Issues of religion in public life seem rarely too far from the headlines across Western European liberal secular states. There have been a number of by now well-known and much debated social and political controversies over various issues. These have included the presence of religion in public places and spaces, in relation to acts like praying (in schools or near abortion clinics), or to religious signs and symbols in public institutions; or the presence in the landscape of religious buildings, for example, mosques and minarets, or in the soundscape of the call to prayer issuing from them. Issues of gender equality and equality around sexuality have also been prominent, whether in the workplace, education or perceptions of how these ideas are baked into religious doctrines. Free speech and hate speech, and the right to criticize and satirize religion, religious beliefs and religious figures have also been prominent, and at times with tragic effects (one immediately thinks of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo or beheading of Samuel Paty in France, for instance).

All these controversies provoke deeper debates about religious freedom, equality and attitudes to the place, role or even very idea of religion in contemporary society, and they cast a bright light on inevitable and inescapable tensions when it comes to the place of religion in public life. These debates and controversies point to a set of anxieties in liberal secular societies related to religion that are at once new but which are also haunted by history.

Religion and religious issues are usually framed as ‘a problem’ in academic as well as political frames (Davie, 2015: 228). In social science, theology is likewise most often ‘mentioned in a pejorative sense’ and set in an oppositional binary to everyday or lived religion (Helmer, 2012: 230) or more commonly is simply ignored by social and political theorists (Billingham and Chaplin, 2020). Multiculturalism is no exception to this general social scientific malaise in relation to religion. This chapter sets out how religion features, or doesn’t, in the writings of prominent multicultural theorists. It suggests that religion has so far received insufficient attention, especially in relation to the stronger arguments multiculturalists make for ethno-cultural rights, recognition and respect. This then provides the ground from which the book's subsequent chapters develop its positions and framework for recognition for a post-multiculturalism and religion.

This chapter does this in two main steps. The first discusses how and why religion is either marginal for or treated with great suspicion by many, especially liberal multicultural thinkers. In the second step it turns to an alternative, the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM), for which religion occupies a more prominent place. Here the chapter first makes the case that this form of multiculturalism stands out in its treatment of religion, the public role it accords religion in relation to the common good and in relation to the notion of political secularism. It nevertheless then goes on to argue how Bristol School multiculturalism can be seen as equivocal on religion, and it makes the case for the importance of a focus on religion on its own terms.

This chapter focuses on the issue of multiculturalism and identity. It first outlines multiculturalism's concept of recognition in relation to social group identity, in both negative (ascribed) and positive (claimed) terms. It then relates these to the core concept identified in Chapter 2 for the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM), namely ethno-religious. It develops that discussion and argues that ethno-religious can represent a form of misrecognition of religious identities for two main reasons: in how the religious more often serves as a proxy for the ethnic and in questions of the adequacy of the notion of identity itself. It suggests the implications of this for wider considerations of public religion, which then sets up the subsequent chapters. In this, it begins to set out the argument of how the post-works in relation to the issue of identity, so core to multicultural theorizing, acknowledging the important overlaps but not conflating ethnic with religious identity categories (especially where the latter becomes reduced to the former) and the need to at times consider these categories separately and as distinct. Through this discussion the chapter also sets out the initial parts of the framework of recognition that this book develops.

Why identity matters

We can start by saying something about why identity matters in multicultural societies and for theories of political multiculturalism. There are two main reasons for this. One is what we might call a negative reason: discrimination and the need to address it. Patterns of disadvantage and discrimination can often form along group-lines.

In his book The Dignity of Difference the late former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks challenges positions which seek to ignore or push aside difference in favour of sameness, or which see difference as problematic and something to be overcome in order to achieve unity. Rather, he argues, ‘difference does not diminish; it enlarges the sphere of human possibilities’ (2002: 209). In a challenge to liberal societies, Linda Woodhead has argued that questions about whether religion has a place or what place it has are the wrong points of departure. Rather, we should be asking how liberal societies can deal with pluralism, including conflict, and create a society in which ‘both religious and non-religious people and institutions are able to choose, contribute, belong, express their opinions, debate and contest’ (2013: 213). This concern, of the dignity but also the possibility of difference has been central to this book.

