Does Secularization Mean Dechristianization?

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Olivier Roy
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Observance ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Cultural Life

This chapter examines secularization. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, there has no longer been only one form of Christianity: a choice has to be made between Protestantism and Catholicism. But more important is the development, from the eighteenth century onward, of what is commonly called secularization. The term actually refers to two different phenomena, which may or may not coincide. The first form of secularization is based on a legal and constitutional concept: the autonomy of the political sphere, leading either to the separation of the state from religious institutions, or to the political takeover of the religious sphere. The second form of secularization is sociological in nature: it denotes the decline in religious observance and the disappearance of religion as the focus of social and cultural life. This is what is called dechristianization in Europe. However, the decline in religious practice across Europe does not necessarily make references to religious identity irrelevant. That people no longer believe in God does not mean society is no longer Christian in its values, such as respect for human dignity, and its institutions.

1. What is secularism?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Andrew Copson
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
State Discrimination ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Freedom Of Thought

The British social reformer George Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906) coined the word ‘secularism’ to describe his this-worldly approach to personal morals, to philosophy, and to the of society and politics. A modern definition, provided by scholar Jean Baubérot, sees secularism made up of three parts: separation of religious institutions from the institutions of the state and no domination of the political sphere by religious institutions; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion for all; and no state discrimination against anyone on grounds of their religion or non-religious worldview. ‘What is secularism?’ considers these three parts in more depth and also explains that the idea of secularism is much older.

scholarly journals Secret organisations and their overt politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Markiewicz
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Underground Structures ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Sphere

In line with the concept of politics developed by ancient Greeks, the political sphere is identified with transparency and overtness. However, it has always been hiding secret actions, conspiracies and collusions. The emergence of the modern model of the state, along with the rationalisation of its structures, enabled the secret equivalents of authority to transform into organisations, i.e. institutions alternative to official organisations, established by law and having specific powers. Rather than talking about actual organisations, the author discusses the process whereby these secret, underground structures turn into organisations that influence the sphere of overt politics. She tries to show that this is a specific kind of game between what is explicit and public and what is concealed and secret. This game is constantly present in political activities, although we seldom realise it.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
S. Elizabeth Penry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Common People ◽  
New Towns ◽  
The Common ◽  
Planned Towns ◽  
The Town ◽  
Over Time

In the sixteenth century, Spaniards forcibly resettled Andeans into planned towns called reducciones. Andeans adapted the political and religious institutions of the new towns, the cabildo (town council) and the cofradías (confraternities), and made them their own, organizing them by the Andean social form, the ayllu. Over time, political legitimacy and authority within towns was transferred from traditional native hereditary lords, the caciques, to the common people of the town, who called themselves the común. Although a Spanish word, común took on Andean meaning as it was the word used to translate terms for collective land and the collective people of a town. It became a recognized shorthand for a political philosophy empowering common people. In the late eighteenth-century era of Atlantic Revolutions, the común rose up against its caciques, in an Enlightenment-from-below moment of popular sovereignty.

Churches

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arna Bontemps
Keyword(s):  
Black Church ◽  
Near East ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Church Organization

This chapter focuses on several prominent black religious institutions in Illinois, including Quinn Chapel. The establishment of Negro churches in Illinois dates from the late 1830s, with the formation of religious bodies in Brooklyn, near East St. Louis, and Jacksonville. Quinn Chapel in Brooklyn is generally credited as the initial institution (as also the first west of the Alleghenies), although there is evidence that in 1837 two Baptist clerics had organized a church at Jacksonville. In Chicago, Quinn Chapel, a branch of the African Methodist order, was the first Negro congregation. While there was no formal black church organization in Illinois until the late thirties, there had been religious practice of one sort and another among the Negroes. This chapter looks at the rise of various Negro churches in Illinois and how religion became the leading force and attraction in the life of the race in the state.

Humane Markets

2019 ◽  
pp. 293-315
Author(s):  
James R. Otteson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Moral Concern ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Economic

Markets are often criticized for being amoral, if not immoral. The core of the “political economy” that arose in the eighteenth century, however, envisioned the exchanges that take place in commercial society as neither amoral nor immoral but indeed deeply humane. The claim of the early political economists was that transactions in markets fulfilled two separate but related moral mandates: they lead to increasing prosperity, which addressed their primary “economic” concern of raising the estates of the poor; and they model proper relations among people, which addressed their primary “moral” concern of granting a respect to all, including the least among us. They attempted to capture a vision of human dignity within political-economic institutions that enabled people to improve their stations. Their arguments thus did not bracket out judgments of value: they integrated judgments of value into their foundations and built their political economy on that basis.

