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The success of the Concordat of 1801 in establishing a modus vivendi between post-revolutionary France and the Catholic Church ought not be taken for granted. It owes in significant degree to the design and application of Napoleons advisor on religious affairs, Jean-Etienne Marie Portalis. The Concordat is appreciated for having set the stage for the ultramontane Catholicism of nineteenth-century France, but as legislator and administrator, Portalis was looking back to the legal traditions of the liberties of the Gallican Church and the supremacy of the sovereign. Keywords: Concordat of 1801, religious liberty, schism, French Revolution, On Easter Sunday 1802, Mass was celebrated openly in the Cathedral of Notre Dame for the first time in full communion with Rome since the outbreak schism in the French [...]

In 1983, Robert Cover challenged the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to conflicts between the law of the state and the religious commitments of "insular communities." Over 40 years later, Cover's call remains urgent, and is of special relevance in New York. In Brooklyn and the Lower Hudson Valley, Hasidic yeshivas with tens of thousands of students seek dispensation from state policy that requires all students to receive a basic secular education. Meanwhile, federal religious liberty jurisprudence, significantly changed since 1983, still fails to satisfyingly arbitrate between the commitments of religious communities and the law of the secular state. Part I of this Note sets the theoretical and doctrinal stage. It explains the intervention made by Professor Cover in Nomos and Narrative, outlines the free exercise maximalism of today's Supreme Court, and proposes how Cover's ideas could be used to redeem a religious liberty jurisprudence gone awry. Specifically, as part of determining when the law of the insular religious community must bend before the law of the state, Part I argues that courts should inquire into whether the state's law is paideic (world- creating) or merely regulatory. Part II applies these ideas to the pressing case study of Hasidic education in New York. It provides the reader with an overview of Hasidic education and the current legal landscape. It also cautions that current doctrine is ill-equipped to handle the dilemma. Finally, Part III encourages New York government to articulate its compulsory education law as a world-creating commitment of the state and urges the courts to recognize the legitimacy and necessity of such a claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant scholarship on anti-Christian violence in India is scant and predominantly focuses on physical violence. To address this gap, this article explores Freedom of Religion laws (also referred to as anti-conversion laws) as an example of structural violence faced by India's Christians. Thus far, scholars have studied these as a constitutional violation that denies a Christian's freedom of religion. Using Johan Galtung's violence framework, this article seeks to recast these laws as a form of structural violence against Christians. In doing so, it will show how Hindutva's anxieties about the demographic and political 'Christian threat' have become embedded into the law. Through an exploration of the southern state of Karnataka, where the Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion was passed in 2022, this article seeks to show how this structural violence interacts and reinforces forms of direct and cultural violence, creating a system of anti-Christian violence designed to maintain India's 'Hindu majority'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the conflict between liberal egalitarianism and the principles of liberalism, arguing that the former's commitment to distributive justice undermines the latter's respect for personal property and occupational choice. Topics include a reinterpretation of Robert Nozick's critique of distributive justice, the argument against the notion that Nozick's critique is question-begging, and the implications for the state's role in enforcing egalitarian distribution.

