The Authority of the Holy Revisited: Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities

Author(s): Michele Dillon

Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Nov., 1999), pp. 290-306
Published by: American Sociological Association
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 The Authority of the Holy Revisited:
Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities*
MICHELE DILLON
Yale University

Thisarticle argues thatJiirgenHabermas'sview of religion as anathemato rational crit-

ical discourse reflectshis misunderstandingthatreligion comprisesa monolithicand im-
mutablebody of dogma that is closed to reason. Illustrativedatafrom Catholic history
andtheologyandempiricaldatagatheredfromcontemporaryAmerican Catholicsare used
to show the weaknesses in Habermas'snegation of the possibility of a self-critical reli-
gious discourse. Specifically, I highlight the doctrinal differentiationwithin Catholi-
cism,its longstandingtheologicalemphasison thecouplingoffaithandreason,institutional
reflexivity,and the doctrinallyreflexivereasoningthatcontemporaryCatholicsuse in ne-
gotiating whatmightappear as "contradictory" identities(e.g., being gay or lesbian and
Catholic).Althoughthedatapresentedtake issue withHabermas'sdisavowal of religion,
the article shows that the practical relevance of doctrinal reasoning at both the institu-
tional and the individuallevel vindicateHabermas'sfaith in the emancipatorypotential
of reasoned argumentationto advance participative equality.

Central to Jiirgen Habermas'sTheory of CommunicativeAction is the proposition that

critically reasoned deliberation, rather than appeals to tradition, sentiment, or religious
belief, is the mechanism that facilitates and pushes social action. In Habermas's "ideal
speech situation,"participantsseek to reach a common understandingof the situation or
question at issue and of plans for mutually agreed, future action (1984:86). In this ideal-
istic communicative context, participantsuse language to raise validity claims about the
propositionaltruth,normativerightness, and sincerity of statementsmade by one another
(ibid.:75). The purpose of reciprocal deliberationis to find a reasoned consensus that in
turnbecomes the basis for action. Communicativeaction is thus a cooperative process of
reasoned interpretive negotiation "in which no participanthas a monopoly on correct
interpretation"(ibid.:100). As Habermaselaborates,

Communicativelyachieved agreementmust be based in the end on reasons.And the

rationality of those who participate in this communicative practice is determined
whether, if necessary, they could under suitable circumstancesprovide reasons for
their expressions .... The "strength" of an argument is measured in a given context
by the soundness of the reasons; that can be seen in, among other things, whetheror
not an argumentis able to convince the participantsin a discourse, that is, to moti-
vate them to accept the validity claim in question. (1984:17-18)

Habermas'sconcept of an ideal speech situationruled by reason has been criticized on

many grounds.In particular,his theorizingmarginalizesthe importanceof power inequal-
ities in social interactionand the differentinterests,experiences, and language capabilities

*Address correspondenceto the authorat Departmentof Sociology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208265, New
Haven, CT 06520-8265; michele.dillon@yale.edu.The argumentpresentedin this paperis derivedfrom a broader
study entitled, Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999). I
thank Craig Calhoun and two reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

SociologicalTheory17:3November1999
? AmericanSociologicalAssociation.1307New YorkAvenueNW,Washington,
DC 20005-4701
HABERMASAND RELIGION 291

that participantsbring to a particularcommunicative context (see, for example, Calhoun

1995; Frazer and Lacey 1993:19-21, 144-47; Gould 1996; Young 1996). Habermas's
emphasison reason negates the relevance of emotion and the affective attachmentsthat are
part of people's experiences, and underappreciatesthe metaphorical,rhetorical,and sto-
rytelling dimensions of communication (Young 1996). Moreover as PatriciaHill Collins
(1990:212) observes, "new knowledge claims arerarelyworkedout in isolation from other
individuals and are developed throughdialogue with other membersof a community."Yet
the implications of individuals' participationin specific social and cultural contexts are
ignored by Habermas(see Delanty 1997).
Given Habermas'sembraceof what Iris Young (1990:125) calls "thedisembodiedcold-
ness of modernreason,"it is not a surprisethatHabermasdismisses validity claims that are
taintedby their association with what he sees as nonrationaldomains of life. Religion, for
Habermas(see 1975:120), is one such sphere. His evolutionaryschema of societal devel-
opment sees religion losing its relevance in a modern, rationally differentiatedsociety
wherein "the authorityof the holy is graduallyreplaced by the authorityof an achieved
consensus"(1987:77). Accordingly, "the auraof raptureand terrorthat emanatesfrom the
sacred,the spellbindingpower of the holy, is sublimatedinto the binding/bonding force of
criticizable validity claims and at the same time turned into an everyday occurrence"
(ibid.; italics in original). In Habermas's view, since the redemptive faith beliefs of a
religious traditioncannotbe rationallycritiqued,he regardsreligious discourse "as limited
in the degree of its freedom of communication"(1992:233). For Habermas, a reasoned
religious discourse would necessarily shed its religious component, because it would be
"no longer borrowed from the language of a specific religious tradition, but from the
universe of argumentative discourse that is uncoupled from the event of revelation"
(ibid.:233).
It is of course true thatjust as one cannot defend one's aesthetic or culturaltastes using
reasons thatcan be objectively validated,neitheris it possible to mount a reasoneddefense
of the validity of particulartenets of faith. Yetjust because religious faith cannot be ratio-
nally defended does not mean that all aspects of a religious traditionare closed to reason.
Habermasfails to appreciatethis. He treats religion as a monolithic and reified phenom-
enon, and in doing so, does not recognize the multiplicityof strandsand discoursesthat are
characteristicof both premodernand post-Enlightenmentreligions.
For example, Habermastakes no account of the influence of Greekphilosophical scep-
ticism on early religious thinkers (e.g., Saint Augustine), and its subsequentreemergence
and impact on debates within Christianityespecially evident in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries (see Popkin 1979:xiv-xviii). Nor does he pay any attentionto the differ-
entiating impact on religious traditionsof the cross-fertilizationof ideas between Judaism
and Christianity(see Popkin and Weiner 1994), or of the influence of Muslim philosophy
on Catholic theologians such as Thomas Aquinas (see Esposito 1998:74). Habermassim-
ilarly ignores the place of reason in these religious traditions, and he overlooks, as the
HarvardCatholic theologian Francis Schussler Fiorenza points out, how transformations
in religion and theology have brought "the critical principles of Enlightenmentinto reli-
gion itself and into theological reflection" (1992:74).
Habermas's conceptual polarization of religion and reason obscures the historically
ongoing hermeneutic and interpretiveactivity involved in understandingrevelation, and
how as part of this process, diverse religious traditionsare open to reasoned self-criticism.
His religion thesis thus takes no accountof the self-conscious legitimatingrole of reasoned
argumentationin Judaism (see Fisch 1997:39), the modernistdebates within Islam in the
late nineteenthcentury (Esposito 1998:126-57), or the coupling of "faith and reason"in
Catholictheology evident in variousguises from SaintAugustineonwards(McCool 1977).
292 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

