tolerance in religion essay

America’s True History of Religious Tolerance

The idea that the United States has always been a bastion of religious freedom is reassuring—and utterly at odds with the historical record

Kenneth C. Davis

Wading into the controversy surrounding an Islamic center planned for a site near New York City’s Ground Zero memorial this past August, President Obama declared: “This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.” In doing so, he paid homage to a vision that politicians and preachers have extolled for more than two centuries—that America historically has been a place of religious tolerance. It was a sentiment George Washington voiced shortly after taking the oath of office just a few blocks from Ground Zero.

But is it so?

In the storybook version most of us learned in school, the Pilgrims came to America aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom in 1620. The Puritans soon followed, for the same reason. Ever since these religious dissidents arrived at their shining “city upon a hill,” as their governor John Winthrop called it, millions from around the world have done the same, coming to an America where they found a welcome melting pot in which everyone was free to practice his or her own faith.

The problem is that this tidy narrative is an American myth. The real story of religion in America’s past is an often awkward, frequently embarrassing and occasionally bloody tale that most civics books and high-school texts either paper over or shunt to the side. And much of the recent conversation about America’s ideal of religious freedom has paid lip service to this comforting tableau.

From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever”—including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”

First, a little overlooked history: the initial encounter between Europeans in the future United States came with the establishment of a Huguenot (French Protestant) colony in 1564 at Fort Caroline (near modern Jacksonville, Florida). More than half a century before the Mayflower set sail, French pilgrims had come to America in search of religious freedom.

The Spanish had other ideas. In 1565, they established a forward operating base at St. Augustine and proceeded to wipe out the Fort Caroline colony. The Spanish commander, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, wrote to the Spanish King Philip II that he had “hanged all those we had found in [Fort Caroline] because...they were scattering the odious Lutheran doctrine in these Provinces.” When hundreds of survivors of a shipwrecked French fleet washed up on the beaches of Florida, they were put to the sword, beside a river the Spanish called Matanzas (“slaughters”). In other words, the first encounter between European Christians in America ended in a blood bath.

The much-ballyhooed arrival of the Pilgrims and Puritans in New England in the early 1600s was indeed a response to persecution that these religious dissenters had experienced in England. But the Puritan fathers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did not countenance tolerance of opposing religious views. Their “city upon a hill” was a theocracy that brooked no dissent, religious or political.

The most famous dissidents within the Puritan community, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, were banished following disagreements over theology and policy. From Puritan Boston’s earliest days, Catholics (“Papists”) were anathema and were banned from the colonies, along with other non-Puritans. Four Quakers were hanged in Boston between 1659 and 1661 for persistently returning to the city to stand up for their beliefs.

Throughout the colonial era, Anglo-American antipathy toward Catholics—especially French and Spanish Catholics—was pronounced and often reflected in the sermons of such famous clerics as Cotton Mather and in statutes that discriminated against Catholics in matters of property and voting. Anti-Catholic feelings even contributed to the revolutionary mood in America after King George III extended an olive branch to French Catholics in Canada with the Quebec Act of 1774, which recognized their religion.

When George Washington dispatched Benedict Arnold on a mission to court French Canadians’ support for the American Revolution in 1775, he cautioned Arnold not to let their religion get in the way. “Prudence, policy and a true Christian Spirit,” Washington advised, “will lead us to look with compassion upon their errors, without insulting them.” (After Arnold betrayed the American cause, he publicly cited America’s alliance with Catholic France as one of his reasons for doing so.)

In newly independent America, there was a crazy quilt of state laws regarding religion. In Massachusetts, only Christians were allowed to hold public office, and Catholics were allowed to do so only after renouncing papal authority. In 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics from public office (and would do so until 1806). In Maryland, Catholics had full civil rights, but Jews did not. Delaware required an oath affirming belief in the Trinity. Several states, including Massachusetts and South Carolina, had official, state-supported churches.

In 1779, as Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson had drafted a bill that guaranteed legal equality for citizens of all religions—including those of no religion—in the state. It was around then that Jefferson famously wrote, “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But Jefferson’s plan did not advance—until after Patrick (“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”) Henry introduced a bill in 1784 calling for state support for “teachers of the Christian religion.”

Future President James Madison stepped into the breach. In a carefully argued essay titled “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” the soon-to-be father of the Constitution eloquently laid out reasons why the state had no business supporting Christian instruction. Signed by some 2,000 Virginians, Madison’s argument became a fundamental piece of American political philosophy, a ringing endorsement of the secular state that “should be as familiar to students of American history as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” as Susan Jacoby has written in Freethinkers , her excellent history of American secularism.

Among Madison’s 15 points was his declaration that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every...man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an inalienable right.”

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. “Who does not see,” he wrote, “that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?” Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

As a Christian, Madison also noted that Christianity had spread in the face of persecution from worldly powers, not with their help. Christianity, he contended, “disavows a dependence on the powers of this world...for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.”

