Essays on the Philosophical Nexus Between Religion and Politics

Essays on the Philosophical Nexus Between Religion and Politics
Author: Emanuel L. Paparella
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781536131352

This proposed book is a sequel to Volume 1. It has the same title and consists of eighteen additional essays written over four years (2014-2017) on the theme of the historical nexus between religion and politics. This second volume begins where the first ends and its Table of Contents lists essays Nineteen to Thirty-Six. It takes a sweeping panoramic cultural and anthropological view on the theme that is in some way connected to the following philosophical and dialectical conundrums: myth/history, poetics/science, politics/transcendentalism, freedom/determinism, ideology/history, power/justice, law/love, grand narrative/positivistic approach, hermeneutics, transcendence/immanence, secularism/religion, liberalism/fascism, freedom/human rights, revelation/positivism, democracy/political corruption, moral compass/power, guilt/honor, democracy/truth, ethical tradition/historical tradition, secular humanism/religious humanism, public spirituality/private spirituality, and spiritual identity/political identity. All of these subthemes are alluded to in the titles of the chapters and then philosophically explored. The chapters also venture into uncharted territory. From the very beginning, they often challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about history, progress, science, the secular and the sacred. The goal is not so much to solve those perennial philosophical conundrums, but to point to their relevancy for an effective handling of various contemporary existential predicaments in politics, in environmental science, and in spirituality. The target audience includes the educated layman of a philosophical bent, but also includes those readers that follow contemporary trends in ethics, spirituality and politics.

Piety and Humanity

Piety and Humanity
Author: Douglas Kries
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1997
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780847686193

The nature of the relationship between early modern political philosophy and revealed religion has been much debated. The contributors to Piety and Humanity argue that this relationship is one of dissonance rather than concord. They claim that the early modern political philosophers found revealed religion--especially Christianity--to be a threat to the modern political project, and that these philosophers therefore attempted to transform revealed religion so that it would be less of a threat, and possibly even an aid. Each essay is devoted to a particular work by a single political philosopher; the thinkers and works discussed include Machiavelli's Exhortation to Penitence, Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, and Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity. Each essay is followed by a brief selected bibliography. This book will be of great importance to philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of religion and early modern European history.

Not So Strange Bedfellows

Not So Strange Bedfellows
Author: Rob Imre
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014-08-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1443865842

At the intersection of politics and religion is a nexus of belief in doctrine and adherence to socio-political cultural conventions. Lines of communication and methods of belonging permeate both spheres, enabling their respective participants, especially the (often self-described) ‘true believers’, to bond and belong, and most importantly to adhere to their various belief systems. Traditionally, this nexus has been approached from a standpoint that posits the idea of secularity as the governing principle. The authors in this volume challenge this orthodoxy. They examine a diverse range of historical and geographic locations involving markedly different religious and political movements. They explore how nation-states develop political religions, how they actively promote a politics infused with religiosity, and how they transfer symbols and meanings from one socio-political construct to another. Despite markedly different philosophical differences, the contributors repudiate the currently dominant orthodoxies on the relationship between religion and politics. They demonstrate that ‘secular’ democracy is not radically separate from religion. Nation-states actively participate in the construction of this nexus even as they extol their commitment to secular values. In so doing, they demonstrate that secularity as it is currently understood remains deeply implicated in the nexus between religion and politics in the twenty-first century.

Politics and Religion in the New Century

Politics and Religion in the New Century
Author: Philip Andrew Quadrio
Publisher: Sydney University Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2009-11-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1743321457

Politics and Religion in the New Century contains a collection of philosophical reflections on the intersection of religion and the political in contemporary social, political and intellectual life.

