Part II | Outline
Category E | Perspectives
Topic 26 | Navigating other differences
Religious freedom helps us navigate other differences. When we become comfortable and adept at navigating religious differences, we become better at handling other differences and disagreements. This is true on both an individual and a societal level.
- Religious freedom encourages peaceful coexistence with others despite differences. Religious differences are some of the most divisive and contentious issues of our day. Yet religious freedom is the antidote to the contention that arises from religious differences. It teaches us how to live, work, and coexist peacefully with those who are different from us.
- Peaceful coexistence depends not on the absence of difference but on how we deal with those differences. Religious freedom teaches us how to engage, in meaningful ways, with our differences. It encourages us to find or create common ground, build trust through dialogue, and work with others to find practical solutions to our differences.
- The lessons we gain from learning to live with religious differences can apply to other types of differences. When we create a society built on principles of religious freedom, we become more equipped to navigate other differences, including differences based on other categories of unlawful discrimination, such as race, ethnicity, language, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Religious freedom does not imply endorsement. We can have respect for others, and for their different religions, without signaling wholesale endorsement of those religions as being “correct,” “best,” or “equally true.” We can give space for others to live their religion without compromising our own core principles or beliefs. For example, we can tolerate, or even respect different views regarding marriage without maintaining that these views of marriage are equally valid, healthy, or sound.
- A note on “divine envy.” We can even admire or be “envious” of certain dimensions of others’ faith or religious traditions or practices without endorsing them or viewing them as superior to our own.