WHOSE TOLERANCE?

BETWEEN POLITICAL TOLERANCE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

MASSIMO SERRETTI

For centuries, the breadth and boundaries of the notion of tolerance have
been explored from both theoretical and practical standpoints in literature
and experiencein literature and daily experience. , analyzed from the point of
view of theory and practice. Clearly, tolerance is primarily a political
notion, and while it which waswas born and developed in different contexts,
while maintainingit maintains a broadly-conceivedbroadly conceived
political nature. For this reason, I will engage deal with it at a later stage, in
order to avoid the mistake of applying a political, hence worldly, framework
to a Christian, and more generally religious, question.
For the time being, I will address the relationship between different
Christian confessions, from which, in Europe, the notion of tolerance has
historically emerged. I will then turn to the relationship between these and
other religions and, finally, to the possible relationship that exists, in current
Western history, between the religious and the political dimensions, and
between the political and the religious one. All these reflections spring from
one question: what contribution can be made by Christianity to , relating to
what contribution Christianity can make to the definition of todays Western
societies, which which embrace politically significant but quite diverse
religious and cultural entities and identities.
I.
The pluralism of Christian confessions
The nature of the relationship between different Christian confessions is
eminently theological, and depends on the nature of its subjects. Given that
the constitution of the latter are is constituted founded on upon athe common
faith in Jesus Christ and on the sacrament of Baptism, then the relationship
among them, then, is also likewise Christological.
As a consequence,This implies that the truth of the dialogue and
interaction between the different Christian confessions, at any level, is not
primarily centered on their behavioursbehaviors, on the management of

social spaces, on the competitiveness of public presence, or on the dialectic

between minorities and majorities, but rather on their identity. In the
encounter with the other, the definition of ones identity is an act of
recognition that answers the question who are you? rather than how can
we live side by side and reduce, lowering the level of conflict, given seeing
that we start from politically different positions?
The fact that the nature of a Christian social subject is Christological means
that it has a specific origin whose source is not immanent to the created
world. The Christian community is not constituted by the convergence of free
wills and, therefore, it is not the result of human intention. It is not even a
culturally and sociologically determined outgrowth of an underlying
religious sense, or a historically determined form of human self-awareness in
which the universal spirit is reflected. It is not even, therefore, a form of
human self-understanding, a form of sublimated anthropology. The Christian
community springs from an event whose origin is in Heaven, in the mystery
of God. This mystery has become real in time and space through the
Incarnation of the Son that who has shown the reality of Heaven while
opening up the possibility to His followers to be take part in of that reality, to
be born from above (Jn 3, 3). Christians constitute a separate nation, a
separate people. The term nation derives from the Latin verb nascor,
which denotes the origin (genesis). A people is defined by its origin, its
descent [stock, issue] (genos). As a people that is sui generis, that has a specific
and irreducible origin and birth, Christians represent a nation that, from
the start, has cut across all worldly-constituted popular and national
identities.
The celestial origin of the Christian people grounds and legitimizes its
freedom and independence from any worldly-constitutedworldly constituted
power. Christians are children of the freeborn woman (Gal 4, 31), the
Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother (Gal 4, 26), and fFor
freedom Christ set us free (Gal 5, 1).
This original Christian freedom has shaken the kingdoms of this world
from the beginning (see Epistle to Diognetus, V, 1-17).
What we want to emphasize here is simply that when the encounter,
recognition and unity of Christians (the body of Christ) truly are takes
placein the truth, that is, when they abide by the realism of their origin, being
and existence, they are not subordinate to any worldly power, nor do they

