Intro to Dialogue

Introduction to Religious Pluralism

What is religious pluralism? 

Diana Eck is the founder and director of Harvard University's Pluralism Project and makes a distinction between "diversity" and "pluralism."

  • Diversity is simply the demographic reality of variety or difference.

  • Pluralism requires engagement with other religious groups.

Historically, Americans have responded to diversity in three ways: (See "From Diversity to Pluralism.") 

  • Exclusion: religious difference is perceived as a threat and something to oppose. 

  • Assimilation: imagines the U.S. as a melting pot, newer groups expected to give up things that distinguish themselves from dominant U.S. religion i.e. white Protestantism.

  • Pluralism: keep your own traditions but agree to common civic demands of American citizenship. 

Resources

The Boisi Center "Religious Pluralism in the United States"

  • In this paper, published by Boston College's Bois Center for Religion and American Public Life, religious pluralism is upheld as worthy ideal for which to strive

Diana Eck, A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation


Dialogue Across Traditions

It is important to understand each religious tradition as its own category, rather than try to understand a tradition in comparison with others. To comprehend a tradition we suggest looking at the traditions way of Belief, Behavior, and Belonging. This includes, but is not limited to,

  • Beliefs

  • Practices

    • Societal

    • Religious

    • Civic

  • Community Life

    • Polity

  • Social Principles 

  • Family

  • Gender

  • Hierarchy

  • Community Engagement

  • View of other religions

Bridgebuilding across religions

Identity Politics - Eboo Patel

Is America’s Identity a Turning Point?

Religious Freedom - Kristen A. Carpenter

Religious Sources of Conflict and Cooperation - Zeev Maoz and Errol A. Henderson

Religious Literacy

Religious Literacy

Benjamin Marcus is a religious literacy specialist at the Religious Freedom Center,d at currently house the Newseum. The Newseum works with educators, religious and civic leaders, business leaders to increase public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment. 

Religious Literacy and the American Public

The context of religion in the U.S.

The Public Religion Research Institute - America's Changing Religious Identity (2016) - for the first time, white Christians are less than 50% of the population. White mainline, Catholic, and Evangelicals are in decline. Non-Christian religions are growing. Also, a large rise in religiously-unaffiliated, but most unaffiliated still believe in God.

What it means to be religious in the U.S. has changed. There is been a massive shift in attitudes towards same-sex marriage.

Why is it important to promote religious literacy?

There is still a rise in hate crimes against religious minorities. Hate crimes tend to rise during election years because politicians tend to target groups to mobilize their base.

What impact does religious literacy have on students? ODIHR.

What is the law about education in the U.S.?

What is religious literacy? How to teach about religion?

Don't just focus on facts about other religions. Teach people to understand how people talk about their religion and understand themselves as participants in a tradition. Many people are more motivated by practices and community rather than doctrines. If we only emphasize doctrines and beliefs when we talk about a religious tradition, we will vastly misunderstand.

Evaluation (making normative statements about religion)  vs. Analysis (religious studies)

Religious Identity: 3 B Framework

  • Belief

  • Behavior

  • Belonging

Resources

Religious Literacy in American Education - Benjamin Marcus

Religious Studies Companion Document for the C3 Framework - Approved by the American Academy of Religion

A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools - published by the First Amendment Center

“What does religious literacy look like in your context?” A Religious Studies Project podcast episode featuring scholars at 2019 American Academy of Religion conference.