Nearly half of all countries have official religions or give preference to specific religious traditions. Most countries with an official religion are majority Muslim; however, most of those with a preference for particular religious traditions are majority Christian. This paper considers empirical data related to constitutional references to specific religions as a framework for a discussion of the comparative constitutional histories of Turkey and the Republic of Ireland. Both moved from systems that preferred their majority religions to ostensive neutrality. This analysis reinforces the importance of religion in law and policy regardless of cultural context and constitutional choices. Constitutional drafters have established a number of approaches to the treatment of religion, including freedom of religion, establishment of religion, separation of religion and state, neutrality, official religion, conformity, repugnancy, and sources of law/legislation. Although these linguistic choices are significant, they may not result in consistent practices across jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Both evolution and climate change have broad scientific consensus, and yet they are the most contested scientific concepts in the US K‐12 education system. This study aimed to explore trends in proposed US state legislation employed from 2003 to 2023 by anti‐evolution and anti‐climate change education movements to constrain the teaching of these sciences. Using a historical qualitative research design, document analysis was used to evaluate state legislation and reports from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Two hundred and seventy‐three climate and evolution‐related House and Senate bills, concurrent resolutions, and joint resolutions were identified, coded, and analyzed. Eleven anti‐science education legislative tactics were employed from 2003 to 2023. Five were first identified in the literature review: academic freedom (42.1%), rebranding (12.1%), balanced treatment (12.1%), censorship (2.6%), and disclaimers (2.6%). Six new tactics were revealed in the analysis: anti‐indoctrination (16.8%), standards (12.1%), instructional materials (10.3%), religious liberty (8.8%), avoidance (4.4%), and religious instruction (4.0%). One‐quarter of bills and resolutions employed a combination of tactics. The most ubiquitous tactics were academic freedom bills, which urge science teachers to introduce ideas like intelligent design or climate change denial under the mantle of academic freedom, and anti‐indoctrination bills, which prevent teachers from advocating for controversial topics deemed political. Since 2017, anti‐indoctrination has become the preferred tactic. Southern, southeastern, and midwestern states were the most prolific in their contribution to anti‐science education legislation. Qualitative analysis revealed bill and resolution language was often recycled across years and states with slight changes to wording. From 2003 to 2023, the total number of anti‐science education state legislative efforts increased, as did the number of passed bills and resolutions. The implications of these tactics and trends are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Regions with multi‐ethnicity like Africa benefit from religiosity and freedom for improved mental and physical well‐being. Although religious freedom in its original sense advocates for peace, there are questions about whether it results in making healthy decisions that are beneficial to one's well‐being. This argument is made in light of the crimes carried out globally in the name of religious freedom, even though it is considered to be wrongly expressed if the expression does not improve well‐being. As a symbol of democracy, religious freedom is expected to boost sentiments of personal authenticity and belonging, and enhance support networks. This study explores the impact of freedom of religion on basic welfare in 49 African countries from 2000 to 2020. Methodology: To control for potential endogeneity, the authors adopted the smoothed instrumental‐variables quantile regression strategy. The outcome variable of basic welfare is measured using an index that includes life expectancy, literacy rate, and calorie supply while religious freedom is proxied on a 4‐point scale that indicates the extent to which individuals could freely express their religious beliefs. Results: The findings reveal a statistically significant positive impact of freedom of religion on basic welfare in Africa. It manifests itself in protecting the rights of individuals, especially the most vulnerable, and promotes social belonging and cohesion. In addition, the results reveal that freedom of religion enhances basic welfare in both former British and French African colonies when the differences in the legal systems are considered. Conclusions: The study's findings support the religious freedom‐welfare enhancing relationship and are consistent after considering life expectancy and literacy rate as indicators of basic welfare. Policymakers are encouraged to promote democracy and healthy religious behaviors that enhance basic well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African religiosity that permeates all human existence is driven by a consuming desire for connection with the spiritual world that provides and protects human flourishing. African neo-Pentecostal prophets (ANPPs) respond to this need by imposing themselves as the sacral agents that can connect people to God. The sacralisation of prophets leads them to personalise the church as their personal property. The question answered by this article is as follows: from a Christian soteriological perspective of Jesus as the only sufficient