Pulse
17 Nov 2025
In this article, we turn to the third principle which I mentioned briefly in my opening remarks at a dialogue on social cohesion with the ASEAN delegates in June, namely, principled pluralism. Together with the first two principles – the common good and solidarity – principled pluralism for the Christian is not merely a pragmatic strategy, but grounded in solid theological convictions.
Principled pluralism is basically a normative political and social theory that recognises and affirms the legitimacy of a plurality of moral and religious communities in the public square. It insists that the State should neither privilege nor suppress any particular worldview.
Principled pluralism distinguishes itself from the strategy which assumes that secularism is the default framework for the State to govern society, giving only a superficial nod to the religious convictions of its members. It is also distinct from relativism, which ‘democratises’ all truth claims and arguments.
From the Christian perspective, principled pluralism is an approach whose justification can be found in the New Testament itself. Unlike the old covenant, which arguably can be used to support a form of theocracy or the idea of a ‘Christian’ nation, the new covenant presents a radically different relationship between God and nation.
Upon the inauguration of the new covenant, God does not mediate his salvific activity in the world through a special relationship with a particular nation or a particular political order. As Jonathan Chaplin explains:
Principled pluralists, then, hold that the Old Testament people of God played a dispensationally unique, unrepeatable, and inimitable role as a divinely established political community.
This implies that no nation can be ‘Christian’ in the sense that it is especially chosen and protected by God. Most proponents of the ‘Christian nation’ hypothesis tend to draw paradigms and parallels from the Old Testament simply because they can garner no support from the New Testament.
The New Testament portrays the State as inevitably composed of many different faith communities. This situation continued in the early period of the Church’s history until the fourth century when Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity and aided in the development of Christendom.
(However, even the so-called Christian commonwealth that Constantine helped to shape – in which Church and state cooperate to establish a Christian society – cannot be described as truly Christian. But this is a subject for another article.)
Several profound implications follow from the recognition of religious and cultural plurality of the State or nation.
The first is that there can be no such thing as a ‘naked public square’ – a public arena where religious voices are excluded and religious symbols stripped away in the name of secularism or neutrality. This is a myth which principled pluralism has exposed not just as being unrealistic but also harmful to public discourse and democracy.
Neither can we entertain the idea that the secular State is morally neutral. Rather, the State’s moral commitments are part of the plurality of worldviews which must also be subjected to public debate if society and the democracy it practises are to mature.
The public debate itself should not be conducted according to the dictates of ‘public reason’, as proposed by the influential political philosopher, John Rawls. What is proposed by the concept of ‘public reason’ is a set of rules governing public discourse in a pluralistic society which restricts arguments to those that only ‘reasonable’ citizens can accept.
What this often means in practice is that arguments that are based on religious or faith traditions (‘comprehensive doctrines’, in Rawlsian terminology) are immediately disqualified. They are bracketed away from public discourse because they are deemed unintelligible to the secular public.
As Christian writers such as Richard Neuhaus and Nicholas Wolterstorff have rightly argued, this is nothing other than the privatisation of religion, a forced exclusion from public discourse.
On May 7, 2008, evangelical leaders such as Os Guinness, Richard Mouw and John Stott issued An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment. The document roundly rejects the notion of the ‘naked public square.’
‘Nothing is more illiberal,’ it argues, ‘than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are and shapes the way they see the world.’ Although the Manifesto did not directly address Rawls’ notion of public reason, it unequivocally exposes its disingenuousness.
However, just as the notion of the ‘naked public square’ must be debunked, the idea of the ‘sacred public square’ – where one religion dominates – must also be called into question.
The Manifesto rightly rejects the idea of the ‘sacred public square’ because (speaking to the American context) such a model:
… would continue to give a preferred place in public life to one religion which in almost all most current cases would be the Christian faith, but could equally be another faith.
The document goes on to make this important point:
In a society as religiously diverse as America today, no one faith should be normative for the entire society, yet there should be room for the free expression of faith in the public square.
This paragraph brings to expression the very essence of principled pluralism.
For Christians, this principle is not a betrayal of the Gospel, for it does not prohibit them from presenting the truth which Scripture teaches and its relevance to the modern world. However, it urges Christians to do so – as I underscored in my comments at the dialogue session with the ASEAN delegates – in the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15, that is, with ‘gentleness and respect.’
Principled pluralism can be said to better serve society and democracy than strategic or procedural secularism because it recognises and respects the different views of its members. People from different faith traditions and political philosophies are invited to the table where they can discuss their views honestly and openly without being restricted to only a particular rationality.
This process itself creates a sense of solidarity among the participants – a real sense of a shared common life and a shared future, not only for themselves but also for the next generation. And this in turn will keep the common good in clear focus, where personal and group convictions are negotiated for the sake of the community.
Principled pluralism rejects both the ‘naked public square’ and the ‘sacred public square’ because they misrepresent society and cripple public discourse. Instead, it recommends the ‘civil public square.’
In the words of the Manifesto, the ‘civil public square’ has to do with a
… vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within the framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths too.
A civil public square, undergirded by the precept of principled pluralism, is premised on the golden rule (Matthew 7:12), which is intuited by many cultures and religions. The Manifesto explains it well: ‘… every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others.’
A society which practises principled pluralism will be inclusive in that it will not jettison voices which belong to a particular religious or philosophical tradition. It respects the dignity of difference even as it holds every individual and every group accountable to public justice.
In this way, principled pluralism fosters social harmony by deepening the sense of solidarity while urging all to serve the common good.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.