Religions as a source of (dis)order

Abstract

Would it be fair to say that religious people in general are more suspicious of the believers of other religions than of those who claim to have no faith at all? If the pivotal role of religiosity consists in bringing meaning and order to human life, why should different religions see their respective “orders” as threatening one another? Isn’t it possible to trust in the midst of the multi-ordered reality of world faiths while acknowledging the presence (in all religions) of the untruth despite all the truth? This paper seeks to explore those and similar questions by means of elaborating on religions as potential contributors to a global ecumenism. Building upon insights of Charles Taylor and Hans Küng, I show in what sense the world religions can be considered the source of order as well as disorder and how the plurality of religiouslybased “orders” can be accepted and embraced with trust rather than suspicion.