Taking Religious and Cultural Pluralism Seriously: The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Society
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | Scott M. Thomas |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030401 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
© Millennium: Journal of Int ernational Studies, 2000. ISSN 0305-8298 . Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 815-841
815
Taking Religious and Cultural Pluralism
Seriously: The Global Resurgence of
Religion and the Transformation of
International Society
Scott M. Th omas
People
Are peopl e
Through other peo ple
—Xhosa proverb from South Africa
A small circle is quit e as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as
infinite, it is not so large…A bull et is quite as round as th e world, but it is
not the world . There is such a thi ng as a narrow universality; there is suc h a
thing as a s mall an d crampe d etern ity; you may see it in many modern
religions.1
—G.K. Chesterto n
The Western cu lture of modernity and the instit utions of international society
embedded in it are being challenged by the global resurgence of religion and
cultural pl uralism in internati onal relations. As a re sult of this large -scale religious
change, international society is becoming a genuinely multicultural international
society for the very first time. A new approach to international order is requ ired
which overc omes the ‘Westphalian presump tion’ in International Relati ons. This is
the not ion that religious an d cultural pluralism can not be accommodated in
internatio nal society, but must be pri vatised, marginalised, or even ove rcome—by
an ethic of cosmo politanism—if there is to be interna tional order.
F or helpful commen ts on earlier drafts the au thor would like to thank Jean Bethke Elshtain, Steve
Casey, Raymond Cohen, Duncan Forrester, Stan ley Hauerwas, Charles Jones, Graham Room, Benedict
Rosario, Max Stackh ouse, Adrian Winnett, and especially Luke Bretherton for man y discussions, along
with the most helpful comments b y the anonymous referees.
1. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodo xy (London: Hodder and Stough ton, 1996 [1908]), 17-18.
Millennium
816
The first part of this article exp lains the nature of the global resurgence of
religion and the reaso ns why demands for aut henticity have come to riv al
develop ment as the ke y concern of the developing world. The se cond part of the
paper attempts a gene alogy of religi on to show how the Westp halian presumption
is b ased on the ‘invention of religion’ b y Western mo dernity as a set of privately
held doctrine s or beliefs. It argu es that this was a crucial part o f the develop ment of
the state as well as internatio nal societ y. We risk misu nderstanding the global
resurgence of religion if we apply a modern concept o f religio n to non-Western
societies whe re this transition is incomplete, or where it is being resisted as part of
their strugg le for authenticity and de velopment. If the global resurgence of religion
and cultural pluralism are to b e taken seriously, then a social u nderstanding of
religion and its importance to the authenticity and development of communities
and states shoul d be recognise d as part of any post-We stphalian international order.
What doe s this mean, and what can be done? Few cont emporary social theo rists
have taken other religious, cultural, an d social traditions as seriously as Alasdai r
MacIntyre. The remaining part of the article explores the relevan ce of his social
theory to the concept of internati onal society. The third section suggests that the
approach of th e En glish School (ES), whi ch e xamines the e mergence of
internatio nal society throug h the prism of h istorical sociology, is better e quipped to
deal with religio n, cu lture, and civilisation than the more recen t co nstructivist
accounts of inter national so ciety, which reify the assumptions o f Weste rn
modernity. The final part of t he article i ndicates that taking religiou s and cultural
pluralism serio usly mean s deve loping a ‘d eeper p luralism’ amon g different
communitie s and states in international society. ‘Virtue-ethics’, the approach to
ethics which has emerged in the aftermat h of MacIntyre’s social theory, shows
how this can be do ne by engagin g with the social practices of the mai n world
religions in ways to promote order and justice instea d of igno ring, marginalisin g,
or trying to ove rcome them.
The Global Resurg ence of Religion: The Twentieth Cent ury as ‘The Last
Modern Century’
The glob al resurgence of religion ca n be defined as th e growing saliency of
religion in the politics of countries throughout the world. It is occurring in
countries with d ifferent religious traditions and at d ifferent levels of their economic
develop ment, so it can not expl ained as a feature of eco nomic underdevelopme nt.
In the first insta nce, the global resurgence of religi on is part of the la rger crisis of
modernity. It reflects a deeper and more widespread disillusion ment with a
‘modernit y’ which reduces the world to what can be perceived and contro lled
through reason, science, t echnology, an d bureau cratic rationali ty, and leaves out
considerati ons of the rel igious, the spiritual, o r the sacred . In so far as
postmodern ism shows a greater sen sitivity to the human limits o f the Weberian
disenchant ment of the world, it sha res a basic insight with those theo logians,
cultural cri tics, artists, or even the variet y of activists in the so-called ‘ new’ social
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