Contraryto Habermas'sundifferentiatedand static view of religion, every tradition

contains a "pluralityof ways" (see Tracy 1987:95; see also Fisch 1997:190). There is, as
the Catholic theologian David Tracy argues, "no such thing as an unambiguoustradition"
(1987:36-37). There are, therefore,"no noninterpretiveahistoricalessences to be found in
words like Christianity,Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Within each of these
greatways and amongthe many similaritiesthatrenderthem distinctfamilies, thereremain
many ways to be Christian,Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu" (ibid.:95). Since reli-
gion, as indicatedfrom earliest times by the rhetoricaldevices and representationalforms
used in scripturalaccounts,is, in part,an interpretive,hermeneuticactivity,doctrinalinter-
pretationsand the argumentsadvancedto supportparticularinterpretationswill necessar-
ily be contingent on the specific contexts in which various religious paradigms are
appropriatedand given meaning. As argued by Paul Ricoeur (1995:72), "revelationis a
historical process," and as such, "the process of revelation is a permanentprocess of
opening something that is closed, of making manifest something that was hidden."
This article uses Catholicism to illustratethe limitations of Habermas'sunderstanding
of religion. I draw on historical accounts and on empirical data gatheredamong contem-
poraryAmericanCatholics to demonstratethat religious doctrineis differentiated,that its
discourse incorporatesreasoned argumentation,and that doctrinallyreflexive critiqueis a
centralfeatureboth of the Catholic Churchas an institutionand of Catholics' dispositions
towardreligiousdoctrine.Buildingon this data,I suggestthatHabermas'srefusalto acknowl-
edge the emancipatorypossibilities derivedfrom doctrinalreasoningmeans thathe ignores
evidence that can be used to counterargueagainst scholars such as Iris Young (1996), who
critique the theory of communicative action for its bias toward the status quo.

DOCTRINALDIFFERENTIATION
At first glance, Catholicism may present as an unlikely religious traditionto choose as a
counterpointto Habermas'sview of religion as a monopolizing and coercive interpretive
force. In particular,papal claims since the Middle Ages to the supremacyand universality
of its interpretive authority,the church's episodes of antimodernism(see Kurtz 1986)
culminatingwith the formalizationof papal infallibility at VaticanI (1869-70), and more
contemporaneously,the didacticism of the doctrinal positions expressed by the current
pope (John Paul II, 1978-), may be used to argue that the Catholic Churchprivileges the
authorityof hierarchicaloffice and the invocation of dogma and traditionover reasoned
communication.Yet to see Catholicism solely throughthese lenses is to obfuscate many
other strandswithin its long and multifacetedtradition.
The differentiationwithin Catholicism derives from the fact that the church's organi-
zational structure,doctrines, and practices are not the product of a divinely prescribed
blueprintbut evolve and vary in response to differentsocietal circumstances.Dogma is not
pregiven but is extrapolatedand developed over time. Thus, even what might be consid-
ered the core tenets of a religious traditionhave, in many cases, been subjectto interpretive
contestation. For example, although the church from Apostolic times has affirmed the
human incarnationof Christ, early church councils (Antioch and Nicaea) elaboratedon
this belief in response to Gnostic and other heretical interpretations.
The contextualnatureof doctrineis even more pronouncedin the case of official church
stricturesregardinginstitutionalpracticesandpersonalmorality.Catholicismis not a mono-
lithic tradition,and what particularstrandsget accentuatedat any one time may be seen in
large part as a reflection of various cross-cutting historical, political, and cultural vari-
ables. It is evident, for example, that even though an emphasis on papal authorityhas been
a significant characteristicof the churchsince the middle ages, and especially pronounced
following the declaration of papal infallibility at the end of the nineteenth century, the
HABERMASAND RELIGION 293

institutionalizationof papal infallibility was driven by sociopolitical ratherthan theolog-

ical forces. The medieval historian Brian Tierney (1971:863) argues that although "[a]11
the standardCatholic discussions of infallibility emphasize continuity ratherthan change
in the church's teaching on this matter... it is very hard for a historianto see the emer-
gence of the doctrine of papal infallibility as the slow unfolding of a truththat the church
has always held."
That there are multiple and mutable strandswithin Catholicism is furtherhighlighted
by the early history of the church. Reconstructedhistorical accounts point to evidence
of an egalitarian and communal church, more akin to a "discipleship of equals" (see
SchtisslerFiorenza 1993) than to an authoritarianhierarchicalstructure.Even as the church
became more bureaucratizedand imperialist, the universal claims of the papacy were
restrictedin practice by local churchsynods (see Grant1970:157-59; Hollister 1964:216,
223).
The discontinuities in official church teaching are also evident in the domain of per-
sonal and public morality.Thus, for example, Catholic doctrine on, among other issues,
usury, slavery, divorce (e.g., Noonan 1993), abortion(Connery 1977), and homosexuality
(Boswell 1984, 1994) has undergonemajor transformationsover time in response to the
exigencies of particularhistorical and cultural contexts. Therefore, even though official
church statementstoday may refer to the absolute and unchangingnatureof the church's
position on an issue such as abortion,it is evident that the alleged "constanttradition"that
is invoked contains, in fact, many doctrinalruptures.

