Toleration and Religion

Abstract

Toleration and religion are intimately related, not least because toleration first arose in Europe as one means of avoiding conflict arising from religious differences. This chapter discusses these historical origins of toleration and its association with religion. In particular, it focuses on the development of ideas of toleration as these emerged amidst the religious conflict ushered in by the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. It considers obstacles, existing at that time, to the widespread acceptance of religious toleration, centered, not least, on the “moral challenge” to which toleration gives rise among the religiously devout. It considers how pragmatic arguments for toleration, adopted by political authorities seeking to avoid conflict among rival religious denominations within their jurisdiction, circumvented this “moral challenge.” It then considers debates concerning not only the “possibility” of toleration but its “desirability” – such reservations arising as a result of the clear inequalities that toleration is perceived to involve. Finally, the chapter seeks to address the question of whether toleration remains a relevant policy within contemporary liberal democracies, the plurality and diversity of whose populations have only increased over time, and within which conflicts such as those centered on religion have not entirely abated.