Conference on the New Religious Pluralism in World Politics

March 17, 2006

The "Clash of Civilizations" controversy has obscured the emergence of a new transnational religious landscape marked by both interreligious cooperation and conflict. Over the past two decades, global migration patterns and modern communications technologies have spawned more active transnational religious communities. A new religious pluralism has emerged with two salient characteristics. On the one hand, global religious identities have encouraged interreligious dialogue and greater religious engagement around issues including international development, conflict resolution, and transitional justice. On the other hand, more intense interreligious competition has contributed to controversy over the meaning and scope of religious freedom—an international norm increasingly prominent in US foreign policy. Both dynamics of the new religious pluralism will shape the global political landscape for decades to come. The conference brought together leading international scholars from the disciplines of history, law, philosophy, political science, religious studies, and sociology to address these issues. Conference papers were later published as the edited book Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics (2008).

This conference, convened by Thomas Banchoff, director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, was the second of three in a series. In April 2005 Georgetown University sponsored the "Conference on New Religious Pluralism and Democracy," and in March 2007 the Berkley Center, along with Robert Wuthnow, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, hosted the "Conference on Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights." Two books based on those conferences were published with Oxford University Press and edited by Banchoff: Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism (2007) and Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights (2011, co-edited with Robert Wuthnow). 

SCHEDULE

Religious Pluralism in Global Perspective | Patrick Deneen, Pratap Mehta, Thomas Michel, S.J., Roland Robertson, John Voll

Religious Actors in World Politics | Scott Appleby, Tom Banchoff, Katherine Marshall, Kathleen McNamara, Leslie Vinjamuri.

Religious Freedom and U.S. Foreign Policy | Tom Banchoff, Robert Drinan, S.J., Jean Bethke Elshtain, Elizabeth Prodromou, John Witte

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Participants

Related Publication

Book November 26, 2008

Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics

This book explores how globalization has transformed the relationship between religious communities and contemporary policy challenges. Communications technologies have enabled the formation of stronger transnational religious identities, while the…

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