FAITHAND REASON
Equally relevant, the Catholic theological tradition has had a longstanding theological
emphasis on the coupling of faith and reason. Following the major influence of Saint
Augustine on the development of Christiantheology, appreciationfor the practicalinter-
relation between faith and reason has been a centerpiece of the Catholic tradition.This
emphasis contrastswith perspectives that privilege either a biblical literalism or a "blind
leap" approachto faith (McCool 1977). The mutualitybetween faith and reason has many
implicationsfor the developmentand elaborationof Catholicdoctrine.It confers the expec-
tation that church teachings should be reasonableand should make practical sense, while
at the same time recognizing that faith itself should not be subject to a disembodiedratio-
nalism. Since Catholic theology is not derived from a biblical fundamentalismbut is a
"living tradition"(Curran1992), its doctrinalethics must engage with the practicaldilem-
mas confrontedby people in their particularsociohistorical context.
The mutualityof faith and reason has importantimplications for how the "authorityof
the holy" is understood within the institutional bounds of the church and in the daily
routines of Catholics. It is noteworthy, for example, that even though the contemporary
papacy uses a ratherexpansive interpretationof its power to define Catholic identity, the
church'scanon law affirmsthe consensual collegial basis of the churchhierarchy'steach-
ing authority(Sullivan 1991:59). The exercise of papal infallibility is thus constrainedby
the communicative "consensus"that exists within the church on a particularissue; in the
absence of such a consensus, bishops, theologians, and ordinaryCatholics may reasonably
question the definitiveness or infallibility of specific papal pronouncementssuch as, for
example, the ban on women's ordination. The embrace of a practical, communicative
reason highlights the fact that assent to churchteaching is a cognitive process requiringan
act of reflective judgment. Accordingly, "sincere assent" to the teachings of the church
hierarchycannot be coerced (Sullivan 1983:162); it must be facilitatedratherby the artic-
ulation of sound reasons in supportof the doctrinalinterpretationoffered, ratherthan by
appeals to traditionor formal authority.
294 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

INSTITUTIONALREFLEXIVITYAND COMMUNICATIVEREASON

Habermas'sargumentthat in moderntimes the spellbindingpower of the holy is displaced

by the binding force of criticizable validity claims demonstrateshis one-sided view of
religion and his dichotomous positioning of religion as anathemato critically reasoned
communication.This precludes him from appreciatingthe ways in which religious insti-
tutions use reflexivity and rational critique in their own doctrines and practices in ways
that seek to be emancipatory.Similar to other modern institutionalmechanisms such as
democracy or law, for example, Catholicism can be seen as containing resources that
nurturethe "promiseof emancipation"from the inequalitiesthatit itself createsthroughits
exclusionary rules (regardingwomen, or gays and lesbians, for example).'
In the case of Catholicism, the Second VaticanCouncil (1962-65) offers a clear exam-
ple of the church engaging in a reasoned critique of its teachings and practices, and of
Catholic identity as a whole. In church history, VaticanII is widely considered a revolu-
tionary event (O'Malley 1989:19) that opened the church to a more active, public, and
critical-emancipatoryrole in the modernworld. In particular,VaticanII can be seen as an
institutional counterpoint to the church's antimodernismthat was crystallized by Vati-
can I's authoritarianismalmost one hundredyears earlier(see Seidler and Meyer 1989). At
the same time, nonetheless, VaticanII should not be seen as an aberrationin the church's
history since its emphases on communal equality and communicative reason (discussed
below) were clearly in continuity with strandsin the early church and with the church's
communal responsiveness highlighted throughouthistory by changes in official church
doctrines.
VaticanII's doctrinalandinstitutionalcritiqueset many wide-rangingchangesin motion.
Of particularsignificance, the doctrinalsynthesis it articulatedsought to balance the pri-
macy of the interpretiveauthorityof the churchhierarchywith a new emphasis on respect
for lay competence and reasoneddialogue among all churchmembers(and between Cath-
olics and non-Catholics). Vatican II was emphatic that the laity should be given "every
opportunity"to "participatein the saving work of the Church,"and that lay people should
be permittedand obliged to express informedopinions on issues pertainingto "thegood of
the Church"(Abbott 1966:60,64). This exhortationsuggestedthatlay participationextended
to saving the church from inegalitarianpractices that contravenethe church'sown admo-
nition that greaterrecognition be given to the "just freedom" and "basic equality" of all
(ibid.: 64-65, 227).
That VaticanII obligated the formationof prochangemovements to reconstructa more
egalitarianchurchwas also apparentfrom its understandingof culture.The council affirmed
thatmen and women are the conscious "artisansand authors"of theirculture.Since people
are responsible for "the progress of culture,"the council noted that this may lead them to
look "anxiously upon many contradictions which [they] will have to resolve" (Abbott
1966:261). It was clearly the council's intent that contradictionswithin the church should
be the object of collective action. The council stated that "by their combined efforts" lay
people should "remedyany institutionsand conditions of the world which are customarily
an inducementto sin, so that all such things may be conformed to the norms of justice"
(ibid.:63). Significantly, VaticanII acknowledged the gap between theory and practice in
the church's institutionallife and arguedthat it should be redeemed, stating: "it does not
escape the Churchhow greata distance lies between the message she offers and the human
failings of those to whom the gospel is entrusted"(ibid.:245).

'Ulrich Beck (1992:183) argues that modernity"has become the threatand the promise of emancipationfrom
the threatthat it creates itself" (emphasis in original).
HABERMASAND RELIGION 295

VaticanII explicitly affirmedthe reasoned interpretiveequality of all churchmembers,

