Religious Insights in the Public Debate: A Tribute to Hendrik M. Vroom

In this tribute to Henk Vroom, Peter Jonkers discusses a topic both he and Vroom were very interested in: religious insights in the public debate. In this article Jonkers first explores the current situation of religiosity in the West, which can be typified as individualized religiosity. He then argues that this religiosity cannot rely on a tradition of reasonable debate and critical self-reflection, which jeopardizes public debate. These developments have certain effects on the nature of religious insights and the public debate at large. Jonkers develops Vroom’s notion of dialogical pluralism to investigate these effects. He examines the question whether the idea of (religious) wisdom can offer (new) common ground for this dialogue and argues that this idea is not as ‘solid’ as the reasoned truth claims of the established religious traditions, that it rests on a broader and less procedural idea of reason than the secular type of rationality that dominate political liberalism, and that it does more justice to the narrative, local, and fragmented character of the individualized religiosity of our times than traditional (religious and secular) doctrine.