The Word of God and the End of Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-88
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Common Good ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Reformation Theology ◽  
The Common ◽  
Separate Discipline

One of the most radical aspects of Reformation theology was the way it dissolved existing distinctions between natural and spiritual, temporal and ecclesiastical, even between individual virtue and the common good. These distinctions had been crucial to the articulation of a sphere of political thought in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Protestant political thought had a distinctive character because the Reformers tended to reject the idea that politics could be a separate discipline, geared towards temporal or natural flourishing. Protestants were not uninterested in the mechanisms by which human communities could be defended or preserved, but they analysed those mechanisms in the light of their wider theological agenda. The Reformation movement soon splintered into a number of different churches and groups, but most of these groups shared the same commitment to magistracy as an instrument of God, legitimate and authoritative insofar as it followed God’s law. This chapter focuses primarily on the political thought of figures associated with the larger Protestant groups, especially Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon in Germany, and Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in the Swiss cantons. It outlines the theories of resistance developed as Protestantism came under threat and shows how these reflected and developed Reformation principles.

Justus Lipsius and the Post-Machiavellian Prince

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Thinker

This chapter studies the political thought of Justus Lipsius, a moral and political thinker as well as the author of the two-volume philosophical dialogue De constantia (1583) and the six-volume Politica (1589). The chapter explores the scholarship surrounding Lipsius and the historical significance of his works and investigates his connections to Neostoicism. It then embarks on a discussion of the connection between Lipsius's political thought and that of Machiavelli, particularly as revealed in the latter's The Prince (1532). The chapter argues that Machiavelli and Lipsius disagree on the ends of political action: Lipsius's prince aims at serving the common good, understood in terms of the security and welfare of the subject population; Machiavelli's prince acts to secure his own glory.

Political Thought in the Age of the Reformation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Baylor
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Reformation

This article focuses on the political thought of the Protestant reformers during the Reformation, both those thinkers historians commonly refer to as moderate or “magisterial” reformers (especially Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrych Zwingli) and those they refer to as “radical” reformers. Although the political concerns of Protestantism remained profoundly religious, and most reformers retained in various guises the view that authority was bipartite, the political theory of the reformers was modern in its concentration on secular authority and the essential character, function, and scope of the state's power. The diversity of Reformation political thought also emerged over the issue of whether secular authorities should play a positive, even a leading role in the renewal of Christianity to which Protestant reformers were committed. In the mid-1520s, a massive popular insurrection, known as the German Peasants' War and partly inspired by the Reformation, produced a variety of challenging new political ideas. Its repression fundamentally altered the course of the Reformation and produced new divisions not only between magisterial and radical reformers but also amongst the surviving radicals.

Speaking for Islam

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-127
Author(s):  
Abdoulaye Sounaye
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
Islamic Values ◽  
French Model

Unexpectedly, one of the marking features of democratization in Niger has been the rise of a variety of Islamic discourses. They focus on the separation between religion and the state and, more precisely, the way it is manifested through the French model of laïcité, which democratization has adopted in Niger. For many Muslim actors, laïcité amounts to a marginalization of Islamic values and a negation of Islam. This article present three voices: the Collaborators, the Moderates, and the Despisers. Each represents a trend that seeks to influence the state’s political and ideological makeup. Although the ulama in general remain critical vis-à-vis the state’s political and institutional transformation, not all of them reject the principle of the separation between religion and state. The Collaborators suggest cooperation between the religious authority and the political one, the Moderates insist on the necessity for governance to accommodate the people’s will and visions, and the Despisers reject the underpinning liberalism that voids religious authority and demand a total re-Islamization. I argue that what is at stake here is less the separation between state and religion than the modality of this separation and its impact on religious authority. The targets, tones, and justifications of the discourses I explore are evidence of the limitations of a democratization project grounded in laïcité. Thus in place of a secular democratization, they propose a conservative democracy based on Islam and its demands for the realization of the common good.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document