Politics of Religion/Religions of Politics

Politics of Religion/Religions of Politics
Author: Alistair Welchman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2014-10-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9401794480

The liberal enlightenment as well as the more radical left have both traditionally opposed religion as a reactionary force in politics, a view culminating in an identification of the politics of religion as fundamentalist theocracy. But recently a number of thinkers—Agamben, Badiou, Tabues and in particular Simon Critchley—have begun to explore a more productive engagement of the religious and the political in which religion features as a possible or even necessary form of human emancipation. The papers in this collection, deriving from a workshop held on and with Simon Critchley at the University of Texas at San Antonio in February 2010, take up the ways in which religion’s encounter with politics transforms not only politics but also religion itself, molding it into various religions of politics, including not just heretical religious metaphysics, but also what Critchley describes as non-metaphysical religion, the faith of the faithless. Starting from Critchley’s own genealogy of Pauline faith, the articles in this collection explore and defend some of the religions of politics and their implications. Costica Bradatan teases out the implications of Critchley’s substitution of humor for tragedy as the vehicle for the minimal self-distancing required for any politics. Jill Stauffer compares Critchley’s non-metaphysical religiosity with Charles Taylor’s account of Christianity. Alistair Welchman unpacks the political theology of the border in terms of god’s timeless act of creation. Anne O’Byrne explores the subtle dialectic between mores and morality in Rousseau’s political ethics. Roland Champagne sees a kind non-metaphysical religion in Arendt’s category of the political pariah. Davide Panagia presents Critchley’s ethics of exposure as the basis for a non-metaphysical political bond. Philip Quadrio wonders about the political ramifications of Critchley’s own ‘mystical anarchism’ and Tina Chanter re-reads the primal site in the Western tradition at which the political and the religious intersect, the Antigone story, side-stepping philosophical interpretations of the story (dominated by Hegel’s reading) by means of a series of post-colonial re-imaginings of the play. The collection concludes with an interview with Simon Critchley taking up the themes of the workshop in the light of more recent political events: the Arab Spring and the rise and fall of the Occupy movement.

Just War in Religion and Politics

Just War in Religion and Politics
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2013-04-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0761860940

The basis of this collection of essays is the reading of a common topic from different perspectives. Half of the book is devoted to the comparative study of religions and the courses are offered by religion professors. The other half is shaped by social science approaches and the seminars are given mainly by social science professors. We aim to compare and contrast not only positions, but also methods of learning. We examine theories of the just war in diverse cultural contexts and their disciplinary settings. Space is devoted to the study of papers prepared for this project by specialists in various disciplines, mainly but not exclusively faculty of Bard College and the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Philosophical Foundations of the Religious Axis

Philosophical Foundations of the Religious Axis
Author: John R. Pottenger
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-01-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030339742

This book discusses the evolution of three philosophical foundations from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries that converged to form the basis of liberal democracy’s approach to the place and role of religion in society and politics. Identified by the author as a “religious axis,” the period of convergence promoted rational and empirical investigation, enabled the development of diverse religious beliefs, and affirmed religious liberty and expressions amidst pluralist politics. The author shows that the religious axis’ three philosophical foundations—epistemic, axiological, and political—undergird the political architecture of American liberal democracy that designed a containment structure to protect a vast array of religious expressions and encourage their presence in the public square. Moreover, the structure embodied a democratic ethos that drives religious and political pluralism—but within limits. The author argues that this containment structure has paradoxically ignited frenzied fires of faith that politically threaten the structure’s own limits.

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political
Author: Calvin O. Schrag
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2013
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739145932

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political presents fourteen essays devoted to the interconnected topics of religion, ethics, and politics, along with an introductory interview with the author regarding his philosophical development over the years. This volume serves two interconnected purposes: as an introduction or reintroduction to Calvin O.Schrag's intellectual contributions to a critical consideration of these three topics, and as a critical companion and supplement to Schrag's published work on these topics. The topics of religion, ethics, and politics have served as pivot points throughout Schrag's career in the academy, which spans half a century.

The Mighty and the Almighty

The Mighty and the Almighty
Author: Nicholas Wolterstorff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2012-07-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107027314

Questions how the church and state should be related, through an examination of the relationship between divine and political authority.