Core to this has been a view of a deeper pluralism that encompasses ethical, institutional and legal dimensions, and includes questions about what it means to be human and live in and construct social worlds in secular but religiously diverse societies. Pluralism, on this account, is more demanding than simple diversity. Tolerance may be a minimum requirement, but more is also necessary. As Goodman argues: ‘… it does not mean homogenizing. Pluralism preserves differences. What it asks for is respect’ (2014: 3). For Diana Eck, director of the Harvard Pluralism Project, pluralism is ‘the energetic engagement with diversity’, ‘the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference’, ‘the encounter of commitments’ and ‘based on dialogue’.

In this chapter, the final piece of the framework of recognition is put into place, something that has been implicit in discussions in previous chapters, but which now needs more focussed attention. The final principle, multilogue, is crucial to how the framework as a whole operates (see Figure 1).

A lack of dialogue has been a central point of critique of multiculturalism for some, and an aspect of its tendency to reinforce group boundaries and not deal with intra-group domination (Cantle, 2016; Zapata-Barrero, 2017). A first point to make is that this criticism overlooks that dialogue has been a central feature of the writings of figures such as Taylor, Parekh and Modood. It is, nevertheless, probably fair to say that the dialogic aspects of Taylor's foundational essay have received comparatively less systematic attention than theorizing identities has. This is perhaps especially the case in relation to a developed body of literature that has been extremely significant for questions of religion and politics, namely that focussed on religious reasons and language in public and political debate. A major sub-theme of liberal secularism and its critics has been precisely this matter, but multiculturalists have said little on the subject. It is this that forms the central concern of this chapter. Indeed, it is this that provoked the title for the book as a whole and its use of the prefix post-.

One of the most well-known and commented on works in this area is Habermas's (2006) essay ‘Religion in the Public Sphere’.

What role and place, if any, religion should have in public, especially in public institutions, is a vexed issue. Secularists of a variety of persuasions often see religion as something that can and should be separated from politics and public life. This might be because they see it as simply belonging to a different realm, one more personal and private, more other-worldly than this-here-and-now-worldly. Stronger versions may even see religion's presence in public life as inherently destabilizing, even dangerous, on the view that religion is particularly divisive, or even prone to intolerance and violence. Multiculturalists, or at least some multiculturalists, take a different view and emphasize the public good of religion and state-religion connections. Nevertheless, the argument was made in Chapter 3 that for multiculturalists there is a good deal of ambiguity about how religion relates to categories of ethnicity, and that multiculturalism should consider religion as a separate category from ethnicity, not because the two don't overlap in important ways but because conflating them obscures significant considerations and issues. This chapter picks up where Chapter 3 left off. It further elaborates the framework of post-multicultural recognition and develops it further with a focus on the vertical dimension and on dignity and religious freedoms. It introduces the feature of differentiation to the framework and how this relates to support for and interference in religious groups as part of their recognition. This chapter explores the significance of this for thinking about the inclusion and accommodation of religion in the public sphere; that is, in the law and public institutions.

Creating space for having difficult conversations

When considering the role of religion as it pertains to contextual embodied issues within the landscape of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR), the common perception is often that faith speaks with a singular, predominantly negative voice and that God's will can clearly be deduced through engaging with the sacred scriptures. Faith actors and religious leaders are often left out of processes working towards the enhancement of SRHR as much of the discourse developing from the religious sector have often aimed to entrench heteropatriarchal understandings of gender, sexuality, and reproduction (Beinlich, 2019). Beyond this, local religious leaders often function as the custodians of tradition and gatekeepers of change in local faith communities and are therefore frequently not considered the first choice for collaborative partners in the pursuit of affirming and productive SRHR.

The exclusion of the faith sector from civil society attempts to enhance SRHR is therefore not surprising, but simultaneously not sustainable if the aim is to work for comprehensive systemic change. This holds especially true if one considers the major impact of the faith sector on the SRHR decision-making process and action by those navigating complex personal and collective SRHR landscapes, and if one considers the widespread confessed religiosity of those in South Africa as 86 per cent of people claim a Christian religion orientation.