intermediary between God and humanity, how can we address the African need for connection with God that fosters a reliance on African neo-Pentecostal prophets and leads to the sacralisation of these prophets and the personalisation of the church? This article uses Christ's redemption of believers to challenge ANPPs' response to the African need for connection with God that leads to these prophets' domination and exploitation of their followers. This article challenges ANPPs to promote the freedom of Christ's redemptive work instead of sacralising themselves and personalising the church, which instils a religion of fear that keeps their followers subservient to prophets. The contribution of this article lies in assisting Christians, in this case the followers of ANPPs, to realise that sacralising the prophets provides grounds for these prophets to personalise the church. Therefore, Christ's redemptive work should be affirmed and promoted as a means of protecting the church from being personalised by sacralised prophets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the tendency of some modern scholars to mark Augustine as the father of religious coercion, the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) cites him as a principal source for freedom of conscience. This essay presents evidence from Augustine's letters and anti-Donatist writings to show that he both upheld freedom of conscience and maintained a vital role for state force. The essay shows that far from simply providing a Christian justification for the use of state force against non-Catholics, Augustine most notably imposed the limits of Christian charity on a long history of state-sponsored religious persecution. Only by the charitable and paternal application of discipline by the state would many Donatists be truly free to follow their conscience. In this way, those persecuted for being in schism could attain freedom by coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marriage equality is a nascent and fragile civil right in the United States. To protect this civil right we must articulate and preserve diverse religious, ethical, and legal positions from the marriage equality debates. Sadly, and incorrectly, both the popular and scholarly narratives of religions' public role and ethics on marriage equality have been told with a Christocentric and "God versus Gay" framing. Here I push the borders of that frame to include the crucially important story of Judaism and the Prop 8 marriage equality debates. Judaism made and still makes vital and unique contributions to the battle for marriage equality: the majority of Jewish congregations and organizations are in favor of marriage equality, as opposed to the majority of Christianities which are against it. Judaism models diversity within the tradition, for example how to be opposed to same‐sex marriage but not expect that it will be illegal. Jewish positions on marriage equality in the public sphere model how the civil rights of marriage equality and religious liberty can coexist and thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can constitutional law contribute to the justification of political power? Quite a lot, Frank Michelman argues in Constitutional Essentials. It can establish a publicly known framework for addressing the deep disagreements that are inevitable in any free society. Michelman's analysis has powerful attractions, but he overclaims the clarity with which rights can be defended within the Rawlsian framework he contemplates. The interests that courts must defend will vary from one society to another, depending on what the locals happen to value. They cannot therefore be derived abstractly from the moral powers. In John Rawls's four-stage sequence, writers of constitutions, legislatures, and courts necessarily consider contestable ideas of the good. Deep disagreement even about political fundamentals is a permanent condition of political life in a free society. Social unity is possible, but it is a more unstable unity than Rawls and Michelman imagine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Origins of Liberalism" is an article that explores the origins and development of liberal political thought. It discusses the core elements of liberalism, such as the belief in individual importance, freedom of belief and speech, opposition to imposed orthodoxy, and limited government. The article highlights the influence of historical events, such as the Napoleonic Wars and the European Reformation, on the emergence of political liberalism. It also discusses the contributions of philosophers like René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, as well as key documents like John Milton's Areopagitica and John Locke's A Letter concerning Toleration. The article concludes by discussing the impact of liberalism on other countries, including Scotland and the United States. [Extracted from the article]

