scholarly journals A Window on the Soul: Four Politicians on Religion and Public Life

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Graham
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Democracies

AbstractIn this article I examine public statements about the relationship between private faith and public reason through the pronouncements of four leading politicians: Tony Blair (United Kingdom), Helen Clark (New Zealand), Barack Obama (United States of America) and Kevin Rudd (Australia). Of the four, Blair and Rudd have been most articulate about the way in which their own personal faith-commitments have informed their political motivations, but in doing so both men have had to negotiate a broader cultural suspicion of 'doing God' in public. Whilst religion may be regarded as representing a strong 'moral compass' for a politician, those espousing a religious faith in public also have to contend with public anxieties about religious extremism. Of the other two, I argue that Obama speaks into a more receptive public arena, and that part of his skill has been to tap into a long-standing tradition in American public life which, despite separation of church and state, is more attuned to the casting of political values in religious language. Helen Clark is the only one of the four to identify herself as 'agnostic', yet her support for the 2007 Statement on Religious Diversity signals a new willingness on the part of a political culture that has tended to be 'functionally secular' to embrace the notion of religious faith as a part of healthy civil society. All four examples, therefore, furnish us with insights into different dimensions of the relationship between a politician's personal faith and their public accountability in contemporary western democracies.

Introduction: Religion and public life

Ethnicities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonotti ◽  
Jonathan Seglow
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Religious Establishment ◽  
The Relationship

Political debate about the place of religion and religious identities in liberal democracies is as vigorous as ever, as evidenced by Christians' assertiveness against what they regard as secularising tendencies and the attempt to eliminate their established place in public life, as well as religious minorities seeking to combat their often marginalised position and the specific injustices to which they are subject (such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). The papers in this collection aim to address these and similar issues, and to offer novel and fresh perspectives on some of the key themes and debates on religion and public life in contemporary political theory. In this introductory essay, we illustrate, first, the key elements of four contemporary debates on religion and public life which are explored in the articles that follow. These are the conflict between secularism and religious establishment, public reason and the use of religious arguments in public deliberation, the accommodation of religious beliefs, and the relationship between freedom of speech and religion. After surveying these debates we end with an overview of the essays in this special issue.

Sovereignty, Religion and Law in the British Empire: Raja Rammohan Roy’s Public Hermeneutics in His Times

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-249
Author(s):  
Rahul Govind
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Raja Rammohan Roy has been called various things, from the first Indian liberal and a ‘maker of modern India’ to one who could bring about little more than a caricature of promised transformation. That Roy saw himself as a subject of the English King is much less analysed. The following essay takes this self-perception of Roy as a ‘British subject’ as a clue to develop a twofold problematic on the nature of religion and law in Roy’s lifetime, that is, between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. (a) We emphasize the importance of the King of England, and the importance of Kingship in which religion and law cannot be disentangled. This is established through an examination of the institutional arrangements in relationship to Kingship in the British Isles and the subcontinent, a study of S. T. Coleridge’s On the Constitution of the Church and State (London: Hurst, Chance and Co., 1830) and John Austin’s Province of Jurisprudence Determined (Delhi: Universal Publishers, 2012), amongst lesser known texts. (b) From an investigation into this religio-political constitution, we will explore the other dimensions opened up in Roy’s self-perception as a subject, that is, the relationship between religion, law and public reason in colonial India. By Roy’s ‘public hermeneutics’, we mean his arguing in the public medium of print as much as for a public (the colonial state and the reading public). But we also mean his use of reason in a sustained fashion so as to critique social and legal conditions. His arguments in structural and substantive terms, as we show, allow one to re-think the relationship between religion, law and universality.

scholarly journals Democracy, Religion & Public Reason

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
Samuel Freeman
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Proper Role

A convention of democracy is that government should promote the common good. Citizens' common good is based in their shared civil interests, including security of themselves and their possessions, equal basic liberties, diverse opportunities, and an adequate social minimum. Citizens' civil interests ground what John Rawls calls “the political values of justice and public reason.” These political values determine the political legitimacy of laws and the political constitution, and provide the proper bases for voting, public discussion, and political justification. These political values similarly provide the terms to properly understand the separation of church and state, freedom of conscience, and free exercise of religion. It is not a proper role of government to promote religious doctrines or practices, or to enforce moral requirements of religion. For government to enforce or even endorse the imperatives or ends of religion violates individuals' freedom and equality: it encroaches upon their liberty of conscience and freedom to pursue their conceptions of the good; impairs their equal civic status; and undermines their equal political rights as free and equal citizens.

Home, Sweet Home: Negotiating Intimacy in Brazilian Elitist Closed Condominiums

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 374-395
Author(s):  
Rafael Ignacio Estrada Mejia ◽  
Carla Guerrón Guerron Montero
Keyword(s):  
Collective Mode ◽  
Living Arrangement ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Collective Production ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

This article aims to decrease the cultural invisibility of the wealthy by exploring the Brazilian emergent elites and their preferred living arrangement: elitist closed condominiums (BECCs) from a micropolitical perspective.  We answer the question: What is the relationship between intimacy and subjectivity that is produced in the collective mode of existence of BECCs? To do so, we trace the history of the elite home, from the master’s house (casa grande) to contemporary closed condominiums. Following, we discuss the features of closed condominiums as spaces of segregation, fragmentation and social distinction, characterized by minimal public life and an internalized sociability. Finally, based on ethnographic research conducted in the mid-size city of Londrina (state of Paraná) between 2015 and 2017, we concentrate on four members of the emergent elite who live in BECCs, addressing their collective production of subjectivity. 

