By Stanley Carlson-Thies

This article was adapted from an article that ran in the series “Making Peace with Proximate Pluralism” published in Volume 8 of Public Justice Review, a publication of the Center for Public Justice.

“Proximate pluralism.” This term calls attention to how pluralism in our political community is a precious, but limited, good. We should celebrate the good of pluralism. Pluralism makes legal and social room for people deeply divided among religions, philosophies, and moralities. Yet we should mourn the compromises that pluralism structures into law and life. The law will only imperfectly embody what we are sure are God’s good intentions for people, relationships, political structures, and the world. Adopting even more pluralism will not bring law and life ever closer to that design.

“Proximate pluralism” is a different kind of concept and reality than the idea of “proximate justice” described by Steve Garber. Our efforts, Steve points out, will never bring about complete justice. The world is too broken, and we are too weak. Even so, that’s no reason to give up. If our work towards justice is like running a race, we should become long-distance runners instead of sprinters. We should labor intensively for, and then celebrate, the justice victories we are able to win. We do this while we await the return of Jesus and the arrival of full justice. While “proximate justice” is incomplete justice, it is a step on the continuum to full justice.

The real good of pluralism in our political life does not imply that the more fragmented a political community is, the closer it gets to shalom. As such, what is good about pluralism as a structuring principle for a political community, for the United States? Should we always qualify civic pluralism as “proximate”?

First, should we celebrate diversity? Promoting diversity may seem to be the main injunction of Abraham Kuyper’s line of Christian reflection on political life. (Kuyper’s deep reflections on pluralism help to ground IRFA’s work in support of institutional religious freedom.) Cultural diversity–different customs, ethnicities, lines of work, languages, nationalities, and geographical preferences–is indeed positive. These are enlivening variations of human life that a just government should generally leave alone to flourish. Even so, we must allow that, because we are dealing with sinful humanity, not all customs can be left alone. The government—and its citizens—must counter efforts by some to use their differences from others to justify ill treatment of them.

Second, we should affirm structural pluralism—the variety of callings and institutions in society. This variety is a fundamental good, baked into how God created and superintends the world. Government should protect, not overwhelm, the operations of different “spheres” or establishments. Such establishments include schools, churches, hospitals, day care centers, service clubs, and businesses. Government should take care in its regulations and subsidies to respect their varied ways of operating, their rightful “sphere sovereignty.” A government, in some circumstances, may need to operate in one of these spheres, for example, in the creation of a public university. Even then, however, it should be careful not to substitute its own norms for those appropriate to that other institution. Neither should it prevent other non-governmental, parallel institutions from also flourishing.

Third, do Kuyperians also celebrate the many religions and idols of society? After all, the Kuyperian prescription for government is to “treat all citizens—all members of the political community—on an equal civic basis without giving special privilege or negative discrimination to any of them because of their religious commitments.” Abraham Kuyper himself, in the late 19th century, called for scholarship from a Calvinist perspective. In the Dutch higher education setting, Kuyper also called for the legal freedom to create a Reformed university to parallel the secular government-run and Catholic universities. It was in large part due to Kuyper’s commitment to confessional pluralism that the Netherlands came to be characterized by multiple subcultures with their different versions of various types of institutions: ideologically and religiously distinct social services, universities, trade unions, school systems, and even television broadcast networks.

Is this a celebration of religious diversity? In a Kuyperian view, it is not. In this perspective, pluralist government policy is not part of a multicultural celebration of religions and ideologies. Instead, it is the obligatory governmental acknowledgement of, and response to, deeply divided convictions in societies. Kuyperian pluralism does not express the theological or philosophical view that all roads lead to God, or that all belief systems are equally true (or rather equally false). Such a kumbaya view trivializes the asserted truth claims at the heart of Kuyper’s much-loved Calvinism. Rather, the principled or civic pluralism approach is the opposite. It instructs government to accommodate and protect, not ignore, the different faiths and philosophies precisely because the various assertions are truth claims. However, government is not competent to render definitive judgments about such claims—these things are not Caesar’s. Furthermore, we citizens owe each other generous respect for striving to know and follow God (or gods). Pluralism requires that, in asking our neighbors for room live in accordance with our deep convictions, we extend them the same courtesy.

