scholarly journals Brazil’s distinct brand of religious liberty: an example to the world, not without its challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (71) ◽  
pp. 13-54
Author(s):  
Alexander Curtis Alton
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Grassroots Organizations ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
International Conventions

Brazilian scholars, politicians, legal practitioners, and judges consistently refer to Brazil as a lay state, suggesting a type of secularism similar to French laïcité. However, in practice, the interaction between government, religion, and society in Brazil more closely resembles religious freedom in the United States. Among the twenty-six most populous countries, Brazil has the lowest governmental restrictions on religious freedom. The Brazilian government protects religious liberty through extensive constitutional and statutory provisions, as well as numerous international conventions. Notwithstanding these governmental protections, the country has recently experienced a dramatic increase in social hostilities directed toward people of faith. Thus, while Brazil is an example to the world with regard to minimal governmental restrictions on religious liberty, both the government and Brazilian citizens must find ways to minimize social hostilities and religious intolerance. This paper compares religious liberty in Brazil to French laïcité and U.S. religious freedom, explores governmental protections of religion in Brazil, exposes the growth of social hostilities towards religious groups in Brazil, highlights the work of government and grassroots organizations to turn back this rising tide of religious intolerance, and offers several suggestions on how the Brazilian government might further decrease social hostilities.  

How Constitutional Rights Matter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Chilton ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
The Government

How Constitutional Rights Matter explores whether constitutionalizing rights improves respect for those rights in practice. Drawing on global statistical analyses, case studies in Colombia, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, and Tunisia, and survey experiments in Turkey and the United States, this book advances three claims. First, enshrining rights in constitutions does not automatically ensure that those rights will be respected in practice. For rights to matter, rights violations need to be politically costly, which can happen when citizens mobilize against governments that encroach upon their rights. Successfully resisting the government, however, is no small feat for unconnected groups of citizens, and governments can often get away with constitutional rights violations. Second, some rights are more likely to be enforced than others. The reason is that some rights come with natural constituencies that are able to mobilize for their enforcement. This is the case for rights that are practiced by and within organizations, or “organizational rights,” such as the rights to religious freedom, unionize, and form political parties. Because religious groups, trade unions, and political parties are highly organized, they are well equipped to use the constitution to resist rights violations. Indeed, we find that these organizational rights are systematically associated with better practices. By contrast, rights that are practiced on an individual basis, such as free speech or the prohibition of torture, usually lack constituencies to enforce them, which makes it easier for governments to violate them. Third, even highly organized groups armed with the constitution face an uphill battle. Although such groups may be able to successfully resist repressive practices, they often can only delay governments that are truly dedicated to rights repression.

scholarly journals Persecution and Martyrdom: Global Debates and Christian Responses

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
M. CHRISTIAN GREEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The World

The Article Examines Religious Persecution, In The United States And Abroad, Through The Lens Of An Extreme Result Of Persecution: Martyrdom. It Examines Maximal And Minimal Definitions Of Martyrdom And Recent Claims And Instances Of Martyrdom, Both In United States Law And Political Culture And Against Christian And Other Religious Groups Around The World. The Article Concludes With Some Principles From Which To Discern An Ethic Of Martyrdom And Claims Of Martyrdom, Recommending Especially Attention To The Role Of The Martyr As Witness. KEYWORDS: Religious Persecution, Martyrdom, Law And Religion, Human Rights, Religious Freedom, Ethics, Witness

scholarly journals CHARITY FOR THE AUTONOMOUS SELF

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Carl H. Esbeck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law

Australia adopted the Charities Act of 2013, consolidating and restating the country's governing statutes on the registration and qualification of charities, but leaving to the future any reconciliation between faith-related charities claiming religious liberty and others demanding marriage equality and no discrimination based on sexuality. Concurrent to this development, but with an eye to the direction of charity law in common law systems throughout the world, major works have come to us from two Australian scholars. In this review I offer much about these two monographs, but the discussion that immediately follows concerns the law of charitable nonprofits in the United States, the basic structure of that law, and current issues implicating religious freedom.

scholarly journals Special Solicitude: Religious Freedom at America’s Public Universities

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
William E. Thro
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government

Rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument that the First Amendment requires identical treatment for religious organizations and secular organizations, the Supreme Court held such a “result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.” (Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 189). This “special solicitude” guarantees religious freedom from the government in all aspects of society, but particularly on public university campuses. At a minimum, religious expression and religious organizations must have equal rights with secular expression and secular organizations. In some instances, religious expression and religious expression may have greater rights. The Court’s 2020 decisions in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, reinforce and expand the “special solicitude” of religion. Indeed, Espinoza and Our Lady have profound implications for student religious groups at America’s public campuses. This article examines religious freedom at America’s public universities. This article has three parts. First, it offers an overview of religious freedom prior to Espinoza and Our Lady. Second, it briefly discusses those two cases. Third, it explores the implications of those decisions on America’s public campuses.

