The accommodation of religious diversity in contemporary pluralist societies is undoubtedly amongst the most salient issues on today’s political agenda, not least due to the challenges posed by migration. A subject of considerable debate is how to reconcile the demands of religious and cultural diversity alongside political unity, that is, how to create a political community that is cohesive and stable and satisfies the legitimate aspirations of minorities. This volume provides a critical analysis of the institutional accommodations and legal frameworks conceived by and/or for historical religious groups and assesses their potential and shortcomings in providing for an integrated society based on human- and minority rights protection.

In den Beiträgen dieses Bandes werden Erfahrungen und »Good-Practice-Beispiele« aus dem Bereich des religiösen Diversitätsmanagements aus rechtlicher, politischer und kommunaler Perspektive diskutiert. Zu Wort kommen ExpertInnen und JournalistInnen aus Indonesien und Österreich, unter anderem auch hochrangige religiöse Führungspersönlichkeiten der zwei größten muslimischen Vereinigung Indonesiens. Der Sammelband bietet damit einen interessanten Ansatz zur aktuellen Diskussion über die Präsenz und Partizipation von MuslimInnen in Europa und macht die Notwendigkeit des Erfahrungsaustausches – insbesondere um den Herausforderungen der Globalisierung gerecht zu werden – deutlich.Dieser Band vereint Beiträge des Symposiums »State, Law and Religion in Pluralistic Societies – Austrian and Indonesian Perspectives«, das Ende Mai 2009 in Wien vom österreichischen und dem indonesischen Außenministerium in Kooperation mit der Rechtswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien organisiert wurde. Es gelang, den Dialog zwischen diesen Ländern zu bestärken: auf der Ebene der öffentlichen Verwaltung ebenso wie der der Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen, der Zivilgesellschaft und der religiösen Gemeinschaften.

The existence of minorities will grow in most countries of the world because of sociopolitical upheaval and economic crisis, both of which result in waves of migration. Contributors to this volume discuss the task of education to alleviate the problems arising from the mix of peoples of various ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. No education system alone can create a just and equal society, and education by itself is not enough to achieve peace. Nevertheless, educational efforts assisted by other institutional commitments and actions are essential in order to create an atmosphere of justice, mutual recognition, and acceptance as preconditions for peaceful coexistence within groups and between people. As a result of worldwide migration in reaction to wars and other geopolitical conflicts, as well as economic crisis, many modern nation-states consist of a mix of people of various ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. Indeed, there are very few countries that are monocultural. Here contributors discuss how it is imperative that multicultural education be promoted to achieve awareness, then tolerance, and finally acceptance of ethnic and other diversity within societies.

Religious education in liberal pluralist societies such as the UK, the USA, and Australian underwent radical change in the 1980s and 1990s, with a major shift towards multi-faith, educationally oriented programmes. This has meant significant modifications to both the content and the methodology of religious-education courses and to the way they are conceived of and taught in schools and universities. One important implication of this change for the teaching and study of religion today is the need for a philosophical dimension that deals with issues such as the truth status of religious statements and the moral acceptability of religious claims. This dimension is often insufficiently developed; this lack is made more critical by the multiple competing truth claims of various religions, giving rise to such contentious problems as the growth of fundamentalism, increasing religious intolerance and conflict, and differences of opinion on central moral problems such as birth control, abortion and euthanasia. This text attempts to provide the philosophical underpinning that the study and teaching of religion in modern societies requires.

Today, pluralism is increasingly the norm and can be seen as a permanent characteristic of modernity. As seen in world events, religion has not become irrelevant but more diverse, giving rise to a complex web of religion and belief minorities, together with intra-plural majorities. Nations seek ways to implement the ideal of freedom of religion, but as this book shows, whether East or West, in the global North or the South, there is no simple formalism for accommodating religious diversity. Different faith communities have competing needs and demands for the same social space, with tensions inevitably arising. This book highlights responses from liberal democracies which enshrine secularism into their constitutions to other constitutions where religion and ethnic identity are enshrined to prioritise their ethno-religious majority. Western and Asian countries encounter different obstacles and challenges. With analysis from 19 international scholars, the book explores different obstacles and responses to accommodation of religious minorities in a range of jurisdictions. In a globalised world, it will be invaluable for comparative legal scholars, for law and religion scholars, researchers and students, and decision-makers, e.g., governments, non-governmental organisations, and for those who seek to better understand the challenges of our time.

