Remarks on the Relationship between State and Religion in Hegel [1982]

2020 ◽  
pp. 199-219
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Is and can religion be seen as a foundation of the modern state? In this article Böckenförde discusses the relationship between state and religion while reviewing Hegel’s main writings on this question. Reconstructing Hegel’s concept of the state, Böckenförde points out that for Hegel, the state is simultaneously universal and historical. It is more than the political system or government—it is the polity in general and the structured form in which the people exist. Moreover, the state is the materialization of the ethical idea as such and the manifestation of how ‘truth’ in history became reality. In Hegel’s view, ‘truth’ is ultimately God’s will in the world. Further, for Hegel, state and religion are two forms of the same substance: reason. Morality and reason are closely intertwined in Hegel. Religion is a source of morality for the people, and the state and the Church are the institutional manifestations of reason. Böckenförde shows that Hegel identifies individual conscience as the core of each person’s freedom; however, Hegel denies a right to an aberrant conscience, indicating a very limited notion of freedom. Finally, Böckenförde discusses Hegel’s philosophy in light of the state today with its separation of state and religion. Since today’s state does not consider religion as part of its foundation, in Hegel’s view it would ‘stand freely in the air’. Böckenförde concludes, contrary to Hegel, that only the democratic process and the people’s agreement on the things that cannot be voted upon can form the basis of the state.

Citizenship For Sale?

2017 ◽  
pp. 788-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayelet Shachar
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Net Worth ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

“There are some things that money can’t buy.” Is citizenship among them? This chapter explores this question by highlighting the core legal and ethical puzzles associated with the surge in cash-for-passport programs. The spread of these new programs is one of the most significant developments in citizenship practice in the past few decades. It tests our deepest intuitions about the meaning and attributes of the relationship between the individual and the political community to which she belongs. This chapter identifies the main strategies employed by a growing number of states putting their visas and passports “for sale,” selectively opening their otherwise bolted gates of admission to the high-net-worth individuals of the world. Moving from the positive to the normative, the discussion then elaborates the main arguments in favor of, as well as against, citizenship-for-sale. The discussion draws attention to the distributive and political implications of these developments, both locally and globally, and identifies the deeper forces at work that contribute to the perpetual testing, blurring, and erosion of the state-market boundary regulating access to membership.

scholarly journals D.G. Monrads liberale manifest fra 1839

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (107) ◽  
pp. 95-115
Author(s):  
Bertel Nygaard
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
World Market ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Commodity Production ◽  
The People ◽  
The World

D. G. Monrad’s Political Manifesto from 1839:The first issue of Ditlev Gothard Monrad’s Flying Political Papers, published in Copenhagen in 1839, may be regarded as a manifesto of the early Danish liberal movement in its struggle to overcome the existing absolutist conglomerate state in favour of a constitutional national state, a result gradually achieved with the constitution of 1849 and the national centralization of the ensuing years. Influenced by Hegelian political philosophy, Monrad regarded his own times as marked by a great historical crisis and transition, evincing the political acknowledgment of the ‘people’ and its national unity as the outcome of a long-term dialectical development towards a synthesis of order and liberty, with existing absolutism representing a historically necessary, though now obsolete, stage. Further strengthening of the nation and the state now implied the political involvement of the ‘core of the people’, i.e. the educated middle class, whose culture allegedly rendered it capable of representing the interests of the people as a whole. Thus, Monrad’s liberalism was an ideological defence of the rule of a quite narrow social layer, a particular political reflection of an internationally conditioned transition to capitalist commodity production carried out in Denmark mainly via the state as an avenue between a dominantly agrarian production and the world market.

The Indirectly Political Word of the Church

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Word Type ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
Type 3 ◽  
The Church

This chapter continues the examination of Bonhoeffer’s first phase of resistance through an exposition of “The Church and the Jewish Question,” turning now to the modes of resistance proper to the church’s preaching office. Because such resistance involves the church speaking against the state, it appears to stand in contradiction with Bonhoeffer’s suggestion earlier in the essay that the church should not speak out against the state. This is in fact not a contradiction but rather the coherent expression of the political vision as outlined in the first several chapters of this book, which requires that the church criticize the state under certain circumstances but not others. The specific form of word examined here is the indirectly political word (type 3 resistance) by which the church reminds the messianic state of its mandate to preserve the world with neither “too little” nor “too much” order.

scholarly journals Official Reporting of Religious Organizations as a Source of Empirical Data on the Activities of the Church: Some Questions of Theory and Practice of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
O. A. Balabeikina ◽  
N. M. Mezhevich ◽  
A. A. Iankovskaia
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Partial Solution ◽  
The State ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Reference Case ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The relevance of any material offered to the scientific and expert community depends on many factors. Objectively, the presence of this or that issue in the center of public attention has a positive effect on the actualization of this or that article. However, there is an obvious danger. Academic approaches that accidentally find themselves in resonance with global trends can fall victim to political conjuncture. Relevance in this case can fall victim to the political moment. Moreover, this or that topic, being in the center of public discussion, negatively affects the academic understanding of the problem. All this fully relates to the question of the relationship between the state and the church in modern Europe and Russia.A few words about global trends. Their essence boils down to the growing confrontation between supporters of new ideological approaches and traditionalists, among whom are many adherents.The relationship between religion and the state testifies to the fact that states and societies have not yet learned to draw an effective line between their interests and those of adherents. This fact presupposes careful state and public participation in the affairs of the church. However, acknowledging this circumstance is not enough. The state must clearly know what, where and how is happening in the church sphere of the life of society in cases where church affairs can affect public and state security.It is also known that almost all the leading churches, to a greater or lesser extent, provide official reporting to the state. However, working with this reporting, its scientific analysis is not always representative.Objective. The presented article is aimed at a partial solution of the problem of increasing the effectiveness of academic research of the church` activities. Moreover, it is made based on official church statistics.The author’s position is the following. States and societies have no right to let go of this vital sphere of life. The functions of the state, in this case, are at least controlling. The ineffective execution of its functions by the state can be revealed in many countries of the world. The situation in France is nothing more than a reference case of a problem that, to one degree or another, exists in most of the countries of the world, which are distinguished by ethnic and confessional heterogeneity.