follow any worldly relational scheme. Such unity has a life of its own and,,
having its own origin, it it is thus capable of originality.
Johns Gospel makes this point through the notion of not belonging to the
world (ek tou kosmou; Jn 17, 14), when discussing the unity of those who
believe and will believe in Him.
II.
The second point we will briefly address deals with the relationship between
Christianity and other religions.
As is well known, the attitude of Christianity towards other religions was
already defined in the first century. Roman tombs from that time reveal
evidence of up to three different religious affiliations in one single family.
A pedagogy mainly aimed at distinguishing the Only one and onlyand
true God from the multiplicity of pagan cults and religions had already been
established for the people of the first Alliance. With the advent of the Son,
that pedagogy reaches its completion and, in Him, it becomes possible to
separate the truthful from the deceitful elements of any single religious
tradition. Test everything; retain what is good. (1 Thess 5, 21).
One should not be surprised that the apex of the Revelation coincides with
the beginning of a broader hermeneutics of both natural and pseudo-revealed
religions. The natural desire of God, typical of any man as a spiritual
creature made in the image and likeness of God, could not be known
outside Gods revelation of Himself. Every natural desire perceives, at once,
the impossibility of being repressed and the ignorance of its origin and final
goal. Only in discovering the answer to that desire, which is incarnated in
Jesus Christ, men know come to know to realize that the truth of that desire
thatsuch desire, outside Christ, was doomed to remain indecipherable.
For centuries, the patristic doctrine of the natural desire of God, according
to which men are created for a supernatural goal that they cannot achieve by
means of their nature or natural strength, has provided the basis for to
interact with, interpreting, analyzing, and interacting with other and analyze
religions. Paul of Tarsus speech on the Athenian hill of Ares (Acts 17)
contains these two elements: on the one hand, it praises what can be praised;
on the other, it critically assesses the idolizing aspects that are inevitably
found in any natural religion.

We know that the first generations of Christians did not see themselves as
a religion among religions. Only after a few centuries of history and
interaction did the de vera religione treatises started start to appear.
Even today, from the point of view of Christianity as the faith and life in
Jesus Christ, the relationship with the many and diverse natural religions
maintains this character of duplicity. It is indeed still clear that Judaism and
Christianity, properly understood, are not religions, and they keep a distinct
nature that is incomparable with traditional or newly-born religions.
One should not argue for a principled and a-priori separation between
faith and reasonreligion. Nonetheless, in both Judaism and Christianity, the
religious level remains normatively subordinated to faith.
Today, therefore, it is clear that the foundation and legitimacy of the
dialogue between Christianity and religions, whether natural or revealed,
comes from within Christianity, because it is directed to the whole of
humankind and, therefore, to all cultures and religions. This dialogue has
specific characteristics that cannot be reduced to those defining civil society
and states. It does not have a political origin or a political goal. As we will see
below, this does not mean that a nexus between these two relational lines
does not or should not exist. It does indicate, however, that even if they
connect, these two levels must remain distinct, both in their beginning and
their end. in both their beginning and their end.
This unclear distinction is at the basis of the notion of the clash of
civilizations, or of that of a Babylonian multiplicity of cultures and religions
that are held together by a higher political order. The first derives from an
incorrect understanding of the union between the political and the religious
levels (politics as the worldly incarnation of religion). The second derives
from an equally incorrect understanding of their distinction (politics as the
container of religion).
III.
An important element in this regard relates to the way how the connection
between the ecumenical dialogue between Christian confessions and the
inter-religious dialogue between the different religions and religious
movements in the world is understood. Starting from the XVI century, the
first has related to the European self-awareness and, therefore, is inherent to
the European identity as such. The second, on the other hand, touches on an
extrinsic identity only extrinsically and, for Christians, itthat represents for