Analyzing the battle over Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple's enormous treasure, the paper documents the litigious journey of the concept of sacred possession and heritage. It shows how the evolving and complex logic of secular governance in India provides the legal categories that animate this contestation over the deity's wealth. While the enormous treasure trove housed in the six chambers of the temple's basement 'belongs' to the idol (murthi) Lord Sree Padmanabhaswamy, the royal family of Travancore has held the right for over the last two hundred and seventy years to control the wealth as the Lord's servants (dasa). Though the dispute over what is arguably the world's largest temple gold and valuables collection began in 2007, it gained widespread media attention in 2009 when a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed. Since then, the royal family, temple management, and other stakeholders have been embroiled in the struggle for possession and control of the temple's wealth. The paper explores how legal frames of Anglo-Hindu law in their postcolonial avatars, material patrimony (gold and land), and notions of immaterial heritage (shebaitship) animated and framed this contestation. To this end, the paper maps the legal trajectory of the dispute and the public debates over the ownership and control of the astounding wealth of Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. Further, it decodes the legal reasoning behind the courts' arguments and delves into ontological questions surrounding religious freedom and secularity. The discussion illustrates how notions of immaterial heritage anchored in ideas of kingship as well as kinship emerged as clinching evidence in the management and access to this sacred wealth. Finally, the analyses offer insights into the governance of sacred materiality through religio-legal categories in a postcolonial nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the complex debate surrounding healthcare providers seeking to express their religious beliefs through the wearing of religious attire considering critical legal, ethical, and practical aspects. Drawing insights from the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and European Court of Justice, it sheds light on the implications for healthcare settings. The study highlights the sensitivity of the healthcare context, where specific arguments surface, such as the debated significance of religious neutrality given the vulnerability of patients and concerns about health and safety. Difficulties may arise when patients feel discomfort when treated by visibly religious healthcare providers. However, patients' preferences regarding the religious neutrality of healthcare providers cannot be generalised, especially when considering the needs of certain minoritised communities. Furthermore, questions can be raised about the admissibility of potentially accommodating prejudice through prohibitions on religious dress. The article further examines hygiene and safety arguments used by healthcare institutions to restrict religious attire, arguing that while health and safety standards are crucial, scientific support for outright bans is limited, especially considering the possibility of reasonable adjustments. The central theme is the necessity for balanced considerations while upholding religious freedom and prioritising patient care, with particular emphasis going on the idea that the needs of patients cannot be generalised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dinbilimleri Journal is the property of Dinbilimleri Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study focuses on the growing global debate about human rights and the role of religion, particularly Islam, in shaping these concepts. The research aims to analyze the Quran's perspective on human rights, identifying fundamental principles that affirm universal values such as justice, Freedom, and equality. This study employs a qualitative method with a textual analysis approach to relevant Quranic verses. The findings reveal that the Quran explicitly recognizes fundamental human rights, including the right to life, Freedom of religion, and protection from oppression. The discussion also highlights that a comprehensive and contextual interpretation of the Quranic verses is necessary to understand the Islamic perspective on human rights in the modern context. The study concludes that the Quran provides a solid ethical and moral foundation for human rights, but its application depends on proper interpretation by Muslim communities worldwide. The research suggests the need for further dialogue between religious traditions and international law to support the global protection of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to demonstrate characteristics of interaction between governmental efforts to maintain national security and the situation with freedom of religion in Ukraine. To answer the questions of how political decisions have influenced the religious sphere in Ukraine over the past five years including wartime and whether there is a balance between national interests and freedom of religion we apply event impact assessment comparing trends of transitions of parishes and people attitudes towards different Orthodox churches before and after political actions and governmental decisions during 2018–2023. The paper confirms that although religion was repeatedly brought into the political sphere religious pluralism persists in Ukraine on the territories that are under government control. We demonstrate that establishing the Orthodox church that was independent of Russia bolstered freedom of religion and full-scale Russia invasion caused a steep increase in many religious transfers from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UPC MP) to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Despite an increased role of the state and issues of national security due to Russian aggression, the religious sphere was quite autonomous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on reevaluating the Supreme Court's free exercise jurisprudence, beginning with its 1879 decision in Reynolds v. United States up to recent developments. It argues that the Court's interpretation of Reynolds as protecting only religious belief, not action, has been incorrectly embraced since the 1960s, leading to pivotal decisions like Employment Division v. Smith in 1990. The article proposes restoring Reynolds' original understanding, which recognized protections.

