A stigmatized identity refers to some socially devalued aspect of a person that (typically) cannot be changed and evokes negative stereotypes, attitudes, and behaviors from others (Quinn & Earnshaw, 2013). With the increase of protective laws, individuals with a stigmatized identity face less formal discrimination than in the past but continue to face substantial subtle and interpersonal discrimination (Ruggs, Martinez, & Hebl, 2011). While the majority of stigma research has focused on visible stigmatized identities, many stigmatized identities are simply not visible. It is this latter category on which the current chapter focuses. Invisible stigmatized identities are devalued aspects that an individual is generally able to conceal from others. Invisible and/or concealable stigmas may include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ+) identities; some disabilities; and multiracial and religious identities. For the remainder of the chapter, we will refer to such identities as “concealable stigmas” or “invisible stigmas.”

When workplaces are designed and managed for a worker with a 'normal' range of abilities, then workers with different abilities are disabled at work. Human rights and anti-discrimination laws create duties upon employers and others to adjust workplaces to accommodate workers with disabilities. This chapter argues that reasonable accommodation and adjustment laws privilege workers with physical and sensory impairments compared to workers who have psychosocial disabilities. Workers with invisible psychosocial disabilities are victimised if they disclose their disability and the law is comparatively less likely to recognise the request of a worker with a psychosocial disability as reasonable. The failure by law and work practices to address ableism at work perpetuates a hierarchy of impairments, which leaves workers with psychosocial disabilities unable to exercise their right to work on an equal basis as workers without disabilities, or with less stigmatised impairments.

Herder is a very strong proponent of religious toleration. The Letters for the Advancement of Humanity state his position on this point succinctly: “From childhood on nothing has been more abhorrent to me than the persecution or personal denigration of a person over his religion. Whom does this concern, but himself and God?” (LAH, 291). We might recall that Herder's otherwise largely negative portrait of China in the Ideas nonetheless praises the nation for this one thing, religious toleration, claiming that, in China, “no subject is compelled to any religion, and no religion that does not attack the state is persecuted” (Ideas, 432). This is a virtue Herder attributes to Hindus as well, of whom he writes: “Hindus do not persecute; they allow to each his religion, form of life, and wisdom; why should one not allow the same to them and consider them to be, in the errors of their inherited tradition, at least good people who are deceived?” (Ideas, 455). As in the case of his position on morality, Herder's reference to error in this context indicates that, whatever might be the basis for his advocacy of religious toleration, it cannot be such as to exclude the possibility of evaluative judgements, including cross-cultural ones, about the content of religious traditions. Barnard's assertion that “Herder's approach to religion, as to any other facet of human endeavour, is strictly relativist” (Barnard 1965, 96) would then at least need some clarification.

SOURCES OF AUTHORITY

In the previous chapter, I showed that many can feel threatened by the diversity and rapid change of modern life, even in the sphere of religious belief. Fundamentalism is one reaction to this. Paradoxically, philosophical relativism can also insulate us collectively from others by removing the possibility that there is anything to learn from them. Whatever we, and the group we belong to, believe is true for us. One sociologist comments that “when religious differences are strongly embedded in ethnic identities, the cognitive threat of the ideas of others is relatively weak.” Challenges to those beliefs from outside our own society, however defined, do not point us to a wider truth. We are more concerned with who we are than with the justification of the beliefs that help to define us and our way of life. The idea of a universal truth applying to all can be ignored, and could destabilize our society by possibly undermining the beliefs that help define it. The more objective truth is decried, the more likely it is for a premium to be placed on social cohesion. The more identity is valued, the more likely it is for concerns about truth to seem irrelevant.

The maintenance of a common identity can easily become the priority. Even if groups we think they possess important truths, their maintenance and transmission, and the preservation of the community in which they are held, can progressively appear ever more important. Issues concerning authority often loom large in religious disputes. Who has the authority to define, and to safeguard, what is supposed to be true? Saying that the authority resides in a holy text such as the Bible or the Qur'an transfers the question to who can be trusted to give the correct, or approved, interpretation of the text. Schools of interpretation can grow up, and disputes arise about who the experts are who can be trusted.