and observed that people must "be free to search for the truth, voice [their] mind, and
publicize it" (Abbott 1966:265). Most important,to furtherthis endeavor,VaticanII insti-
tutionalizedthe centralityof deliberativecommunaldialogue.Althoughthe councilreminded
the laity that they should give "close attention to the teaching authorityof the Church"
(ibid.:244), it nevertheless rejected the authorityof sacred office in favor of the authority
of communicative reason. It stated: "it is necessary for people to rememberthat no one is
allowed ... to appropriatethe Church'sauthorityfor his opinion. They should always try
to enlighten one another through honest discussion ... all the faithful, clerical and lay,
possess a lawful freedom of inquiryand of thought,and the freedom to express theirminds
humbly and courageously aboutthose mattersin which they enjoy competence"(ibid.:244,
269-70). Since VaticanII also aspiredfor lay people to "develop and deepen"their under-
standing of the "sacredsciences" (ibid.:270), it is apparentthat the council did not intend
a narrow view of lay competence that was limited to nonreligious issues. The council
clarified in fact that it would be throughdialogue with the laity that pastors would "more
clearly and more suitably come to decisions regarding spiritual and temporal matters"
(ibid.:65).2
In sum, Vatican II recognized the importance of engaged critical dialogue as central
both to the church's communal vibrancy and to the obligation to bridge the gap between
values and practices in its own institutionallife (and in society as a whole). This readingof
Vatican II, therefore, provides evidence of a religious institution acknowledging that its
own religious traditionis subjectto reasonedcritique, a critique, moreover,that VaticanII
itself executed. Critiquewas clearly envisaged as a process of ongoing communal delib-
eration and one that extended to interrogatingthe doctrinal validity of institutionaldoc-
trines and practices that contravenethe church's own ethics of, for example, equality.
This overview of various strandswithin Catholicism illustratesthat "theholy" is multi-
faceted and contextuallyfluid, and thatthis has been the case, to a greateror lesser degree,
since the church'sfoundation.Habermas'sundifferentiatedview of religion cannot accom-
modate the fact that a religious tradition'sown view of "the holy" evolves and shifts in
response to changing socioculturalconditions and as part of collective self-reflexive pro-
cesses that incorporatean historical consciousness. This clearly is not just true of Cathol-
icism, but is also evident in varying ways in other religious traditions (e.g., what Fisch
[1997:43] identifies as the "self-doubting voice of talmudic culture," or what Esposito
[1998:127] refers to as the "processof internalself-criticism"in Islamic modernism).The
relatively open-ended interpretive activity obliged by institutional self-criticism means
that Habermas further misrecognizes that religion is not solely about cosmological or
other-worldlyconcerns. Religious resources, rather,are used for the offensive, emancipa-
tory purposesfavored by Habermas(1987:393): the realizationof Enlightenmentvalues of
equality, justice, and communal participation. In Catholicism, these aims are apparent
within the church'sown institutionalboundaries,and in the largergeopolitical sphere (see
Casanova 1994; Douglass and Hollenbach 1994) where it seeks a more participativeand
egalitarian global culture in which discrimination against the weak is not the price of

2VaticanII's exhortationthatpeople should "tryto enlighten one another"(italics mine) might be seen by some
readersas an affirmationof the secondaryrole of reason relative to the primacyof papal or hierarchicalauthority
in deciding unsettled questions in the church. However, in the overall context of VaticanII's emphasis on com-
munal equality and its insistence that no one is allowed to appropriatethe church'sauthorityfor his/her opinion,
the "try"should more appropriatelybe understoodas recognizing the fact that indeed as Habermas(1996:35)
observes, persuasion is not guaranteedby reasoned argumentation.Nonetheless, the open-ended natureof rea-
soned dialogue is not an excuse for the superiorityof pronouncementsmade by fiat. The acceptance of doctrinal
pronouncementsis a cognitive process, and thus as Sullivan (1983:165) argues,the churchhierarchymust present
"clear and convincing reasons"for its teachings.
296 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

social progress (see John Paul II 1995). Overall, Habermas'sview of religion cannot be
reconciled with the empiricalreality of a churchunderstoodin practice, as FrancisSchuss-
ler Fiorenza argues, as a "community of interpretation"whose role is "to engage in a
critical reconstructiveinterpretationof [its] normative religious and moral traditions in
relation to social and political praxis"(1992:67).

RELIGIOUSIDENTITYAND DOCTRINALCONTESTATION
Habermas'sconstrualof the spellbindingpower of religion is also stronglyat odds with the
critical disposition taken by contemporarybelievers toward religion. Once again, Haber-
mas's misunderstandingcomes from his monolithic view of religion and his conceptuali-
zation of it as severed from practicalreason and everyday experiences. It furtherderives
from the implicit assumptionthatreligious identity is either privatizedand irrelevantin its
practicalimplicationsfor emancipatorysocial change,or,on the otherhand,all-encompassing
and unproblematic.What both of these conflicting assumptions miss is that for partici-
pants in a religious tradition,religious identity is one of many interlocking and publicly
salient identities. Since religion is one of multiple identity bases (along with gender and
sexuality,for example), it is not surprisingthatidentity "contradictions"may arise in ways
that make religious identity itself an object of contestationby its adherents.Let me illus-
trate this by drawing on data from research I have conducted with Catholics who are
objectivelymarginalizedin official churchteaching(see Dillon 1999 for furtherelaboration).
Specifically, I focus on Catholics who are openly gay or lesbian, and Catholics who
favor the ordinationof women. The gay and lesbian Catholics whom I studied are mem-
bers of Dignity/Boston, a local chapter of Dignity/USA, a national association of gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgenderedCatholics. Dignity argues that the acceptance of gay
and lesbian sexuality is compatiblewith Catholicism.The findings I reporthere are based
on an ethnographicstudy conductedof the chapter'sactivities (primarilyits weekly mass),
in-depth interviews with select members, and a self-administeredquestionnairesurvey of
the chapter's members. The data on advocates of women's ordinationis derived from a
self-administeredquestionnairesurvey of a random representativesample (N = 214) of
membersof the Women's OrdinationConference (WOC), an American-basedassociation
committedto the ordinationof women in the Catholic Church.Among otherquestions, the
WOC sample respondedto open-ended questions asking them to explain how their stance
on women's ordinationfits with their understandingof Catholicism, and what theological
and socioculturalreasons favor women's ordination.
Participantsin Dignity andWOC areCatholicswho continueto remainactively involved
in Catholicismnotwithstandingthe fact thatofficial churchteachingdenouncestheirrespec-
tive interpretationsof Catholicism.The Vatican,for example, defines gay or lesbian sexual
relations as immoral and regards Catholics who are openly gay or lesbian as "contradic-
tory"Catholics who "eitherignore the teaching of the church or seek somehow to under-
mine it" (Congregationfor the Doctrineof the Faith 1986:382). The Vaticanis also opposed
to the idea of women priests andhas declaredthatopposition to women's ordinationshould
be accepted as part of the deposit of Catholic faith (Congregationfor the Doctrine of the
Faith 1995:405).
Catholics who are gay or lesbian or who favor women's equality in the church are thus
participatingin a traditionin which the legitimacy of their identity claims is denied by
church officials. Although we live in a time when identity is considered an individuated
"design project"(Berger, Berger, and Kellner 1973:71-74), with the politics of difference
making difference a source of subculturalcelebrationratherthan social stigma, the Cath-
olics I have studiedchoose to maintainlinks with the institutionalchurchand to work from
HABERMASAND RELIGION 297

within to achieve change. But while they stay within the Catholictraditionthese prochange
Catholics reinterpretits doctrinal resources in ways that enable them to demonstratethe
validity of their Catholicism. They do so by engaging in a reflexive critique of Catholi-
cism. This process sees them demonstratingthe malleability and interpretivediversity of
doctrinal symbols and arguing against the contradictionsevidenced by institutionalprac-
tices that deviate from doctrinalethics of equality.