This paper examines the separation of church and state in the Philippines during the early American colonial period, contextualizing it within the process of American overseas expansion and considering it as one of the projects of imperial hegemony construction. After the Spanish–American War, the United States substituted Spain as the new colonial ruler of the Philippines, legitimizing its regime as the spread of 'civilization' to the Filipinos. On this basis, the Americans enacted laws guaranteeing religious freedom and introduced an American-style institution dealing with church–state relations. Beyond the legal and administrative initiatives, the new regime also constructed an official narrative of the transformation of political–religious relations in the Philippine that emphasized the absolute 'difference' between the American human rights principle, which guaranteed freedom of worship, and the Spanish theocracy, which was dedicated to the consolidation of privileges. By legislating the separation of church and state, buying up church properties, recognizing the equality of denominations, and constructing the official imperial narrative of church–state relations, the Americans hoped to 'teach' Filipinos that the 'true' belief was rooted in the inner convictions of individual Christians, not in the authority and coercion of the hierarchical church. By disciplining the construction of 'difference' under tutelary colonialism, the separation of church and state movement initiated by the American colonial government in the Philippines became an important source of imperial self-endowed legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond the once dominant secularization thesis that anticipated the decline of religion in the modern era, the academic study of religion has in recent decades revisited secular as one of the factors that shape religion and religions in the globalized world. Against this theoretical backdrop, in this article, I use the case of South Korea to explore how secular and religion interact in contemporary global society. It focuses on describing the postcolonial reformulation of secularity and the corresponding transformation of religious diversity in Cold War South Korea. The Japanese colonial secularism rigidly banning the public and political engagement of religion was replaced by the flexible secular-religious divide after liberation of 1945. The porous mode of secularity extensively admitted religious entities to affect processes of postcolonial nation-building. Religious values, interests, and resources have been applied in motivating, pushing, and justifying South Koreans to devote themselves to developing the national community as a whole. Such a form of secularity became a critical condition that caused South Korea's religious landscape to be reorganized in a vertical and unequal way. On the one hand, Buddhist and Christian populations grew remarkably in the liberated field of religion, while freedom of religion was recognized as a key ideological principle of the anticommunist country. On the other hand, folk beliefs and minority religious groups were often considered "superstitions", "pseudo religions", "heretics", or even "evil religions". With the pliable secularity at work, religious diversity was reconfigured hierarchically in the postcolonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of humanitarian migration to Western societies, social cohesion and belonging are often discursively expressed in terms of an imagined cohesive in-group and a markedly different and potentially threatening other whose values conflict with that of the democratic nation-state. This article investigates how belonging is constructed in discourse in the 2022 election year in Sweden, and how discursive constructions of belonging impact on the lived experiences of refugees in the country. The article draws on data from political discourses prior to the election as well as interviews with refugees in the four weeks immediately following. It argues that refugees are authored as distant from the Swedish culture and as threats to Swedish democratic values, and that this authoring, while contested by refugees themselves, can have significant impact on their lived experiences. Further, the portrayal of democratic values as uniquely Swedish and the portrayal of immigrants as a threat can mean that interpretations of such values as gender equality and freedom of religion become inflexible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is predicted to have a deep impact on the future of work and employment. The paper outlines a normative framework to understand and protect human freedom and justice in this transition. The proposed framework is based on four main ideas: going beyond the idea of a Basic Income to compensate the losers in the transition towards AI-driven work, towards a Responsible Innovation approach, in which the development of AI technologies is governed by an inclusive and deliberate societal judgment; going beyond a philosophical conceptualisation of social justice only focused on the distribution of 'primary goods', towards one focused on the different goals, values, and virtues of various social practices (Walzer's 'spheres of justice') and the different individual capabilities of persons (Sen's 'capabilities'); going beyond a classical understanding of capital, towards one explicitly including mental capacities as a source of value for AI-driven activities. In an effort to promote an interdisciplinary approach, the paper combines political and economic theories of freedom, justice and capital with recent approaches in applied ethics of technology, and starts applying its normative framework to some concrete example of AI-based systems: healthcare robotics, 'citizen science', social media and platform economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polarisation of society in the 21st century has become a significant threat to both state governments and the functioning of national communities themselves. Issues of religion and religiosity, placed within the framework of secular institutions, have become one of the areas of