Recognizing the idea of America as a refuge for the protester or rebel, Madison also argued that Henry’s proposal was “a departure from that generous policy, which offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country.”

After long debate, Patrick Henry’s bill was defeated, with the opposition outnumbering supporters 12 to 1. Instead, the Virginia legislature took up Jefferson’s plan for the separation of church and state. In 1786, the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, modified somewhat from Jefferson’s original draft, became law. The act is one of three accomplishments Jefferson included on his tombstone, along with writing the Declaration and founding the University of Virginia. (He omitted his presidency of the United States.) After the bill was passed, Jefferson proudly wrote that the law “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew, the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

Madison wanted Jefferson’s view to become the law of the land when he went to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. And as framed in Philadelphia that year, the U.S. Constitution clearly stated in Article VI that federal elective and appointed officials “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution, but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

This passage—along with the facts that the Constitution does not mention God or a deity (except for a pro forma “year of our Lord” date) and that its very first amendment forbids Congress from making laws that would infringe of the free exercise of religion—attests to the founders’ resolve that America be a secular republic. The men who fought the Revolution may have thanked Providence and attended church regularly—or not. But they also fought a war against a country in which the head of state was the head of the church. Knowing well the history of religious warfare that led to America’s settlement, they clearly understood both the dangers of that system and of sectarian conflict.

It was the recognition of that divisive past by the founders—notably Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison—that secured America as a secular republic. As president, Washington wrote in 1790: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunity of citizenship. ...For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”

He was addressing the members of America’s oldest synagogue, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island (where his letter is read aloud every August). In closing, he wrote specifically to the Jews a phrase that applies to Muslims as well: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

As for Adams and Jefferson, they would disagree vehemently over policy, but on the question of religious freedom they were united. “In their seventies,” Jacoby writes, “with a friendship that had survived serious political conflicts, Adams and Jefferson could look back with satisfaction on what they both considered their greatest achievement—their role in establishing a secular government whose legislators would never be required, or permitted, to rule on the legality of theological views.”

Late in his life, James Madison wrote a letter summarizing his views: “And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

While some of America’s early leaders were models of virtuous tolerance, American attitudes were slow to change. The anti-Catholicism of America’s Calvinist past found new voice in the 19th century. The belief widely held and preached by some of the most prominent ministers in America was that Catholics would, if permitted, turn America over to the pope. Anti-Catholic venom was part of the typical American school day, along with Bible readings. In Massachusetts, a convent—coincidentally near the site of the Bunker Hill Monument—was burned to the ground in 1834 by an anti-Catholic mob incited by reports that young women were being abused in the convent school. In Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, anti-Catholic sentiment, combined with the country’s anti-immigrant mood, fueled the Bible Riots of 1844, in which houses were torched, two Catholic churches were destroyed and at least 20 people were killed.

At about the same time, Joseph Smith founded a new American religion—and soon met with the wrath of the mainstream Protestant majority. In 1832, a mob tarred and feathered him, marking the beginning of a long battle between Christian America and Smith’s Mormonism. In October 1838, after a series of conflicts over land and religious tension, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs ordered that all Mormons be expelled from his state. Three days later, rogue militiamen massacred 17 church members, including children, at the Mormon settlement of Haun’s Mill. In 1844, a mob murdered Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum while they were jailed in Carthage, Illinois. No one was ever convicted of the crime.

Even as late as 1960, Catholic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy felt compelled to make a major speech declaring that his loyalty was to America, not the pope. (And as recently as the 2008 Republican primary campaign, Mormon candidate Mitt Romney felt compelled to address the suspicions still directed toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Of course, America’s anti-Semitism was practiced institutionally as well as socially for decades. With the great threat of “godless” Communism looming in the 1950s, the country’s fear of atheism also reached new heights.

America can still be, as Madison perceived the nation in 1785, “an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion.” But recognizing that deep religious discord has been part of America’s social DNA is a healthy and necessary step. When we acknowledge that dark past, perhaps the nation will return to that “promised...lustre” of which Madison so grandiloquently wrote.

Kenneth C. Davis is the author of Don’t Know Much About History and A Nation Rising , among other books.

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Religious Literacy Resource Guide: Defining and Measuring Religious Tolerance

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More Journal Articles

• Ferrar, Jane. “ The Dimensions of Tolerance.” The Pacific Sociological Review 19.1 (1976): 63-81.

Though tolerance is often treated as a unidimensional concept, there are at least three components of tolerance: extent of approval, extent of permission, and origins of belief. This paper explains why these dimensions should be examined separately, rather than fused together as they are in much of the tolerance literature.

• Francis, L. J., & Kay, W. K. " Attitude Towards Religion: Definition, Measurement and Evaluation ." British Journal of Educational Studies 32.1 (1984): 45–50.

