scholarly journals RECONCILING JOHN MILBANK AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: “LIBERALISM” THROUGH LOVE

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-209
Author(s):  
Alex Deagon
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
John Milbank ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theological Critique

ABSTRACTJohn Milbank's critique of the secular as a violent distortion of Christian theology is well established. Less clear is how Milbank's framework might bear upon secular liberalism as it specifically relates to liberal ideas of religious freedom and public or secular reasons in political contexts. This is especially worthy of investigation since “religious freedom” is part of the liberal framework Milbank so stridently critiques. This article attempts to reconcile Milbank's theological critique of secular liberalism with the idea of religious freedom by applying Milbank's theology and the law of love to liberal notions of public discourse for the purpose of redeeming and transforming that discourse. This redeemed “liberalism” provides a framework for persuasion to the Good by recognizing that all public positions (including secularism) are ultimately faith positions, and advocates a discourse governed by the law of love to produce genuine religious freedom that paradoxically transcends and fulfils the liberal ideals that secular liberalism proclaims but can never attain.

FAITH-BASED ARBITRATION EVALUATED: THE POLICY ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST RELIGIOUS ARBITRATION IN AMERICA

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (03) ◽  
pp. 340-389
Author(s):  
Michael J. Broyde
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Value Sharing ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
The Law ◽  
Religious Problems

ABSTRACTThis article explores whether allowing such expansive arbitration is a wise idea for the United States (and other western democracies). Like all arbitration, religious arbitration starts with a contract to arbitrate, but frequently does not invoke the law of the United States as the law to be used to resolve disputes, but instead allows parties to resolve disputes according to their own religious principles, both procedurally and substantively. The article is organized into two substantive parts. One part explores the strengths and weaknesses of the seven arguments against faith-based arbitration, which are (1) one law for one people; (2) religious arbitration produces substantive injustice; (3) religious arbitration produces procedural injustice; (4) religious arbitration is often subtly coercive to its members; (5) liberal society has a difficult time policing religious arbitration; (6) enforcement of religious arbitration sometimes violates people's rights to religious freedom; and (7) allowing religious arbitration promotes isolation and non-integration of religious communities. The next part explains and criticizes the five arguments in favor of religious arbitration, which are (1) religious arbitration is a religious freedom imperative; (2) religious arbitration can resolve some commercial disputes more accurately than secular courts can; (3) religious arbitration is the only way to resolve certain religious problems; (4) secular regulation of religious arbitration helps moderate and integrate religion; and (5) religious arbitration promotes value sharing between religious and secular cultures and as such enriches public discourse. The article concludes with an endorsement of the value of religious arbitration subject to reasonable procedural and substantive limitations.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Laborde ◽  
Aurélia Bardon
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
Secular Education ◽  
The Law ◽  
Structural Architecture

There is already an important literature on religion and political philosophy, focusing especially on controversies about religious symbols, freedom of speech, or secular education. The introduction explains the distinctive approach of the volume. Instead of focusing on specific political controversies, the book explores the conceptual, structural architecture of liberal political philosophy itself. The authors distinguish four different themes: the special status of religion in the law; state sovereignty, non-establishment, and neutrality; accommodation and religious freedom; and toleration, conscience, and identity. The chapter explains the particular questions raised in each of these four themes, and briefly presents the twenty-two contributions gathered in the volume.

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.

Public Theology: Its Pastoral, Apologetic, Scientific, Political, and Prophetic Tasks

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-177
Author(s):  
Ted Peters
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Constructive Work ◽  
The Church

Abstract This blueprint for a constructive public theology assumes that Christian theology already includes public discourse. Following David Tracy’s delineation of three publics—church, academy, culture—further constructive work leads to a public theology conceived in the church, reflected on critically in the academy, and meshed with the wider culture. Public reflection on classic Christian doctrines in a post-secular pluralistic context takes the form of pastoral illumination, apologetic reason, a theology of nature, political theology, and prophetic critique.

scholarly journals Religious Freedom: Moscow Patriarchate as Catalyst for Conflict of Identity in Orthodoxy of Ukraine

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (19) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Author(s):  
Oleksandr N. Sagan
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Conflict ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Freedom Of Conscience ◽  
The Law

State-church relations in Ukraine are regulated by one of the best in Europe, the Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations". However, this law can not solve the problem of confrontation between the Moscow and Kiev Orthodox patriarchates in our country, as this confrontation has gone beyond the religious conflict and, in fact, is an external expression of ideological and civilizational choice (tolerance of values) of Orthodox believers.

In Defense of Religious Freedom

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-44
Author(s):  
Daniel Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The West ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Law ◽  
New Critics

This chapter makes the case for religious freedom as a universal human right. It argues that religion is a universal human phenomenon and a good that merits protection by the law. It argues against the “new critics,” who hold that there is no universal phenomenon called religion, that religion and religious freedom are inventions of the modern West and have deep Protestant roots, that the West has imposed religious freedom through its power in colonialist and imperialist fashion, particularly vis-à-vis Islam, and that religious freedom ought not to be exported through the foreign policies of Western states. To each of these assertions, the chapter offers counterarguments.

WHAT COULD CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OFFER TO THE DISCIPLINES OF THE LAW?

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Welker
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Emory University ◽  
The Law ◽  
Distinguished Scholar

This essay was presented as the 2015 McDonald Distinguished Scholar Lecture at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University.

The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique

1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alister McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Theological Critique

In 1892, Hastings Rashdall delivered a University Sermon at Oxford entitled ‘Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement’. In this sermon, he outlines with increasing enthusiasm what he considered to be ‘as noble and perspicuous a statement as can even yet be found of the faith which is still the life of Christendom’. The central theme of his sermon is that in the twelfth century figure of Peter Abailard can be found a theory of the Atonement which meets the demands of an age shaped in the spirit of Darwinism and historical criticism. What Rashdall understands by the ‘Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement’ is expounded at much greater length in his 1915 Bampton Lectures, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.

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