Religious Literacy by Steohen Prothero

Assessing Interfaith Development

Negative and Positive Responses to Religious Diversity

Listen to What Is Interfaith Literacy? A Conversation with Eboo Patel

Listen to Interfaith on the Menu: The Shared Value of Food

Listen to Interfaith on the Menu: The Shared Value of Food

link to the OSCE document for teaching about religion, the Toledo Guiding Principles

link to the Modesto, CA study

Dialogue Across Ideas

Secularism

What Humanists Do -

 Atheism, Humanism and Interfaith

Atheism

Intro to Secular Humanism

The Birth of Religious Humanism

Listen to Unaffiliated but Not Unconnected: Community Among Religious Nones

 "The Girl Who Doesn’t Exist,” RadioLab Podcast


Civic Engagement

Science, Common Sense, and Judicial Power in US Courts - Sheila Jasanoff

“Now Is the Time”: Civic Learning for a Strong Democracy - Sylvia Hurtado

The Case for Pluralism in a Divided Democracy - Eboo Patel

Democracy, Religion and Public Reason - Samuel Freeman

Malcolm X “The Ballot or the Bullet” (1964)

Religion, Democracy, and Pluralism

Lecture by Michael Meyerson and Abdulaziz Sachedina (2019)

James Madison wrote the document Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) to argue against taxation of citizens to support churches.  It should also be noted that Baptists, Presbyterians and other groups also opposed the public funding of religion. Madison and others argued that religious freedom was intended for Jews, Muslims, and others. The question of religious oaths for running for federal office.

Phases of history: We hate, we tolerate you, we have no choice but to give you protections.

The term toleration was important in the 1600s and 1700s. Madison argued that the term was not sufficient. It focuses on the wrong person. Everyone ought to be entitled to religious freedom. That should be a fundamental right.

John Leland, a prominent Baptist leader, but he was deeply committed to preventing the government from endorsing religion. Leland argued that the state should not have the power to define religion.

The notion of "a wall of separation of religion and state" has always been somewhat permeable.

When George Washington spoke to religious minorities, he tried to use the language of commonalities between religions. Takeaways:

1. The framers understand that religion could be a force for good or evil

2. They saw religion could unite or divide

3. The Government should not penalize or fund religion

5. Inclusive speech


Civil Religion

Are Organizations’ Religious Exemptions Democratically Defensible? - Stephanie Collins

Religion and Democracy - Robert Audi

Religion and Transnational Justice - Colleen Murphy

Teaching about the Bible in Public School: Legal or Not? Religion for Breakfast

Race in America: My enslaved ancestors (BBC)

Extra Resources

What is Pluralism?

Why now is the time to find power in "otherness" podcast

Identity after being abroad

Making sense of the study abroad experience

Layers of Identity p2 t podcast

Resources from Lecture with Mary Ward-Bucher:

Indigenous groups in the U.S. & Change over time

Map compiled from historical research on ship logs during the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Video showing immigration streams into the U.S.   

Transforming Conflicts in Diverse Societies

To address the local, national, and global challenges we face today, it is important to build bridges of cooperation between people of different worldviews. The way we interact with each other is the foundation for how we build trust and connect. When people take the time to consider each other's perspectives and treat each other with respect and kindness, it creates a safe space where people feel comfortable opening up and working together.

The diverse communities that make up our world have a lot to offer each other, from wisdom and experience to inspiration and support.

There are many causes of conflict in a diverse community including differences in group identity, a history of hostile interaction and discrimination, or misinformed stereotypes and perceptions caused by prejudiced attitudes. For conflicts to be transformed, it takes time, patience, humility, and commitment from everyone involved. 

In this section, we’re going to explore some strategies for successful dialogue when participants have conflicting norms, values, or ethics.

We recommend using these four steps to guide your dialogue when addressing conflict, or adapting them to best meet your group’s personal needs and goals:

Recognition

All individuals involved in a dialogue surrounding conflict should be able to recognize that there is a problem and commit to working together to deal with the conflict.

Reflection

All individuals involved in a dialogue surrounding conflict should be able to reflect on the issue and its root causes.

Reconciliation

The conflict should be reconciled collectively, including all of the individuals involved. Reconciliation involves transforming relationships impacted by conflict. This is a collaborative process that requires compromise and creativity to synthesize a solution.

Raising and Reinforcing

Further comments and concerns should be continually raised to the conscious level through sustained dialogue. Sustained dialogue within a community can reinforce community goals, address new needs or conflicts, and build trust.

