Download or read book Civil Religion in Modern Political Philosophy written by Steven Frankel and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by Machiavelli, modern philosophers held that the tension between the goals of biblical piety and the goals of political life needed to be resolved in favor of the political, and they attempted to recast and delimit traditional Christian teaching to serve and stabilize political life accordingly. This volume examines the arguments of those thinkers who worked to remake Christianity into a civil religion in the early modern and modern periods. Beginning with Machiavelli and continuing through to Alexis de Tocqueville, the essays in this collection explain in detail the ways in which these philosophers used religious and secular writing to build a civil religion in the West. Early chapters examine topics such as Machiavelli’s comparisons of Christianity with Roman religion, Francis Bacon’s cherry-picking of Christian doctrines in the service of scientific innovation, and Spinoza’s attempt to replace long-held superstitions with newer, “progressive” ones. Other essays probe the scripture-based, anti-Christian argument that religion must be subordinate to politics espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume, both of whom championed reason over divine authority. Crucially, the book also includes a study of civil religion in America, with chapters on John Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders illuminating the relationships among religious and civil history, acts, and authority. The last chapter is an examination of Tocqueville’s account of civil religion and the American regime. Detailed, thought-provoking, and based on the careful study of original texts, this survey of religion and politics in the West will appeal to scholars in the history of political philosophy, political theory, and American political thought.
Download or read book Civil Religion written by Ronald Beiner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy. The civil religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, reversing the relationship of subordination asserted by civil religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself.
Download or read book Civil Religion in Political Thought written by Ronald L. Weed and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume blend historical and philosophical reflection with concern for contemporary political problems. They show that the causes and motivations of civil religion are a permanent fixture of the human condition, though some of its manifestations and proximate causes have shifted in an age of multiculturalism, religious toleration, and secularization
Download or read book The West and Islam written by Antony Black and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comparative history of political thought examines what the Western and Islamic approaches to politics had in common and where they diverged. It throws light on why the West and Islam each developed their own particular kind of approach to government, politics, and the state, and on why these approaches are so different.
Download or read book Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion written by Camil Ungureanu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-12 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the place of religion in a pluralist democracy? The continuous presence of religion in the public sphere has raised anew normative and practical issues related to the role of religion in a democratic polity, generating spirited political debates in Western and non-Western contexts. Contemporary Political Philosophy and Religion provides an advanced introduction to, and a critical appraisal of, the major schools of political thought with a focus on the relationship between democracy and religion. Key features of this book include: Analyses of different political traditions: liberalism, republicanism, deliberative democracy, feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and interculturalism; Critical discussions of key contemporary philosophers, such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Susan Moller Okin, Martha Nussbaum, Will Kymlicka, Chandran Kukathas, and Bhiku Parekh; A pluralist approach that questions the strict divide between analytical and continental political philosophy; Discussion on the place of religion in politics from multiple perspectives by drawing on a plurality of political contexts, both Western and non-Western; Analyses of legal and political cases related to different religious traditions, for example, Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. This comprehensive text will be of great use to students of religion and politics in the fields of political and legal theory, and religious and theological studies, while also offering critical insights and arguments that will be of interest to the experts in the field.
Download or read book An Introduction to Religion and Politics written by Jonathan Fox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Introduction to Religion and Politics offers a comprehensive overview of the many theories of religion and politics, and provides students with an accessible but in-depth account of the most significant debates, issues and methodologies. Fox examines the ways in which religion influences politics, analyses the current key issues and provides a state of the art account of religion and politics, highlighting the diversity in state religion policies around the world. Topics covered include: Secularism and secularization Religious identity Religious worldviews, beliefs, doctrines and theologies Religious legitimacy Religious institutions and mobilization Rational and functional religion Religious fundamentalism Conflict, violence and terror This work combines theoretical analysis with data on the religion policies of 177 governments, showing that while most of the world's government support religion and many restrict it; true neutrality on the issue of religion is extremely rare. Religion is becoming an inescapable issue in politics. This work will be essential reading for all students of religion and politics, and will also be of great interest to those studying related subjects such as comparative politics, international relations and war and conflict studies.