Christians a challenge that is no longer external but internal to the European

continent. For states and European supranational institutions, it is a question
that calls for a redefinition of the notions of "citizenship" and of the role of
politics and its governing laws.
The fact that the phenomenon of large migratory movements across
continents has different meanings for the Christian churches, for nation
states, and supranational institutions should not lead to the incorrect
deduction that it should be looked only from the ecclesiastical or only from
the political point of view in a broadly sense. Even prior to the historical
contingency we are living in, the key question here concerns the existence
and quality of the relationship between Christianity and politics and between
politics and Christianity. This question precedes that of the relationship
between State and Church, Church and State, and of its regulation. In order
to avoid any misunderstanding, reductionism and notions of subordination,
a clarification of the point of departure is necessary. Whose Tolerance
towards whomtolerance? Who is the subject that claims the right of tolerance
and regulationwhich arrogate [claim] for oneself to tolerate and regulate? By
what authority can and must heit do so? A lack of clarity on these basic
questions, on the existing and acting precedents, will inevitably generate
greater confusion. Indeed, human action in any domain, in order to be as
such, requires a sufficient degree of awareness, consciousness and
knowledge.
The most elementary, but also the most important, level of this question
touches on the relationship between Man as homo politicus and Man as homo
religiosus.
In the Judaic-Christian Revelation, Man, as God's creature, is created in His
image and likeness. As God is a communion of Persons, the image defining
human beings is the imago trinitatis. In his very origin, Man is also a being of
communion, due both forto his primary bond with the Creator and for to his
secondary bond with the generational succession.
In European culture and practice, both East and West, North and South,
Western and Eastern, both Northern and Southern, the relationship based on
the Revelation, in which the primary link is theological and the secondary
one, derived from the first, is that with the human species, as an individual of
that species, is embodied in the notion of "human person".
Man as a person means that his bond with the Creator makes him
irreducible to a simple individual of the species and, even less so, to any

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"political" aggregation, to the polis, whatever its type. Man has an inner
identity and dignity that cannot be reduced to any community, be it that
parental (mother-father), ethnic (race) or political (city-nation-state).
Only a theological aggregation, such is as the Church, embraces and
protects the theological dignity of any human person as wanted by the
Creator and called on to partake in His life, called a call to eternity.
Nonetheless, men also live as members of aggregations of various kinds,
grounded based in the family, community, society, work place, and
politypolitical environments. These are transient, they represent neither the
alpha nor the omega of human existence. They do not contain Mans origin or
final destiny, his beginning or final vocation.
From this simple theological anthropology it clearly derives follows that
understanding the political level as including inclusive of the religious
(Christian) one completely reverses the human truth. The reverse contrary isit
true: men manifest themselves as "social animals" starting from their likeness
to the Trinitarian God. Therefore, 1) the religious level cannot be subsumed
assumed under by the political one; and 2) we cannot understand the
political level as completely independent of the religious one, given that the
original constitution of Man's humanity also contributes to the definition of
civil societas, unless we decide to amputate human subjectivity or force it into
a schizophrenic dualism. The fact that men are citizens of two kingdoms does
not and should not mean that the world can be truly constituted in his truth
without being shaped by the otherworld. The idea of a political identity that
is wholly and a-priori detached from each and every religious identity is
possible only if the authentic religious identity is physically removed, and if
the truth of the political realm is falsified. Indeed, we cannot inficiate falsify
one element without simultaneously compromising the other, the cause of
which at the same time. The cause of that is the fundamental anthropology
described above. Each man is at once a citizen of both kingdoms, and any
political system grounded on the negation of Man's truth is doomed to die,
just like any religious system that tries to own appropriate the political
dimension by denying its separate legality.

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IV.
Once we have clarified the nature of the two dimensions and the ordered
connection that regulates their relationship without violating their properties,

