism in contrast to theories of multiple covenants and tolerance, expressing a view that “their infinite variety becomes a source of fascination and enrichment rather than a problem” (Gross 1999). However the basis on which she supposes that superior attitudes are possible does not indicate that a logical progression can then be made from what appears to be a primitively defensive mindset to religious empathy. She does explain the notable idea that self-confidence and acceptance of one’s beliefs should decrease feelings of competition and threat, however the suggestion that religious superiority is a fairly direct result of the nature of monotheistic belief seems to be a distant solution for a seemingly inherent problem.

Rita Gross’s article highlights various fundamental issues of an interesting problem. However the effectiveness of her solutions do not necessarily present obvious success.

Source:

Gross, Rita M. ‘Religious Diversity: Some Implications for Monotheism’. Cross Currents 1999, Vol. 49, Issue 3 http://www.crosscurrents.org/gross.htm