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The Fragility of Tolerant Pluralism pp 87–119Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Future of Tolerant Pluralism

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Abstract

This chapter considers six areas of understanding deriving from an analysis of the social teaching of the Anabaptists of the early sixteenth-century, which suggest possibilities for further research: pluralism in the early sixteenth-century as an idea before its time; pacifism; violent resistance and nonviolent conflict; secularism as an existential faith and the suppression of dissent; multicamerality; and the limits of tolerant pluralism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London Macmillan, 1909), 369.

  2. 2.

    For a robust defense of the power and importance of intellectual origins in the development of toleration and pluralism see, Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton University Press. 2003).

  3. 3.

    See Stayer, Anabaptist and the Sword (Lawrence: Coronade Press, 1976), 335.

  4. 4.

    R.P. Peachey, “The Radical Reformation, Political Pluralism and the Corpus Christianum” in M. Lienhard, (Ed) The Origins and Characteristics of Anabaptism (The Hague: Nishaff, 1977), 1.

  5. 5.

    See Hillerbrand, “The Anabaptist View of the State,” Mennonite Quarterly Review (32, 1958), 100–101.

  6. 6.

    See discussion in Goki Saito, “An Investigation into the Relationship Between the Early English General Baptists and the Dutch Anabaptists” (Mennonite Quarterly Review 54:67–68, 1980); Ian Sellers, “Edwardians, Anabaptists and the Problem of Baptist Origins,” (Baptist Quarterly. 29:3:97–109, 1981); B. R. White, “The Task of the Baptist Historian,” (Baptist Quarterly. 22:8:388–408, 1968); The English Separatist Tradition. (Oxford: University Press, 1971); and Irwin B Horst, The Radical Brethren (The Hague: B. De Graaf, 1972).

  7. 7.

    A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 51–53.

  8. 8.

    For a collection of essays demonstrating the multiplicity of approaches to toleration during the Enlightenment see, Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter (eds.), Toleration in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

  9. 9.

    See, Benjamin J. Kaplan, Kaplan, Benjamin J. Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 2007), 336–343.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 350.

  11. 11.

    The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011).

  12. 12.

    See ibid., 129ff.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 193ff.

  14. 14.

    See for example, John Gray, “Steven Pinker is Wrong About Violence and War.” The Guardian. March 13, 2015.

  15. 15.

    In Plato. The Last Days of Socrates. Translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant. (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 10a.

  16. 16.

    Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1980).

  17. 17.

    Ibid., 66, 74.

  18. 18.

    The Right and the Good. Edited by Phillip Stratton-Lake (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 20.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 21. For a recent treatment of the harm principle see, Andrew Jason Cohen, Toleration (Cambridge: Polity press, 2014), 36–54.

  20. 20.

    See, Principles of Biomedical Ethic. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University press, 2009).

  21. 21.

    I have taken this approach with regard to children and violence in Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Welcoming Strangers: Nonviolent Re-parenting of Children in Foster Car (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2016), 39–45.

  22. 22.

    Practical Pacifism. New York: Algora Publishing, 2004.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 20.

  24. 24.

    Why Civil Resistance Works: The Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 222.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 226.

  27. 27.

    Pacifism in the Twentieth Century (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999), 4.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 17ff.

  29. 29.

    The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part One Power and Struggle (Boston: Potter Sargent, 1973), The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part Two The Methods of Nonviolent Action Power and Struggle (Boston: Potter Sargent, 1973), The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part Three The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Potter Sargent, 1973).

  30. 30.

    A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: Palgrave, 2000).

  31. 31.

    See, for example, Maia Carter, and Julie M. Norman (eds.) Understanding Nonviolence (Cambridge: Polity, 2015) for just such a usage.

  32. 32.

    Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), 69.

  33. 33.

    The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World (Maui: Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004), 43.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 45.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 51.

  36. 36.

    Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) 51, 64.

  37. 37.

    Pluralism, 27.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 18.

  39. 39.

    “Holy Orders: Religious Opposition to Modern States” Harvard International Review (Winter 2004), 34–38.

  40. 40.

    With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1996).

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 371.

  42. 42.

    Divided by Faith, 357–8.

  43. 43.

    The collection of essays, Deep Religious Pluralism, edited by David Ray Griffin, is important in this regard, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005).

  44. 44.

    Peachey, “The Radical Reformation, Political Pluralism and the Corpus Christianum,” 29.

  45. 45.

    See Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration (World University Library, 1967), 17.

  46. 46.

    Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 128. 131.

  48. 48.

    Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 67.

  49. 49.

    “The ‘Loyalty Questionnaire,’ 1943.” Densho Encyclopedia. http://encyclopedia.densho.org/sources/en-denshopd-p72-00004-1/

  50. 50.

    See, Amitai Etzioni, “Citizenship Tests: A Comparative, Communitarian Perspective,” The Political Quarterly (Vol. 78, No. 3, July–September 2007), 353–363.

  51. 51.

    See, Department of Homeland Security, 2017. “US Citizenship,” https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship

  52. 52.

    Etzioni, “Citizenship Tests,” 354.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 356.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 354.

  55. 55.

    On Liberty, edited with an introduction by Elizabeth Rapaport, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978.

  56. 56.

    Ibid., 4–5.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 9.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 9.

  59. 59.

    See, Xiaorong Li, “What’s in a Headscarf?” Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. Vol. 24, No1/2 (Winter/Spring, 2003), 14–18.

  60. 60.

    Lizzie Dearden, “Burkini Ban: Why is France arresting Muslim women for wearing full-body swimwear and why are people so angry?” The Independent (August 24, 2016).

  61. 61.

    Quinn, Ben. “French police make women remove clothing on Nice beach following burkini ban.” The Guardian. August 23, 2016.

  62. 62.

    Radhika Sanghani, “Feminism, fashion and religion: Why Muslim women choose to wear the veil,” The Telegraph, September 25, 2014.

  63. 63.

    Multicultural Citizenship, 36ff.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., 41.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., 81.

  66. 66.

    Pluralism, 48.

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  1. State University of New York, Cortland, New York, USA

    Andrew Fitz-Gibbon

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Fitz-Gibbon, A. (2017). The Future of Tolerant Pluralism. In: The Fragility of Tolerant Pluralism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69468-9_3

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