Twelve. Praying in the Public Square: Catholic Piety Meets Civil Rights, War, and Abortion

2020 ◽  
pp. 264-283
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square

Masterpiece Cakeshop and the Foundations of Free Speech and Toleration

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-287
Author(s):  
Jeremy D Tedesco
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Legal Argument ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Deep Disagreements ◽  
Natural Result ◽  
The Uk

Abstract What do Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, other leading cases from the USA, Canada, and the UK, and Teresa Bejan’s concept of ‘mere civility’, teach us about free speech and toleration? This article seeks to answer that question and suggest a path forward that allows people with deep disagreements about fundamental social and moral issues to live peaceably together despite their differences. This article defends two primary claims: First, ‘mere civility’ is complimentary to a broader legal argument for protecting the freedom of all members of a society to espouse and live out their views within the context of the public square and marketplace; and Second, compelling speech (or agreement) under the guise of civility endangers liberty and genuine equality. When freedom is properly protected, ‘mere civility’ is the natural result, while attempts to achieve something more than ‘mere civility’ invariably jeopardize freedom.

The 1960s: The Struggle for Justice and the ‘View from the Sidelines’

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-90
Author(s):  
Gary Dorrien
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Cooperative Commonwealth

When Reinhold Niebuhr retired from teaching in 1960 at the age of sixty-eight, he was famous for espousing Cold War militarism, blasting liberal theology and the Social Gospel, and urging the Civil Rights Movement to proceed with patient moderation. In his retirement years he substantially changed or refashioned these positions, transmuting his legacy and the meaning of Niebuhrian realism. The Social Gospel tried to moralize the public square, but Niebuhr said that politics is a struggle for power driven by interest and will-to-power. The Social Gospel taught that a cooperative commonwealth is achievable. By the end of his career, Niebuhr said the ideal of a good society must be given up. Social ethicists ever since have struggled with both sides of his legacy.

Praying in the Public Square: Catholic Piety Meets Civil Rights, War, and Abortion

2019 ◽  
pp. 264-283
Author(s):  
James P. McCartin
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
American Children ◽  
Normative Status

This chapter focuses on Milwaukee priest James Groppi, who marched alongside local African American children boycotting public schools to protest racial inequality. It reaffirms that deep into the postwar era “integralism—the integration of Christian practice into all activities of one's everyday life—provided the spiritual foundation for Catholic activism.” Integral Catholics heeded the call of American Jesuit Gerald Ellard to “live ... with the life of Christ living within us.” This practice of piety changed politics, and then piety itself was changed via personal experiences of prophetic Catholicism in action. This prophetic mode became Dorothy Day's “radical” daily witness beginning in the 1930s; three decades later it approached normative status among a wide swath of Catholics from all walks of life.

This Isn’t 1964 Anymore—Or Is It?

2020 ◽  
pp. 181-210
Author(s):  
Linda C. McClain
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Made In

This chapter analyzes Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed animosity and hostility toward the religion of baker Jack Phillips. This case shows that rhetoric matters: the commissioners drew criticism for their comments about appealing to religion to justify discrimination. The chapter analyzes the arguments made in Masterpiece, highlighting competing appeals to Obergefell and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy’s majority opinion enlisted civil rights precedent Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises on the general rule that religious objections to gay marriage do not allow business owners to deny service to customers protected by public accommodations law. Masterpiece indicated guidelines for resolving future cases. The concurring opinion by Justice Bosson in Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock provides a valuable model: it speaks respectfully about religious beliefs, while also explaining what tolerance demands in the public square as the “price of citizenship.”

On the Volatile Relationship of Secularization and New Religious Movements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Holland
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the complex relationship between secularization and the emergence of new religious movements. Drawing from countervailing research, some of which insists that new religious movements abet secularizing processes and some of which sees these movements as disproving the secularization thesis, the chapter presents the relationship as inherently unstable. To the extent that new religious movements maintain a precarious balance of familiarity and foreignness—remaining familiar enough to stretch the definitional boundaries of religion—they contribute to secularization. However, new religious movements frequently lean to one side or other of that median, either promoting religious power in the public square by identifying with the interests of existing religious groups, or emphasizing their distinctiveness from these groups and thus provoking aggressive public action by the antagonized religious mainstream. This chapter centres on an illustrative case from Christian Science history.

The Orthodox Preference for Democracy: An American Response to “The Church in the Public Square” (Section II), in For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church

2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-430
Author(s):  
Jonathan Tobias
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The Public ◽  
Clear Preference ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church ◽  
Social Ethos

In For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, there is a clear preference for the “democratic genius of the modern age.” This preference for democracy is due, in part, to the long experience of the Orthodox Church with other governmental forms, especially autocratic and authoritarian states.

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