Heresy and Humanity

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-32
Author(s):  
Terence J. Martin

Abstract Something new is afoot in Erasmus’ thinking about heresy and heretics. This essay explores some fundamental shifts in the way Erasmus understands religious life that serve to alter how heresy is conceived and heretics are to be handled—including a change in emphasis from doctrine to ethics for the sake of human flourishing; an embrace of fallibility in lieu of certitude to make way for fruitful conversation between adversaries; a surprisingly strong appreciation of the historicity of everything ecclesial; and too a cautious yet ultimately ironic concession for public authorities to use force in the persecution of heretics. With these underlying moves, Erasmus’ thinking about heresy represents a significant overture to a modern and pluralistic policy toward difference and dissidence framed by a humanistic ethic retrieved from biblical sources. In the end, Erasmus leaves no room for the persecution of those deemed heretics.

2018 ◽  

This book examines the role of the papacy and the crusade in the religious life of the late twelfth through late thirteenth centuries and beyond. Throughout the book, the contributors ask several important questions. Was Innocent III more theologian than lawyer-pope and how did his personal experience of earlier crusade campaigns inform his own vigorous promotion of the crusades? How did the outlook and policy of Honorius III differ from that of Innocent III in crucial areas including the promotion of multiple crusades (including the Fifth Crusade and the crusade of William of Montferrat) and how were both pope’s mindsets manifested in writings associated with them? What kind of men did Honorius III and Innocent III select to promote their plans for reform and crusade? How did the laity make their own mark on the crusade through participation in the peace movements which were so crucial to the stability in Europe essential for enabling crusaders to fulfill their vows abroad and through joining in the liturgical processions and prayers deemed essential for divine favor at home and abroad? Further essays explore the commemoration of crusade campaigns through the deliberate construction of physical and literary paths of remembrance. Yet while the enemy was often constructed in a deliberately polarizing fashion, did confessional differences really determine the way in which Latin crusaders and their descendants interacted with the Muslim world or did a more pragmatic position of ‘rough tolerance’ shape mundane activities including trade agreements and treaties?


2019 ◽  
Vol 197 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-39
Author(s):  
Elin Slätmo

When space is limited, there is often conflict over land use such as agriculture, nature conservation, housing, business and commercial enterprise. More knowledge is needed about the substance of such conflicts and the way the various uses are handled and spatially organised. Using empirical material collected in Hållnäs, Sweden, and Sandnes, Norway, between 2009 and 2012, this paper addresses the potential conflicts and synergies between the different uses of land, with agriculture as a reference point. In combining and comparing the results from Hållnäs and Sandnes, the way in which relations differ between them are also scrutinised. Through planning documents, interviews with officials in public authorities, active farmers, non-governmental organisations (NGO) and field visits, case-specific land uses are identified in the two areas. The conflicting and synergetic relations between agriculture and other ways the land is used are identified and illustrated by schematic models. The results indicate that agriculture is both in synergy and in conflict with other land uses. In the cases investigated in this study, the primary areas of conflict are between agriculture and biodiversity, between agriculture and cultural heritage, and between agriculture and climate-smart initiatives in terms of dense building structures.


Traditio ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 135-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin D. Craun

Forbidden language, like forbidden knowledge, has always had its attractions. Of its many varieties, the inordinata locutio of blasphemy, speech which violates fundamental norms in the way it represents God, has held no small appeal for people in times of widespread religious practice. The late Middle Ages offers no exception to these two commonplaces of modern thought, judging from the number of civil statutes designed to extirpate blasphemy and from the stringent measures drawn up by influential clerics like Jean Gerson. This animus against blasphemy among the lettered, both lay and clerical, means that few blasphemous utterances, few of the words judged as blasphemous by someone other than the speaker, have come down to us. Preachers and compilers of catechetical handbooks, like theologians and glossators, are as silent about the actual words of blasphemers as they are eloquent about their temerity. Even the collectors of exempla, whose tales provide so much information about religious life, rarely record so much as a blasphemous phrase in their repertoire of tales about blasphemers. Perhaps these late medieval writers shared the reticence of the author of the Book of Job, who, according to the Priest (ps.- Jerome), wrote benedixerit for maledixerit, inverting the literal sense ‘quod non fuit ausus scriptor historiae ore suo in Deum dicere verbum blasphemiae.’


Author(s):  
Giorgos Laskaridis ◽  
Konstantinos Markellos

Several governments across the world enhance their attempt to provide efficient, advanced, and modern services to their users (citizens and businesses) based on information and computer technologies (ICT) and especially the Web. The remarkable acceptance of this powerful tool has changed the way of conducting various transactions and offers citizens, businesses, and public authorities’ limitless options and opportunities. Besides citizens’ awareness and expectations of Web-based, public services have also increased in recent times.


Hypatia ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Babbitt

In this paper, I argue that stories about difference do not promote critical self and social understanding; rather, on the contrary, it is the way we understand ourselves that makes some stories relevantly different. I discuss the uncritical reception of a story about homosexuality in Cuba, urging attention to generalizations explaining judgments of importance. I suggest that some stories from the South will never be relevant to discussions about human flourishing until we critically examine ideas about freedom and democracy, and their role in national identity, explaining the significance we give, or not, to such stories.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-880
Author(s):  
Sir Gordon Slynn

This article outlines the difficulties which were felt to exist in the prerogative orders of certiorari, mandamus and prohibition in the United Kingdom, despite important developments which had taken place in their use. It describes in detail the recommendations of the Law Commission and the changes introduced both by Rules of Court and legislation. The former procedures are replaced by an application for judicial review, though the basis upon which relief is granted remains substantially the same. Recent cases show the way in which the new procedure has developed. Distinctions are drawn between the test to be applied on the application for leave and on the final hearing, and between the proceeding by way of judicial review to challenge the acts of public authorities and actions where purely private rights are claimed. This article shows the way in which the possibility of exceptions to this latter distinction has been established and suggests that the ambit of the new procedure is still in course of development.


