phenomenon of collective religious life, which is not just the result of (individual)
religious connections, but which in some way constitutes or is that connection, in that it
stands prior to and makes possible one’s ability understand their faith, and by extension
the faith that others bring with them into politics.” Neither has a “place for a collective
connection through a common way of being,” like a Thomistic tradition of enquiry that
often makes possible one’s own individual ethical way of being as well as frames the
means by which one can act like a Connollian critically responsive agent.
Consequently, in the case of Connolly and his deeply pluralistic secularism one
finds a rather limited sense of plurality. One is only seen as playing a constructive role in
shaping a common public ethos to the degree that they celebrate Connolly’s ideals of
critical responsiveness and the comparative contestability (and modifiability of the
practice of) of their own faith, an ethical source that in many instances is more central to
one’s identity than the pursuit of critically responsive moments of personal enlightenment
and public engagement. The result is that many real life constituencies in contemporary
democratic politics seem to fall outside the purview of a deeply pluralistic politics
because their members, though often as thoughtful and well educated as post-Modern
theorists, might, for very legitimate reasons, not make their faith subservient to the moral
imperatives of deep pluralism but would see their manner of participation within a deeply
pluralistic society predicated upon the dictates of their faith. Hence, while Connolly’s
model promotes the critical openness an adequate secular public ethos needs if it is to
respond to the pluralistic realities of contemporary political life, it’s very much limited by
its failure to appreciate the often empowering holds faith places upon many reasonable
participants like Macintyre in a contemporary democratic politics.
By contrast, while Taylor’s agapic message might not be an appealing source of
moral motivation to many nontheists, the secularist model built around it can, because of
its sensitivity to the collective and extra-rational dimensions of faith, at least provide a
118
Ibid p. 24.
39
Convention