Text of Resolution Which Entered the United States into World War

1917 ◽  
Vol 85 (17) ◽  
pp. 455-456
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
German Government ◽  
The People ◽  
Successful Termination ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

The following is the text of the resolutions which officially entered the United States into the world war:— “Whereas the imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States of America; therefore be it “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the imperial German government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and that the President be and he is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the government to carry on war against the imperial German government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”

scholarly journals From America to the World: Protestant Christianity's Creation of Religious Liberty

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Peter A. Lillback
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT: Half the population of the world to this day still has not experienced religious freedom. Religious persecution often still occurs at many places in the world. Research studies show that there is a direct correlation between religious freedom and economic prosperity. "Prosperity is the result of freedom, therefore the best way to improve the economic prosperity of a nation is to ensure freedom for its citizens." This article will first elaborate models of the relationship between church and state, and then explain the basic principle of the Bible regarding religious freedom. It further explains why incarceration of religious freedom or of conscience by the state is wrong, despite the reasons of protecting its citizens from false religion or from a cult. This paper will also explore religious persecution from the time of early church until the birth of Protestantism, and then speaks about the struggle and the protection of religious freedom. Furthermore this article goes into what underlies the constitutional protection of religious freedom in America, and then browse through the struggle and the protection of religious freedom as a struggle of the world. KEY WORDS: religious freedom, religious conflict, heresy, early church, Protestantism, religious freedom in the United States of America.

Secularism and US Religion Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Corbin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

Religious surveys are finding greater percentages of Americans who self-identify as secular. At the same time, religious exemptions under the Free Exercise Clause have become more difficult to obtain. However, religion jurisprudence in the United States has not become more secular for two reasons. First, this greater unwillingness to grant constitutional exemptions reflects a shift in constitutional jurisprudence from “separationism” to “neutrality.” Rather than building a wall between church and state, the Establishment Clause is now interpreted to impose fewer restraints on state-sponsored religion. Second, statutes like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its state counterparts have not only reestablished separationist era levels of protection for religious liberty but increased them. The result is a religion jurisprudence where religion is accommodated more than ever, while the state has more leeway to advance religion. This combination has unfortunate consequences for both secular people and core secular values, such as antidiscrimination.

Conclusions

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Rostow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
21St Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

I have tried in this book to summarize where the world economy has come from in the past three centuries and to set out the core of the agenda that lies before us as we face the century ahead. This century, for the first time since the mid-18th century, will come to be dominated by stagnant or falling populations. The conclusions at which I have arrived can usefully be divided in two parts: one relates to what can be called the political economy of the 21st century; the other relates to the links between the problem of the United States playing steadily the role of critical margin on the world scene and moving at home toward a solution to the multiple facets of the urban problem. As for the political economy of the 21st century, the following points relate both to U.S. domestic policy and U.S. policy within the OECD, APEC, OAS, and other relevant international organizations. There is a good chance that the economic rise of China and Asia as well as Latin America, plus the convergence of economic stagnation and population increase in Africa, will raise for a time the relative prices of food and industrial materials, as well as lead to an increase in expen ditures in support of the environment. This should occur in the early part of the next century, If corrective action is taken in the private markets and the political process, these strains on the supply side should diminish with the passage of time, the advance of science and innovation, and the progressively reduced rate of population increase. The government, the universities, the private sector, and the professions might soon place on their common agenda the delicate balance of maintaining full employment with stagnant or falling populations. The existing literature, which largely stems from the 1930s, is quite illuminating but inadequate. And the experience with stagnant or falling population in the the world economy during post-Industrial Revolution times is extremely limited. This is a subject best approached in the United States on a bipartisan basis, abroad as an international problem. It is much too serious to be dealt with, as it is at present, as a domestic political football.

Cold War diplomacy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministries

From the early 1970s, the US-China relationship was central to diplomatic reporting, with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s visit to Peking in October 1971, President Nixon’s historic visit in February 1972, and the establishment the following year of small liaison offices in Peking and Washington. Following each of Kissinger’s further visits in 1973 and 1974, senior diplomats virtually queued up at the liaison office to find out what progress, if any, had been made towards the normalization of US-China relations. Peking’s diplomats, like some of their colleagues elsewhere in the world, did not always see eye-to-eye with their foreign ministries. There was little chance of their becoming overly attached to Communist China, as the Japanologists and Arabists were sometimes accused of doing for Japan and Arab countries. At the same time, living and breathing the PRC led some diplomats to regard Chinese Communism as being rather more nuanced—and the government somewhat less belligerent—than the Cold War images portrayed in the West, particularly the United States.

scholarly journals International Religious Freedom Promotion and US Foreign Policy

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Marsden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Right ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Background

The freedom to practice one’s religious belief is a fundamental human right and yet, for millions of people around the world, this right is denied. Yearly reports produced by the US State Department, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Open Doors International, Aid to the Church in Need and Release International reveal a disturbing picture of increased religious persecution across much of the world conducted at individual, community and state level conducted by secular, religious, terrorist and state actors. While religious actors both contribute to persecution of those of other faiths and beliefs and are involved in peace and reconciliation initiatives, the acceptance of the freedom to practice one’s faith, to disseminate that faith and to change one’s faith and belief is fundamental to considerations of the intersection of peace, politics and religion. In this article, I examine the political background of the United States’ promotion of international religious freedom, and current progress on advancing this under the Trump administration. International Religious Freedom (IRF) is contentious, and seen by many as the advancement of US national interests by other means. This article argues that through an examination of the accomplishments and various critiques of the IRF programme it is possible, and desirable, to discover what works, and where further progress needs to be made, in order to enable people around the world to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

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