This paper reexamines the issues introduced in Greer's "Attitude Toward Religion Reconsidered"—definition, measurement, and evaluation of attitudes toward religion—in order to come to more positive conclusions about religious attitudes and attitudes towards religion.​

Journal Articles

• Gibson, J. L., & Bingham, R. D. “ On the Conceptualization and Measurement of Political Tolerance ." The American Political Science Review 76.3 (1982): 603–620.

This article presents a new approach to measuring political tolerance, with scales measuring support for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of political association, in hopes that they will serve as better predictors of opinions and behaviors in actual disputes.

• Gibson, J. L. “ Alternative Measures of Political Tolerance: Must Tolerance be "Least-Liked"? " American Journal of Political Science 36.2 (1992): 560–577.

This article considers how to measure political intolerance. The traditional Stouffer-based measure of intolerance is compared to the Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus "least-liked" measure using data from a national survey. The traditional predictors of intolerance perform very similarly irrespective of which of the tolerance measures is used. Future tolerance research can profitably utilize either measurement approach.

• Newman, Jay. “ The Idea of Religious Tolerance .” American Philosophical Quarterly 15.3 (1978): 187-195.

There are many obstacles to religious tolerance, but we often overlook the most basic obstacle: few people have a clear idea of what religious tolerance is. This essay illuminates the nebulous concept of religious tolerance in depth in hopes that reason will inform the good will of people hoping to practice tolerance.

• " Prospects for Inter-Religious Understanding ." Pew Research Center, 2006.

This analysis suggests that the tensions that once existed between Protestants and Catholics, and the hostility that Jews faced from both groups, have largely diminished in America. These findings strongly suggest that the United States has the capacity to overcome historical religious divisions and prejudices.

• << Previous: Academic Perspectives on Tolerance
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• Last Updated: May 20, 2022 12:48 PM
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1 1 Religion, Tolerance, and Intolerance: Views from Across the Disciplines

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This chapter examines the causal relationship between religion and tolerance. Is religion a cause of tolerance, is it a cause of intolerance, or do some aspects of religion cause tolerance while others cause intolerance? The chapter begins by looking briefly at the concept of tolerance, and at the historical emergence of the political ideal of religious tolerance. It then examines work in psychology where the causal relationship between religion and tolerance has long been a focal point of research efforts. It concludes by briefly discussing emerging work in the anthropology of religion that is relevant to the issue of religious tolerance.

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• > Essays on Religion and Human Rights
• > Rethinking Religious Tolerance

Book contents

• Essays on Religion and Human Rights
• Copyright page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I In Defense of Rights
• Part II Religion and Rights
• 3 Religion, Human Rights, and the Secular State
• 4 Religion, Human Rights, and Public Reason
• 5 Rethinking Religious Tolerance
• 6 A Bang or a Whimper? Assessing Some Recent Challenges to Special Protection for Religion in the United States*
• 7 Religion and Human Rights
• Part III Religion and the History of Rights
• Part IV Public Policy and the Restraint of Force
• Appendix Ethics and Scholarship

5 - Rethinking Religious Tolerance

A Human Rights Approach

from Part II - Religion and Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2015

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• Rethinking Religious Tolerance
• David Little
• Book: Essays on Religion and Human Rights
• Online publication: 05 April 2015
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139680516.009

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Religious Tolerance and Theology Essay

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Religious studies and theology

Introduction, concepts of religious tolerance based on world religions, works cited.

“I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a simple principle with numerous ramifications. Do not, therefore, ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another), for this would separate him from the fundamental principle. It is this principle itself which come to seek him” (Al-Hallaj, A Sufi of Baghdad, 888-922)

The essence of the quote brings strongly the aspect of Religious Tolerance. The world is full of different Religions from which people identify and define their spiritual reasons for existence. Various religions have conflicting belief systems. This requires recognition of religious tolerance, which forms an important aspect within society since it plays a major role in peaceful co-existence with people from a different religious background. The concept eliminates the essence of discrimination and misunderstanding of those from diverse religious backgrounds.

Such peaceful co-existence can be achieved through the perspective of bringing religions closer through understanding based on aspects of commonality. However, one common basic rule can be identified in almost all religions across the world; in Christianity, the concept is referred to as the golden rule. Religious beliefs are so much held by individuals hence becomes difficult for them to either negotiate or compromise their belief systems. Therefore, tolerance can be defined as the aspect of respecting people in their different nature and not demanding any same action from their beliefs (Highton 14-152)

From the Jewish perspective, extending their laws to encompass other religions seems easy. Jewish laws are normally regarded as accommodative since they can be easily followed by other religions.

A good example is the basic commandments from the Jewish law practiced in the rest of the world (Greenberg 305-341). This may be contrary to Jewish states which are run by Jewish law through special administrative courts. Individuals from Jewish background easily co-exist with others despite their conservative nature towards their beliefs. This shows why currently, the major secular Jewish defense agencies incorporate personnel capable and devoted to handling inter-faith affairs. They create opportunities where members of other faith religions are allowed to discuss and dialogue (Greenberg 305-341).