INTERPRETIVEAUTHORITY

Prochange Catholics continue to find meaning in Catholicism not because they are spell-
bound by some sacred authority but because they engage in an authoritativedoctrinal
critique of the tradition.Aware, as affirmed by Vatican II, that doctrine and institutional
practices are mutable, they make doctrine a site of "contestedknowledge" (see Seidman
1994). This enables prochangeCatholics to challenge both the structuraland the substan-
tive bases of what the Vaticanpresentsas authoritativeteaching, and to presentdoctrinally
groundedargumentsto supporttheir counterclaims.
Contraryto the interpretivemonopoly assumed by the Vatican, prochange Catholics'
sense of Catholicism is groundedin the view that interpretiveauthorityis diffuse. In this
more democratic understanding,interpretivepower in the church is not located solely in
the official hierarchicalstructure,but is dispersed, seen in the everyday interpretiveactiv-
ities of ordinaryCatholics. Notwithstandingthe fact that the Catholic Churchis a hierar-
chical institution, the church hierarchyis not, as also recognized by Vatican II, the sole
"producer"of Catholicism. There are multiple sites of doctrinalproductionand multiple
microproducers.Since participationin a religious traditionis an interpretiveactivity depen-
dent on a contextually groundedconstructionof meaning, prochangeCatholics are able to
produce relatively autonomousinterpretationsof Catholicism that make sense in light of
their diverse experiences, including their experiences of Catholicism. In fact, it is their
lived knowledge of Catholicism, their immersion in the tradition as "a community of
memory" (Bellah et al. 1985:153) that both empowers and constrainstheir doctrinalcri-
tique, ensuringthatwhatevernew interpretationsthey devise fit with their inscribedunder-
standing of the "truths"of Catholicism.

THE MALLEABILITYOF DOCTRINALSYMBOLS

For participantsin Dignity/Boston, their weekly Mass is the prime community activity
and the site in which they contest and experimentwith the boundariesof Catholicism. In
this process, they demonstratethe diverse interpretivepossibilities that may be injected
into some of the core, taken-for-grantedaspects of Catholicism. Since Dignity is prohib-
ited by the Vatican from using Catholic church facilities, it holds its weekly Mass in a
Protestantchurchin downtown Boston. On most occasions, the Mass is celebratedby one
of a numberof gay priests who are members of the chapter,and who, on account of their
noncelibate lifestyles, are not in good standingwith the official church.It is evident none-
theless that although Dignity is independent of the official church, its participants are
committed to maintaining and living out their Catholicism. At Dignity/Boston, partici-
pants use various strategiesto demonstratetheir "ownership"of the Mass and the vibrancy
of their Catholic identity. Dignity participantsuse their collective responsibility for the
liturgy to critiquethe meanings encoded in the official liturgy and to reworkthem in ways
that maintain integrity with the Catholic tradition. It is this reflexive engagement with
Catholicism that allows Dignity participantsto enact the legitimacy of both their Cathol-
298 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

icism and their gay or lesbian identity. They accomplish this by creatively working with
the traditionalMass liturgy to make it gay-inclusive.
Presiding priests make subtle references throughoutthe Mass to "Christ'sgay and les-
bian brothersand sisters,"and the generativevalues embodied in committed gay relation-
ships are affirmedduring sermons. One priest in particularmakes a point of stressing the
"worthiness"of participantsto receive communion.This emphasis contrastswith the reg-
ularMass liturgy (and the broaderCatholic penitentialtradition)wherein people acknowl-
edge the unworthinessconferredby original sin by communally stating aloud: "LordI am
not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." When, instead,
Dignity participantsstate "LordI am worthy to receive you," it is clear that they are not
claiming a superiority over their coreligionists, but are using the liturgy to affirm the
Catholic theological emphasis on the redemptivepresence of a loving God in their lives.3
Similarly, "Prayers of the faithful," ratherthan using the recommended official church
prayers,are invoked that refer to the "different"identity of the gatheredcommunity.Such
prayers are frequently offered for same-sex couples who are in committed relationships,
for people who are homophobic, and for people to have courage to come out. At the same
time, other prayerspoint to the "normalcy"of the people presentin the sense that they are
similar to what might be heard during the spontaneous prayer segment at any Catholic
Mass. At one Mass, for example, one personprayedfor a sick mother,anotherfor someone
who had died of AIDS; a man who said that his son and daughter-in-lawwere expecting
their second baby prayed that he would be a good grandfather.
Dignity's masses frequentlyinvolve theirown members(ratherthanthe presidingpriest)
as homilists during Mass, who use the opportunityto connect scripturalreadings to their
experiences of being gay or lesbian. A female participantin Dignity/Boston who gave the
homily on Pentecost Sunday (commemoratingthe descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apos-
tles fearfully locked in a room as they await Christ'sreturnto earth), illustratedthis inter-
linking of scripturewith the challenges associated with coming out. She stated:

"As I reflected on Pentecost and who the Holy Spirit is in my life, I thought of my
own struggle to come out. I reflected on the relationshipbetween my personalcloset
and the room where the Apostles hid. For me as for the Apostles, therewere different
levels of trustand coming out. As I look at my life, I can see where the Spiritworked
to give me hope. As a young child and teenager I always felt different and as if I
didn't fit in anywhere. I would read as much as I could about Jesus. I loved to hear
of Jesus's compassion and love. During Jesus's life, the Apostles spent time with
him. They learnedof his love. As in my own life this was a safe place to be.... After
Jesus's death the Apostles lived in fear. They hid in the room so as not to be found
and hurt or killed. They lived in fear not knowing why they trusted;not understand-
ing fully Jesus's message. As I began to strugglewith my own sexuality,I felt trapped
in the darknessof my closet. I trustedJesus and yet I felt alone. The message of Jesus
was acceptance and love, yet I was taught growing up that what I felt was bad, not
normal.... Yet something deep inside me kept me going. At the beginning of my
coming out to myself, I lived in fear.... My coming out came when I truly trusted
the Spirit within me. Only then could I speak the words and come out of my own
personal closet. This was only the beginning. It wasn't until the Holy Spirit entered
the Apostles that they had the words to speak and the courage to come out.... The
3The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994:87) states, "The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the
'reverse side' of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all." Accordingly, Dignity's "I am worthy" may be
seen as an affirmationof the reverse side of the doctrine of original sin (salvation) and not as the negation of
original sin.
HABERMASAND RELIGION 299

Spirithas given me the courage to come out and to risk being ridiculed and possibly
abandoned.... When the Apostles received the Spirit they could come out of their
room without fear .... Our stories are all quite different.But we wouldn't be here if
the Spirit wasn't working within us...."