The Moral Heart of Vatican II

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-76
Author(s):  
Michael Barnes, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The background of Vatican II’s pastoral and missionary concerns cannot be separated from what is arguably the Council’s most unexpected and far-reaching document, Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. While very often interpreted as changing, not to say reversing, traditional Church-centred soteriology, this chapter argues that Nostra Aetate needs to be understood primarily as an event, a moment of self-understanding on the part of the Church which provokes a radical conversio morum. By calling the Declaration the ‘moral heart of the Council’, the chapter focusses specifically on its original purpose. That the Declaration has opened up a broader interreligious perspective to which all the major religions of the world can relate is testament less to the power of particular theological ideas than to its central conviction that the Church finds its own origins not apart from but through the faith which it shares with the people of the Sinai Covenant.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Authority and Authenticity in the Laozi: Employing Wu無 as a Philosophical Framework

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Sharon Y. Small
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Generative Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Wu 無 is one of the most prominent terms in Ancient Daoist philosophy, and perhaps the only term to appear more than Dao in both the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. However, unlike Dao, wu is generally used as an adjective modifying or describing nouns such as “names”, “desires”, “knowledge”, “action”, and so forth. Whereas Dao serves as the utmost principle in both generation and practice, wu becomes one of the central methods to achieve or emulate this ideal. As a term of negation, wu usually indicates the absence of something, as seen in its relation to the term you 有—”to have” or “presence”. From the perspective of generative processes, wu functions as an undefined and undifferentiated cosmic situation from which no beginning can begin but everything can emerge. In the political aspect, wu defines, or rather un-defines the actions (non-coercive action, wuwei 無為) that the utmost authority exerts to allow the utmost simplicity and “authenticity” (the zi 自 constructions) of the people. In this paper, I suggest an understanding of wu as a philosophical framework that places Pre-Qin Daoist thought as a system that both promotes our understanding of the way the world works and offers solutions to particular problems. Wu then is simultaneously metaphysical and concrete, general, and particular. It is what allows the world, the society, and the person to flourish on their own terms.

The Anabaptists and the Civil Authorities of Strasbourg, 1525–1555

1955 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kreider
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Since the dawn of the Christian era the relationship between church and state has been one of the pivotal issues of western civilization. Men have offered a variety of answers to this problem. The much- persecuted Anabaptists of the 16th century presented one set of answers, radical for their age, which called for a decisive separation of the church from the state and complete freedom for the church to pursue its vocation in the world. The Anabaptists were a distressing annoyance to the civil authorities. This movement posed for the 16th century the acute problem: how should religious dissent be handled?

Ruin the Sacred Truths

2019 ◽  
pp. 670-686
Author(s):  
John Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pastoral Poetry ◽  
Independent Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This chapter begins by reviewing the relationship between Milton and Marvell, but is devoted more expansively to their literary and intellectual ties. It examines the presence of Milton in Marvell’s pastoral poetry of the early 1650s where Marvell engages with the ‘Nativity Ode’, Comus, and ‘Lycidas’ but avoids reproducing the prophetic quality of Milton’s voice, hedging his allusiveness with delicate irony. The chapter also examines Marvell’s later engagement with Milton’s tolerationist treatises. Like Milton, Marvell is shaped by recent heterodox positions, but steers away from the boldness of the Miltonic vision. Where Milton asks the state to tolerate a variety of fully independent churches and religions, Marvell clings to the more conservative hope that the Church of England will merely include, or ‘comprehend’, a wider range of beliefs and believers. A political realist and a literary ironist, Marvell distances himself from the political idealism and prophetic literariness of Milton.

In Search of True-ness: Dialogue Between Political Localism and Theological Ecumenism in Post-Umbrella Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lap Yan Kung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Church

Abstract Seeking for true-ness is the core concern of the people of Hong Kong during the Umbrella Movement. That search starts from the political structure (true universal suffrage), and continues through into the formation of identity (true Hongkongese). This article illustrates how the Umbrella Movement has provided the people of Hong Kong with an experience of a truthful politics which is different from the current realpolitik. It sets out to see Hong Kong as their homeland, while developing a new language in terms of political localism. Nevertheless, there is a tendency for such political localism to become too narrow, exclusive and sentimental. The ecumenicity of the church interpreted in the light of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology is a different social imaginary. It can challenge both the inclination to narrowness and exclusivism of political localism, and the authoritarianism of the Chinese authorities. It possesses the potential to enrich the people of Hong Kong by allowing them to see that the unity of humankind (creation) is the ground of politics.

Crown, Mitre and People in the Nineteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
The People ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Throughout the nineteenth century the relationship between the State and the Established Church of England engaged Parliament, the Church, the courts and – to an increasing degree – the people. During this period, the spectre of Disestablishment periodically loomed over these debates, in the cause – as Trollope put it – of 'the renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists between the Crown and the Mitre'. As our own twenty-first century gathers pace, Disestablishment has still not materialised: though a very different kind of dynamic between Church and State has anyway come into being in England. Professor Evans here tells the stories of the controversies which have made such change possible – including the revival of Convocation, the Church's own parliament – as well as the many memorable characters involved. The author's lively narrative includes much valuable material about key areas of ecclesiastical law that is of relevance to the future Church of England.

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