The real battle, according to some sources centers on cultural forces of godlessness since the various cultural values at some point leave little room for God and at the same time pay less attention to His word. Religions of the world have different teachings and concepts concerning deity. Most religions believe in some supernatural source of power which in some cases is presented in the form of Gods or Goddesses.

Every belief has equal stronger attachments to their gods, justifying the superiority of their religions based on traditions. Various religions have different deity which they believe in. Buddhism believes in atheism, whereby they reject any possibility of God’s existence. Others included in the Atheist group are Unitarians and Universalists. Hinduism is considered Henotheist, where they believe in many deities, where they consider only one to be a supreme deity (Taylor).

Hinduism believes in many gods presided over by one superior God basing their deity on Brahman. Other gods and goddesses have specified jurisdiction from which they operate but under the overall supreme God. Then there is monotheism, which is a belief in single God; those practicing monotheism include Islam, Judaism, Sikhism as well as denominations within Christianity. Christianity believes in a single deity with three dimensions; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christianity views God through different attributes and characteristics such as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, amongst other attributes (Taylor).

History records that Abraham had two sons Ishmael and Isaac. Hence, Islam considers Ishmael as the father of their religion, while Jewish religion believes that Abraham’s second son Isaac is their patriarch. History reveals that Isaac was himself a Jew just like his father Abraham, hence helped in the establishment of Jewish Religion. Such differing belief has caused strife between the two religions, however, the fact remains that Islam and Jewish Religion share a common ancestor and their patriarchs were brothers (Taylor).

Confucianism beliefs revolve around morality and politics. The religion stresses on a number of aspects which include; ‘Li’ focusing on ritual, propriety as well as etiquette, ‘Hsiao’ focusing on love amongst family members, ‘Yi’ meaning righteousness, ‘Xin’ focusing on honesty, ‘Jen’ focusing on concern and benevolence towards others and ‘Chung’ focusing on loyalty towards the state. The religion majorly pays attention to ethics built on rituals at specific important times in an individual’s lifetime. They believe so much in celebrations during specific stages in somebody’s life, which include; birth, reaching maturity, marriage, and finally death (Taylor).

Taoism, on the other hand, developed as a result of the combination of psychology and philosophy focuses on a force flowing through all life. The religion teaches that individuals should be more concerned about the development of virtues based on compassion, moderation as well as humility. The religion encourages planning, for the purposes of attaining the goal within the shortest time possible. They categorize events in terms of either falling on the dark side or the light side, male or female and good or evil. The faithful to this religion believe that man by nature is a good creature, and kindness should be shown to all irrespective of their background beliefs (Moberly 1-135).

According to Buddhism, human being undergoes a certain life cycle which begins with birth and ends in death. However, people can attain some level known as Nirvana after undergoing many cycles and at the same time withdraws from strange desires and self. They do not believe in the existence of God, their need for any savior, eternity, and activities that accompany these beliefs such as prayer. However, with time, the religion experienced some form of integration, making the generalizations unacceptable to some constituent parties within the religion. This has brought some slight conflict because Buddhism is based on too much philosophy (Taylor).

World major religions have common origin based on a resultant covenant between God of the ancient Israelites and Patriarch Abraham. The beliefs describe specific leaders who led Israelites from Egyptian captivity to the Promised Land. They describe leaders such as Moses leading the people out of captivity and giving them the law from God. Then Joshua leading them into Promised Land where they were later ruled by kings, the first king being Saul succeeded by David then Solomon who built the first temple in Jerusalem.

Jewish religion believes in one God who possesses absolute power and wisdom and deserves to be worshipped (Taylor). This same God marvels at good deeds but punishes evil. They believe in absolute goodness in God’s creation hence no need for a savior. At the same time, they believe that they are the only God’s chosen people waiting for the coming of Messiah who will ultimately gather them into Israel and rebuild the destroyed temple in Jerusalem (Taylor).

Judaism believes in the omnipresence of God. Their existence in the modern world is majorly characterized by universalism, which permits them to consider themselves complete within the society (Emil 291).

However, Jewish people indulge in issues of secularism, which they consider to be as a result of their freedom contradicting their past traditional belief, which was purely founded on religious beliefs. Such an idea has granted them the freedom to participate in political and social processes an absolute contradiction to the laid down moral traditions. In the current society, most of the Jews consider themselves un-bound by God’s moral standards (Emil 292).

Religious tolerance led to ignorance on contemptuous issues amongst Christians and Jews. A good example can be drawn from the Holocaust issue, where religious leaders reacted in different ways. During this period Christians believed that Jews contributed so much in confusion experienced in their society through the destruction of biblical truth like the rock of Peter and were viewed as the generators of the evils of capitalism as well as communism.

Christianity as a religion lay claims on the fact that their religion provides ways to forgiveness of sins and attainment of salvation. However, such claims are not acceptable by all Christians hence leading to divergent beliefs causing a denial of some crucial life principles. This has since led to vices such as racism and anti-Semitism, which is believed to be eminent in Abraham-led religions hence denial of human equality (Eckardt 32).

