Staging Religious Toleration: Pierre Corneille’s Polyeucte martyr (1643)

Neophilologus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley M. Voeks
Keyword(s):  
Religious Toleration

Narrow is the Gate to Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (Number 187- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Phélippeau
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Function

This study examines the notions of pleasure, individual liberty and consensus in Thomas More’s Utopia. The paradox inherent in Utopia, written before the Reformation, is especially visible in the affirmation of religious toleration coexisting with the need for a strict supervision of the citizens. The dream of an ideal republic is based on a Pauline vision of man which defines the individual mainly as a sinner. Consequently, it is the duty of the republic’s rulers to guide the citizens and establish a consensus. This study tries to determine the part left to the individual’s free will and examines the nature and function of the structures that are supposed to ensure the happiness of each one and of the whole community. The notion of moral hierarchy is asserted as the linchpin of the Utopian social construction.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

Religion, Reason, and Toleration

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Forst
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Pierre Bayle

This chapter compares two Enlightenment theories of religious toleration: the theories of Pierre Bayle and Immanuel Kant. Both Bayle and Kant argued for an autonomous conception of morality as the ground of reciprocal and universal toleration, but they differed in the ways in which they thought of the relation between faith and reason. The chapter discusses how in that latter regard, a Baylean perspective is superior to a Kantian one, whereas it concludes that the Kantian approach has a better way to connect morality and a politics of public justification when it comes to think about a political regime of toleration.

A Difficult Nephew

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Nowakowska
Keyword(s):  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Freedom Of Conscience ◽  
Fellow Member

This chapter examines the amicable relationship between the famously pious King Sigismund and his Lutheran vassal and nephew—perhaps the most extreme manifestation of the Crown’s religious ‘toleration’ in this reign. The 1525 Treaty of Kraków made peace between the Polish monarchy and the Teutonic Order in Prussia after centuries of war; it also shocked Christendom by creating Europe’s first Lutheran state, converting the Order’s lands into a secular duchy ruled by Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach. In December 1525, Duke Albrecht enacted a pioneering Lutheran reform of his territory. The chapter identifies nine principles of coexistence which tacitly governed this relationship, and seeks to account for the King’s ‘tolerant’ stance—stressing the role of royal kinship, King Sigismund’s explicit defences of freedom of conscience (belief), and his pre-confessional understanding of Catholicism in which the Lutheran Albrecht was still a fellow member of the universal church.

Separating Politics from Institutional Religion

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Diego Lucci ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Roman Catholics

Nowadays, more than three centuries after John Locke’s affirmation of the separation between state and church, confessional systems of government are still widespread and, even in secular liberal democracies, politics and religion often intermingle. As a result, some ecclesiastical institutions play a significant role in political affairs, while minority groups and individuals having alternative worldviews, values, and lifestyles are frequently discriminated against. Locke’s theory of religious toleration undeniably has some shortcomings, such as the exclusion of Roman Catholics and atheists from toleration and an emphasis on organized religion in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). However, Locke’s theory of toleration, which presents a Christian’s defense of the civil rights of those who have different religious opinions, still provides powerful arguments for the oft-neglected separation of politics from institutional religion, thereby urging us to leave theological dogmas and ecclesiastical authorities out of political life.

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