What is it about?
Multi-faith spaces are growing in numbers for nearly three decades now. They were introduced as a part of a wider effort to adapt to religious pluralism within the public institutions and areas. This paper shows, that while this broader effort is referred to as "Multi-Faith Paradigm", it is just a slight reconfiguration of secularism, which comes with all of its previous fallacies, most significantly, discrimination of religions requiring external manifestations, as well as those which do not base their membership on choice. This is especially visible when one compares spaces created in a top-down approach, which bear all of the secular marks, and those created by grassroots movements, which present a completely different set of characteristics.
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Why is it important?
The growing religious plurality brings with itself increasing tensions, and their sources are not always clear. By showing that some of the existing policies and facilities aimed at addressing this plurality are not adequate, and often even discriminatory, this paper points to the possible direction in which the problem-solving should turn.
Perspectives
With this paper, I would like to question secularism as the go-to policy towards religion in the public sphere. As it is a totalling viewpoint, it is sometimes hard to think beyond its presumptions, which results in not-necessarily adequate hybrids like negative multi-faith spaces. We should consider if a more inclusive/ground-levelling policy is possible, one which will encourage the development of a more cohesive society.
Ryszard Bobrowicz
Lunds Universitet
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Multi-Faith Spaces Uncover Secular Premises Behind the Multi-Faith Paradigm, Religions, January 2018, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/rel9020037.
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