Contrary to other religions, Christianity believes so much in the Bible, making them ignore contemporary lifestyles and focus more on eternity. However, ignorance of human morality within any society set-up is detrimental. The Holocaust event was one of the good examples where six million Jews were exterminated. The occurrence was followed by many questions on the true existence of God who hates evil and rewards good according to the Jewish belief system.

Eckardt, Alice. The Holocaust, Church struggle and some Christian Reflections , Great Britain: Pergamon press, 1987

Emil, Fackenheim. The commanding Voice of Auschwitz , New York: New York University Press, 1970. Print.

Greenberg, Irving. Cloud of smoke, Pillar of Fire , New York: City College Publishers, 1975. Print.

Highton, Mike. Difficult Gospel: The Theology of Rowan Williams , New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2004. Print.

Moberly, Elizabeth. Suffering, Innocent and Guilty , United Kingdom, London: SPCK Publishers, 1978.

Taylor, Daniel. Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance , Minnesota, Alabama: Bethel College, 1999.

• Humanity’s End in Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question”
• Isaac Newton and His Life
• The Concept of Theology: Mind and Religion
• Hindu Twice-Born Ceremony
• Ludwig Feuerbach on Religion as a 'Projection'
• The Church of Christ
• Politics and Religion Interdependence
• Corinth - Life at First Century
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, May 11). Religious Tolerance and Theology. https://ivypanda.com/essays/religious-tolerance-and-theology/

"Religious Tolerance and Theology." IvyPanda , 11 May 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/religious-tolerance-and-theology/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Religious Tolerance and Theology'. 11 May.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Religious Tolerance and Theology." May 11, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/religious-tolerance-and-theology/.

1. IvyPanda . "Religious Tolerance and Theology." May 11, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/religious-tolerance-and-theology/.

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Practices of tolerance: the significance of common sense in settings of dense coexistence.

1. Introduction

2. on the distinction between consensus and common sense.

“Common sense which the French so suggestively call the ‚good sense’, le bon sens, discloses to us the nature of the world insofar as it is a common world; we owe to it the fact that our strictly private and ‚subjective‘ five senses and their sensory data can adjust themselves to a nonsubjective and ‚objective‘ world which we have in common and share with others.” ( Arendt 1968a, p. 221 )

3. Tolerance between Rejection, Forbearance and Recognition

• The “permission conception”, whereby a more powerful social majority tolerates the deviating values of a minority as long as they do not exceed the limits set by the more powerful group.
• The “coexistence conception”, in which individuals or groups in power-symmetrical constellations practice tolerance as a modus vivendi in the interest of avoiding conflict.
• The “respect conception” of tolerance, in which the tolerant parties respect the equal freedom and the equal rights of the other members of a legally constituted community in the sense of formal equality or of qualitative equality sensitive to the form of life.
• The “esteem conception”, in which certain ideological, cultural and religious differences between the tolerant parties are mutually appreciated as valuable and certain other aspects of the different way of life are rejected. 13
• Liberalist currents prefer the “respect conception”. They may draw primarily on the work of John Rawls, who sees in two fairness principles, namely, the principle of liberty and equality and the principle of difference, an “overarching consensus” as the basis of social integration in the face of pluralism of conflicting doctrines of the good life ( Rawls 1993, p. 144f ). To elevate these intuitive foundations of well-ordered societies to the rank of a public conception of justice and to further stabilise pluralistic societies, Rawls takes the path of the public use of reason. Thus, the principles of justice and the well-considered judgements of individuals shall be balanced. What applies to coexistence and political tolerance in democratic constitutional states according to Rawls does of course not necessarily apply to the same extent to coexistence in social life contexts with inescapable proximity such as nurseries, schools or specific workplaces. However, a clever modus vivendi and a “prudential tolerance” ( Höffe 2000, p. 74 ) that is more modest in terms of its demands for consensus or recognition often appear to be deficient from the perspective of concepts of tolerance which—like Rawls himself or Jürgen Habermas—emphasise that tolerance relates primarily to consensus ( Habermas 2008, pp. 251–70 ).
• Communitarian currents refer primarily to the “coexistence conception” of tolerance. As a prominent protagonist of this current, Michael Walzer has developed the concept of tolerance under the premise of a “politics of difference”, whereby tolerance is a modus vivendi of culturally and religiously diversified groups whose interest is not in overarching coexistence, but in self-preservation ( Walzer 1997 ; see also Walzer 2000, pp. 214–30 ). Walzer thus makes the acceptance of differences the basic category of coexistence. Unlike Charles Taylor, another protagonist of a politics of difference, Walzer turns tolerance from an exception into a rule of social coexistence between groups ( Bubner 2000, pp. 45–59 ). At the interpersonal level, however, the sensorium of the actors involved is not only focused on the perception of differences but also on the perception of similarities and positive aspects of other ways of life in the sense of Forst’s “esteem conception” of tolerance. Walzer’s concept of tolerance faces difficulties in adequately reflecting the multidimensionality of tolerance constellations in the coexistence of people. Without forbearance, living together within heterogeneous groups would not be possible. However, a comprehensive understanding of tolerance includes the aspect of selectively appreciating differences and finding oneself in others.

