The Theory of Religious Liberty in England 1603–39

The Theory of Religious Liberty in England 1603–39
Author: T. Lyon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2014-07-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107456436

Originally published in 1937, this book contains an essayon the subject of religious liberty in the reigns of James I and Charles I.

The History of Religious Liberty

The History of Religious Liberty
Author: Michael Farris
Publisher: New Leaf Publishing Group
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2015-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1614584508

Early American advocates of freedom did not believe in religious liberty in spite of their Christianity, but explicitly because of their individual faith in Christ, which had been molded and instructed by the Bible. The greatest evidence of their commitment to liberty can be found in their willingness to support the cause of freedom for those different from themselves. The assertion that the Enlightenment is responsible for the American Bill of Rights may be common, but it is devoid of any meaningful connection to the actual historical account. History reveals a different story, intricately gathered from the following: Influence of William Tyndale's translation work and the court intrigues of Henry VIII Spread of the Reformation through the eyes of Martin Luther, John Knox, and John Calvin The fight to establish a bill of rights that would guarantee every American citizen the free exercise of their religion. James Madison played a key role in the founding of America and in the establishment of religious liberty. But the true heroes of our story are the common people whom Tyndale inspired and Madison marshaled for political victory. These individuals read the Word of God for themselves and truly understood both the liberty of the soul and the liberty of the mind. The History of Religious Liberty is a sweeping literary work that passionately traces the epic history of religious liberty across three centuries, from the turbulent days of medieval Europe to colonial America and the birth pangs of a new nation.

Religion and the Political Imagination

Religion and the Political Imagination
Author: Ira Katznelson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-10-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139493175

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.

Boundaries of Toleration

Boundaries of Toleration
Author: Alfred Stepan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231165676

How can people of diverse religious, historical, ethnic, and linguistic allegiances and identities live together without committing violence, inflicting suffering, or oppressing each other? Western civilization has long understood this dilemma as a question of toleration, yet the logic of toleration and the logic of multicultural rights entrenchment are two very different things. In this volume, contributors suggest we also think beyond toleration to mutual respect, practiced before the creation of modern multiculturalism in the West. Salman Rushdie reflects on the once mutually tolerant Sufi-Hindu culture of Kashmir. Ira Katznelson follows with an intellectual history of toleration as a layered institution in the West and councils against assuming we have transcended the need for such tolerance. Charles Taylor advances a new approach to secularism in our multicultural world, and Akeel Bilgrami responds by urging caution against making it difficult to condemn or make illegal dangerous forms of intolerance. The political theorist Nadia Urbanati explores why the West did not pursue Cicero’s humanist ideal of concord as a response to religious discord. The volume concludes with a refutation of the claim that toleration was invented in the West and is alien to non-Western cultures.

The Baptists

The Baptists
Author: William H. Brackney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1994-05-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0313389780

A brief, narrative survey of the Baptists in North America over the last three and a half centuries, from their roots in Europe to their present manifestations in contemporary America and the world. The six chapters are organized around five distinctives historically important to Baptists: the Bible, the Church, the ordinances/sacraments, voluntarism, and religious liberty. Concluding with a Chronology and extensive Bibliographic Essay, this is an ideal text for courses in Church History, North American Religious History, or American social and cultural history.

Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689

Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689
Author: John Coffey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317884426

This fascinating work is the first overview of its subject to be published in over half a century. The issues it deals with are key to early modern political, religious and cultural history. The seventeenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of expanding and extended liberalism, when superstition and received truth were overthrown. The book questions how far England moved towards becoming a liberal society at that time and whether or not the end of the century crowned a period of progress, or if one set of intolerant orthodoxies had simply been replaced by another. The book examines what toleration means now and meant then, explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory, the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts, the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which, for the first time, a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one. Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history.