This volume examines cases of accommodation and recognition of minority practices: cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic or otherwise, under state law. The collection presents selected situations and experiences from a variety of regions and from different legal traditions around the world in which diverse societal stakeholders and political actors have engaged in processes leading to the elaboration of creative, innovative and, to a certain extent, sustainable solutions via accommodative laws or practices. Representing multiple disciplines and methodologies and written by esteemed scholars, the work analyses the pitfalls and successes of such accommodative practices, presenting insights into how solutions could or could not be achieved. The chapters address the sustainability and transferability of such solutions in order to further the dialogue in both scholarly and policy spheres. The book will be essential reading for academics, researchers, and policy-makers in the areas of minority rights, legal anthropology, law and religion, legal philosophy, and law and migration.

This volume addresses the exercise of personal autonomy in contemporary situations of normative pluralism. In the Western liberal tradition, from a strictly legal and theoretical perspective the social individual has the right to exercise the autonomy of his or her will. In a context of legal plurality, however, personal autonomy becomes more complicated. Can and should personal autonomy be recognized as a legal foundation for protecting a person’s freedom to renounce what others view as his or her fundamental ‘human rights’? This collection develops an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to address these questions and presents empirical studies examining the gap between the principle of personal autonomy and its implementation. In a context of cultural diversity, this gap manifests itself in two particular ways. First, not every culture gives the same pre-eminence to personal autonomy when examining the legal effects of an individual’s acts. Second, in a society characterized by ‘weak pluralism’, the legal assessment of personal autonomy often favours the views of the dominant majority. In highlighting these diverse perspectives and problematizing the so-called ‘guardian function’ of human rights, i.e., purporting to protect weaker parties by limiting their personal autonomy in the name of gender equality, fair trial, etc., this book offers a nuanced approach to the principle of autonomy and addresses the questions of whether it can effectively be deployed in situations of internormativity and what conditions must be met in order to ensure that it is not rendered devoid of all meaning.

Our contemporary world is fast becoming religiously diverse in a variety of ways. Thanks to globalization and migration, to mention only two current worldwide trends, people of diverse and sometimes mutually hostile faiths are now sharing neighborhoods and encountering one another's religious traditions on a daily basis. For scholars in religious studies and theology the issue to be examined is whether religious diversity is merely the result of historical development and social interaction, or whether it is inherent in the object of belief--part of the very structure of faith and our attempts to understand and express it. The essays in this volume range from explorations of the impact of religious diversity on religious studies to examples of interfaith encounter and dialogue, and current debates on Christian theology of religion. These essays examine not only the theoretical issues posed by religious pluralism to the study of religion and Christian theology but also concrete cases in which religious pluralism has been a bone of contention. Together, they open up new vistas for further conversation on the nature and development of religious pluralism.

The clash between the religious right and the secular left undermines any serious debate about the role of religion in American public life. Such strident cultural rhetoric often ignores the positive contributions of America's many religions. By contrast, this volume celebrates America's religious diversity, demonstrating that religious pluralism is actually one of democracy's basic building blocks. Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously expands on Barbara A. McGraw's framework for understanding religious participation in public life--a two-tiered public forum, consisting of the civic public forum and the conscientious public forum. The chapters explore how diverse religious communities and traditions, including "newer" and marginalized religions, can make a meaningful contribution to American society and politics.

Originale, insolite, renaissante, l'action religieuse émergente bouscule les habitudes, ébranle les certitudes, construit ici, maintenant, l'autre monde. Peut-on courir le risque ? Voilà que la question se pose et se résout en rumeurs publiques, poursuites judiciaires et tensions scolaires, lesquelles mettent à nu des mécanismes inédits d'institutionnalisation de l'expérience religieuse en modernité groupes tactiques d'intervention, cellules gouvernementales de crise, commissions parlementaires, cercles technocratiques précurseurs d'une ingénierie pluraliste. Sur fond de traditions religieuses, nationales ou républicaines, avec la perspective de la menace sectaire, s'esquisse sous nos yeux un religieux correct, acceptable. Comment est-il possible aujourd'hui d'inscrire l'exceptionnel, l'originel, le merveilleux, le transcendant religieux dans le quotidienne ? Et dans quelle mesure, paradoxalement, les gestionnaires de dieux ne repoussent-ils pas toujours plus loin la frontière religieuse ? -- By their nature, emerging religions explore unfamiliar territory and probe unchartered regions of human creativity. For these same reasons, religious transactions that venture beyond the boundaries of traditional religious frontiers often rouse suspicion, anxiety or even fear among the general population. As new religious movements seek to carve out their own niche in society, public controversy and opposing beliefs can spark bitter debates, and can even lead to calls for state intervention. How then do new or borderline religious groups negotiate or mediate the building of public space? What impact can the media have on new religions? How does the law withstand the "creative destruction" of religious innovation? In this provocative collection of essays, twelve experienced specialists break new ground in the sociological study of religion. Publié en français