4. Practices of Tolerance in Dense Contexts of Cultural and Religious Diversity: The Example of Educational Institutions

5. the contribution of religious ethics to practices of tolerance in a conflicted world, 6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Heuser, S.; Wolf, A. Practices of Tolerance: The Significance of Common Sense in Settings of Dense Coexistence. Religions 2024 , 15 , 562. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050562

Heuser S, Wolf A. Practices of Tolerance: The Significance of Common Sense in Settings of Dense Coexistence. Religions . 2024; 15(5):562. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050562

Heuser, Stefan, and Alexandra Wolf. 2024. "Practices of Tolerance: The Significance of Common Sense in Settings of Dense Coexistence" Religions 15, no. 5: 562. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050562

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on religious diversity & tolerance

Philip L. Quinn, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2003, was John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame University. An expert on the philosophy of religion, he wrote on the Augustinian legacy, the virtue of obedience, and the ethics of Søren Kierkegaard. He was the author of “Divine Commands and Moral Requirements” (1978) and coeditor of “A Companion to Philosophy of Religion” (1997). This is the last work Professor Quinn completed before his death on November 13, 2004.

Since September 11, 2001, the fragility of tolerance has become a source of acute anxiety in scholarly reflection on religion–as shown by some of the contributions to the Summer 2003 issue of Dædalus on secularism and religion. In that context, James Carroll asked how it was possible for people committed to democracy to embrace religious creeds that underwrite intolerance. Daniel C. Tosteson identified conflicting religious beliefs as a particularly serious cause of the plague of war.

Such anxieties are reasonable. After all, Osama bin Laden professes to fight in the name of Islam. And in the aftermath of 9/11, the United States has experienced a significant rise in reported incidents of intolerant behavior directed at Muslims.

Moreover, tolerance has long been under assault in more limited conflicts fueled in part by religious differences. Religious disagreement has been a cause of violence in Belfast, Beirut, and Bosnia during recent decades. The terrorism of Al Qaeda threatens to project the religious strife involved in such localized clashes onto a global stage. In short, early in the twenty-first century, the practice of tolerance is in peril, and religious diversity is a major source of the danger.

During the past two decades, diversity has also been a topic of lively discussion among philosophers and theologians. What philosophers have found especially challenging about religious diversity is an epistemological problem it poses. Here the philosophical debates have focused primarily on the so-called world religions–Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Though most of the philosophers involved in these debates have not addressed the topic of tolerance directly, there is a clear connection between the epistemological problems posed by religious belief and the political problems posed by religious diversity.

Take the case of Christianity. One way to justify a Christian’s belief in God is the arguments offered by natural theologians for the existence of God. Another source of justification is distinctively Christian religious experiences, including both the spectacular experiences reported by mystical virtuosi and the more mundane experiences that pervade the lives of many ordinary Christians. A third source is the divine revelation Christians purport to find in canonical scripture. And, for many Christians, a fourth source is the authoritative teaching of a church believed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. When combined, such sources constitute a cumulative case for the rationality of the belief in God professed by most Christians.

Let us suppose, if only for the sake of argument, that these sources provide sufficient justification to ensure the rational acceptability of the Christian belief system. But this will be so only if there are no countervailing considerations or sources that present conflicting evidence. Before we can render a final verdict on the rational acceptability of that belief system, challenges to the Christian worldview must be taken into account. One of the most famous challenges is, of course, the existence of evil. The sheer diversity of religions and religious beliefs presents an equally vexing challenge. And the growth of religiously pluralistic societies, global media, and transportation channels has rendered this challenge increasingly salient in recent times.

A Christian today who is sufficiently aware of religious diversity will realize that other world religions also have impressive sources of justification: They too can mobilize powerful philosophical arguments for the fundamental doctrines of their worldviews. They are supported by rich experiential traditions. They also contain both texts and authoritative individuals or institutions that profess to teach deep lessons about paths to salvation or liberation from the ills of the human condition.

Yet quite a few of the distinctive claims of the Christian belief system, understood in traditional ways, conflict with central doctrines of other world religions. Though each world religion derives justification from its own sources, at most one of them can be completely true. Each religion is therefore an unvanquished rival of all the rest.

To be sure, Christian sources yield reasons to believe that the Christian worldview is closer to the truth than its rivals. But many of these reasons are internal to the Christian perspective. Each of the other competitors can derive from its sources internal reasons for thinking it has the best access to truth. Adjudication of the competition without begging the question would require reasons independent of the rival perspectives. It seems that agreement on independent reasons sufficient to adjudicate the rivalry is currently well beyond our grasp.

