24/25 Inclusive Practices – Faith, Religion and Belief
Growing up, I was never particularly religious. However, I’ve come to recognise that religion was a significant part of my upbringing. I attended a Church of England secondary school followed by a Catholic sixth form and my family from Chile, are largely devout Catholics. These environments instilled religious practice and ideas into my upbringing, and for a time I could call myself a Catholic.
As I matured, I began to adopt more secular philosophies. Religion no longer aligned with the way I was thinking or feeling about existence. I found myself questioning the logic and foundations of major theocratic orders like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. For a time, I wrestled with whether these belief systems made any rational sense.
Eventually, I realised that in challenging these ideologies, I was veering into a mode of thought that felt uncomfortably close to discrimination, subtly dismissing or undermining religious practices without fully understanding them. I began to recognise how easily critical thought can slip into prejudice when it’s not tempered by empathy and understanding.
Jacelyn Riek’s paper on Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice was essential in addressing these internal conflicts. Her work sheds light on how secular thinking can carry implicit biases against religion, spreading misinformation and generalisations, especially about non-dominant faiths (Rekis, 2023).
Riek also discusses religious domination, particularly how dominant religions like Christianity can marginalise or misrepresent other faiths. Her insights prompted me to reflect on my own assumptions: Have I unknowingly misrepresented certain religions in recent years? I strive to be honest about my knowledge, when it comes to the beliefs and practices of others. This paper reinforced the importance of intellectual humility.
In higher education, secularism often functions as an unspoken norm. Religious belief can be viewed with suspicion—considered irrational or incompatible with academic rigour. This can alienate students whose faith is central to their identity. Islamophobia, for example, is frequently under-addressed in universities, even as reports show a rise in incidents targeting Muslim students, especially women (Bibi, 2022). Their visibility through religious dress often places them at the intersection of racism and religious bias (Rekis, 2023).
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah challenges us to reconsider how we define religion. He argues that the concept of “religion” as we understand it today is a relatively modern construction. Historically, people across cultures practiced diverse rituals and traditions involving multiple deities, not necessarily as “religion,” but as part of their way of life (TED, 2014). According to Appiah, no religion is inherently good or bad. Each offers its own expression of respect, community, and meaning. At its core, religion is about belief and that belief is deeply personal.
Reflecting on this, I see that both secular and religious dominant positions can foster exclusion when they lack curiosity or compassion for differing worldviews. I also realise that I did not arrive at my secular perspective through pure reason but through cultural conditioning—just as someone else may have arrived at belief.
In the classroom, the aim is to create space for speculative thinking, where doubt, imagination, and difference are welcomed. To embrace this, I must continually reflect on where I might be reinforcing normative assumptions. As Rekis (2023) suggests, religious identity is not just belief, but a complex, intersecting experience.
Bibliography
Bibi, R. (2022) Islam, women and sport: the case of visible Muslim women. Religion and Global Society, London School of Economics, 9 September. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2022/09/islam-women-and-sport-the-case-of-visible-muslim-women/ (Accessed: 14 July 2025).
Rekis, J. (2023) ‘Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account’, Hypatia, 38, pp. 779–800. doi: 10.1017/hyp.2023.86.
TED (2014) Is religion good or bad? (This is a trick question) | Kwame Anthony Appiah. [YouTube video] 15 September. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2et2KO8gcY (Accessed: 14 July 2025).
Trinity University (2020) Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: A Conversation with Jaclyn Rekis. [YouTube video] 15 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk (Accessed: 14 July 2025).