25 results
16 - Religions and Social Progress: Critical Assessments and Creative Partnerships
- from Transformations in Values, Norms, Cultures
- International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP)
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- Rethinking Society for the 21st Century
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- 05 July 2018
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- 19 July 2018, pp 641-676
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4 - Liberal religion and illiberal secularism
- Edited by Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol, Malcolm Evans, University of Bristol, Tariq Modood, University of Bristol, Julian Rivers, University of Bristol
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- Religion in a Liberal State
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- 05 June 2014
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- 29 August 2013, pp 93-116
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Summary
You are at liberty to seek your salvation as you understand it, provided you do nothing to change the social order.
Attributed to Josef GoebbelsThe way in which recent conferences about religion and politics have been framed reveals hidden assumptions: ‘Religion Confronts the Secular State’, ‘Is Religion Compatible with Liberal Democracy?’, ‘Post-Secular Conditions: Challenges to Citizenship, Law, and Democracy’. Such titles lend support to a widespread view that secular states are the norm, and that they are being challenged by a recent ‘resurgence’ of (illiberal) religion, a development which threatens to shift religion from the private to the public sphere, and in doing so raises urgent new questions about whether liberal-democratic states and societies can or should accommodate the unexpected intruder. This chapter questions every one of these assumptions: that religion was ever separate from the modern state, politics and public life; that religion and liberalism are inevitably at odds with each other; and that secularism has a more constitutive relation with liberalism than religion. For the sake of brevity, examples are taken from the British situation, but the argument applies more widely.
Let me begin by sketching what I mean by liberalism. First, I mean something wider than ‘liberalism’ as it appears in those political theory textbooks where it is presented as a political ideology alongside conservatism, socialism, Marxism and so on. This is a bloodless abstraction of liberalism: detached from history, institutional embodiment, compelling symbolic forms and social life.
Contributors
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
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- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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2 - Churches of east and west in the early Middle Ages
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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He who has founded his church in the west, his church has not reached the east; the choice of him who has founded his church in the east has not come to the west … My church is superior … to previous churches, for these previous churches were chosen in particular countries and in particular cities. My church shall spread in all cities, and its gospel shall reach every country.
The previous chapter explored the way in which dreams of universal dominion helped shape the fortunes of early Christianity and support the rise to power of the Catholic church. Such dreams lost nothing of their allure as antiquity gave way to the Middle Ages. Men of power still imagined themselves at the helm of great empires, and they were men of religion as well as of politics – for as yet there were no secular empires, only religious ones.
Yet the Christian empire was threatened by competing powers, both religious and political. The words above are those not of a Christian but of Mani (216–76), the founder of a new universal religion that, he believed, would supplant those that had come before, including Christianity. Mani's dream faltered because his religion failed to form an adequate alliance with political power. The next great world empire, the Islamic, did not make the same mistake. Its dramatic rise to power from the seventh century, and its rapid seizure of territories belonging to the Roman empire, would have serious consequences for the development of Christianity.
Frontmatter
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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Chronology
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- 02 September 2004, pp 410-422
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Index
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- 02 September 2004, pp 430-446
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An Introduction to Christianity
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An Introduction to Christianity examines the key figures, events and ideas of two thousand years of Christian history and places them in context. It considers the religion in its material as well as its spiritual dimensions and explores its interactions with wider society such as money, politics, force, gender and the family, and non-Christian cultures and societies. This Introduction places particular focus on the ways in which Christianity has understood, embodied and related to power. It shows how the Church's longstanding love affair with 'higher power', both human and divine, has been repeatedly challenged by alternative ideas of of 'power from below', both sacred and secular. Finally, by bringing the history of Christianity right up-to-date, this book explores the ways in which churches of both North and South react to the rise of modern democracy. Comprehensive and accessible, this book will appeal to the student and general reader.
3 - Christendom : the western church in power
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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The Emperor Constantine in Christ Jesus … to the most holy and blessed father of fathers, Silvester, bishop of the Roman city and Pope ….
Inasmuch as our power is earthly, we have decreed that it shall venerate and honour [the Pope's] most holy Roman Church and that the see of blessed Peter shall be gloriously exalted above our empire and earthly throne. We attribute to him the power and glorious dignity and strength and honour of the empire, and we ordain and decree that he shall have rule as well over the four principal sees, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, as also over all the churches of God in all the world.
It is generally accepted that Pope Stephen II (752–7) set the western church on a novel course when he appealed to King Pippin III of the Franks to restore conquered papal lands, and bestowed on him the title Patricius Romanorum. In so doing, Stephen was turning his back on the eastern empire in favour of what he hoped would become a new empire with its centre in Rome. This move was justified, to later generations at least, by The Donation of Constantine, quoted above, a forgery from the eighth century, whose authenticity was queried only in the fifteenth. Purportedly written by the emperor Constantine on the eve of his move to Constantinople, it bestowed power in the west to the pope of the time and to his successors.
Notes
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5 - Protestant pathways into the modern world
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a Wall, and that Wall is called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back; and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.
Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest, by his sorrow, and life, by his death. Then he stood a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him from his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, published in England in 1678, became a Protestant classic. It offered an allegorical tale of one man's struggle to overcome sin and win salvation, and succeeded in translating the objective truths of Protestant theology into the subjective experience of ‘Pilgrim’, the Protestant everyman.
