Transformed Religion and a Proliferation of Churches

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Robert Reed
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Science Teaching ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
Black Clergy ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Black Agency

The roles of religion and accompanying church life in the modern age remained one of the major wellsprings of black agency. It was within these spheres that E. Franklin Frazier observed a type of religious freedom and expression that permeated the African American class and cultural spectrum. Blacks attended religious services and practiced a variety of beliefs ranging from Christian Science teaching to genuine Islam to elevated Baha'ism to black Judaism to various esoteric strains of Christianity. This chapter covers this transformation, which also witnessed the city's black clergy bridging the constitutional gap between church and state in a most dramatic fashion.

From Toleration to Laïcité

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Gerhardt Stenger ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Saint Augustine ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Political Justification ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Pierre Bayle ◽  
The Right

This paper traces the history of the philosophical and political justification of religious tolerance from the late 17th century to modern times. In the Anglo-Saxon world, John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) gave birth to the doctrine of the separation of Church and State and to what is now called secularization. In France, Pierre Bayle refuted, in his Philosophical Commentary (1685), the justification of intolerance taken from Saint Augustine. Following him, Voltaire campaigned for tolerance following the Calas affair (1763), and the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) imposed religious freedom which, a century later, resulted in the uniquely French notion of laïcité, which denies religion any supremacy, and any right to organize life in its name. Equality before the law takes precedence over freedom: the fact of being a believer does not give rise to the right to special statutes or to exceptions to the law.

Occultists Study Dark Arts

2019 ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Thomas Waters
Keyword(s):  
Christian Science ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Modern Age

This chapter shows that witchcraft did not beguile only rustic simpletons during the Victorian era. In cities and suburbs, behind expensive curtains and in bay-windowed houses, avant-garde types experimented with new forms of occultism. Spiritualism, theosophy, Christian Science, and extremely complex ritual magic — these types of mysticism are often seen as positive, therapeutic, and emancipating. In many ways they were, but the late Victorian occult revival had dark sides too. Many occultists were intrigued by evil powers and some were absolutely obsessed with them. These characters, with their strange theories and esoteric investigations, helped to refresh the idea of witchcraft, rendering it in terms that befitted the modern age.

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.

scholarly journals Kerk en burgerlike owerheid: Die Nederlandse geloofsbelydenis en drie kerkordes

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet J. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Church History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Ten Commandments ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Church and state authorithy: The Confessio Belgica and three church orders. In reformed churches the Bible is regarded as the norm of the norms. The confessions of faith of these churches are the second norm and subjected to the Bible. The church order is less powerful than the Bible and the confessions but of a higher status than the normal decisions of church assemblies. Therefore, the influence of the Belgic Confession on three church orders is an important issue in these churches.The author recommends four principles to understand the relation between the church and the state authority in article 36 of the Belgic Confession: both should honour God in their activities; both are guided by the Ten Commandments; both have their own internal law to fulfil the purpose as an institution; and both should respect and co-operate with one another. Although they are not in agreement on every aspect, these principles give the guidance to understand the main issue in all four documents which are investigated. The theme of this article is of a theological and church historical nature and a contribution on a well-discussed topic in reformed churches.Contribution: It should be important for the reformed churches in the Dutch tradition that a dynamic relationship exists between their confessions of faith and their church orders. While the Bible is the first and most important norm for church life, the confessions are the second most important. Church history shows that the relationship between the church and state is of utmost importance for the church, the quality of the confessions and the order of the church.

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.

scholarly journals The covid-19 Crisis and Religious Freedom

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Burkhard J. Berkmann
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Case Law ◽  
State Law ◽  
Worship Services ◽  
Relevant Case ◽  
Public Worship

Abstract The article provides an overview of anti-covid-19 measures in Germany, especially in Bavaria. Public worship services were banned for seven weeks, but have been permitted again since the 4th of May, 2020, under safeguards. By comparing state law and Catholic canon law, the article investigates whether church norms merely “react” to state norms or are independent of them. Do they correspond to them or even go beyond them in their content? The article also examines whether state orders violate religious freedom. To this end, the relevant case law in Germany is analyzed. Since church and state have coordinated their actions, believers find it more difficult to exercise religious freedom.

scholarly journals PUBLICITY, PRIVACY, AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARASH ABIZADEH
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Public Expression ◽  
Modern Period

What motivated an absolutist Erastian who rejected religious freedom, defended uniform public worship, and deemed the public expression of disagreement a catalyst for war to endorse a movement known to history as the champion of toleration, religion's freedom from coercion, and separation of church and state? At least three factors motivated Hobbes's 1651 endorsement of Independency: the Erastianism of Cromwellian Independency, the influence of the politique tradition, and, paradoxically, the contribution of early modern practices of toleration to maintaining the public sphere's religious uniformity. The third factor illustrates how a key function of the emerging private sphere in the early modern period was to protect uniformity, rather than diversity; it also shows that what was novel was not so much the public/private distinction itself, but the separation of two previously conflated dimensions of publicity—visibility and representativeness—that enabled early modern Europeans to envisage modes of worship out in the open, yet still private.

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