Biographical Interview with Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde [2011]

2020 ◽  
pp. 369-394
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Personal Reflections

The chapter consists of excerpts of an interview historian and legal scholar Dieter Gosewinkel conducted with Böckenförde in 2009/2010. The selected sections discuss Böckenförde’s critique of Catholic natural law thinking and the Catholic Church’s position on democracy; his analysis of the failure of Catholic leadership during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933; his famous dictum and how he himself interprets the sentence according to which ‘the liberal secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself secure’; the place of religion in the public sphere; his notion of political theology (which he contrasts with that of Carl Schmitt); and what he considers to be the key breakthroughs of Vatican II, namely the acceptance of the secular state, religious freedom, and the differentiation between morality and state law. Some personal reflections regarding his understanding of the ethos of a constitutional judge and the very idea of the Rechtsstaat conclude the chapter. Twenty extensive annotations provide the reader with crucial background information. Additional excerpts of the interview are included in Volume I of this edition (Constitutional and Political Theory, OUP 2017).

scholarly journals Imaginary Controversists: Abraham Gómez Silveyra and the Theologians of the Huguenot Exile

Sefarad ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-475
Author(s):  
Carsten L. Wilke
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Refugee Community ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the Huguenot refugee community in The Netherlands, known as a hotbed of the early Enlightenment, literary interest in Judaism was ubiquitous, yet actual Dutch Jews were relegated to a marginal position in the exchange of ideas. It is this paradoxical experience of cultural participation and social exclusion that a major unpublished source allows to depict. The ex-converso Abraham Gómez Silveyra (1651–1741), a merchant endowed with rabbinic education and proficiency in French, composed eight manuscript volumes of theological reflections in Spanish literary prose and poetry. This huge clandestine series, which survives in three copies, shows the author’s insatiable curiosity for Christian thought. While rebutting Isaac Jacquelot’s missionary activity, he fraternizes with Pierre Jurieu’s millenarianism, Jacques Basnage’s historiography, and Pierre Bayle’s plea for religious freedom. Gómez Silveyra, however, being painfully aware of his voicelessness in the public sphere, enacts Bayle’s utopian project as a closed performance for a Jewish audience.

scholarly journals Developments in AKP Policy Toward Religion and Homogeneity

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel W. Watters
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Turkish Population ◽  
State Control ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Neutrality ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Turkish Language

Critics of the Turkish interpretation of secularism,laiklik, describe it as authoritarian and repressive. Indeed, rather than establish state neutrality toward religion,laiklikhistorically entailed state control of Islam, the religion of the vast majority of the Turkish population, and the exclusion of religion from the public sphere in an effort to control religious belief and identity. Many, including leaders in the ruling AKP, assert, though, that recent reforms herald a move away from this model of control toward a secularism defined by state neutrality toward religion. To determine whether this transformation is actually occurring, I evaluate, based on Turkish language sources, the recent reforms under the AKP using the framework of the secularized state described by the German legal scholar Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. Because of its significant role in implementing Turkish policies toward religion, I evaluate these reforms by analyzing developments in the programming and messaging of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) under the AKP. I find little evidence thatlaiklikis transitioning to a state neutrality toward religion. Rather, the AKP has coupled a greater presence of religion in the public sphere with expanding state authority in religious programming and messaging. Although these reforms reflect a transformation in Turkish nation-building policies, they maintain the state control of religion that separateslaiklikfrom neutral secularism.

Good Things Worth Sharing?

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-150
Author(s):  
Méadhbh McIvor
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Paradoxical Situation ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Evangelical Protestants ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Nature

This concluding chapter addresses the following themes: evangelism in the public sphere, emergent trends in Christian activism, and the changing place of Christianity in English law. It highlights the almost paradoxical situation in which English evangelical Protestants feel themselves to live: one in which Christianity is valued as an aspect of heritage, but rejected as a living faith. Those looking to protect England's Christian heritage are, in part, responding to social and demographic changes beyond their control: increasing ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity; decreasing adherence to traditional forms of authority, whether religious, political, social, or generational; value pluralism; and other challenges to Protestant hegemony. These shifts all impact the place of majority religion in contemporary England. Yet, by stressing the particularly religious nature of the words, beliefs, and actions for which they seek protection, Christian activists also contribute to these changes. Pursuing their claims under religious freedom legislation works to confirm that these are niche interests set apart from the everyday, thus invoking a secular distinction between the 'religious' and other spheres of life.

