Download or read book Beyond Religious Freedom written by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. Beyond Religious Freedom persuasively argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. She shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between "expert religion," "governed religion," and "lived religion," Hurd charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. A forceful and timely critique of the politics of promoting religious freedom, Beyond Religious Freedom provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.

Download or read book Defend the Sacred written by Michael D. McNally and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 2016, thousands of people travelled to North Dakota to camp out near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to protest the construction of an oil pipeline that is projected to cross underneath the Missouri River a half mile upstream from the Reservation. The Standing Rock Sioux consider the pipeline a threat to the region's clean water and to the Sioux's sacred sites (such as its ancient burial grounds). The encamped protests garnered front-page headlines and international attention, and the resolve of the protesters was made clear in a red banner that flew above the camp: "Defend the Sacred". What does it mean when Native communities and their allies make such claims? What is the history of such claim-making, and why has this rhetorical and legal strategy - based on appeals to religious freedom - failed to gain much traction in American courts? As Michael McNally recounts in this book, Native Americans have repeatedly been inspired to assert claims to sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains by appealing to the discourse of religious freedom. But such claims based on alleged violations of the First Amendment "free exercise of religion" clause of the US Constitution have met with little success in US courts, largely because Native American communal traditions have been difficult to capture by the modern Western category of "religion." In light of this poor track record Native communities have gone beyond religious freedom-based legal strategies in articulating their sacred claims: in (e.g.) the technocratic language of "cultural resource" under American environmental and historic preservation law; in terms of the limited sovereignty accorded to Native tribes under federal Indian law; and (increasingly) in the political language of "indigenous rights" according to international human rights law (especially in light of the 2007 U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). And yet the language of religious freedom, which resonates powerfully in the US, continues to be deployed, propelling some remarkably useful legislative and administrative accommodations such as the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. As McNally's book shows, native communities draw on the continued rhetorical power of religious freedom language to attain legislative and regulatory victories beyond the First Amendment"--

Download or read book Politics of Religious Freedom written by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious freedom has achieved broad consensus as a condition for peace. Faced with reports of a rise in religious violence and a host of other social ills, public, and private actors have responded with laws and policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what precisely is being promoted? What are the assumptions underlying this response? The contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption that religious freedom is a singular achievement and that the problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Delineating the different conceptions of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as their histories and political contexts, the contributions make clear that the reasons for violence and discrimination are more complex than is widely acknowledged. The promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the communities often cited as falling short. -- from back cover.

Download or read book Beyond Belief Beyond Conscience written by Jack N. Rakove and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack Rakove makes broad claims about how religious freedom affects us. He contrasts the radical course of American developments with the more complicated ways in which Europeans tried to promote religious tolerance. He argues that both freedom of conscience and disestablishment were critical constitutional principles whose significance we no longer fully appreciate. Rakove explains why Jefferson's and Madison's understanding of these concepts were influential to their constitutional thinking. And he examines some of our contemporary controversies over church and state from the vantage point, not of legal doctrine, but of the deeper history that gave the U.S. its unique approach to religious freedom.

Download or read book The Myth of American Religious Freedom written by David Sehat and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.

Download or read book Beyond Religious Freedom written by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. Beyond Religious Freedom persuasively argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. She shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between "expert religion," "governed religion," and "lived religion," Hurd charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. A forceful and timely critique of the politics of promoting religious freedom, Beyond Religious Freedom provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.

Download or read book Beyond Toleration written by Chris Beneke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-29 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At its founding, the United States was one of the most religiously diverse places in the world. Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Quakers, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, Lutherans, Huguenots, Dunkers, Jews, Moravians, and Mennonites populated the nations towns and villages. Dozens of new denominations would emerge over the succeeding years. What allowed people of so many different faiths to forge a nation together? In this richly told story of ideas, Chris Beneke demonstrates how the United States managed to overcome the religious violence and bigotry that characterized much of early modern Europe and America. The key, Beneke argues, did not lie solely in the protection of religious freedom. Instead, he reveals how American culture was transformed to accommodate the religious differences within it. The expansion of individual rights, the mixing of believers and churches in the same institutions, and the introduction of more civility into public life all played an instrumental role in creating the religious pluralism for which the United States has become renowned. These changes also established important precedents for future civil rights movements in which dignity, as much as equality, would be at stake. Beyond Toleration is the first book to offer a systematic explanation of how early Americans learned to live with differences in matters of the highest importance to them --and how they found a way to articulate these differences civilly. Today when religious conflicts once again pose a grave danger to democratic experiments across the globe, Beneke's book serves as a timely reminder of how one country moved past toleration and towards religious pluralism.