Author(s):  
Beverley Clack

Rather than offering another ‘solution’ to the problem of evil, in the form of, say, a theodicy, the discussion of this chapter is situated within an ethical framework concerned with unmasking the enactment and perpetuation of ‘structural evils’ on the political and social levels. Indebted to the insights of feminist philosophers such as Michèle Le Doeuff, but also Hannah Arendt’s analysis of evil, the novelist Muriel Spark, and Pierre Bourdieu’s work on social suffering, the chapter seeks, not to justify the ways of God, but to critique and transform unjust structures, and to pave the way for alternatives that might best support human flourishing. This necessitates attempting to identify and understand the sources of human wickedness—social and individual—while contending that, ultimately, the only appropriate response to evil and suffering is to commit to a reorientation of the self towards others and the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol Exaptriate (Articles) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stepan Vasilenko

This article aims to highlight the way in which, in the Russian national context, public authorities erase the boundaries between return migration and asylum in order to support the repatriation of former Soviet citizens to Russia. This political phenomenon has its roots in the fall of the USSR when Russia has rapidly become a country of immigration. This resulted in the adoption of the Geneva Convention and the creation of the two socio‑legal categories of refugees in Russia: « forced migrants » and « refugees ». Cet article vise à mettre en lumière la manière dont, dans le contexte national russe, les autorités publiques effacent les frontières entre la migrationde retour et l’asile afin d’apporter le soutien au rapatriement des ex‑citoyens soviétiques en Russie. Ce phénomène politique prend ses racines au moment de la chute de l’URSS, alors que la Russie est rapidement devenue un pays d’immigration. En a résulté l’adoption de la Convention de Genève et la création des deux catégories socio‑juridiques de réfugiés en Russie : « les migrants forcés » et « les réfugiés ».


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
David Neild

<p>This thesis argues that vindicatory damages should be available in the child welfare tort cases against public authorities. These are cases in which the plaintiffs sue public authorities either for not protecting them from harm when they were children, or where it is alleged that the authority’s employees abused the children while in its care. Vindicatory damages would be intended to mark the wrong to the plaintiff, rather than attempting to compensate the consequences. This thesis argues in support of the availability of a separate head of vindicatory damages in tort law, including negligence, and explores some of the liability issues which arise in these cases, including vicarious liability, liability for omissions and liability in negligence for the way in which a statutory power is exercised or for a breach of a statutory duty. New Zealand's accident compensation scheme is also discussed: it is argued that vindicatory damages in tort law should not be barred by the scheme.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Spat

Holidays and associated rituals have always played a crucial role in Yezidi religious life. The attack of ISIS on Yezidis and the subsequent displacement of more than half the community has had a profound impact on the way these holidays can be celebrated. The fact that the Sinjari Yezidi community has lost access to its sacred landscape, which is the traditional focus of much ritual activity, as well as a semi-official ban on any public form of rejoicing at a time of mourning, constitute a threat to the continuation of ritual life. However, contrary to expectations, Yezidi religious and ritual life has become more intense rather than declining in the wake of the ISIS attack. The driving forces behind this phenomenon are the need for supernatural help, new opportunities, and a sense of defiance. The daily mixing of the two communities, local Yezidis and Sinjari refugees, with diverse traditions, has also led to an enrichment of ritual life and a new awareness of the multiform nature of Yezidi traditions as people exchange and adopt new customs.Keywords: Yezidis; religion; rituals; ISIS; syncretism.Abstract in KurmanjiHola hola Tawûsî Melek, hola hola şehidêt Şingalê: Zulm û pêkhatina jiyana ayînî ya êzdîCejn û merasimên li wan rojên cejnan bi rê ve diçin hergav xwedanê roleke serekî bûne di jiyana dînî ya êzdiyan de. Êrîşa DAIŞê bi ser êzdiyan û koçberbûna zêdetir ji nîvê cemaeta êzdiyan li dû wê êrîşê tesîreke mezin li ser awayê pîrozkirina wan cejnan kiriye. Cemaeta êzdî ya Şingalê ji devera xwe ya pîroz qût bûye, ku piraniya çalakiyên dînî lê bi rê ve diçin, û herwiha qedexeyeke nîv-resmî li ser her çi awayekî xweşhaliyê heye di vê dema şînê de. Ev herdu eger gefeke mezin in li ser berdewamiya jiyana ayînî an dînî ya cemaetê. Ligel vê jî, ber’eksê ya ku mirov li bendê be, jiyana dînî û ayînî/merasimî ya êzdiyan li dû êrîşa DAIŞê lawaz neketiye, belkî kûrtir û berfirehtir bûye. Li pişt vê diyardeyê sebebên wek pêdiviya alîkariya xwedayî, îmkanên nû, û hesta berxwedanê hene. Têkilbûna herdu cemaetên êzdiyên xwecih û koçberên ji Şingalê, ku xwedanê nerîtên cuda ne, rê li ber dewlemendbûna qewareya merasiman vekiriye û her ku endamên cemaetan dikevine danûstandinê û dab û nerîtên nû dinasin têgihiştineke nû ya tebîetê pir-şiklî ya nerîtên êzdî jî li bal wan peyda dibe.Abstract in Sorani


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