Recognition is the first step towards transforming conflict. It is a collaborative process that involves acknowledging that there is a problem, either between groups or individuals, that needs to be addressed. 

Recognition helps us:

  • Acknowledge that injustice exists

  • Reveal the ways that everyone is affected by a particular issue in different ways and how reaching community goals requires us to work together

Reflection is a way to clarify the nature of the disagreement and understand the points of view involved in the process to generate a suitable solution. 

To truly understand each other during the reflection stage, dialogue partners should try their best to engage in active listening. This means listening to what the other person is saying—not just waiting for your turn to talk again! Repeat what your counterpart has said back to them so that they know you've heard them correctly and can accurately represent what they said without adding any extra information or opinions of your own.

Reflection helps us:

  • Create space for dialogue by clarifying the root causes of a conflict

  • See each other as individuals, not just representatives of a collective group

Reconciliation is a process of transforming relationships based on mutual trust and respect between conflicting groups or individuals. During the conflict transformation process, it is important to think ahead and consider the future. Dialogue partners should look for ways to transform the conflict in a way that results in an infrastructure to promote harmony and support equity in the community. This is a collaborative process that requires compromise and creativity to synthesize a solution.

A helpful reminder when navigating reconciliation is to separate the person from the problem. When you are in conflict with someone, it's easy to get caught up in the emotion of the situation. We get personally invested in the issues, and we identify with our own personal norms, values, and ethics. It’s difficult not to take any perceived threat to those interests as a personal attack. Finding common ground requires a step back from your emotions and an objective look at what's going on. Within this mindset, one can recognize there are often many ways of understanding an issue.

Reconciliation helps us:

  • Make a personal commitment to social change and encourage others to do the same

  • Develop community commitments to justice, equity, and support for all

  • Envision a better future by working together, while respecting people's rights to maintain their cultural traditions and values

Raising and Reinforcing further comments and concerns to the conscious level can be done through sustained dialogue. By engaging in continuous, meaningful dialogue within our communities, we ensure that transformed conflicts can be sustained. 

Some questions you may ask include:

  • Where are we now?

  • Where are we going?

  • Where do we want to be?

  • How do we get there?

  • What can we do individually and collectively?

Raising and Reinforcing can help us:

  • Revisit our community's vision and identify any necessary adjustments

  • Develop dynamic strategies to address inequality, injustices, and conflicts and engage all individuals within the community in the process

Collaboration makes everyone feel more invested in the process and valued and gives your project a wider scope and likelihood of success.

Justice

Justice is the act of making sure that people are treated fairly and equitably. When you live in a place where justice is respected and upheld, you know that the people around you are playing by the same rules. Justice creates a sense of unity and trust between members of a community, which improves the overall morale and stability of that community.

A greater sense of justice can also lead to higher levels of civic engagement, which is ultimately beneficial for the community as a whole.

Critical Thinking

Introduction to Critical Thinking

Critical thinking: Processing, analyzing, and evaluating information that is received and asking questions about it, with the goal of learning.

To begin a dialogue requires the development of critical thinking skills. 

We’ve identified these principles for effective critical thinking:

  • Identify your own biases and assumptions 

  • Divide complex issues into smaller, more manageable parts

  • Understand and define all terms

  • Question the methods by which the facts are derived

  • Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence

Critical thinking is a skill that allows you to make logical and informed decisions. It can be used to analyze situations, information, and ideas. Good critical thinkers can draw reasonable conclusions from a set of information, and discriminate between useful and less useful details to solve problems or make decisions.