Conclusion
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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Those who have followed this book from start to finish will notice that the story has come full circle. It began with a religion that was marginal to social power, and it ends with a religion that has become marginal to social power once more. The fact that Christianity lost influence over the spheres of political, economic, military and even ideological power does not, of course, mean that it necessarily loses influence over individual lives. It does, however, mean that such influence is likely to take particular forms. It will be felt at the personal rather than at the public level, and Christian ethics will be concerned with the regulation of personal, intimate and domestic life. In so far as Christianity continues to have an impact on political and economic life, it will do so by shaping behaviour and commitment at the individual level. Some churches may continue to make pronouncements about war, politics and economics, but they will do so from the margins rather than from the centre, and without any guaranteed influence. Grand theological systems are likely to be eclipsed by teachings that have an immediate relevance to the individual in the living of his or her life. Rather than having an established status in society, Christianity has, once again, to fight for that place with a wide range of competitors.
Contents
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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Part I - The Christian revolution: ascent to power
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1 - How Christianity came to power
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The Word of God [Jesus Christ] … is the Lord of All the Universe; from whom and through whom the king, the beloved of God, receives and bears the image of His Supreme Kingship, and so steers and directs, in imitation of his Superior, the helm of all the affairs of this world.
So wrote Eusebius (c. 260–c. 339), bishop of Caesarea, in celebration of thirty years of imperial rule by the Roman emperor Constantine. Three centuries had passed since the death of Jesus. Eusebius had reason to rejoice. Under Constantine Christianity had changed its status from being a cult within the mighty Roman empire to being an officially tolerated religion. Encouraged by Christians such as Eusebius, Constantine had readily accepted the status of deputy of Christ. With the blessing of the ‘Supreme King’ in the heavens, his ambition to become supreme king on earth was gaining new impetus and legitimacy.
One of the most skilful, powerful and ruthless of the Roman emperors, Constantine had harboured ambitions to unify and expand the Roman empire even before his ‘conversion’ to Christianity in 312. During the course of his long reign – from 306 to 337 – his commitment to Christianity increased until it became the favoured religion of the empire. The reasons appear to have been political as well as personal. Christianity offered something unique in the ancient world: an exclusivist, universalist, monopolistic monotheism focused on a single all-powerful God. Roman religion was generally pluriform and tolerant.
4 - The Reformation in context
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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- 05 February 2015
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- 02 September 2004, pp 159-203
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Summary
I shall set down the following two propositions concerning the freedom and the bondage of the spirit:
A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
The reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) promised freedom. He promised freedom from the burden of the moral law; freedom from fear of the devil and damnation; freedom from obedience to the pope and his church. Every infant, he proclaimed, ‘crawls out of the font [at baptism] a Christian, a priest, and a pope’. He himself had been set free by the belief that no-one and nothing stood between him and God. But Luther also embraced the role of a servant in relation to his God. He found freedom in complete, unswerving devotion to the God who had saved him by sending his Son Jesus Christ. As the servant of the most powerful master of all, a master who elevates those he loves, Luther could no longer be enslaved to any earthly power. As he put it in The Freedom of a Christian, he, like his fellow Christians, was not only ‘a perfectly dutiful servant’ but ‘a perfectly free lord, subject to none’.
What Luther had done, in effect, was to slice out the multiple mediating authorities that had stood between the individual and God in medieval Christianity. A Christian had to tread carefully, making sure that the higher powers that controlled his or her destiny were kept sweet.
7 - Twentieth-century fortunes
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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- 05 February 2015
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- 02 September 2004, pp 333-403
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Historians of the twentieth century in the third millennium will probably see the century's major impact on history as the one made by and in this astonishing period [its second half]. For the changes in human life it brought about all over the globe were as profound as they were irreversible. Moreover, they are still continuing.
Though a final verdict will be possible only when the passage of time allows us to take a longer perspective, the final part of the twentieth century may be judged one of the most momentous in the history of Christianity. For in just three decades, between 1970 and 2000, Christianity collapsed in parts of the northern hemisphere, and gained new vitality in much of the south.
It was not just Christianity that changed; the world changed too. Eric Hobsbawm is not alone in noting the historical significance of the changes that took place in the second part of the twentieth century. The widespread sense that something of such magnitude had occurred that it constituted a break with what had gone before was signalled by the use of terms such as ‘postmodern’, ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-Christian’ and ‘post-colonial’. Though these terms are much debated, few disagree that the last part of the twentieth century witnessed an erosion of long-established forms of social order and moral control. Negatively, such collapse involved a dissatisfaction with established, hierarchical orders, and may be characterised as a ‘flight from deference’.
Part II - The modern revolution: compromises with power
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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- 05 February 2015
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- 02 September 2004, pp 157-158
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6 - Catholic and Orthodox negotiations with modernity
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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- 02 September 2004, pp 264-332
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Syllabus of the principal errors of our time …
1. There exists no Supreme, all-wise, all-provident Divine Being, distinct from the universe …
15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true …
24. The church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect …
44. The civil authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government …
77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship …
80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation.
Simply by dissolving the unity of Christianity, the Reformation had a profound effect on the Catholic church. It was not that post-Reformation Christians were left with choice of religious affiliation, for in most cases their faith would still be determined by the society and family into which they were born. But after the Reformation, Europeans were no longer simply born ‘Christian’. However dim and distant the threat of Protestantism might seem to, say, an Italian peasant, he would now be aware that he possessed a ‘Catholic’ identity that set him apart from some other so-called Christians north of the Alps.
List of illustrations
- Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University
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- An Introduction to Christianity
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- 02 September 2004, pp vi-viii
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