Part II | Outline

Category E | Perspectives

Topic 24 | Everyone is a religious minority

We all belong to a religious minority. Although some religions comprise a majority in one or another particular geographic area, no religion encompasses a majority of the world’s population. According to the Pew Research Center, the largest religious groups in the world are Christians (31.2%), Muslims (24.1%), and the unaffiliated (16%), followed by Hindus (15.1%), Buddhists (6.9%), and folk religionists (5.7%). Perhaps more than any other single realization, remembering that we all belong to a religious minority should help guide how we behave when we find ourselves in a majority position in some particular place and time.

No global religious majority  

• It can be hard to remember that everyone is part of a religious or belief minority, particularly in contexts where one is surrounded by people of similar belief. In a world of more than eight billion people, and an estimated 10,000 religions and faith groups, each group makes up a small fraction of the world’s population of religious believers.

Persecuted minorities becoming persecuting majorities  

• Humans have a tendency to discriminate against and even persecute those who are “other,” particularly when they are in a position of power as part of a majority in a particular time and place. Unfortunately, this pattern of “the persecuted becoming the persecutor” has been repeated throughout history.

Tolerance and humility as correctives  

• Tolerance. One cause of the historical pattern of persecution is the long-held mistaken belief that the source of societal tension is religious difference and that forced religious homogeneity solves it. Remembering that we all belong to a religious minority—and that all religions should be afforded the same measure of “toleration” and constitutional space to act on their beliefs—helps us promote social stability.

• Humility can serve as a powerful corrective to the evils of “majority hubris” in several ways.

  • Remembering we are a minority even when we are in a temporal or temporary majority can prevent us from seeking special treatment and protections for religious majorities.
  • Remembering the status of co-religionists. Every group that finds themselves in a numerical majority someplace will have co-religionists who are a numerical minority (or even a tiny minority) someplace else. Remembering this fact helps us resist the assumption that the rules should be dramatically different in places where we find ourselves in the majority.
  • Remembering the impermanence of majority status/power helps us support religious freedom for both “the little guy” and “the big guy.”
    
  • Remembering the paradox of religious freedom helps us understand our reciprocal obligations to respect the religious freedom of others.