RELIGION IN SINGAPORE

Religious and ethno-religious issues are inherent in multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies, and Singapore is no exception. It has long been a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society, being historically and contemporarily at the crossroads of some of the world's major and minor civilizations, cultures, religions, and traditions. Today, every major religious tradition in Singapore probably has within it a full religious spectrum, from orthodox, traditional orientations to reform movements and independent spiritual clusters, while other minor religions and movements have created or renewed spaces, membership, and expressions in the rapidly evolving city landscape. Most have regional and global links and influences. Religious affiliation is high and religious identification is strong among the population. These have also occurred against a background of growing religiosity and religious change since the 1970s. Global, regional and local events and developments since September 11 have further put the spotlight on religion, and raised issues concerning religious identity, politics, and inter-religious relations, and their impact on social cohesion.

Despite the diverse and dynamic religious landscape, however, there is a lack of in-depth knowledge, nuanced understanding, and regular dialogue about various religions and the meanings of living in Singapore's multi-religious world. Indeed, claims of ignorance, lack of inter-religious understanding, dialogue, and interaction, negative stereotyping and other inter-religious encounters among individuals and groups present potential points of misunderstanding and tension. Some overlaps between ethnicity and religion further lend a heightened dimension and significance to ethno-religious identities and issues. While much is happening on the ground, recent studies and published literature are few or limited in scope and research has generally fallen behind realities and developments. Literature on various religions, while abundant, tends to be focused on their respective religious concerns and congregations. There is a lack of systematic studies or surveys and little on religion in national census coverage.

This chapter provides an overview of religious diversity in Singapore. In a broad examination of the larger religious landscape, it highlights some general developments and trends among the multi-religious population, in relations between the secular state and the multi-religious society, and within specific religions. The complex religious landscape is then illustrated and explored through relevant or significant aspects, issues and examples in some specific domains and among particular populations: schools/education and the young, media and social services.

It is hard to name a theologian who has singularly influenced the contemporary discourse on religious pluralism more than Karl Rahner. In the 1960s and 1970s his writings on the topic gained wide appeal and his thoughts enjoyed popular exposure through public sermons and radio addresses. Throughout the last quarter of the twentieth century and into the new millennium, his theological project has so influenced the discussion that many of today's major voices on religious diversity present their theologies in direct conversation with his. Rahner's ideas have even elicited responses from notable spokespersons of the religions of the world. Thus, in examining Rahner's theology of religious pluralism, we can gain insight not only into his own influential thinking, but into the contours of the conversation today.

At the forefront of Rahner’s work was a concern that theology speak to people. And so, he explained Christian doctrine in a way that connected with lived experience. As people embedded in a complex and diverse world, Rahner recognized that the encounter with the religious “other” would be among the challenges Christians would face. Religious diversity was not merely an abstract theological concern, but one that grew out of an increasing awareness of and engagement with people of other faiths.

THE PROBLEM OF DIVERSITY

The contemporary world echoes with such phrases as “celebrating diversity.” As contact between even previously remote parts of the world increases, we cannot fail to be aware of the great diversity of belief and practice that exists around the world in all areas of human life. Modern technology can ensure that even tribes in New Guinea can see what is happening at that moment in New York. The increase of air travel between continents enables all of us to become tourists in every part of the globe, and many to move their homes and jobs to countries of which a few years ago they may not even have heard. There is migration from one European country to another, even though in living memory those countries may have been at war with each other, or at least totally isolated from each other's way of life. Barriers between Eastern and Western Europe set up after the Second World War have disappeared.

All this is commonplace, although it gives sociologists plenty of material on which to build theories about “globalization.” None of us can live in hermetically sealed societies, assuming that our way of life is not only the best way but the only way. Differing ways of life compete for our attention even in the same place. In such a ferment of change, most people on the top of a London bus may be speaking any language but English. There used to be a saying about “the man on the Clapham omnibus” meaning, a hundred years or so ago, the average person in the street. One could use such a mythical London figure to illustrate “ordinary,” “normal” reactions to whatever was under discussion. A short trip on any London bus today will quickly dispel any hope of distilling any common reaction to anything. Languages, cultures, and religions clash in merry profusion. All the people on the bus have in common is that they are in the same place at the same time. They are, of course, all human, and their share in a common human nature may not be a trivial issue. It may provide them all with a commonality on which all else is built. We will return to that. Nevertheless the immediate impact is the fact of difference and diversity.