It is clear that this unresolved conflict will have a negative impact on the level of justification Christian belief derives from its sources. In his magisterial book Perceiving God (1991), William Alston investigated the matter of justification for the Christian practice of forming beliefs about God’s manifestations to believers. He argued persuasively that the unresolved conflict does not drop the level of justification for beliefs resulting from this practice below the threshold minimally sufficient for rational acceptability. He acknowledged, however, that the level of justification for such Christian beliefs is considerably lowered by the conflict, and that similar conclusions hold, mutatis mutandis , for analogous experiential practices in other world religions.

A generalization from the special case seems to be in order. For those Christians who are sufficiently aware of religious diversity, the justification that the distinctively Christian worldview receives from all its sources is a good deal less than would be the case were there no such diversity, even if the level of justification for the Christian belief system were not on that account reduced below the threshold for rational acceptability. And, other things being equal, the same goes for other world religions. This reduction of justification across the board can contribute to a philosophical strategy for defending religious toleration.

The basic idea is not new. The strategy is implicitly at work in a famous example discussed by Immanuel Kant in his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793). Kant asks the reader to consider an inquisitor who must judge someone, otherwise a good citizen, charged with heresy. The inquisitor thinks a supernaturally revealed divine command permits him to extirpate “unbelief together with the unbelievers.” Kant suggests that the inquisitor might take such a command to be revealed in the parable of the great feast in Luke’s Gospel. According to the parable, when invited guests fail to show up for the feast and poor folk brought in from the neighborhood do not fill the empty places, the angry host orders a servant to go out into the roads and lanes and compel people to come in (Luke 14: 23). Kant wonders whether it is rationally acceptable for the inquisitor to conclude, on grounds such as this, that it is permissible for him to condemn the heretic to death.

Kant holds that it is not. As he sees it, it is certainly wrong to take a person’s life on account of her religious faith, unless the divine will, revealed in some extraordinary fashion, has decreed otherwise. But it cannot be certain that such a revelation has occurred. If the inquisitor relies on sources such as the parable, uncertainty arises from the possibility that error may have crept into the human transmission or interpretation of the story. Moreover, even if it were to seem that such a revelation came directly from God, as in the story told in Genesis 22 of God’s command to Abraham to kill Isaac, the inquisitor still could not be certain that the source of the command really was God.

For Kant, certainty is an epistemic concept. It is a matter of having a very high degree of justification, not a question of psychological strength of belief. Thus his argumentative strategy may be rendered explicit in the following way: All of us, even the inquisitor, have a very high degree of justification for the moral principle that it is generally wrong to kill people because of their religious beliefs. Our justification for this principle vastly exceeds the threshold for rational acceptability. It may be conceded to religious believers that there would be an exception to this general rule if there were divine command to the contrary. However, none of us, not even the inquisitor, can have enough justification for the claim that God has issued such a command to elevate that claim above the threshold for rational acceptability. Hence it is not rationally acceptable for the inquisitor to conclude that condemning a heretic to death is morally permissible.

No doubt, almost all of us will recoil with horror from the extreme form of persecution involved in Kant’s famous example. Other cases may not elicit the same kind of easy agreement.

Suppose the leaders of the established church of a certain nation insist that God wills that all children who reside within the nation’s borders are to receive education in that orthodox faith. No other form of public religious education is to be tolerated. These leaders are not so naive as to imagine that the policy of mandatory religious education they propose will completely eradicate heresy. But they argue that its enactment is likely to lower the numbers of those who fall away from orthodoxy and, hence, to reduce the risk of the faithful being seduced into heresy. And they go on to contend that the costs associated with their policy are worth paying, since what is at stake is nothing less than the eternal salvation of the nation’s people.

The claim that God has commanded mandatory education in orthodoxy might, it seems, derive a good deal of justification from sources recognized by members of the established church. It is the sort of thing a good God, deeply concerned about the salvation of human beings, might favor. Perhaps the parable about compelling people to come in could, with some plausibility, be interpreted as an expression of such a command. So if the challenge of religious diversity were not taken into consideration, the claim that God commands mandatory education in orthodoxy might derive enough justification from various sources to put it above the threshold for rational acceptability for members of the established church. But the factoring in of religious diversity may be enough to lower the claim’s justification below that threshold, thereby rendering it rationally unacceptable even for members of the church who are sufficiently aware of such diversity. And an appeal to the epistemological consequences of religious diversity may be the only factor capable of performing this function in numerous instances. Thus such an appeal may be an essential component of a successful strategy for arguing against forms of intolerance less atrocious than extirpating “unbelief together with the unbelievers.”

Of course, the strategy being suggested here is no panacea. It is not guaranteed to vindicate the full range of tolerant practices found in contemporary liberal democracies; it may fail to show that the religious claims on which citizens ground opposition to tolerant practices fall short of rational acceptability by their own best lights. This is because the strategy must be employed on a case-by-case basis. However, such a piecemeal strategy has some advantages. It does not impose on defenders of tolerance the apparently impossible task of showing that the whole belief system of any world religion falls short of rational acceptability according to standards to which the adherents of that religion are committed. It targets for criticism only individual claims made within particular religions, claims that are often sharply disputed in those religions by believers themselves.