Historically the faith sector has played a central role, especially in times of crisis, in physical, spiritual, socio-economic and political landscapes (Lincoln and Mamiya, 1990; Gilkes, 2001; Orey, 2008). Faith actors often function as first responders in situations of distress or crises, as they offer pastoral care and psychosocial support. In light of this, rather than excluding faith actors from SRHR conversations, I argue that faith leaders in local communities who are conscientised and capacitated in terms of issues pertaining to gender and sexuality are vital in the quest of creating more socially just communities actively embodying values and practices that lead to greater justice, respect for human dignity and the commitment to communal and contextual wellbeing (Bartelink et al, 2017).

The Gender and Religion Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa, where I am currently based, aims to step up to the task of capacitating faith leaders and various faith actors to join and initiate initiatives and interventions to enhance SRHR awareness and action within the faith sector.

Introduction

Except for limited access to the sea through the River Shire, Malawi is largely a landlocked country in southern Africa. It shares borders with Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA, 2022), the country as of 2021 had an estimated population of 19.6 million, which is expected to double by 2038. The health sector in Malawi is significantly underfunded by the government, with 70 per cent of funding accessed from foreign donors (WHO, 2015).

In common with many countries, abortion is one of the most polarising moral issues in Malawi (Levandowski et al, 2012). It is considered sinful and heavily stigmatised (Storeng et al, 2019). Political and religious leaders often refer to the country as a God-fearing nation, although the Constitution stipulates that Malawi is a secular state. Before colonialism, abortion was regarded as a women's issue handled by traditional birth attendants. However, the situation changed during British colonial rule when the Penal Code, with provisions prohibiting abortion, became operational in 1930. Specifically, the provisions on abortion were modelled on the by then outdated UK Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (OAPA) (Kangaude and Mhango, 2018). Abortion law was later reformed in Britain, with the 1967 Abortion Act providing exemptions to the OAPA, and in Northern Ireland related sections of OAPA have been completely removed, allowing for decriminalisation (Aiken and Bloomer, 2019). Malawi, however, has maintained the 1930 colonial abortion law, which it inherited at its independence in 1964; this was further maintained during the amendment of the Penal Code in 1999 and 2015. As was the case during the colonial and one-party eras, sections 149, 150, 151 and 243 of the Malawi Penal Code (Penal Code, 2015, fourth edition) still prohibit procurement of induced abortion, with the only exception being the provision of the service to save the pregnant woman whose life is threatened.

Specifically, section 149 reads:

Introduction

Abortion continues to be both a politicised issue worldwide (Amnesty, 2018) as well as an everyday reality shared by many. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated one in four pregnancies ends in abortion (WHO, 2018). Although it is a life experience found across time and contexts, abortion continues to be non-accessible, criminalised and stigmatised. According to Starrs et al (2018), stigma exists whether abortion is legal or illegal and one of the factors that influences restrictive stances in law, policy and norms is religion, with the dominating perception that religion condemns abortion (Emerson, 1996; Beattie, 2010; Haffner, 2015; Kumar, 2018; Peters, 2018; Dozier et al, 2020). The domination of anti-abortion arguments in religion, and in particular Christianity, have long taken up much of the discourse, in the academic space as well as the public space (Haffner, 2015; Kamitsuka, 2019). The evidence is also clear that those in faith communities are as likely to have abortions (Dozier et al, 2020; Jones, 2020) and there is ‘a disconnect between the rhetoric … and the actual lives of the many’ (Kamitsuka, 2019: 3). Despite the negative impact on norms as well as policies of particular religious expressions and perspectives, the relationship between abortion and religion is both under-studied (Emerson, 1996; Turtle and Bloomer, this volume) as well as simplified (Peters, 2018; Kamitsuka, 2019). The world is, however, a diverse religious world where ‘no single religious voice can speak for all faith traditions … [or] no single faith can claim final moral authority in public discourse’ (Haffner, 2015: 29), and examples of faith actors finding themselves positioned along a whole spectrum on this issue do exist, from non-affirming, to a moveable middle to fully affirming (Mills, 1991; Kaplan, 1995; Davis, 2005; Haffner, 2015; Parker, 2017). The impact on public debate of more affirming perspectives remains limited as they are relatively small in number and can risk facing a backlash from those with more vocal or hostile anti-abortion positions (Kamitsuka, 2019). As trust in faith actors is low on these matters, finding other ways of relating and doing faith is crucial in the wake of strong and loud opposition (Peters, 2018; Kamitsuka, 2019). Visualising the journeys that faith communities have taken on this issue is thus a crucial contribution.