increased confrontation, which necessitates a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. The aim of this article was to study the problem of the formation of political confrontation around religious practices and secularisation in modern society. The leading research method was the formal-legal analysis method, with the help of which the current legal status of atheism as a worldview of a significant part of the population was investigated in national and international legal acts; the content of civil law on freedom of religion was investigated. Using the comparison method, the scale and practices of discrimination against representatives of the atheistic worldview in different countries of the world were compared. As a result of the study, the legal nature of the establishment of the right to freedom of religion, as well as the significance of the criminalisation of atheism in Muslim countries, were revealed. It is worth noting that this study has shown that in many countries atheists face discrimination and persecution because of their beliefs. The results obtained during the study demonstrate that the church continues to play a significant role in shaping public opinion and political decisions in many countries, which exacerbates the divide between believers and non-believers. Progressive secularisation and the reaction to it contribute to the polarisation of society through the confrontation of religious and atheistic views in various spheres of life, which is especially acutely felt in political confrontations. The results of this research, as well as the conclusions drawn on their basis, are of practical value for a further, more comprehensive study of the stated problem, creating a foundation for the legal regulation of the status of atheism

The 1882 religious schism in the mission village of Metlakatla, British Columbia, and the subsequent battle over land rights between the Tsimshian First Nations and settler governments, are some of the most extensively analysed events in the history of missions in nineteenth‐century Canada. Yet historians have overlooked the role played by the Church Missionary Society in perpetuating these events. Most importantly, historians have failed to ask why a society that was in financial difficulties and that regularly abandoned mission stations all over the world was so determined to hold on to this one station. The Society's official story was that it needed to protect its converts from persecution, but this article argues that two economic factors also contributed to the value of Metlakatla for the Society. First, competition with Methodist missionaries in the region made Metlakatla a valuable asset for attracting government grants and private donations. Second, the religious schism in Metlakatla undermined the Society's branding as a bastion of doctrinal purity, rendering it necessary to protect the Society's marketing strategy. Attending to these economic factors complicates simplistic narratives of imperial missionary work as only about Christianisation and civilisation, and contributes to ongoing efforts to understand missionary societies as corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a brief comparison between the declaration Dignitatis Humanae and the document of the International Theological Commission on Religious Freedom (2020), the article intends to discuss the current meaning of religious freedom, in an environment of strong transformation of religious experiences. In this environment, the discussion on the notion of freedom serves as inspiration for a criterion of distinction between the various more or less sacralizing religious experiences. From a possible relationship between freedom and religion, the notion of “religion of freedom” is reached, which will condition not only the religious experience, but also a deep meaning of religious freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the nineteenth century, anticlerical and secularist sectors gained ground. Upon reaching the twentieth century, among the strategies that the Catholics worldwide used to try to stop this advance, it stands out that they usually presented themselves as persecuted by the governments promoting secularizing measures, freedom of religion, or laws to separate the State from the Church. For many Catholics of the time, these measures were practically synonymous with religious persecution, a term they used to refer to very different phenomena, as is proven by the cases of Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of religious expertise in the regulation of state-confessional relations in the CIS countries with a focus on the experience of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia and Belarus. The analysis of legislation regulating religious activity and expert interviews allow us to identify both common features and peculiarities of approaches to religious expertise in each of these states. The main focus is on assessing the effectiveness of expertise in the context of combating extremism and radicalisation, as well as its impact on maintaining stability and public order. Key challenges faced by CIS countries in conducting religious expertise are identified, including the need to strike a balance between state control and religious freedom. The article also discusses criticisms of the expertise, including its politicisation and possible infringement of the rights of religious associations. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects for improving religious expertise, including increased coordination between state bodies and more active participation of independent experts, which could contribute to the strengthening of inter-confessional peace in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the intertwined relationship between civic integration and urban political machines in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, with scholars offering varying perspectives on why immigrants were mobilized by political bosses, some attributing it to a desire to instill American values while others suggest it was driven by securing electoral support through providing goods and services.

