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Author: Derek Davis
Publisher: J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies Baylo Ity
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
It has been said that the measure of a healthy and civilized society is how well it treats its elderly and indigent. Perhaps it should be said also that the measure of the health of religious liberty in a society is the degree to which minority, nontraditional faiths are protected. This book is a collection of essays on the subject of religious liberty and new religious movements (NRMs). NRMs are often called "cults" by popular media commentators and the public at large, but scholars eschew that term because it is so pejorative that it skews the argument from the very beginning. By contrast, the term "new religious movements" attempts to place NRMs squarely in the mix with older, more traditional forms of religion. This is due in part to the fact that in America there should be no correlation between the level of social approval a group has achieved and the degree of religious liberty it enjoys. As the Supreme Court itself averred famously in the 1872 case Watson v. Jones, "The Law knows no heresy and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect." Each author represented in this volume believes that NRMs should enjoy the same liberties as more mainstream religions. If the book has a bias, it is a bias in favor of religious liberty. The authors believe that if the First Amendment is applied to protect the newest, nontraditional, seemingly unusual religions (by the standards of the majority of the population), then nearly everyone is safe as far as religious liberty is concerned. -- "The Cult Awareness Network and the Anticult Movement: Implications for NRMs in America" by Anson Shupe, Susan E. Darnell, and Kendrick Moxon -- "Scientology: Separating Truthfrom Fiction" by Heber C. Jentzsch -- "Witchcraft and Satanism" by Stuart A. Wright -- "Women in Controversial New Religions: Slaves, Priestesses, or Pioneers" by Susan Palmer -- "New Religious Movements and Conflicts with Law Enforcement Agencies" by Catherine Wessinger
Author: Derek Davis
Publisher: J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies Baylo Ity
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Get Book Here
Book Description
It has been said that the measure of a healthy and civilized society is how well it treats its elderly and indigent. Perhaps it should be said also that the measure of the health of religious liberty in a society is the degree to which minority, nontraditional faiths are protected. This book is a collection of essays on the subject of religious liberty and new religious movements (NRMs). NRMs are often called "cults" by popular media commentators and the public at large, but scholars eschew that term because it is so pejorative that it skews the argument from the very beginning. By contrast, the term "new religious movements" attempts to place NRMs squarely in the mix with older, more traditional forms of religion. This is due in part to the fact that in America there should be no correlation between the level of social approval a group has achieved and the degree of religious liberty it enjoys. As the Supreme Court itself averred famously in the 1872 case Watson v. Jones, "The Law knows no heresy and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect." Each author represented in this volume believes that NRMs should enjoy the same liberties as more mainstream religions. If the book has a bias, it is a bias in favor of religious liberty. The authors believe that if the First Amendment is applied to protect the newest, nontraditional, seemingly unusual religions (by the standards of the majority of the population), then nearly everyone is safe as far as religious liberty is concerned. -- "The Cult Awareness Network and the Anticult Movement: Implications for NRMs in America" by Anson Shupe, Susan E. Darnell, and Kendrick Moxon -- "Scientology: Separating Truthfrom Fiction" by Heber C. Jentzsch -- "Witchcraft and Satanism" by Stuart A. Wright -- "Women in Controversial New Religions: Slaves, Priestesses, or Pioneers" by Susan Palmer -- "New Religious Movements and Conflicts with Law Enforcement Agencies" by Catherine Wessinger
Author: Robert A. Segal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405154659
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 496
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Book Description
This prestigious Companion offers the most comprehensive survey todate of the study of religion. Featuring a team of internationalcontributors, and edited by one of the most widely respectedscholars in the field, The Blackwell Companion to the Study ofReligion provides an interdisciplinary and authoritative guideto the subject. Examines the main approaches to the study of religion:anthropology, the comparative method, economics, literature,philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology. Also covers a diverse range of topical issues, such as thebody, fundamentalism, magic, and new religious movements Consists of 24 essays written by an outstanding team ofinternational scholars Reviews, within each chapter, an outline of a particularsubfield and traces its development up to the present day Debates how the discipline may look in the future Represents all the major issues, methods and positions in thefield
Author: John Corrigan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022631393X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
As the news shows us every day, contemporary American culture and politics are rife with people who demonize their enemies by projecting their own failings and flaws onto them. But this is no recent development. Rather, as John Corrigan argues here, it’s an expression of a trauma endemic to America’s history, particularly involving our long domestic record of religious conflict and violence. Religious Intolerance, America, and the World spans from Christian colonists’ intolerance of Native Americans and the role of religion in the new republic’s foreign-policy crises to Cold War witch hunts and the persecution complexes that entangle Christians and Muslims today. Corrigan reveals how US churches and institutions have continuously campaigned against intolerance overseas even as they’ve abetted or performed it at home. This selective condemnation of intolerance, he shows, created a legacy of foreign policy interventions promoting religious freedom and human rights that was not reflected within America’s own borders. This timely, captivating book forces America to confront its claims of exceptionalism based on religious liberty—and perhaps begin to break the grotesque cycle of projection and oppression.
