Abstract
AbstractThis Article seeks to explore the nature, function, source, and content of a constitutional civil religion (CCR) within Singapore’s constitutional experiment in managing the diversity of race and religion and promoting solidarity. CCR is constructed as a strategy to secure social harmony within the world’s most religiously diverse polity, through recognizing an irreducible plurality in ethnic and religious terms, while maintaining an indivisible unity through nurturing bonds of citizen solidarity. This dovetails with the function of the constitution as an instrument of social integration, involving the articulation and regular affirmation of shared community values and aspirations, as well as process and practices—or public rituals—which regulate dispute resolution or conflict management during instances or crises where racial and religious harmony is threatened. A functional approach is taken towards the idea of a civil religion, and the tasks of integration, legitimation, and inspiration it may play within a constitutional order. The nature of civil religion in general, and the sources of CCR in Singapore, as well as its expression as a public ritual in managing religious disharmony disputes is discussed.
Highlights
Common Values and Social StabilityPrinceton theologian Max Stackhouse observed that “no complex civilization capable of including many peoples and sub-cultures within it has endured without a profound and subtle religiously oriented philosophy or theology at its core.”[27]
This Article seeks to explore the nature, function, source, and content of a constitutional civil religion (CCR) within Singapore’s constitutional experiment in managing the diversity of race and religion and promoting solidarity
CCR is constructed as a strategy to secure social harmony within the world’s most religiously diverse polity, through recognizing an irreducible plurality in ethnic and religious terms, while maintaining an indivisible unity through nurturing bonds of citizen solidarity. This dovetails with the function of the constitution as an instrument of social integration, involving the articulation and regular affirmation of shared community values and aspirations, as well as process and practices—or public rituals—which regulate dispute resolution or conflict management during instances or crises where racial and religious harmony is threatened
Summary
Princeton theologian Max Stackhouse observed that “no complex civilization capable of including many peoples and sub-cultures within it has endured without a profound and subtle religiously oriented philosophy or theology at its core.”[27]. A “purely civil profession of faith” was needed to discipline society, constituting “a body of social sentiments without which no man can be either a good citizen or a faithful subject.”[43] Rousseau identified a few dogmatic tenets the state was to espouse, essentially a bland form of deism, such as belief in the existence of God and the afterlife, the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, the sanctity of the social contract and laws, and excluding religious intolerance This ersatz religion “was to be constructed and imposed from the top down as an artificial source of civic virtue.”[44] The Indonesian Pancasila and Malaysian Rukunegara, statements of national ideology within Muslim-majority plural societies, represent attempts to unify a diverse population and promote broad social cooperation.[45] Religiously-based civic religion attempting to connect the present with the past is found in Thailand, where Buddhist teachings as a major pillar of Thai civic religion are presented both as supporting traditional values and democratic changes.[46] Attempts to revive Japanese Shintoism sought to bolster Japanese social identity and destiny.[47]. Promoting this CCR to gain widespread acceptance and internalization and as a resource for managing crises
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