Download or read book The Naked Public Square written by Richard John Neuhaus and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1986 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Underlying the many crises in American life, writes Richard John Neuhaus, is a crisis of faith. It is not enough that more people should believe or that those who believe should believe more strongly. Rather, the faith of persons and communities must be more compellingly related to the public arena. "The naked public square"--which results from the exclusion of popular values from the public forum--will almost certainly result in the death of democracy. The great challenge, says Neuhaus, is the reconstruction of a public philosophy that can undergird American life and America's ambiguous place in the world. To be truly democratic and to endure, such a public philosophy must be grounded in values that are based on Judeo-Christian religion. The remedy begins with recognizing that democratic theory and practice, which have in the past often been indifferent or hostile to religion, must now be legitimated in terms compatible with biblical faith. Neuhaus explores the strengths and weaknesses of various sectors of American religion in pursuing this task of critical legitimation. Arguing that America is now engaged in an historic moment of testing, he draws upon Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish thinkers who have in other moments of testing seen that the stakes are very high--for America, for the promise of democratic freedom elsewhere, and possibly for God's purpose in the world. An honest analysis of the situation, says Neuhaus, shatters false polarizations between left and right, liberal and conservative. In a democratic culture, the believer's respect for nonbelievers is not a compromise but a requirement of the believer's faith. Similarly, the democratic rights of those outside the communities of religious faith can be assured only by the inclusion of religiously-grounded values in the common life. The Naked Public Square does not offer yet another partisan program for political of social change. Rather, it offers a deeply disturbing, but finally hopeful, examination of Abraham Lincoln's century-old question--whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

Download or read book Endowed by Our Creator written by Michael I. Meyerson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate over the framers' concept of freedom of religion has become heated and divisive. This scrupulously researched book sets aside the half-truths, omissions, and partisan arguments, and instead focuses on the actual writings and actions of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others. Legal scholar Michael I. Meyerson investigates how the framers of the Constitution envisioned religious freedom and how they intended it to operate in the new republic. Endowed by Our Creator shows that the framers understood that the American government should not acknowledge religion in a way that favors any particular creed or denomination. Nevertheless, the framers believed that religion could instill virtue and help to unify a diverse nation. They created a spiritual public vocabulary, one that could communicate to all—including agnostics and atheists—that they were valued members of the political community. Through their writings and their decisions, the framers affirmed that respect for religious differences is a fundamental American value, Meyerson concludes. Now it is for us to determine whether religion will be used to alienate and divide or to inspire and unify our religiously diverse nation.

Download or read book What Has No Place Remains written by Nicholas Shrubsole and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The desire to erase the religions of Indigenous Peoples is an ideological fixture of the colonial project that marked the first century of Canada’s nationhood. While the ban on certain Indigenous religious practices was lifted after the Second World War, it was not until 1982 that Canada recognized Aboriginal rights, constitutionally protecting the diverse cultures of Indigenous Peoples. As former prime minister Stephen Harper stated in Canada’s apology for Indian residential schools, the desire to destroy Indigenous cultures, including religions, has no place in Canada today. And yet Indigenous religions continue to remain under threat. Framed through a postcolonial lens, What Has No Place, Remains analyses state actions, responses, and decisions on matters of Indigenous religious freedom. The book is particularly concerned with legal cases, such as Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia (2017), but also draws on political negotiations, such as those at Voisey’s Bay, and standoffs, such as the one at Gustafsen Lake, to generate a more comprehensive picture of the challenges for Indigenous religious freedom beyond Canada’s courts. With particular attention to cosmologically significant space, this book provides the first comprehensive assessment of the conceptual, cultural, political, social, and legal reasons why religious freedom for Indigenous Peoples is currently an impossibility in Canada.

