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Pluralism and Production Proceedings: Fifth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2017 41 Pluralism and Production Diversity, Pluralism, Secularism For years, American religious scholars claimed that the religious freedom that resulted from disestablishment created religious competition that led to the United States’ high level of religiosity. Recent studies, however, indicate that pluralism and its unlimited options might be leading to lower levels of religious belief and practice. What is the nature of the relationship among diversity, pluralism, and secularism? Does religious freedom breed vibrant and diverse faiths, or does it create so many options that people eventually relativize them all and turn toward secularism? Proceedings: Fifth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2017 42 Khyati Joshi Farleigh Dickinson University n January 20, 2009, I sat in my living room listening To begin, we must acknowledge that Christian hegemony Oto President Obama deliver his first inaugural shapes American definitions and the popular understanding address. Here’s part of what he said: “We know that our of “universal” truths. We are accustomed to speaking patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a about various factions—be they political, religious, or nation of Christians and Muslims, Jew and Hindus, and non- philosophical—as having their own “perspectives.” believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, However, the cultural power of Protestant Christianity in the drawn from every end of this Earth.” When I heard those U.S. has given it more than just “perspectives”: Protestant words, I jumped out of my seat, not sure I heard it right. perspectives have become the “truths” at the bedrock of Could it be that my religious group, and the idea that many American society. Christianity dominates by setting the of us from somewhere else, was outright acknowledged by tone, and establishing the rules and assumptions about a President of the United States? what belongs or does not belong and what is acceptable and not acceptable in public discourse. It is embedded in our It was a potent symbolic moment. Growing up in Cobb institutions in ways that provide advantages to Christians County, GA, I always knew I was different. I was a little and disadvantages for members of minority religious brown Hindu girl in the South. I knew what it meant to groups1. be non-white. I knew how it felt to be non-Christian in a place where megachurches dominated the scenery and my When discussing matters of bias and inequality, we classmates’ social lives. President Obama’s nod to pluralism usually look at and talk about the group that is the target (and that he included non-believers) was refreshing. of bias or discrimination. For example, when we talk about Pluralism often means discussing the diversity of religions racism we describe the experiences of people of color. So in that are present in America and how they are becoming matters related to religious bias, our focus is on the religious American—yet that’s not always something that we’re at minorities: the synagogue that has been vandalized, or the ease with, as Americans or as scholars. Muslim woman who doesn’t get a job because she wears a headscarf. But for every disadvantage to some person or It is a fascinating time to be examining the crossroads of group, there’s an advantage to some other person or group. race and religion in American public life. Many Americans To really understand religious bias and discrimination in are realizing that religious and racial diversity is the America, we must see that it is Christians for whom and by nation’s “new normal”—not a temporary change, but a whom society has been constructed. transformation the impacts of which will be profound and permanent. We are recognizing that diversity is here to stay. Religious minorities encounter marginalization not only So, now what? Is a pluralistic society emerging? in direct personal experiences of discrimination, but also in a societal web of disadvantage built up over centuries and Pluralism is more than diversity; it requires engagement. still supported by institutional structures today. From a host Specifically, Pluralism in U.S. society needs a social justice of court decisions and legislative enactments, it is clear that approach that recognizes and seeks to correct the unequal our laws are not religion-neutral; they create a continuing treatment of different religions in society. This approach exclusion and inequality of access and opportunity. The must acknowledge the presence of a Christian norm within political power of the norm causes lawmakers to embed the U.S., and the existence of a religious consensus around Christian values, principles, symbols, and assumptions in monotheism (and theism itself) that ignores or trivializes, our laws and public policies. The cultural power of the norm denigrates and alienates citizens from marginalized faith is that the way religion is understood, taught, and practiced communities and nonbelief convictions. It calls attention by Christians is the ordinary state of affairs. Other faiths’ to the calendar of observed or ignored religious holidays beliefs and practices are different and implicitly lesser— and ritual/traditions, to the food served in public cafeterias, abnormal, deviant, even illegitimate. and to legal and business restrictions on head coverings or beards. These facets of the culture advantage Christians When Christian dominance is maintained so subtly, and disadvantage others. A social justice approach to the through the power of cultural norms and the influence of study of religions explores how religion intersects with race, nominally secular or majoritarian phenomena, privilege is class, gender, socioeconomic class, and sexual orientation, neither analyzed, nor scrutinized, nor confronted. You’ve to affect the human experience. heard of “color blind”? Well, most of my Christian students are “religion-blind,” unable to see the Christian privilege Proceedings: Fifth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2017 43 Joshi they have. Their advantages are invisible to them, and they don’t recognize how their non-Christian friends don’t share Finally, many American religious minorities trace their these advantages. In order to critically discuss religious heritage to Asia, Africa, and the Arab world. In other words, pluralism, it is necessary to see and understand the full they are simultaneously racial minorities and religious impact of Christian normativity. Every year, we seem to minorities in a country which remains both majority-White be caught in the same discussion, whether we call it the and majority-Christian. So to understand and contextualize “December dilemma” or the “war on Christmas.” Until the the characteristics and experiences of these communities people making and debating public policy learn to recognize we must address not only race and religion but also the Christian normativity and privilege, this cycle will continue. intersectionality of the two, and how the multiple ways different religions are racialized in the US today (and in Once Christian privilege is seen, and we understand there regards to Islam, and Sikhism and Hinduism, this is not is a Christian norm, we can address and respond to questions a post 9/11 phenomenon). Understanding 21st-century that get at genuine and meaningful inequities in the lives of American pluralism is not just about faith and doctrine but Americans, like: Is the workplace an equitable environment also about race, ethnicity, and culture. for non-Christians? Why is one’s Americanness or patriotism questioned if they are not Christian? What is the difference I’d like to end with a question and a pedagogical request: in educational experience between students whose religious Bryan Stephenson, the noted attorney and civil rights holidays (Christmas, Easter) coincide by design with school activist, talks about the need to “get proximate” to the things holidays and students who must take an excused absence to we seek to change—to engage, personally and directly, not observe Eid, Diwali, or Yom Kippur? What does peer-on- just abstractly, with the very societal challenges on which peer teasing feel like, and how should it be responded to, we are scholars or advocates. Scholars and students need when it is directed at a Muslim girl’s hijab or a Sikh boy’s to be proximate to this material in their classrooms and turban? their lives; this requires that all of us to meet and discover America’s religions on their own terms. Policy-makers We must also root out the implicit biases in our scholarship. and government officials need to not just read about the The Pew Research Centers’ groundbreaking 2012 report on changing demographics in their districts, but to get out there Asian American religious communities gave us a glimpse of and understand what it means to be Buddhist or Hindu or what Hinduism looks like in the daily lives of individuals. Muslim in America. These communities likewise need to Pew’s data show that nearly half (48%) of Hindus engage engage with majority communities. This is the deep meaning in daily prayer, and more than three quarters (78%) keep a of a social justice approach to pluralism. So what will it look religious altar or shrine in their home. Nearly as many (73%) like, in your teaching, to create a citizenry that recognizes believe in yoga as a spiritual practice, and more than four in and responds to these dilemmas? ten meditate daily (44%) or fast during holy times (41%). Pew also notes that just one-fifth (19%) of Asian American Hindus say they attend a house of worship regularly2. Regrettably, Pew interprets this last data point to mean that Asian American Hindus are less religious than their 1. Maurianne Adams and Khyati Y. Joshi, “Religious Christian counterparts. In doing so, Pew applies a lens of Oppression,” Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Christian normativity—treating Biblical practices like Sourcebook, edited by Adams.
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