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we need to address the specific contribution that Christianity makes to the

question of pluralism. This comprises several elements:
a) For starters, we should acknowledge the anti-totalitarian character of
Christianity, which, which is manifested in several ways. By linking
human identity to the relationship that God establishes with each
spiritual creature (I have produced a male child with the help of the
Lord Gn 4, 1), the Judaic-Christian Revelation delegitimizes any forms
of enslavement and subordination between men. No man is allowed to
own another man, simply because all men are owned by God.
All forms of totalitarianism deny men have theirthe dignity of human
persons., aSinces they are grounded based on the affirmation of a
higher ideological principle that legitimizes the subjugation of the
individual, the individual is merely understood as meaningless and as
an obstacle towards a dominant broader dominant goal.
b) The basis of the de iure statement according to which men are persons is
theological. Its political consequence is that should oneto prevent man,
any and all men, from living according to their his divine vocation to
life and eternity, is to trample on and oppress the basis of their his
dignity, the element on which all other human rights rest, would be
infringed and oppressed. If this right is violated, the presumed respect
of all other rights will be falsified. There is an analogy between this and
life. If we allow accept for the possibility to suppress life, we in turn
accept the elimination of the subject of all rights. Similarly, if we violate
the freedom of religion, we erase that fundamental feature of human
persons that gives meaning to physical life. Freedom in other domains,
then, is devoid of meaning and becomes purely formal.
The mix of anti-humanitarianism and anti-Christianity typical of XX
century totalitarianisms has historically and irrefutably demonstrated
this point.
As the historical guarantor of man-as-person, Christianity has
systematically stopped prevented political institutions from taking
ownership of this fundamental human element and, therefore, of men
themselves. In this sense, Christianity represents poses an obstacle
towards any attempt and form of political totalization. As human
nature is not primarily political, politics will never rightfully take
ownership of men, except by denying their very nature. Then repay to

Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Mt
22,21).
c) In Tthe same way that the person is sui iuris and the political system
must respect this theological datum, the first form of unity and
community among men was defined by the Creator in the union
between Man and Woman (Gn 1). It is not only individual men, but
also the primary union of man and woman that are "in the image and
likeness" of God. The fact that Man is in His image and likeness also
means that he, like his Creator who is Communion of Persons, was not
originally created to be alone, but to live in the communion between
man (male) and woman (female). Therefore, the notion of family is sui
iuris: it has a specific dignity that cannot be modified or altered by any
other human entity, includingand therefore also political ones: what
God has joined together, no human being must separate (Mt 19, 6), nor
the way in which He has joined it.
As shown by research, both the Nnazi and the Ccommunist
totalitarian regimes sprang from, and rested on, a constant and
systematic ideological and practical conflict with the reality of the
family. In fact, studies by Max Horkheimer, Theodor Wiesengrund
Adorno, Erich Fromm and others on the condition of the family prior to
the rise of Nazi Germany have shown that a weak family institution
was one of the most important anthropological factors allowing the
totalitarian regime to rise.
The civil community, the civil society, is a form of aggregation of
secondary importance compared to the familiar form of aggregation
and, therefore, it is required to respect its right. The violation of this
principle damages the social community, and favors the birth of forms
of
inappropriate
totalization,
which
is
already
a
totalitarianismtotalitarianism in nuce.
By establishing the theological foundation of the union between man
and woman, Judaism and Christianity make it possible forassure the
possibility for the the political community to avoid the totalitarian
perversion.
d) The last point addressed here concerns the relationship between the
political dimension and the entire human family. Based on the
Revelation, Christianity and Judaism deem as theological the
foundation of the dignity of both the human person and the entire