Download or read book The Politics of Secularism in International Relations written by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflicts involving religion have returned to the forefront of international relations. And yet political scientists and policymakers have continued to assume that religion has long been privatized in the West. This secularist assumption ignores the contestation surrounding the category of the "secular" in international politics. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations shows why this thinking is flawed, and provides a powerful alternative. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argues that secularist divisions between religion and politics are not fixed, as commonly assumed, but socially and historically constructed. Examining the philosophical and historical legacy of the secularist traditions that shape European and American approaches to global politics, she shows why this matters for contemporary international relations, and in particular for two critical relationships: the United States and Iran, and the European Union and Turkey. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations develops a new approach to religion and international relations that challenges realist, liberal, and constructivist assumptions that religion has been excluded from politics in the West. The first book to consider secularism as a form of political authority in its own right, it describes two forms of secularism and their far-reaching global consequences.

Download or read book Religious Liberty in Crisis written by Ken Starr and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was unfathomable in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has become a reality. Religious liberty, both in the United States and across the world, is in crisis. As we navigate the coming decades, We the People must know our rights more than ever, particularly as it relates to the freedom to exercise our religion. Armed with a proper understanding of this country’s rich tradition of religious liberty, we can protect faith through any crisis that comes our way. Without that understanding, though, we’ll watch as the creeping secular age erodes our freedom. In this book, Ken Starr explores the crises that threaten religious liberty in America. He also examines the ways well-meaning government action sometimes undermines the religious liberty of the people, and how the Supreme Court in the past has ultimately provided us protection from such forms of government overreach. He also explores the possibilities of future overreach by government officials. The reader will learn how each of us can resist the quarantining of our faith within the confines of the law, and why that resistance is important. Through gaining a deep understanding of the Constitutional importance of religious expression, Starr invites the reader to be a part of protecting those rights of religious freedom and taking a more active role in advancing the cause of liberty.

Download or read book Peyote Vs the State written by Garrett Epps and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the Oregon court case over whether the First Amendment protects the right of Native Americans to use peyote in their religious practices.

Download or read book Getting Over Equality written by Steven D. Smith and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2001-09 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 8 Theism and Tolerance

Download or read book Beyond the Secular West written by Akeel Bilgrami and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the character of secularism in countries that were not pervaded by Christianity, such as China, India, and the nations of the Middle East? To what extent is the secular an imposition of colonial rule? How does secularism comport with local religious cultures in Africa, and how does it work with local forms of power and governance in Latin America? Has modern secularism evolved organically, or is it even necessary, and has it always meant progress? A vital extension of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, in which he exhaustively chronicled the emergence of secularism in Latin Christendom, this anthology applies Taylor's findings to secularism's global migration. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Sudipta Kaviraj, Claudio Lomnitz, Alfred Stepan, Charles Taylor, and Peter van der Veer each explore the transformation of Western secularism beyond Europe, and the collection closes with Taylor's response to each essay. What began as a modern reaction to—as well as a stubborn extension of—Latin Christendom has become a complex export shaped by the world's religious and political systems. Brilliantly alternating between intellectual and methodological approaches, this volume fosters a greater engagement with the phenomenon across disciplines.

Download or read book Persecution Toleration written by Noel D. Johnson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama tackle the question: how does religious liberty develop?

Download or read book Liberty for All written by Andrew T. Walker and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians are often thought of as defending only their own religious interests in the public square. They are viewed as worrying exclusively about the erosion of their freedom to assemble and to follow their convictions, while not seeming as concerned about publicly defending the rights of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists to do the same. Andrew T. Walker, an emerging Southern Baptist public theologian, argues for a robust Christian ethic of religious liberty that helps the church defend religious freedom for everyone in a pluralistic society. Whether explicitly religious or not, says Walker, every person is striving to make sense of his or her life. The Christian foundations of religious freedom provide a framework for how Christians can navigate deep religious difference in a secular age. As we practice religious liberty for our neighbors, we can find civility and commonality amid disagreement, further the church's engagement in the public square, and become the strongest defenders of religious liberty for all. Foreword by noted Princeton scholar Robert P. George.