The intellectual and pragmatic rationale for the project is a simple one. It derives from the premise that in our contemporary age of globalization of humanity, the plurality and diversity of religions, cultures and moralities is an inevitable and irremediable social fact that forces each and all religious traditions to come to terms in their own way with this newly recognized reality. The issue is particularly poignant for the Abrahamic religious traditions which millennially functioned with some version of the “Mosaic” distinction between “true” and “false” religions, and with diverse nomenclatures for distinguishing between them. In the Christian West this took the form of a distinction between the true church and the others: schismatic and heretic Christians, Jewish and Muslim infidels, and all the other pagan or heathen idolatrous religions.
From an external sociological and world historical perspective one could argue that, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present, we’ve been moving away from the old nomenclature of denominational rankings, which had become intertwined with Western colonialism and with global Christian missions, to a new post-colonial world system of religions, which could be called global denominationalism. It is a process whereby each religion adopts its own self-denomination and claims its universal and equal right to be unique and different—hence its particularism—while presenting itself globally as a valid path for all of humanity—thus its universalism. In this respect, global denominationalism is emerging as a self-regulated system of religious pluralism and mutual recognition of religious groups in global civil society.
The V-THEO project, however, is not informed by such an outsider observational perspective. We want to examine how each religious tradition internally responds to, participates in, and is transformed by these processes of interreligious mutual recognition at the intellectual-cognitive level of theological reflection and at the practical level of interreligious encounters, dialogues and practices at various levels—local, national, transregional and global.
Consequently, we have organized five working groups of scholars of Judaism, of Islam, of Catholic Christianity, of Orthodox Christianity and of Protestant Christianity. The aim is, first, to get right the distinctive ways in which each of these traditions come to terms, positively or negatively, with all modern forms of pluralism, religious, social, cultural and moral. While the challenges they face may be similar, their responses may be diverse and attuned to their own historical traditions. This demands, therefore, to maintain an implicit comparative framework that is sensitive to the differences as well as the similarities in their responses. In the second phase of the project, we hope to develop this comparative analysis more explicitly and systematically.
Moreover, we take for granted that these religious traditions are internally plural. Therefore, we want to examine the particular ways in which each of these traditions come to terms and recognize their own internal pluralism as a positive resource rather than as an obstacle to their own unity. Indeed, very often the recognition of internal pluralism within one’s tradition appears more difficult than the acceptance of external religious pluralism. That’s why in the V-THEO project we often refer to Judaisms, Islams, Catholicisms, Orthodoxies, and Protestantims—all in the plural.
For that reason, from the beginning, one of the most critical tasks has been to ensure that the selection of the scholarly composition of each of the working groups reflects the particular diversity and plurality of each of the religious traditions. Strictly speaking, V-THEO is not a novel research project, gathering new data, originating from some new investigation. It is rather an interdisciplinary project that brings together well-known theologians/religious scholars, social scientists, and historians of each of the religious traditions, willing to present their own perspective, knowledge, and expertise in sustained dialogue with each other through participation in several intensive workshops and mini conferences. The aim is to obtain a relatively holistic view of the contemporary transformation of each of the traditions as they respond to, and come to terms with, the challenges presented by diverse forms of modern pluralism under global conditions.
The emergence of religious pluralism itself as a significant characteristic of our global age is one of the challenges which each of the religious traditions is forced to confront in its own ways. But there are many other forms of pluralism connected with geopolitical struggles and ideological conflicts, with global capitalist developments and the expansion of materialist consumer culture and radical individualism, with mass migrations, and with scientific, technological, and mass media revolutions. Those are all external challenges originating in secular developments which challenge all religious traditions and all forms of religious authority in diverse ways.
Of all forms of modern pluralism, it is perhaps the specter of gender pluralism, associated with the ongoing sexual and gender moral revolutions, which most unsettle all religious traditions as it brings radical social, political and moral polarization and mobilization into many societies, which are reproduced transnationally as global culture wars.
Even this brief enumeration of the various forms of modern pluralism which become intertwined with issues of internal and external religious pluralism within and between the religious traditions already points to the complexity of the issues at hand. We do not begin however with a ready-made framework of analysis which we try to apply uniformly to the working groups, but we let each of the working groups to develop the particular framework which most resonates with each religious tradition and which focuses on the kind of issues of pluralism that appear particularly poignant for each working group.
The presence of Jocelyne Cesari and me, as co-directors in each of the working groups, and our shared social scientific comparative interest, ensures that some implicit awareness of similarities and differences between and among the five religious traditions is present from the beginning as a background to the five stories—even if, as indicated, we reserve the more systematic comparison for the second phase of the project, once we’ve completed the preparation of edited volumes for each of the working groups.
Without aiming to recapitulate the five different stories let me simply state what appears obvious in the Catholic story of aggiornamento, or bringing up to date, of the Catholic tradition vis a vis the question of modern religious pluralism and other forms of modern pluralism. The Second Vatican Council marks a clear before and after. The most exclusivist ecclesiology, based on the principle extra ecclesiam nulla salus, gave way to an unequivocal affirmation of individual religious freedom based on the sacred dignity of the human person (Dignitatis Humanae) and to a recognition that our global age (Nostra Aetate) is an age of religious pluralism that demands a new attitude towards other religions. The relatively uniform Catholic discernment of religious pluralism as a “sign of the times” has facilitated the proliferation of novel Catholic theologies and practices of religious pluralism throughout the world. However, when it comes to the social questions of our age, namely of issues related to gender equality and gender pluralism, the Catholic responses have been less uniform, more plural and diverse, equivocal, and uncertain. After all, the Catholic religious tradition is becoming simultaneously global and local, that is, “glocal,” with universally shared Catholic characteristics, but with increasingly diverse vernacular manifestations.
Other religious traditions are going through their own aggiornamentos, but following their own particular dynamics which are different from the Catholic ones. However, all of them are also becoming increasingly more global and more local in characteristic dynamics to which all our working groups are paying special attention.