Download or read book Political Thought in the French Wars of Religion written by Sophie Nicholls and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fresh analysis of the political thought of the French Holy League, active during the religious wars, within its intellectual context.
Download or read book Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion written by Heinrich Meier and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heinrich Meier’s guiding insight in Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion is that philosophy must prove its right and its necessity in the face of the claim to truth and demand obedience of its most powerful opponent, revealed religion. Philosophy must rationally justify and politically defend its free and unreserved questioning, and, in doing so, turns decisively to political philosophy. In the first of three chapters, Meier determines four intertwined moments constituting the concept of political philosophy as an articulated and internally dynamic whole. The following two chapters develop the concept through the interpretation of two masterpieces of political philosophy that have occupied Meier’s attention for more than thirty years: Leo Strauss’s Thoughts on Machiavelli and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract. Meier provides a detailed investigation of Thoughts on Machiavelli, with an appendix containing Strauss’s original manuscript headings for each of his paragraphs. Linking the problem of Socrates (the origin of political philosophy) with the problem of Machiavelli (the beginning of modern political philosophy), while placing between them the political and theological claims opposed to philosophy, Strauss’s most complex and controversial book proves to be, as Meier shows, the most astonishing treatise on the challenge of revealed religion. The final chapter, which offers a new interpretation of the Social Contract, demonstrates that Rousseau’s most famous work can be adequately understood only as a coherent political-philosophic response to theocracy in all its forms.
Download or read book Political Secularism Religion and the State written by Jonathan Fox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how the competition between religious and secular forces influenced state religion policy between 1990 and 2008. While both sides were active, the religious side had considerably more success. The book examines how states supported religion as well as how they restricted it.
Download or read book Spinoza on Philosophy Religion and Politics written by Susan James and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susan James explores the revolutionary political thought of one of the most radical and creative of modern philosophers, Baruch Spinoza. His Theologico-Political Treatise of 1670 defends religious pluralism, political republicanism, and intellectual freedom. James shows how this work played a crucial role in the development of modern society.
Download or read book Religion Secularization and Political Thought written by James E. Crimmins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The increasing secularization of political thought between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries has often been noted, but rarely described in detail. The contributors to this volume consider the significance of the relationship between religious beliefs, dogma and secular ideas in British political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes to J.S. Mill. During this period, Britain experienced the advance of natural science, the spread of education and other social improvements, and reforms in the political realm. These changes forced religion to account for itself and to justify its existence, both as a social institution and as a collection of fundamental articles of belief about the world and its operations. This book, originally published in 1990, conveys the crucial importance of the association between religion, secularization and political thought.
Download or read book Political Science of Religion written by Maciej Potz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-08-14 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces political science of religion – a coherent approach to the study of the political role of religion grounded in political science. In this framework, religion is viewed as a political ideology providing legitimation for power and motivating political attitudes and behaviors of the public. Religious organizations are political actors negotiating the political system in the pursuit of their faith-based objectives. Religion is thus interpreted as a power resource and religious groups as political players. The theoretical framework developed in the first part is applied to the study of theocracies and contemporary democracies, based on the case studies of Poland and the USA. The empirical analysis of resources, strategies and opportunities of religious actors demonstrates their ability to influence the politics of democracies and non-democracies alike. Using a multilevel approach, the book seeks to explain this tremendous political potential of religion.
