scholarly journals Imaginary Controversists: Abraham Gómez Silveyra and the Theologians of the Huguenot Exile

Sefarad ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-475
Author(s):  
Carsten L. Wilke
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Refugee Community ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the Huguenot refugee community in The Netherlands, known as a hotbed of the early Enlightenment, literary interest in Judaism was ubiquitous, yet actual Dutch Jews were relegated to a marginal position in the exchange of ideas. It is this paradoxical experience of cultural participation and social exclusion that a major unpublished source allows to depict. The ex-converso Abraham Gómez Silveyra (1651–1741), a merchant endowed with rabbinic education and proficiency in French, composed eight manuscript volumes of theological reflections in Spanish literary prose and poetry. This huge clandestine series, which survives in three copies, shows the author’s insatiable curiosity for Christian thought. While rebutting Isaac Jacquelot’s missionary activity, he fraternizes with Pierre Jurieu’s millenarianism, Jacques Basnage’s historiography, and Pierre Bayle’s plea for religious freedom. Gómez Silveyra, however, being painfully aware of his voicelessness in the public sphere, enacts Bayle’s utopian project as a closed performance for a Jewish audience.

Secular–Religious Competition and the Exclusion of Islam from the Public Sphere: Islamic Welfare in Western Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Kortmann
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Service Delivery ◽  
Religious Competition ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Islamic Organizations

AbstractThis paper deals in a qualitative discourse analysis with the role of Islamic organizations in welfare delivery in Germany and the Netherlands. Referring to Jonathan Fox's “secular–religious competition perspective”, the paper argues that similar trends of exclusion of Islamic organizations from public social service delivery can be explained with discourses on Islam in these two countries. The analysis, first, shows that in the national competitions between religious and secular ideologies on the public role of religion, different views are dominant (i.e., the support for the Christian majority in Germany and equal treatment of all religions in the Netherlands) which can be traced back to the respective regimes of religious governance. However, and second, when it comes to Islam in particular, in the Netherlands, the perspective of restricting all religions from public sphere prevails which leads to the rather exclusivist view on Islamic welfare that dominates in Germany, too.

Good Things Worth Sharing?

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-150
Author(s):  
Méadhbh McIvor
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Paradoxical Situation ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Evangelical Protestants ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Nature

This concluding chapter addresses the following themes: evangelism in the public sphere, emergent trends in Christian activism, and the changing place of Christianity in English law. It highlights the almost paradoxical situation in which English evangelical Protestants feel themselves to live: one in which Christianity is valued as an aspect of heritage, but rejected as a living faith. Those looking to protect England's Christian heritage are, in part, responding to social and demographic changes beyond their control: increasing ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity; decreasing adherence to traditional forms of authority, whether religious, political, social, or generational; value pluralism; and other challenges to Protestant hegemony. These shifts all impact the place of majority religion in contemporary England. Yet, by stressing the particularly religious nature of the words, beliefs, and actions for which they seek protection, Christian activists also contribute to these changes. Pursuing their claims under religious freedom legislation works to confirm that these are niche interests set apart from the everyday, thus invoking a secular distinction between the 'religious' and other spheres of life.

Communist daughters : In the vanguard of feminism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-355
Author(s):  
Elke Weesjes
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
Changing Roles ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This article explores communists’ attitudes towards gender roles and sexuality in Britain and the Netherlands during the Cold War (ca. 1948‐1970). It looks at the changing roles of women in the communist movement in the public sphere, as well as the changes in practices of gender relations in the communist home—that is, the private sphere. This article, which is based on interviews with Dutch and British individuals raised in communist families, argues that communist children who were taught progressive theories while simultaneously witnessing traditional practices in the home were spurred to feminist thinking and so joined the movement in its early stages. In light of these findings, this article makes the case for the inclusion of communists in the vanguard of feminism in Britain and the Netherlands.

