The Many Altars of Modernity

Chapter 6: The Political Management of Pluralism

I have argued that a useful theory of religious pluralism must combine the individual and the political components of the phenomenon. Usually the two components are discussed separately. To return to a previous example, there are two questions troubling millions of people in the contemporary world. The first is, “How can I, a believing and practicing Muslim, also be a modern person?” The second is, “What could and should a modern Islamic society look like?” The two questions belong together. Answering one will help answer the other. It hardly needs emphasizing that finding answers to these particular questions is of urgent importance today. Religious traditions other than Islam also raise comparable ...