As this homily highlights, Dignity participantsdo not compartmentalizeeither their

faith or their sexuality, but see both as mutually central to their everyday experiences.
Another way in which Dignity members affirm the interconnection between faith and
sexuality is through the liturgical celebration of same-sex couple relationshipsat special
commitmentceremonies, and throughthe integrationof gay and lesbian festival days into
the liturgicalcalendar.Coming-out Sunday,for example, is demarcatedas a special Sun-
day in October to encourage gay and lesbian Catholics to come out and to affirm the
coming-out decisions of others; anotherspecial event for the community is Pride Sunday,
coinciding with the culmination of the annual national Gay Pride Week, which Dignity
celebrates with a special Mass that pays particularattentionto the communalimportance
of gay pride and the strength that it can provide to integratingother aspects (e.g., work,
relationships,faith) of participants'lives.
Just as Dignity/Boston affirms the compatibility of Catholicism and a gay/lesbian
sexuality throughits communal enactmentof a reinterpretedMass liturgy,Catholics who
advocate women's ordination explicitly ground their prochange claims within Catholic
doctrinalreasoning. As Catholics who choose to stay within the church, members of the
Women's OrdinationConference (WOC) assume the authorityto reinterpretCatholic the-
ology rather than abandoning it as hopelessly patriarchal.They take core symbols and
ideas in Catholicism and use them to arguefor differentinterpretationsto those presented
in official church teaching. Like their peers in Dignity, they too accept a Christocentric
paradigmand, in their case, use it to argue for a changed understandingof priesthood.4
Whereas official church argumentsdefend the exclusivity of a male-only priesthood by
pointing to the single act of Jesus in choosing only men as apostles, WOC respondents
focus on the social dimensions and relational meanings of Christ's life as a whole. For
them, narrativeaccounts of Christ's life lead to an alternativetheological interpretation
that illuminates an inclusive ratherthan a discriminatoryJesus. Several respondentsthus
linked their prochangeaims to the activism personifiedby Christon behalf of equality and
justice. As expressed by these WOC respondents:

"Basically I experience Jesus in the New Testament as being with the causes-
standing with all who are on the journey for truth.I believe in equality and justice
and I hope for the dawning of the day when both women and marriedpriests expe-
rience fullness within Catholicism."

"To me, being a Catholic means to participatein the church established by Jesus.
Jesus always seemed to espouse the dignity of humankind.To realize thatdignity, all
people need to be afforded the opportunityto follow their calling, to utilize their
individualgifts and talents given to them by theircreator.To deny thatdignity to half
of humankinddoes not fulfill the example set by Jesus to be Catholic."
4
Sixty-five percent of WOC respondentsexplicitly invoked Christ-relatedthemes in discussing their views on
women's ordination.In their use of doctrine, WOC respondents invoked multiple subthemes. For example, in
additionto the Christologicalemphasis, 36 percentdrew on VaticanII concepts such as universalityor baptismal
equality, 18 percent emphasized issues of institutional credibility for a church grounded in Christ but which
discriminates, 18 percentreferredto the examples offered by women in scriptureand in the early church,and 23
percent emphasized the sacramentalimplications of a shortage of priests.
300 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

"If we take to heart Jesus' words about equality, we must be willing to look at
institutionsand our individual lives and be willing to live accordingly [emphasis in
original]."

Stressing a differentdimension of the Christologicalnarrative,some WOC respondents

emphasized the humanity of Christ. Highlighting the universalism of Christ's humanity,
they challenged the distinctiveness of his maleness and the iconic significance attachedto
this in official church statements.These respondentspointed to the symbolic-theological
implications that flow from the church hierarchy'sexclusion of women from the sacra-
mental imaging of Christ. One young woman who is a pastoral counselor stated: "If the
most importantthing about Christis maleness, are women saved? The Vatican'sChristol-
ogy is warmed-over misogynistic-androcentricdaydreaming."Other WOC respondents
argued:

"If Christianityteaches that all are redeemedin Jesus Christthen it is a contradiction

to exclude women in the full ministry. It is a denial of redemption.Either Jesus is
savior of all or what we believe is false."

"The universalityof Catholicismmust reflect the universalityof gifts, given by God

to be used for the good of all. The ordinationof women will demonstratethe uni-
versality of God's call, without distinction or human-orderedrestrictions.The more
complete image of Jesus, the IncarnateOne, will be made manifest when women
assume the overt and visible role of priest/shepherd."

Many other respondentssimilarly invoked scripturalreferences to equality and/or to Vat-

ican II's emphases on baptismalequality and the churchas the People of God, to arguefor
women's ordination.As interpretedby these respondents,a church that claims to be uni-
versal and inclusive of all humanityunderminesits foundationalethics by institutionaliz-
ing what respondentsregardas arbitrary,gender-basedboundariesof exclusion.

INSTITUTIONALDISTORTIONS
The institutionalcontradictionsof a churchthat espouses equality but reproducesinequal-
ity in its own internalpractices was a dominanttheme in prochangeCatholics' critiqueof
the church.Many WOC respondents(18 percent)explicitly framedwomen's ordinationas
an issue of institutional credibility for a church grounded in Christ-embodiedethics of
justice and equality.These respondentsemphasizedhow churchpracticesdeviate from the
redemptivenarrativeof Christ's life and the doctrinalvalues central to the church'siden-
tity. One middle-aged man summarizedthe views of many of his WOC peers: "Equality,
fairness, even-handedness-all are values that the Catholic Churchhas and does espouse.
These are good maturevalues-human, humane, and person-enhancing.Preachingequal-
ity and practicing it in actuality must go together, or else it's just words [emphasis in
original]." OtherWOC respondentsvariously echoed this:

"Catholicismis importantto me because it has provided the frameworkin which I

could exercise my belief in God and in the life and work of Jesus. I need the church
to show the way to live justly. I wish it would begin with following more closely the
message of Jesus."
HABERMASAND RELIGION 301

"I feel that the Catholic Church should be a leader in justice issues. I feel that the
ordinationof women is a justice issue and thereforethe Catholic Churchshould act
justly andordainwomen. I thinkwomen arediscriminatedagainstin this issue despite
the fact that the church says that this is not discrimination.I can't believe that Jesus
would discriminate in this way. If Jesus did select only men for ordination,it was
because it was the norm for the times, it isn't now."