Author: Derek Davis
Publisher: Baylor University Press
ISBN: 0918954924
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
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Book Description
New nontraditional religious movements are the most likely groups to offend mainstream culture and the least likely to have representatives in government to ensure that their liberty is protected. These new religious movements are sometimes ostracized and subject to various forms of discrimination. As America becomes increasingly pluralistic, with more and more groups contributing to the nation's religious mosaic, new religious movements may well play an increasing role in the course of religious liberty in America, just as groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses did formerly. This book explores the problems and possibilities posed by new religious movements for religious liberty in America.
Author: David Sehat
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199793115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
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.
Author: James R. Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190611529
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 545
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Book Description
The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) is one of the fastest-growing areas of religious studies, and since the release of the first edition of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements in 2003, the field has continued to expand and break new ground. In this all-new volume, James R. Lewis and Inga B. T?llefsen bring together established and rising scholars to address an expanded range of topics, covering traditional religious studies topics such as "scripture," "charisma," and "ritual," while also applying new theoretical approaches to NRM topics. Other chapters cover understudied topics in the field, such as the developmental patterns of NRMs and subcultural considerations in the study of NRMs. The first part of this book examines NRMs from a social-scientific perspective, particularly that of sociology. In the second section, the primary factors that have put the study of NRMs on the map, controversy and conflict, are considered. The third section investigates common themes within the field of NRMs, while the fourth examines the approaches that religious studies researchers have taken to NRMs. As NRM Studies has grown, subfields such as Esotericism, New Age Studies, and neo-Pagan Studies have grown as distinct and individual areas of study, and the final section of the book investigates these emergent fields.
Author: Michael I. Meyerson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300183496
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 477
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Book Description
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.
Author: Douglas Laycock
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780802876058
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
One of the most respected and influential scholars of religious liberty in our time, Douglas Laycock has argued many crucial religious liberty cases in the U.S. appellate courts and Supreme Court. His noteworthy scholarly and popular writings are being collected in four comprehensive volumes under the title Religious Liberty. This first volume gives the big picture of religious liberty in the United States, fitting a vast range of disparate disputes into a coherent pattern - from public school prayers to private school vouchers to regulation of churches and believers. Laycock's clear overviews provide the broad, historical, helpful context often lacking in today's press.
Author: Asma T Uddin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643131745
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
American Muslim religious liberty lawyer Asma Uddin has long considered her work defending people of all faiths to be a calling more than a job. Yet even as she seeks equal protection for Evangelicals, Sikhs, Muslims, Native Americans, Jews, and Catholics alike, she has seen an ominous increase in attempts to criminalize Islam and exclude Muslim Americans from those protections.Somehow, the view that Muslims aren’t human enough for human rights or constitutional protections is moving from the fringe to the mainstream—along with the claim “Islam is not a religion.” This conceit is not just a threat to the First Amendment rights of American Muslims. It is a threat to the freedom of all Americans.Her new book reveals a significant but overlooked danger to our religious liberty. Woven throughout this national saga is Uddin’s own story and the stories of American Muslims and other people of faith who have faced tremendous indignities as they attempt to live and worship freely.Combining her experience of Islam as a religious truth and her legal and philosophical appreciation that all individuals have a right to religious liberty, Uddin examines the shifting tides of American culture and outlines a way forward for individuals and communities navigating today’s culture wars.
Author: Thomas S Kidd
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465022774
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
A "thought-provoking, meticulously researched" testament to evangelical Christians' crucial contribution to American independence and a timely appeal for the same spiritual vitality today (Washington Times). At the dawn of the Revolutionary War, America was already a nation of diverse faiths-the First Great Awakening and Enlightenment concepts such as deism and atheism had endowed the colonists with varying and often opposed religious beliefs. Despite their differences, however, Americans found common ground against British tyranny and formed an alliance that would power the American Revolution. In God of Liberty, historian Thomas S. Kidd offers the first comprehensive account of religion's role during this transformative period and how it gave form to our nation and sustained it through its tumultuous birth -- and how it can be a force within our country during times of transition today.