Kuyperian confessional pluralism is a rule and pattern for government. This framework addresses how government should respond to the deep divisions of conviction that are alive among the citizens. It is neither an applause machine, urging ever more divisions, nor an offertory of praise for a thousand faiths to bloom. That’s why we can appropriately call it civic pluralism – pluralism as a rule for government, law, and policy. Civic pluralism is the government’s response to the existing divisions in society.

Behind the political prescription is a particular understanding of the human condition. Between the Fall and the Second Coming, societies are necessarily divided along lines of different, even conflicting, convictions. Some seek to follow God, while others seek to follow one or another ideal or identity unhinged from God. Of course, even those seeking to follow God don’t agree very much on what this entails.

Beliefs and worship practices inform a certain way of life, leading people to different ethical systems. For example, internalizing certain beliefs can lead some doctors to be pro-life and others to be pro-choice. Different convictions lead to the creation of distinct social institutions. For example, one may encounter Montessori, Catholic, orthodox Jewish or secular neighborhood schools. There may be a financial institution that does, or does not, charge interest. A drug store may stock neither cigarettes nor Plan B, or it may refuse to sell only the smokes.

Those different philosophies, ethical systems, and religions lead to distinct ways of working at jobs and serving as professionals. They involve distinct strategies of designing and operating nonprofits and businesses. However, they only do so if the law, if government policy, allows and protects these efforts to live and serve in line with a faith or worldview. They do so only if the government carries out, as it should, a policy of civic pluralism.

Civic pluralism, then, is basically the implementation of religious freedom. It consistently draws out the requirement that the government must respect and protect the exercise of religion—the following of worldviews— by the citizens. Civic pluralism supports their desires to live, work, serve, and worship in accordance with some religion or set of convictions, even though other citizens do not share the same religion or convictions. Religious freedom and civic pluralism are alternatives to theocracy—where all must live by the dictates of one religion. They are separate also from official secularism (French laïcité)— where religion is confined to narrow private spaces and everything in the public space must be resolutely non-religious. Instead, civic pluralism says, citizens and organizations can each fly their own flag.

Religious and philosophical divisions do exist. Because they do, a government policy that allows people of different convictions to live consistently with their convictions is a great good. It keeps government from making decisions it is not competent to make. It also implements the respect for lives of conviction that we owe each other. Moreover, it leaves it to the just and merciful God to decide which is the wheat, which the tares.

However, for all of its blessings, civic pluralism is by no means an unambiguous or unalloyed good. Protecting diverse views means protecting error–it means protecting those who believe in the error, because of the respect we owe to those people. Civic pluralism also protects a Christian worldview, even when it may be a minority and despised worldview. Because of that protection, where it exists, Jesus followers have more freedom to believe in Jesus. We are also free to live by his teachings and to spread the Good News to others. That is a great and valuable freedom. Still, civic pluralism and religious freedom entail protecting those other convictions and ways of life, convictions and ways of life we are sure fall short of what they should be. Under pluralist policy, law and government power will not confine or slow them down, much less seek to forbid their existence.

Civic or principled pluralism should give us disquiet. Besides the protection of error, there is also another important worry: that in protecting a diversity of views, civic pluralism might undermine the shared values important for social cohesion and voluntary obedience to government commands. Does not civic pluralism also protect practices that can harm the political community and society over time? For example, it may protect corrosive political views or relationship practices that undermine stable marriages. It may support freewheeling economic behavior that widens economic disparities and harms the very environment we depend upon.