Sectarian Allegiance & Political Authority: the Watch Tower Society in Zambia, 1907–35

1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Assimeng
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
African Religion ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Single Person

Therelationship between religious movements and political authorities in Africa has been a growing problem in political and social development. So long as these institutions of cultural life were less differentiated, and the head of the political unit was automatically the leader of organised religion, the difficulties appeared less acute. Because regal and sacerdotal roles were performed by a single person, conflicts of authority and allegiance hardly arose.1Traditional African religion was also accommodating to foreign deities, a situation congruent with polytheism, and there was no assumption of religious exclusiveness.2But, with the advent of different brands of Christianity and Islam, the relations between religious and political authorities changed; the former increasingly became church missionaries and the latter the agents of the colony, and eventually of the state. Perhaps the most extreme religious rejection of secular authority is found in the Watch Tower movement, whose early relations with the state of Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) are the main subject of this article.

scholarly journals Contextual meanings of political vocabulary

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-457
Author(s):  
Denis L. Karpov ◽  
Daria A. Soloveva
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Contextual Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Vocabulary ◽  
The Russian Language

Political vocabulary is one of the most relevant subjects of study of modern linguistics, constantly updated, it serves as an indicator of the state of the political sphere of society and the political consciousness of a person. The article is devoted to lexemes that have firmly entered the current political vocabulary of our time: democracy, liberal, patriotism, patriot, nationalism, nationalist, opposition, president. Based on the analysis of modern explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, as well as the dictionary of political terms, it is concluded that terminological, special vocabulary in the modern political language is often used in an unusual meaning. In the article, using the method of contextual analysis, the evaluative connotative element of the meaning of the indicated lexemes is investigated. It is concluded that lexemes acquire a positive or negative evaluative value, first of all, depending on the context, the actual terminological meaning is leveled when used. The revealed meanings are non-systemic, accordingly, they are not fixed in dictionaries, while they are obvious to the carrier and are frequent. This indicates the specific nature of the modern political language, which is influenced by the modern journalistic style. The research results can be used to analyze controversial cases of the use of political vocabulary.

Roman City-Laws of Spain and their Modelling of the Religious Landscape

2020 ◽  
pp. 332-345
Author(s):  
Meret Strothmann
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
City Council ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Religious Landscape

The Roman municipal laws from Spain tell us much more about the political constitution of Roman cities than any other document from the Western provinces. However, the fragments at our disposal do not provide information about the social and religious identity of the citizens and incolae. A short survey of Latin inscriptions in Spain shows that in Baetica, where the municipal laws were found, there is very little evidence for indigenous cults, in contrast to other Spanish provinces, numerous deities and cults are attested. It is suggested that municipal laws do not add much to our knowledge of religious life in the cities precisely because they were conceptualized as blueprints for different cities with different conditions. The lack of precise instructions regarding religious institutions is to be seen as part of a broader concept. Thus, in a paragraph of the late-republican constitution for the colony of Urso, the city council has the right to complete the calendar, i.e. to define the official cults. In the Flavian constitution of Irni, such a paragraph is missing, but instead another indication of local authority in respect to possible acculturation can be found: the founder is allowed to legislate, but only within the limits of Roman customary law. Roman cities in Spain were able to autonomously model the religious landscape in response to local needs, a capacity clearly expressed in legal terms.

Reflections on the State of Political Science

1955 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Morgenthau
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere

In plato's Theaetetus Socrates develops the character of the philosopher, the man of knowledge, in contrast to the atheoretical, practical man.* He endeavors to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of the philosopher by emphasizing his peculiar attitude towards the political sphere.First, the philosopher has no political ambitions, and he does not care about what is going on in the political sphere.

Britain's Foreign Alliances in the Eighteenth Century

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Black
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
British Foreign Policy

One of the greatest problems in the discussion of eighteenth-century British foreign policy concerns the assessment of the influence of the particular character of the British political system. British foreign policy, and thus the country's alliance strategy, was conditioned by the subtle interplay of internal processes, the functioning of her domestic political system, and the international situation. As historians are concerned increasingly to probe the nature of the domestic pressures influencing the formulation and execution of policy, so it becomes more important to define the political, as opposed to constitutional, role of Parliament and public opinion. This is of obvious significance for the study of Britain's relations with her allies. Were these made more difficult as a consequence of the distinctive character of the British political system? There was no shortage of contemporaries willing to state that this was the case. An obvious category of discussion concerned the citing of domestic pressure as a reason why concessions could not be made to foreign powers, both allies and those whose alliance was sought. This was of particular significance when ministries explained why gains made during war could not be surrendered at peace treaties and gains made at the peace could not be yielded subsequently. Their defense of the retention of Gibraltar was based on this argument. Similar arguments were used by British ministers in seeking to persuade allies to do as they wished. Diplomatic pressure on France over the state of Dunkirk or on Spain and Portugal over commercial disputes made frequent use of the argument of domestic pressure.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document