Download or read book Religion and the Political Imagination written by Ira Katznelson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theory of secularisation became a virtually unchallenged truth of twentieth-century social science. First sketched out by Enlightenment philosophers, then transformed into an irreversible global process by nineteenth-century thinkers, the theory was given substance by the precipitate drop in religious practice across Western Europe in the 1960s. However, the re-emergence of acute conflicts at the interface between religion and politics has confounded such assumptions. It is clear that these ideas must be rethought. Yet, as this distinguished, international team of scholars reveal, not everything contained in the idea of secularisation was false. Analyses of developments since 1500 reveal a wide spectrum of historical processes: partial secularisation in some spheres has been accompanied by sacralisation in others. Utilising new approaches derived from history, philosophy, politics and anthropology, the essays collected in Religion and the Political Imagination offer new ways of thinking about the urgency of religious issues in the contemporary world.
Download or read book Religion and Political Thought written by Michael Hoelzl and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2006-06-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an essential resource for studies in religion and politics. It is divided into three parts, beginning with an introduction outlining the contemporary relevance of reviewing the relationship between the two subject areas; a brief history of the interactions between religion and politics that have pertained both in East and the West, and the key concepts that relate these two fields. The second section comprises a selection of classic readings. This title is ideal for students of both religion and politics and general readers who are interested in the topics.
Download or read book Religion and American Politics written by Mark A. Noll and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-13 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do religion and politics interact in America? How has that relationship changed over time? Why have American religious and political thought sometimes developed along a parallell course while at other times they have moved in opposite directions? These are among the many important and fascinating questions addressed in this volume. Originally published in 1990 as Religion and American Politics: From The Colonial Period to the 1980s (4921 paperback copies sold), this book offers the first comprehensive survey of the relationship between religion and politics in America. It features a stellar lineup of scholars, including Richard Carwardine, Nathan Hatch, Daniel Walker Howe, George Marsden, Martin Marty, Harry Stout, John Wilson, Robert Wuthnow, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Since its publication, the influence of religion on American politics--and, therefore, interest in the topic--has grown exponentially. For this new edition, Mark Noll and new co-editor Luke Harlow offer a completely new introduction, and also commission several new pieces and eliminate several that are now out of date. The resulting book offers a historically-grounded approach to one of the most divisive issues of our time, and serves a wide variety of courses in religious studies, history, and politics.
Download or read book Politics Religion and Political Theology written by C. Allen Speight and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new volume gives discursive shape to several key facets of the relationship among politics, theology and religious thought. Powerfully relevant to a wealth of further academic disciplines including history, law and the humanities, it sharpens the contours of our understanding in a live and evolving field. It charts the mechanisms by which, contrary to the avowed secularism of many of today’s polities, theology and religion have often, and sometimes profoundly, shaped political discourse. By augmenting this broader analysis with a selection of authoritative papers focusing on the prominent sub-field of political theology, the anthology offsets a startling academic lacuna. Alongside focused analysis of subjects such as conscience, secularism and religious tolerance, the discussion of political theology examines the tradition’s critical moments, including developments during the post-World War I Weimar republic in Germany and the epistemological imprint the theory has left behind in works by political thinkers influenced by the three major monotheistic traditions.
Download or read book Religion and Politics in America written by Robert Booth Fowler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion and politics are never far from the headlines, but their relationship remains complex and often confusing. In this fifth edition of Religion and Politics in America, the authors offer a lively, accessible, and balanced treatment of religion in American politics. They explore the historical, cultural, and legal contexts that underlie religious political engagement while also highlighting the pragmatic and strategic political realities that religious organizations and people face. Incorporating the best and most up-to-date scholarship, the authors assess the politics of Roman Catholics; evangelical, mainline, and African American Protestants; Jews; Muslims and other conventional and not-so-conventional American religious movements. The author team also examines important subjects concerning religion and its relationship to gender, race/ethnicity, and class. The fifth edition has been revised to include the 2012 elections, in particular Mitt Romney's candidacy and Mormonism, as well as a fuller assessment of the role of religion in President Obama's first term. In-depth treatment of core topics, contemporary case studies, and useful focus-study boxes, provides students with a real understanding of how religion and politics relate in practice and makes this fifth edition essential reading for courses in political science, religion, and sociology departments.
