Religious Tolerance in a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In Europe a widespread demand for tolerance was first made in the context of the religious or rather sectarian wars of the sixteenth century. When a similar demand was later made in relation to secular areas of disagreement such as the permissible range of social, economic, political and other views and practices, it naturally drew on the earlier religious discourse, introducing such changes as were required by the new areas of tolerance. Although the discussion had a secular content, it showed a strong Christian influence. This is noticeable in some of the questions the participants asked, the concepts they used, the assumptions they made and the arguments they advanced to justify tolerance. Since the Christian discourse on tolerance has been influential in shaping the Western debate on the subject and giving it a particular orientation, I explore the way in which it formulated and dealt with the question of tolerance. In order to appreciate its specificity and open up a theoretical space for a critical perspective on it, I examine how other religious traditions, some with a better record in this area, conceptualized and dealt with the subject. Since I have neither the competence nor the space to trace their internal debates over the centuries , I shall do no more than highlight some of their general features, mainly those that offer a different way of approaching the question of tolerance.