"Wehave to accord human rights and equality to all if we are truly Christian.Patri-
archy, dominationof any one, discriminationof all kinds are all irreconcilablewith
Christianity.If Catholics are truly followers of Christ,we can't do it."

"I don't believe we can say one thing or have a vision of reachingout to embraceall,
yet put up boundaries or limitations on people and how they minister within the
community.I believe that goes against the innate natureof the churchandthe reality
of the Gospel."

Dignity participantssimilarly focused on the inconsistencies in official churchteaching

and, as with WOC, their critical disposition is similarly derived from members' lived
knowledge of the Catholic tradition.In particular,gay andlesbian Catholics see the church
hierarchy'steachings as a deviation from the justice ethics they identify with Christ'slife.
For example, the vast majority (91 percent) of Dignity participantssaw official church
teaching on homosexuality not as an isolated issue but as part of a largerproblem related
to the Vatican's stance on sexuality in general and its use of power. One man in his early
fifties stated: "The church is still focusing too much on sexuality and too little on com-
mitmentto Christ,peace, and social justice. The vision of VaticanII has yet to be realized
because churchleaders are too fearful of the unknownand of letting go of the past."It was
the view of a man in his early thirties that:"The church'sactions on gay issues arepart and
parcel of its currentand historical roles in issues of race, gender,religion and international
power. The hierarchyhas become an organismmore concernedwith self-presentationand
self-perpetuationthan with the growth and healthy development of the people it serves."
Another man argued:

"The institutionalchurch is based on an ancient sexist hierarchy.And the people in

chargewill do anythingto preservetheirpower.Eventually,however, the real church
will win. The real church is the people. And the people of the churchwill no longer
tolerate having a small group of men validate and invalidate their lives. The issue of
GLBTs [gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people], women in the priesthood,and
birthcontrol are all linked. They all are examples of the power these elitist men have
over millions of people. As each of these issues is attackedit puts chinks in the armor
for all of them."

Such quotations illustrate that Dignity participantscritique the church hierarchy by

mapping out what they perceive as its failure to focus on the "essentials" of Catholic
doctrine.For them, the doctrinalethics of equality andjustice are core to Catholicism and
as such are seen by them as imperatives that should be realized in church practices. As
Catholics, Dignity participantsthus remain committed to the paradigmof an exemplary,
inclusive Jesus. For these Catholics, as for many others, philosophical or theological ques-
tions concerningproof of the divinity of Jesus are unproblematic;they accept this on faith
302 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

and are not botheredby whether or not it is rationally defensible. But this faith does not
extend to an all-encompassingenchantmentwith every strandin the Catholictradition.On
the contrary,Dignity participantsquerythe doctrinalreasonablenessand theological integ-
rity of argumentsthat present gay and lesbian Catholics as inauthentic Catholics. As a
result of their doctrinal inquiry, Dignity members are thus empowered to argue for and
enact the "right"and "duty"of gay and lesbian Catholics "to live the sacramentallife of
the church"5notwithstandingthe contraryposition pronouncedin official churchteaching.

DOCTRINALREFLEXIVITY

Dignity participants' disposition toward Catholic liturgy and WOC respondents' argu-
ments in favor of women's ordinationdemonstratea reflexive engagement with Catholi-
cism thatboth groundstheir authorityto contest doctrineand empowers them to challenge
official church practices. Respondents' participationin the Catholic tradition and their
lived experience of its "highertruths"gives them a doctrinallyinformed authorityto con-
test the church hierarchy'steachings. By the same token, their commitmentto what they
experienceas the "essential"meaningsof Catholicismprovidesthemwithlsymbolicresources
to which they apply their interpretiveautonomy in a doctrinally reflexive manner.The
respondents'reflexive use of doctrine in their push to eliminate inequality in the church
illustratesthat people can and do use religion in a critically reasoned manner.Contraryto
Habermas'sunderstanding(see 1984:21-22, 397), faith is open to a self-critical rationality
and is not associated solely with a pre-Enlightenmentinterpretivemonopoly (see Haber-
mas 1989:36). Participationin a religious traditiondoes not mean that believers see all
aspects of that traditionas being beyond meaningful self-criticism.
The illustrative findings presented here demonstratethat religion's critique of public
values and secular institutions (see Casanova 1994; Wuthnow 1994a:17) extends to how
people reason when the egalitarian offensive is directed against institutional practices
groundedin religious doctrine. It is evident that for those who are part of a shared"com-
munity of discourse" (F. Schussler Fiorenza 1991; Wuthnow 1989), or "communityof
memory"(Bellah et al. 1985), religion provides the language with which to contest doc-
trinal issues. For respondents in this study, religion, rather than demanding "a turning
away from knowledge" and the "sacrificeof the intellect" (Weber 1978:567), provides the
dominant"knowledge"groundingtheir drive to transformthe church.
AlthoughHabermas(1992:233) arguesthatself-criticaldoctrinalreasoninggoes beyond
religion into a sphere of critical discourse whereby it loses its theological distinctiveness,
respondents'critiques of church teaching and practices are firmly groundedin theology.
The respondents'argumentsintegrate"the event of revelation"(Habermas 1992:233) and
use meanings derivedfrom it to justify change; they arguefor "integrity"between Catholic
doctrinalethics and the church's institutionalpractices.6The institutionaltransformation
advocatedby respondentsis thus expressed using the "firstlanguage"of the churchitself.
The paradigms(e.g., Jesus) and ideas (e.g., "universality")thatprochangeCatholics use to

