The Politics of the Bible: Radicalism and Non-Denominational Co-Operation in the Birmingham Political Union

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 387-397
Author(s):  
Eileen L. Groth
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Intrinsic Connection ◽  
The Bible

In May 1832, as emissaries from the Birmingham Political Union sought to gain support for the Reform Bill in Staffordshire, the editor of the pro-Reform Birmingham Journal, W. G. Lewis, exhorted ‘Our cause is a holy cause, — it is the cause of religion, - it is the cause of humanity, — it is the cause of the Bible.’ This is but one of many declarations by radical Christian figures of the intrinsic connection they saw between religion and politics. They not only confirmed that it was right for Christians to be involved in the political sphere, but asserted that the teachings of Scripture demanded fundamental changes to the socio-political order and the principles upon which it was founded.

scholarly journals Religion og politik i antik jødedom og tidlig kristendom

1983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Bilde
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Major Transformation ◽  
High Degree

Initially, definitions of religion and politics are discussed. Then the issue as regards the Mediterranean areas is surveyed in general. The ideas of Eddy and Fuchs are adopted. Ancient Jewish history and literature from 175 B.C. to A.D. 135 are analysed under this point of view, and it is found that in all Jewish trends the religious and the political spheres overlap to a variable high degree. In early Christianity we find a main stream of non-political “quetism” dominated almost totally by the religious sphere. Another trend is more political and more influenced by Judaism. Jesus is found to belong to this latter trend. This means that in the movement of Jesus, religion and politics were closely united. As a consequence, a major transformation of early Christianity is supposed to have taken place early in its history. This transformation is finally assumed to be closely connected with the dissociation between the early Christians and the Jews. After the separation from Judaism, Christianity became an individualistic and spiritualistic religion with little room for the political sphere. This situation changed again in the 4th century with the revolution of Constantine when the Christian religion again was connected with the decisive powers in society.

Religion and Politics

2017 ◽  
pp. 32-61
Author(s):  
Keren Sasson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Shifting Boundaries ◽  
Political Success

This chapter pertains to exploring the political resurgence of religion, seeking to answer the pressing question of first, what accounts for religious revival in the age of globalization and second, what accounts for the political success or failure of religious movements, mostly in terms of exerting political influence on their domestic spheres and arenas. In order to answer these questions, this chapter delineates the conditions under which the needs and imperatives of both religious movements and the political establishment of the state are conflictual or reconcilable. To this end, the intriguing case of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood will be analyzed, illustrating the shifting boundaries of Islam from its traditional civil realm to the political order of the state and distilling movement's trajectories in its quest for political prominence in the age of globalization. The theoretical and empirical sections of this chapter, then, proffer an interesting prism to the study of the broader linkage between religion and politics in the developing world, especially among non-democratic, or quasi-democracies countries, as found in the Arab Middle East, where religion has experienced recurrent revivals in presence and significance in states' social and political domains

Israel’s First Judge according to Josephus

2006 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-336
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Begg
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Rewritten Bible

Inspired by the contemporary interest in the ‘rewritten Bible’ phenomenon, this article offers a detailed comparative study of the account of Israel’s first judge (‘Othniel’) in Judges 3:7-11 and its Josephan version in Ant. 5.179-184, where the figure is called ‘Keniaz’. Josephus, the study finds, significantly amplifies the Bible’s presentation, likewise redirecting attention from the theological to the political sphere when describing the nature of Israel’s offense that sets events in motion. Josephus’ version further evidences a number of similarities and differences with Pseudo-Philo’s rewriting of the biblical Othniel story in his Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 25-28. At the same time, Pseudo-Philo has much more to tell about the personage than either the Bible or Josephus.

Taming Tehran: Evangelical Christians and the Iranian Threat to Israel

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faydra L. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Evangelical Christians ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
The Relationship

Hostile relations between Israel and Iran since the Iranian Revolution have only intensified since the 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His strong statements imagining a ‘‘world without Zionism’’ and threats to destroy Israel, combined with an active nuclear program, have many observers concerned about the Iranian threat to Israel. We can include American evangelical Christians among this group. But given the intensity of their eschatological emphasis, we might wonder why evangelical Christians have raised such a passionate voice concerning the Iranian threat to Israel, in what kinds of ways, and what it can tell us about contemporary evangelicalism and the relationship between religion and politics. This paper examines two cases of prominent, premillennialist, evangelical Christian Zionists and their different approaches to the Iranian threat to Israel, in order to understand not only why believers in a doomed world might engage in the political sphere, but also what kinds of rhetoric they use to make sense of that engagement.

Mysticism, Modernity, and the Invention of Aesthetic Experience

2009 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklaus Largier
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Mystical Traditions

In this article I argue that Luther's critique of the radical reformers establishes a specific distinction between the spiritual and the secular. It excludes the use of inspired speech and mystical tropes from legitimate readings of the Bible and from the political sphere. In doing so, Luther's intervention not only neutralizes certain mystical traditions but also prepares the grounds for the use of mystical tropes in a new epistemological space, the realm of aesthetic experience and self-fashioning, and for the discussions about aesthetics in modernity.

Martin Luther's Political Interpretation of the Song of Songs

2011 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-467
Author(s):  
Jarrett A. Carty
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conjugal Love ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Gift ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Interpretation

AbstractMartin Luther argued that the Hebrew Bible's Song of Songs was “an encomium of the political order,” a praise and thanksgiving to God for the gift of temporal government. Luther's political interpretation of this book was unique in his age, and remains so in the history of biblical commentary. This paper offers an account of Luther's peculiar interpretation, as well as its place in his interpretation of the Bible and in the history of biblical commentary, by arguing that it exhibits the foundational idea of his political thought that secular authority is a precious gift from God, and that the Song of Songs, as a praise of conjugal love, provides for political authority a fitting biblical encomium.

Religion and Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 432-454
Author(s):  
Keren Sasson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Shifting Boundaries ◽  
Political Success

This chapter pertains to exploring the political resurgence of religion, seeking to answer the pressing question of first, what accounts for religious revival in the age of globalization and second, what accounts for the political success or failure of religious movements, mostly in terms of exerting political influence on their domestic spheres and arenas. In order to answer these questions, this chapter delineates the conditions under which the needs and imperatives of both religious movements and the political establishment of the state are conflictual or reconcilable. To this end, the intriguing case of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood will be analyzed, illustrating the shifting boundaries of Islam from its traditional civil realm to the political order of the state and distilling movement's trajectories in its quest for political prominence in the age of globalization. The theoretical and empirical sections of this chapter, then, proffer an interesting prism to the study of the broader linkage between religion and politics in the developing world, especially among non-democratic, or quasi-democracies countries, as found in the Arab Middle East, where religion has experienced recurrent revivals in presence and significance in states' social and political domains

The Use and Misuse of Religious Language: Zionism and the Palestinians

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Title Deed ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Question

Every discipline which deals with the land question in Canaan-Palestine-Israel is afflicted by the problem of specialisation. The political scientist and historian usually discuss the issue of land in Israel purely in terms of interethnic and international relations, biblical scholars concentrate on the historical and archaeological question with virtually no reference to ethics, and scholars of human rights usually evade the question of God. What follows is an attempt, through theology and political history, to understand the history of the Israel-Palestine land question in a way which respects the complexity of the question. From a scrutiny of the language used in the Bible to the development of political Zionism from the late 19th century it is possible to see the way in which a secular movement mobilised the figurative language of religion into a literal ‘title deed’ to the land of Palestine signed by God.

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