That is not all; there are even more reasons for unease. Consider these three problems springing from the pluralism-protected existence of multiple views in society:

The pressure to act against conviction. Let’s posit that the law adopts some set of values which you share only in part. You serve as (pick one) a judge, a county clerk, a provost at a state university, a psychologist at Guantanamo Bay, or a licensed social worker. You discover more than once that your job requirements conflict with what you are certain is right. What can you do? You may ask to be excused or to make a referral. You may be fired. You may decide to do what is required, though it goes against your own sense of what is best. None of these is a satisfying option. The more diversity of views in a society, the more such dilemmas will occur.

The harm of being turned away. Civic pluralism enables people of different convictions to create organizations that reflect those varied beliefs. It allows those organizations to be operated in accordance with those different convictions about what is good and right (within limits). Perhaps the gay couple in the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision the US Supreme Court partially punted will not be able to buy a wedding cake designed by Jack Phillips. The Orthodox Jewish family will have to travel many blocks to find a kosher deli and in many towns will not be able to eat out at all. The agnostic student will chafe at the conduct requirements and much of the teaching at an evangelical college. An evangelical student will be concerned about the conduct standards (or their absence) and much of the teaching at the secular university. As a patron of In-N-Out Burger, I will never be hired to represent PETA. Here we find dignitary harms, frictions, misunderstandings, delays in finding a service provider, and hurt all around.

The sorrow that many reject what is best for them. Yes, we owe respect to others and their searches for truth. That’s one kind of love for our neighbors. But we also owe to each other our best advice about what is good and true. We should say openly that the earth is not flat, that the white race is not superior, that not everything two people can do together sexually is wonderful, that people do have a spiritual dimension, and so on. Civic pluralism protects our freedom to speak out about what we are sure is right, even though many are sure we are wrong and would rather not listen. At the same time, civic pluralism requires that we allow others to share their advices and beliefs with us.

Truth is not whatever we decide it is, so I must wish and pray that others will acknowledge the actual truth, even when their worldviews incline them to error. Jesus really is the King of Kings, not just my King. His guidance for life really is good guidance for every life, not just for those who confess him. In embracing civic pluralism, we are voluntarily embracing the circumstance that a diversity of views and ways of life will be legally protected. As such, much that we are sure is wrong will be recommended and urged on others.

To be sure, civic pluralism emphatically does not require anyone to be silent about what they believe is true. Neither does it require us to let all errors be protected. Slavery is wrong. We need not try to have a nation which is half free and half enslaved. What else is a wrong like that, which must be driven out rather than legally protected? Alternatively, what are the grave errors we should put up with, even while seeing others refuse the truth and settle for distorted relationships and inadequate lives?

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Thus we come to “proximate” pluralism. Civil pluralism is indispensable, given our divisions of conviction and religion. Yet it embodies and requires compromises that are troubling. And it is not a good that becomes better by even more division. Rather, in the new heavens and new earth, when Jesus returns, those underlying confessional divisions will be gone. We will all worship the Lamb who was slain and now sits on the Throne. We will all be illuminated by the light of the Lord God, and we will all live next to the river of life. We will all know what is good and true, and it will be everyone’s heart’s desire to obey. There will be no deep diversity of religions in society and no required civic pluralism for government, even though there will be cultural diversity and multiple spheres.

We qualify pluralism as “proximate” to acknowledge that, while it is a great good given the divisions in our political communities, we are right to be saddened by those divisions. We should be saddened seeing people choose pathways we are sure are not good for them. We should be saddened by all of the practical compromises we must make in order to live in peace with our neighbors in this time before the full arrival of the kingdom of God.

Even in our sadness, though, we should never forget that civic pluralism gives us the opportunity, though with no guarantee of success, to work with energy, patience, and persistence to convince our fellow citizens and public servants to accept our vision of shalom. Although we cannot compel them to do what we believe is right, we can, and should, invite them to join with us to pursue what we are sure is the path toward God-pleasing justice.