5Dignity/USA's Statementof Position and Purpose states: "Webelieve that gay, lesbian, and bisexual Catho-
lics are members of Christ's mystical body, numberedamong the People of God. We have an inherent dignity
because God createdus, Christdied for us, and the Holy Spirit sanctified us in Baptism makingus Temples of the
Holy Spirit, and channels through which God's love might become visible.... We believe that gay men and
women can express their sexuality in a mannerthat is consonant with Christ's teaching."
6To quote Schussler Fiorenza: "Integrityis narrowerand stricter than coherence or consistency. It concerns
priorities,principles, and paradigms.... To inquireabout the integrity of a belief, tradition,or practice is to ask
not how these cohere or correlatewith one anotherbut what critique,change, or expansion is requiredin the face
of inconsistencies and conflicts. Integrityrequires that one set priorities when there are conflicts and inconsis-
tencies within the tradition, face squarely all the challenges to the tradition, include neglected and excluded
voices, and take honestly and seriously changes in backgroundassumptions"(1991:138).
HABERMASAND RELIGION 303

supporttheir participativeagenda not only come from within the church'sdoctrinaltradi-

tion but are central to it. They contest "core" teachings using doctrine to critique the
doctrineoffered by the churchhierarchyto justify its interpretations.Although discursive
challenges may not necessarily lead to formal institutionalchanges, they are still never-
theless important.Since religion is institutionalizedin part, through"customarymanners
of speaking" (Wuthnow 1992:50), the doctrinalcounterclaimsput forwardby prochange
Catholics are changing the discourses of Catholicism and doing so in a doctrinallyreflex-
ive way thatmay illuminatethe opportunitiesfor futuredoctrinaland institutionalchange.
History, as William Sewell (1990:541) remindsus, is shaped,in part, by the ways in which
cultural redefinitions significantly reconstitute"new possibilities for collective action."

THE DEMOCRATIZINGPOTENTIALOF REASON

Although my researchfindings take issue with Habermas'snegation of the possibility of a
critical religious discourse, the data strongly support Habermas'sfaith in reason. In par-
ticular,the findings illuminatehow Habermas'sview of reason as the basis for communi-
cative actionhas an egalitarianchargethatis frequentlyoverlookedin criticismsof Habermas.
Criticsof Habermas'saccent on the emancipatorypotentialof the practicaluse of language
tend to counter that differences among people in social experiences, vocabulary,and the
use of language mean that an "ideal speech situation" will always be contaminatedby
power inequalities (e.g., Gould 1996; Mansbridge 1993; Young 1996). This point is well
taken.
Yet it is also true that depending on the specific institutionalcontext in which ideolog-
ical contestationtakes place, makingreason the arbiterof competing claims can reducethe
overarchinghold of other, less democratic forms of authority.As seen in the case of the
Catholics discussed here, their use of doctrine-the church'sown language-allows them
to challenge official church arguments in a way that lessens the power of the church
hierarchyto make its interpretationsthe only legitimate interpretationspossible. The resort
to doctrinalreasoningrecentersinterpretivejudgmenton the "reasonableness"of the argu-
ments offered, ratherthanon the authorityof the churchhierarchyand its invocation of the
rule of tradition,dogma, or sacred office.
The articulation of doctrine, whether by church officials or nonordained Catholics,
involves the contextualized interpretationof religious symbols and ideas and, therefore,
cannot sustainan interpretivemonopoly.The autonomousdoctrinalinterpretationsof Dig-
nity and WOC Catholics highlight the relative diffuseness of interpretiveactivity that in
my reading is central to Habermas'stheory of communicative action. Since communica-
tively achieved agreementis a cooperative process of reciprocalcritique, there can be no
one fixed source but only multiple and shifting sites of interpretation.Accordingly,neither
the church hierarchynor this study's prochange Catholics have a monopoly on doctrinal
"truth."
Habermas notes that the rationality of reasons "makes them double-edged from the
word go, because they can both reinforceand upset beliefs" (1996:35). It may emerge from
engagement in doctrinalcritique, therefore,that both the contested definition of the situ-
ation and the counterposed claims cannot be reasonably defended. The stance taken by
prochangeCatholics in makingreason the arbiterof conflicting doctrinalclaims thus does
not guaranteethat their alternativeinterpretationsare right. What it does do, however, is
open up doctrinal knowledge to the whole Catholic community and detach it from the
privileged domain of the churchhierarchy.It challenges the churchhierarchyand all Cath-
olics to examine the historical underpinnings,theological assumptions, and institutional
power relations informing official churchteaching and to consider the alternativereasons
that prochangeCatholics (and others) offer. This exercise necessarily invites all Catholics
304 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

as "audience"to the institutionaldebateto participatein the communaldeliberation,which

in itself contributesto strengtheningCatholics' participativeequality in the church.
By thus opening up and reflexively critiquing the doctrinal reasons used to justify
official churchteaching, prochangeCatholics vindicate Habermas'semphasis on reason's
emancipatorypotential. They use doctrinalreasoning to argue against the impedimentsto
participativeequality in the church, and in doing so, "conquernew territory"(Habermas
1987:393) in which theological validation is given to a multiplicity of Catholic identities
and interpretivepositions. Rather than resisting or withdrawingfrom the Catholic com-
munal tradition, these Catholics use doctrinal reasoning to call for a revaluation of the
interpretivedifferences within the tradition.As such they expandthe official boundariesof
Catholicism to make the church more pluralisticand inclusive in practice.
The illustrativedata presentedhere show thatdoctrinalquestions can form the basis for
public conversationsin which "meanings"as opposed to "facts"are contested (see Gould-
ner 1976:93-96). People deliberateaboutthe practicalimplications of assigning particular
meanings to various religious symbols and traditions.The goal is not to prove or disprove
redemptive beliefs, but to unpack how specific doctrinaltenets might be given practical
interpretationin currenttimes. These conversations are in principle accessible to anyone
irrespective of faith who wants to participate,and they are conducted in public. In this
view, theological ideas are not the monopoly of any one faith traditionbut are accessible to
public discussion by believers and nonbelievers alike (Tracy 1981:28-31). In the same
way that the Declarationof Independence,for example, contains distinctly Americancul-
turalideas that can be used and critiquedby those who are not American,specific religious
symbols and ideas can also be engaged by nonparticipantsin the host faith tradition.
Although the meanings derived will, of course, vary depending on the context of their
interpretation,symbols are too rich and multilayeredto be monopolized by any one inter-
pretive community.7Doctrinal debate, therefore, whether conducted within the institu-
tional confines of a specific religious tradition or whether conducted in more broadly
accessible societal forums (e.g., public debates carriedon throughnewspapers or televi-
sion, or in academic and political settings), can contributeto the vibrancy of the public
sphere. Doctrinal reasoning can be critically used to inquire into a tradition,and in the
process may illuminate how the practical implementationof the ethics of equality and
participationcan be advancedby their anchoringin a reflexive religious discourse.

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