‘Not in My Backyard’: The Local Planning Process in Australia and its Impact on Minority Places of Worship

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel G. Villaroman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Australian State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article analyses the engagement of minority religious groups with the local planning process in Australia as they try to build places of worship. Such groups oftentimes encounter opposition from local residents who are reluctant to share the public sphere with the newly arrived and less known ‘other.’ The public sphere has become a contested terrain between those who desire to preserve the status quo of the built environment and those who desire to affirm their collective identity through new religious structures. The Australian state, acting through local councils, finds itself in the middle of this contest and is tasked to resolve it. This article offers illustrative snapshots of how Australia promotes, respects and protects religious freedom, particularly its aspect concerning the ability of minority religious groups to build their own places of worship. Through case studies, this article assesses, albeit with respect to such cases only, how religious freedom is being concretised in the ‘religious’ physical landscape of Australia—that is its temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs and other minority places of worship.

Law and Religion in a Secular World: A European Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secular World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

This article examines two interpretations of the process of secularisation that can be traced back through European legal and political thought, and a more recent trend that challenges both of them. It does this through the prism of the public sphere, because in today's Europe one of the most debated issues is the place and role of religion in this sphere, understood as the space where decisions concerning questions of general interest are discussed. The article concludes, first, that the paradigm through which relations between the secular and the religious have been interpreted is shifting and, second, that this change is going to have an impact on the notion of religious freedom and, consequently, on the recognised position of religions in the public sphere.1

scholarly journals Sfera publiczna, sfera prywatna i wolność religijna

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 205-213
Author(s):  
Jan Woleński
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Proper Equilibrium ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Public Sphere

THE PUBLIC SPHERE, THE PRIVATE SPHERE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOMThis paper considers the problem of religious freedom in the context of Polish Constittution 1997. One should distinguish religious liberty right to do something and religious freedom in­dependence of religion. Both cases are difficult to be sharply delimited, similarly as interference of religious sphere and out-religious sphere comprising law and morality as basic forms of social con­trol. The rational regulation of the problem of religious liberty and freedom should aim at a proper equilibrium between sacrum and profanum in the democratic system. The author points out that Polish state does not succeed in this respect.

scholarly journals Debatterende eller besluttende offentlighed? - Om demokrati, offentlighed og den konstituerende magt hos Carl Schmitt og Hannah Arendt

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Hierarchical Relation

The article investigates Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt’s theory of the constituent power. By comparing Schmitt and Arendt’s notions of democracy, the people and the public sphere, the article seeks to establish an alternative to deliberative democracy’s conceptualisation of the relation between democracy and the public sphere. By pointing to the differences between the debating and legitimating public sphere inherent in deliberative democracy on the one hand and the lawgiving and constituting public sphere in the works of Schmitt and Arendt on the other, the article investigates Schmitt’s notion of plebiscitary democracy and Arendt’s idea of a federal republic of councils. These political modes of organizations attempt to overcome the hierarchical relation between representatives and represented and seek to envision the people as able, when gathered together in public, to give laws themselves, and not only play the role as electors or debaters.

scholarly journals Liberalisme versus Perfeksionisme? Sebuah Tinjauan Filsafat Politik tentang Relasi Antara Agama dan Negara

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Otto Gusti Madung
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

Intolerance and violence in the name of religion often flare up in Indonesia. In this regard the state often fails, and indeed itself becomes part of the violation of the citizen’s right to religious freedom. One root of the problem is a confused understanding among law enforcers and among a part of the citizenship concerning the relationship between religion and the state, between private and public morality. This essay attempts to formulate a concept of the relationship between religion and the state from the perspective of two models from political philosophy, namely liberalism and perfectionism. Perfectionism offers a solution to the pathology of liberalism which tends to privatise the concept of the good life. In perfectionism the thematisation of the concept of the good life as in ideologies and religions has to be given a place in the public sphere. In Indonesia this role is taken by the national ideology of Pancasila. Pancasila requires that religious values be translated into public morality. <b>Kata-kata Kunci:</b> liberalisme, perfeksionisme, konsep hidup baik (agama), negara, Pancasila.

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