human family. God's action stands at the beginning of the single person
and also of humankind. The theological origin of the human species
excludes the possibility for politics to appropriate its reality. Therefore,
it excludes the notion of a political unity of all men. Already at the
beginning of human history, we find an attempt to constitute a union of
men in the polis: Babel. The Lord stops that attempt not because it
would fail, but because it could succeed (Gn 11, 6). Antioch pursues the
same goal and the irreverence (impiety) of his its idea to create one
kingdom of many peoples is condemned (1 Mc 1, 41). We find another
example in St. John's Apocalypse: the political league of the world's
kings who try to achieve universal domination (Apoc 16, 14. 16; 17, 1214; 19, 19).
Both Judaism and Christianity are historical bearers of the principle
whereby power belongs to God (Ps 61, 12; Dn 4, 23). Men's attempt to
create a universal human kingdom, to attain the political union of
humankind, is sinful. It goes against the truth of the human family,
because it goes against the kind of unity instituted by God when He
created it and gave it a purpose (See. H. Schlier).1
As the bearer of a universal non-political principle that answers the
question contained in all natural religions, Christianity gives tooffers the
politics the means to understand different religious identities, especially
those of non-natural (unnatural) religions.
This specific contribution enables political systems to be, at once,
simultaneously open to, and separate from, any religious entity. The
concreteness and practical effectiveness of this contribution can be
appreciated when considering that, today, many sectarian religious currents
are like a cancer inside social structure, whose integrity they undermine.2
On the other hand, Christianity can help to give value to religious entities
that can represent an important element of social cohesion for certain
minorities and, thus, increase social order and peace.
In Europe, the principle repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to
God what belongs to God (Mt 22, 21) has promoted a healthy distinction but
Ges Cristo e la storia secondo lApocalisse di san Giovanni, in Riflessioni sul Nuovo Testamento, tr. it., Brescia
19762, pp. 469-477; ID., La fine del tempo, tr. it., Brescia 1974, p. 89.
2 See Ministry of Interior reports of Belgium and Italy, inter alia.
1

Comment [GJ1]: In English, the world

unnatural is used. Not sure, however, if this
non is there for a specific reason.

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also a healthy connection between politics and religion. It has prevented the
empire from subjugating the Church, but has also constituted an obstacle
against theocratic systems, in which the political community becomes totally
identifieds with the religious one. This remains true despite the numerous
historical examples in which the Church has been tempted to exercise direct
political power, or politicians have subsumed absorbed the Church within
their umbrella, or have led it to inappropriate forms of cooperation that have
confused political tolerance with religious freedom.
One last contribution from Christianity to politics rests in the connection
between religion and ethics. In the peoples and nations where the Christian
faith has been present, a related ethics has developed which has influenced
both private and public life. Christianity has introduced a new anthropology
and new evidences that have grounded a new morals and a new ethics. This
has left a profound mark in on civil society.
Only starting from the XVI and XVII centuries new ideologies tried to
eradicate some values and convictions implanted by Christianity, detaching
them from their religious origin. This cutting separation could live as long as
the Christian source from which it derived also remained alive. Once the
latter cankered and flaked off, the moral evidences and moral norms could
no longer provide effective existential guidance. Hence the repeated attempts
to "laically" ground ethics, whose failure is before everyone's eyes - unless we
want to call this resounding "progress" this resounding dbcle "progress".
Christianity remains the real foundation of Western morals and ethics,
where these they still exist. Based on this origin, the distinction between law
and ethics still exists in Europe, while it is lacking in those societies in which
politics and religion are not separate, either because religion has engulfed the
social and political order, or because the political realm has decreed its
sovereignty above Christianity and Christendom.
V. Concluding reflections on our present.
De-Christianization and the collection of mono-culturalisms
While we can still find scholars of tolerance (Will Kimblicka, etc.), today
the notion that better reflects its original political meaning is that of multiculturalism, which also embraces the category of multi-religiosity.
Multiculturalism is more politically correct because it does not convey the

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sense of hierarchy implied in the idea of tolerance, which rests on the