Nor can this strategy be expected to convert all religious zealots to tolerant modes of behavior. All too often religious zealots turn out to be fanatics who will not be moved by any appeal to reason. But in any event, the strategy should not be faulted because it cannot do something that no philosophical argument for tolerance, or for any other practice, could possibly do.

Religious diversity must be counted among the causes of the great ills of intolerance. It also happily shows some promise of contributing to a remedy for the very malady it has helped to create.

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Religion, Tolerance and Intolerance: Views from Across the Disciplines

2013, Religion, Intolerance and Conflict: a Scientific and Conceptual Investigation, edited by Steve Clarke, Russell Powell and Julian Savulescu, Oxford University Press

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The Concept of Religious Tolerance Through The Eyes of Scholars

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Published: Aug 23, 2018

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• What are John Locke’s most famous works?
• What contributions did John Locke make to epistemology?
• What contributions did John Locke make to political theory?
• How did John Locke influence the design of U.S. government?

A Letter Concerning Toleration

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A Letter Concerning Toleration , in the history of political philosophy , an important essay by the English philosopher John Locke , originally written in Latin ( Epistola de Tolerantia ) in 1685 while Locke was in exile in Holland and first published anonymously in both Latin and English (in a translation by William Popple) upon Locke’s return to England in 1689. A Letter Concerning Toleration greatly influenced the development of the modern concept of the separation of church and state , which is entrenched in a number of modern constitutions .

A Letter Concerning Toleration advocated for greater religious toleration during a period marked by dramatic and often violent religious and sectarian strife in Europe. In Locke’s England, Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters were effectively barred from holding political office by the Test Act of 1673 (which conditioned public office on the reception of Holy Communion according to the rites of the Church of England ), despite efforts by supporters of James II —the king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1685 to 1688—to have it repealed. Across the English Channel , in France, the rights of the Huguenots (French Protestants) were severely curtailed by King Louis XIV ’s revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes , which had previously recognized Protestants’ civil rights and freedom of conscience .

According to Locke, religious intolerance and persecution result from a lack of understanding of the distinction between the realms of religion (the proper domain of the church) and civil affairs (the proper domain of government). The government should not encroach upon religious liberty, just as religious leaders and believers should not seek to use the power of the state to resolve spiritual disagreements.

Locke argued in A Letter Concerning Toleration that the proper realm of government concerns “civil interests,” or the preservation of peace, order, and the people’s earthly well-being (in his own words, “life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like”). The citizenry, in a hypothetical compact, has entrusted the state (and the legitimate government in power) with this responsibility, along with the right to use force and coercion when necessary. For Locke, the government’s purview extends only to these civil interests and not to religious affairs. Therefore, the government should not discriminate based on religious belief or make laws specific to religious institutions. A Letter Concerning Toleration contrasts the civil interests that are the proper concern of government with the care of immortal souls and their guidance to salvation , which are the proper concern of religion. It is important to note that Locke did not oppose the right of members of government to express religious opinions: they can do so as individuals seeking to influence others through uncoerced persuasion, he argued, but they can not do so through laws or state power.

Locke’s defense of toleration is not grounded in ethical relativism . He recognized only “one truth, one way to heaven” but argued that this path is to be pursued by following one’s conscience , not through state power and coercion. A church, for Locke, is a free and voluntary association seeking salvation through collective worship. Although a person could be forced to make religious statements or perform religious rituals, such coercion would not advance—but would rather impede—the religious pursuit of salvation, since dishonest worship, unmoved by the “inward and full persuasion of the mind,” would be unacceptable to God. Because freedom of conscience is at the core of every genuine religious pursuit for Locke, toleration represents not only a dividing line between the realms of religion and government but also the chief distinguishing characteristic of the “true Church.” The distinction between the legitimate realms of government and religion is founded not only on their different purposes (civil interests versus salvation) but also on the different types of power they can rely upon (coercion versus persuasion of the mind).

Locke’s defense of religious toleration is not unconditional or without exception. A Letter Concerning Toleration specifically excludes two groups: Roman Catholics and atheists . Such exclusion or intolerance is justified, according to Locke, only when religious beliefs, or the absence thereof, pose a challenge to civil authority or are antithetical to the very existence of civil society . In the case of Roman Catholics, their submission to the authority of the pope (a spiritual but also political authority) was regarded by Locke as a direct challenge to the authority of secular rulers. As for atheists, Locke was convinced that their disbelief in God means that they can not be trusted to uphold any promise or covenant .

As a defense of religious freedom, A Letter Concerning Toleration is aligned with Locke’s other major works, which address the theme of human freedom as it pertains to other areas of life—namely, political freedom in the Two Treatises of Government (1689) and economic freedom in Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money (1692).

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Religious Tolerance Essay Examples

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