SECTANITY IN THE CONTEXT OF MANIFESTATIONS OF MODERN RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Agapov ◽  
Kirill Stepkin
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The article considers the general theoretical foundations of the relationship of sectarianism and religious extremism in the Russian Federation. Practical examples of the role of destructive sects in modern religious extremism in the Russian Federation are given.

The Dual Use of Religious-Faith in Intimate Partner Abuse Perpetration: Perspectives of Latino Men in a Parish-based Intervention Program

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-95
Author(s):  
Maxine Davis ◽  
Melissa Jonson-Reid
Keyword(s):  
Partner Violence ◽  
Intervention Program ◽  
Protective Factor ◽  
Partner Abuse ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Latino Men ◽  
Spiritual Abuse ◽  
The Relationship

Little is known about the role that religious-faith plays in the lives of men who have acted abusively against an intimate partner. Studies report mixed findings about the relationship between religious-faith and intimate partner violence/abuse (IPV/A) perpetration. This study explored the perceptions of Latino men involved in a parish-based partner abuse intervention program (PAIP). Two focus groups were conducted with members of the PAIP (N=18). Two major themes emerged. Participants reported using religious-faith as a mechanism for ending violence. However, participants also reported past misuse of religion in order to gain control over intimate partners. These apparently conflicting roles of religion were further elucidated in several sub-themes. Religious-faith is complex. This study offers insight into how faith may serve as both a risk and protective factor for IPV/A perpetration. Implications for how intervention programs may address participants’ religious-faith during treatment and how religio-spiritual abuse is measured are discussed.

The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume II

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Degree Of Acceptance ◽  
Missionary Societies ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
British State ◽  
The Relationship

This volume charts the development of protestant Dissent between the passing of the Toleration Act (1689) and the repealing of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828). The long eighteenth century was a period in which Dissenters slowly moved from a position of being a persecuted minority to achieving a degree of acceptance and, eventually, full political rights. The first part of the volume considers the history of various Dissenting traditions inside England. There are separate chapters devoted to Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers—the denominations that traced their history before this period—and also to Methodists, who emerged as one of the denominations of ‘New Dissent’ during the eighteenth century. The second part explores the ways in which these traditions developed outside England. It considers the complexities of being a Dissenter in Wales and Ireland, where the state church was Episcopalian, as well as in Scotland, where it was Presbyterian. It also looks at the development of Dissent across the Atlantic, where the relationship between Church and state was rather more loose. The third part is devoted to revivalist movements and their impact, with a particular emphasis on the importance of missionary societies for spreading protestant Christianity from the late eighteenth century onwards. The fourth part looks at Dissenters’ relationship to the British state and their involvement in campaigns to abolish the slave trade. The final part discusses how Dissenters lived: the theology they developed and their attitudes towards Scripture; the importance of both sermons and singing; their involvement in education and print culture; and the ways in which they expressed their faith materially through their buildings.

All Hail to the Archpriest

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lake ◽  
Michael Questier
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The Core ◽  
Public Argument ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Public Politics

This volume revisits the debates and disputes known collectively in the literature on late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England as the ‘Archpriest Controversy’. We argue that this was an extraordinary instance of the conduct of contemporary public politics and that, in its apparent strangeness, it is in fact a guide to the ways in which contemporaries negotiated the unstable later Reformation settlement in England. The published texts which form the core of the arguments involved in this debate survive, as do several caches of manuscript material generated by the dispute. Together they tell us a good deal about the aspirations of the writers and the networks that they inhabited. They also allow us to retell the progress of the dispute both as a narrative and as an instance of contemporary public argument about topics such as the increasingly imminent royal succession, late Elizabethan puritanism, and the function of episcopacy. Our contention is that, if one takes this material seriously, it is very hard to sustain standard accounts of the accession of James VI in England as part of an almost seamless continuity of royal government, contextualized by a virtually untroubled and consensus-based Protestant account of the relationship between Church and State. Nor is it possible to maintain that by the end of Elizabeth’s reign the fraction of the national Church, separatist and otherwise, which regarded itself or was regarded by others as Catholic had been driven into irrelevance.

scholarly journals Separation of Church and State, American Exceptionalism, and the Contemporary Social Moment: Viewing Church–State Separation from the Priority of Slavery

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Joseph Prud'homme
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Antebellum South ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
Religious Establishment ◽  
The Relationship

The contemporary social moment in the United States has affirmed the critical importance of racial justice, and especially claims to justice informed by the contributions of structural and institutional forces connected with the nation’s original sin of slavery. In this paper, I examine the contributions of strict church–state separationism to the maintenance of slavery in the antebellum South in comparison to the contributions various forms of religious establishment made to the successful abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom and the British Empire. Developing a deeper historical understanding of the ways the relationship between religious and governmental institutions influenced the abolition and maintenance of slavery can assist the contemporary quest for racial justice.

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Walker
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Liturgical Music ◽  
International Exhibitions ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opera Houses ◽  
The Church

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

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