An effective critical thinker:

  • Raises questions and problems clearly and precisely

  • Gathers, analyzes, and synthesizes relevant information, using it to draw conclusions

  • Provides well-reasoned conclusions and solutions that are consistent with relevant criteria, standards, or best practices

  • Thoughtfully assesses the implications of different systems of thought

  • Takes an active role in developing solutions to complex problems by communicating with others

While there’s no universal standard for what skills are included in the critical thinking process, we’ve identified three important steps to follow to promote critical thinking in any situation:

  • Observe and Gather Information

  • Analyze and Synthesize

  • Reflect and Decide

Observe and Gather Information

Observe and Gather:

  • Identify what’s being said

  • Distinguish relevant and credible information

Dialogue is just one way to gather information. Critical thinkers gather information from different sources, exploring issues from multiple perspectives. They vet all possible sources of information with an eye on inconsistencies, differences, divergences and contradictions. 

When a statement or claim is made, critical thinkers do their best to clarify and identify what is being said. A frequent source of disagreement in dialogue is that although the dialogue partners are using the same central term or statement, they understand it differently. This is likely due to a difference in perception. 

Perception is the process of taking information from the world around us and forming mental representations of that information, which we then use to guide our actions. It's how we see, understand, and interpret situations. Our perceptions are determined by many factors, including our family, religion and belief systems, culture and ethnicity, age, gender, education, and life experience.

In dialogue, the best way to clarify a term or statement is to repeat back to your partner in dialogue what you believe they are saying, and ask them to either confirm or amend your understanding. By doing so, we explore our dialogue partner’s perception of a situation and can better understand their viewpoint.

Analyze and Synthesize

Analyze and Synthesize:

  • Understand the significance or meaning of the information

  • Synthesize the information collected with what you already know

Analysis is the process of re-examining data, searching for significance or meaning, and identifying structural discrepancies. To understand the significance of a statement, a critical thinker must be able to isolate the main claim made and trace it back to the supporting reasons for that claim. Critical thinkers are then able to analyze the data they encounter further by identifying its flaws or inconsistencies and making informed decisions regarding their own beliefs.

When analyzing data, it can be helpful to divide larger arguments or ideas into smaller parts. Almost nothing is truly simple; practically everything is made up of parts, including our thoughts and experiences. Consequently, if we are to understand something, whether an object or an idea, we will need to know what the parts are that make it up and how they are related to each other. When we take time to pause our thinking and challenge the information we observed to get us to this conclusion and what assumptions or experiences have helped us develop this opinion, we are thinking analytically about the situation. 

When analyzing source material it's important to research the author of the pieces you're reading. Ask yourself:

  • Who is their research/ writing sponsored by? 

  • Who is their target audience? 

  • What is their goal of publishing this piece? 

Looking at the dates resources are published are also an important indicator of the piece. While older data is not immediately irrelevant, it may be a clue that there is more updated information that is worth taking a look at. Asking questions is an essential part of the critical thinking process!

Synthesis is a process that combines multiple sources to form theories, patterns, and develop a fuller understanding of a topic. It's a mindful approach that asks you to look for and identify links between sources. Synthesizing data starts by evaluating your initial analysis and reinterpreting it based on what you already know. Using synthesis, one develops a more complete understanding of the topic or argument.

Reflect and Decide

Reflect and Decide:

  • Reconsider your interpretation in view of new analyses, facts, or errors discovered

  • Make inferences based on data and information presented

Reflection is the process of re-assessing analytical and argumentative logic in search for possible influences, biases, and prejudices that might have impacted your reasoning.

After gathering information, analyzing it, and reflecting on it, the critical thinker is now in a position to identify problematic areas and isolate inconsistencies. The key is to narrow the broad scope of a statement and deconstruct its structure in such a way that it becomes easier to understand one piece at a time.

We always want to consider alternative interpretations outside of our initial scope of thinking. We can ask questions such as: Who is being represented in this instance and who is not? Where is this information coming from and who may benefit from such statements?

The purpose of critical thinking skills are to assist us in making informed decisions based on solid facts and arguments. All of the elements of the critical thinking process work together to help one decide what course of action to take, which arguments to advance, what kind of behavior to change or adopt, and so on.