Pluralism versus Pluralization. How the Protection of Cultural Diversity Can Turn Against New Forms of Religious Diversity

Abstract

Objective/Context: This paper examines the arguments of the Constitutional Court of Colombia in a sentence declaring that Pentecostalism represents a threat to indigenous cultures and to the country’s cultural diversity. The sentence was issued in 1998, a few years after the political Constitution (1991) declared that Colombia is a pluralist nation that protects the cultural diversity of the country and the right to religious freedom. Methodology: A qualitative and hermeneutical study of the sentence was implemented to understand the arguments presented by the Court. Subsequently, a critical analysis of those arguments was carried out, questioning the pluralist presuppositions related to key categories such as “indigenous cultures,” “religion,” and “diversity.” Conclusions: The pluralist institution has been unable to recognize the dynamic and manifold realities of lived religion, as well as the problems related to the double marginalization of a religious minority within an ethnic minority. Furthermore, the pluralist imperative to protect cultural diversity places limits upon alterity and promotes new forms of exclusion. Originality: The jurisprudence under scrutiny is not studied in its legal or ethical dimensions—as it has been done in the past—but as the implementation of a pluralist ideology grounded in a certain worldview. Thus, pluralism is critically examined in its ontological, axiological, epistemological, and praxeological principles.

Keywords

• pluralism
• religion
• diversity
• identity
• indigenous communities
• new religious movements