distinction between who tolerates and who is tolerated. Furthermore, it
eschews the limitation always emphasized by traditional scholars of the
concept of tolerance, whereby the political use of the latter cannot be
indiscriminately extended to all, except at the risk of self-annihilation (see J.
Locke).
In addition, in order to succeed, the idea of tolerance needs a strong
political identity (see A. Touraine).
Today, Europe, in particular Northern Europe, is in a situation of general
de-christianization. After a long period of secularization, large portions of
society have definitely become de-christianized. In many cases, this long
period of secularization has not led to a clear and recognized separation from
the Christian identity, due to the close link between state and ecclesiastical
institutions. This link, and the related possibility to keep lucrative and
socially recognized activities in ecclesiastical institutions tied to the financing
of the state, or simply recognized by the latter, artificially prolonged an
agony that had started long before. The institutions defined and labeled as
Christian, Lutheran, Anglican, or Catholic had remained, but the
Christian people no longer existed.
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In the midst of this situation, another phenomen has taken place brought on
by other factors: the growthThe growing phenomenon of massive population
flows coming from different religions and cultures to European countries. has
started against this backdrop. In some countries, such as France and Great
Britain, members of imported religions are statistically equal to, or even
greater than, members of the Christian religion.
These countries have also long stopped viewing politics as a dimension of
social life that cannotis be separainseparableted from the Christian identity.
Liberal states as such are not a-confessional, they are self-constituted and
detached from any national and religious identity.
In this situation, multiculturalism is a way to label a de facto condition and
to try to identify the compatibility between a residual identity and the de facto
pluralism (real pluralism) of diverse and diversified presences.
As the institution in control of the strong powers (economy, legislation,
administration, police and armed forces), the state sees itself as formally
superior to imported instances, to the imported realities.

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The role of the Christian identity in all of this is indirect, unnamed and
unqualified, not because it is so, but because it should be so.
There Is thereis something to think or to rethink regarding this topic?
Above all, perhaps, we should ask questions about the identity of the subject
tasked with such an intellectual endeavor.
One last point. The theleology of tolerance, as a political category relating to
religion (different Christian confessions) has always been and still is about
social peace, both between different political systems and within them. The
theory of tolerance and that of peace go hand in hand. As in the XVII century,
today the ultimate goal of keeping together the multiplicity of religious
identities is peace.
What is the value of this approach from the Christian point of view?
From the Christian perspective, a theory of pluralism that brackets the
question of truth and focuses only on the lack of social and political conflict is
unacceptable, because peace without truth is not peace but just the shadow
(appearance) of it. As such, it is doomed to reveal its true nature, which is the
contrary of peace. Falsehood always begets violence, even when it has a
pacifying role. Between unity based on falsityin lie and disunity based onin
truth, Christians will choose the second. Outside the truth everything
becomes corrupt and, if the truth makes free, falsehood creates an evil
dependence.
Now, what scholars of multiculturalism and thinkers of the theology of
religious pluralism despise the most is precisely the truth claim of both
Judaism and Christianity. Yet, outside the truth on regarding God and Man,
every social and political system is bound to turn into something that
contradicts man himself,; a and any aggregation thus generated has bears in
itself the seeds of its own destruction.
In this moment of European history, the explicit responsibility of
Christians is to to look at the issueraise the question from the standpoint
based on truth, the truth that is given, not the one we claim we can build.
Even only logically speaking, the truth is the starting point, not the result, of
reasoning. Only if we start from the truth we can attain a fuller and more
complete truth. The human intellect recognizes the truth, it does not create it.3
3

D.A. CARSON rightfully stressed that neither the old tolerance nor the new is an intellectual position in

The Intolerance of Tolerance, Grand Rapids Michigan 20132, p. 98. A same view is in H. LONDON, Americas
Secular Challenge. The Rise of a New National Religion, New York, 2008.

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On the question of religions, Christians are, for political systems, societies

and states, a compass that can give a certain direction that they do not have
in themselves and are not required to have, by their very nature.
Usually, states understand the nature of a religious community only when
it produces social disorder and crimes against humanity. At this point,
however, it can already be too late, or the cancer can have already spread to
the entire organism. This is when we realize that prevention would have
been more effective than the cure.
When it was discovered that the H5N1 virus is carried by poultry, states
did not close their borders to the virus, but to the animals. On the issue under
discussion here, however, despite having identified the mortal virus, we keep
on importing poultry.
The task, for Christians, is not primarily political. Yet, the health of a whole
political system can benefit from referring to a Christian perspective.