The politics of religious pluralism

Religious pluralism (as a disputed philosophical theory about the undisputed empirical fact of religious pluralism) has evoked lively debate. I make three observations. First, there is a striking similarity between postmodern and earlier modern responses to religious difference insofar as each represents an a priori refusal to let religious believers disagree with each other cognitively. Second, the rejection of thee-logical exclusivism by religious pluralism presumes that its account of religious difference is true, while that of thee-logical exclusivism is false. Third, religious pluralism (pace Hick) does not follow from the premises of Kantian anti-realism. I suggest that religious pluralism is motivated by the terrible history and contemporary specter of religiously sanctioned violence. I argue that we should look directly at the content of religious belief in order to break the link between religious truth claims and religiously sanctioned violence and domination.