Covenantal Pluralism in Practice: Religious Peace in Diverse Societies

Amid the global surge in religious nationalism and rising levels of sectarian polarization, the concept of covenantal pluralism has emerged as a promising framework for sustaining peaceful coexistence across deep religious differences. While existing work has largely explored covenantal pluralism at the conceptual level or through single-country case studies, this article offers a comparative and cross-civilizational analysis of how pluralistic norms and institutions operate in practice. Drawing on illustrative cases from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism—focusing respectively on sub-Saharan Africa, Senegal, India, Singapore, and Israel—the article argues that resources for peaceful coexistence are not confined to secular liberalism or any single religious tradition. Rather, religious communities themselves often furnish ethical, theological, and institutional foundations for pluralism, reciprocity, and civic peace.