‘Not in My Backyard’: The Local Planning Process in Australia and its Impact on Minority Places of Worship

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel G. Villaroman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Australian State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article analyses the engagement of minority religious groups with the local planning process in Australia as they try to build places of worship. Such groups oftentimes encounter opposition from local residents who are reluctant to share the public sphere with the newly arrived and less known ‘other.’ The public sphere has become a contested terrain between those who desire to preserve the status quo of the built environment and those who desire to affirm their collective identity through new religious structures. The Australian state, acting through local councils, finds itself in the middle of this contest and is tasked to resolve it. This article offers illustrative snapshots of how Australia promotes, respects and protects religious freedom, particularly its aspect concerning the ability of minority religious groups to build their own places of worship. Through case studies, this article assesses, albeit with respect to such cases only, how religious freedom is being concretised in the ‘religious’ physical landscape of Australia—that is its temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs and other minority places of worship.

State–merchant relations and economic thought: the Dutch Republic and England, 1580–1720

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Erikson
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emerging Nations ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Print Industry

Abstract The commercially and financially dynamic early modern Dutch Republic experienced a broad expansion of the public sphere and print industry. One topic was largely absent from this boom: trade, commerce and finance. This absence is particularly notable given that the Dutch Republic was widely considered to be the most accomplished site of expertise in those matters. Instead, a discourse attempting to understand the causes and consequences of market processes emerged in England. A comparison between the two emerging nations suggests that the tight integration between the commercial and political worlds in the Netherlands discouraged the development of a public discourse on economic matters. High levels of merchant representation in the offices of state depressed the need for the type of public debate that stimulated advances in the English context. The results suggest that there is an important relational component to the formation and development of economic thought.

Law and Religion in a Secular World: A European Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
General Interest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secular World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

This article examines two interpretations of the process of secularisation that can be traced back through European legal and political thought, and a more recent trend that challenges both of them. It does this through the prism of the public sphere, because in today's Europe one of the most debated issues is the place and role of religion in this sphere, understood as the space where decisions concerning questions of general interest are discussed. The article concludes, first, that the paradigm through which relations between the secular and the religious have been interpreted is shifting and, second, that this change is going to have an impact on the notion of religious freedom and, consequently, on the recognised position of religions in the public sphere.1

scholarly journals Sfera publiczna, sfera prywatna i wolność religijna

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 205-213
Author(s):  
Jan Woleński
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Proper Equilibrium ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Public Sphere

THE PUBLIC SPHERE, THE PRIVATE SPHERE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOMThis paper considers the problem of religious freedom in the context of Polish Constittution 1997. One should distinguish religious liberty right to do something and religious freedom in­dependence of religion. Both cases are difficult to be sharply delimited, similarly as interference of religious sphere and out-religious sphere comprising law and morality as basic forms of social con­trol. The rational regulation of the problem of religious liberty and freedom should aim at a proper equilibrium between sacrum and profanum in the democratic system. The author points out that Polish state does not succeed in this respect.

Biographical Interview with Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde [2011]

2020 ◽  
pp. 369-394
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Personal Reflections

The chapter consists of excerpts of an interview historian and legal scholar Dieter Gosewinkel conducted with Böckenförde in 2009/2010. The selected sections discuss Böckenförde’s critique of Catholic natural law thinking and the Catholic Church’s position on democracy; his analysis of the failure of Catholic leadership during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933; his famous dictum and how he himself interprets the sentence according to which ‘the liberal secularized state is sustained by conditions it cannot itself secure’; the place of religion in the public sphere; his notion of political theology (which he contrasts with that of Carl Schmitt); and what he considers to be the key breakthroughs of Vatican II, namely the acceptance of the secular state, religious freedom, and the differentiation between morality and state law. Some personal reflections regarding his understanding of the ethos of a constitutional judge and the very idea of the Rechtsstaat conclude the chapter. Twenty extensive annotations provide the reader with crucial background information. Additional excerpts of the interview are included in Volume I of this edition (Constitutional and Political Theory, OUP 2017).

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