This article explores the intricate relationship of influence and interaction between Moroccan Islam and African Islam by surveying the major historical narratives, knowledge production, and spiritual connections that continually shape this complex relationship. In contrast to the conventional understanding that consistently underlines Moroccan Islam's static, one-way hegemonic endeavour over African Islam, empirical evidence shows that this endeavour evolves as a complex curve grounded in affinities, inclusiveness, and transculturation. Unlike other transnational Islam's ventures in Africa, most often seen as 'imported' and 'transgressive,' the Mohammed VI Foundation for African 'Ulama puts forward a religious model built upon a pan-African narrative that vouches for local traditions, religious diversity, and shared spiritual-security interests. In doing so, Morocco's religious model is likely on the way to gaining further recognition and appeal throughout many sub-Saharan African countries. Nevertheless, broadening Moroccan Islam's outreach beyond West Africa, Morocco's traditional fief of influence, would conversely challenge the centric orthodoxy of Moroccan Islam reshaped in the wake of the 2003 Casablanca attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the passing of same-sex marriage legislation in 2017, religious freedom has become a prominent feature of Australian public debate. Overwhelmingly, such debates are conducted within a human rights framework where principles such as individual autonomy and protection from discrimination are prioritized over the communal and associational elements of religious life. This in turn tends to augment the power of the state vis-à-vis religious communities and institutions. In important respects, the dominance of human rights represents a new manifestation of the kind of "liberal-statism"—a public philosophy of liberal individualism that accepts the primacy of the state in the management of cultural and religious diversity—that has been a central feature of Australian religion–state relations over time. After some historical discussion of Australian church–state practice, this article argues for a reconsideration of a largely overlooked approach deriving from the English pluralists of the early twentieth century, which promoted greater degrees of group autonomy in relation to a rapidly growing state. It is argued that this tradition has greater potential in responding to the religious diversity of our time than does the current human rights approach with its tendency to reinforce an individualistic or privatized conception of religion, diminish associational life, and thereby reinforce state power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late 1980s was a chaotic period in Soviet Estonia. The liberalization process of the Soviet Union brought about a sense of freedom and the possibility that Estonian people would finally have a say in the future of Estonia. This unexpected feeling of freedom formed the basis for various attempts to narrate a better society, including religious visions of a new Estonia. Several of the new religious movements that emerged during this period developed their own ideas about the future of Estonia, with some incorporating utopian perspectives. Although these movements had distinct views on the identity and independence of Estonia, their ideas have not yet been thoroughly researched. The aim of this article is to show how one of the movements, Word of Life, addressed these times of change, and to elaborate on what kind of utopias about Estonia are construed in the discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a study on the inclusion of Muslims in liberal democracies in the presence of value conflict. We focus on handshaking controversies that appear to pit gender equality against religious freedom. The possible outcomes seem mutually exclusive: either conservative Muslim minorities must conform to the norms of the majority culture, or non-Muslim majorities must acquiesce to the legitimacy of conservative Muslim ideas. Using a trio of experiments to replicate our results, we demonstrate the efficacy of introducing alternative gestures of respect. Presented with a substitute gesture of respect – placing the 'hand on heart' – non-Muslim demands for Muslim conformity drop dramatically. The results of the handshaking experiments call out a general lesson. Thanks to the ingenuity and versatility of cultural customs to signal respect, value conflicts can be open to resolution in everyday encounters without minorities or majorities having to forsake their convictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper discusses the issue of Peter the Apostle’s authority as it emerges from the acts of the first millennium councils. Peter is portrayed as an authority on doctrine and morality, a model for dealing with wrongdoing, and a promoter of a pastoral ministry based on religious freedom. The emperors regarded him as a model of the defender of the faith; the popes perceived him as a doctrinal and, on occasion, jurisdictional authority; and the conciliar debate participants looked at Peter as an example of how to deal with wicked oaths. The reference to Peter’s authority is determined by the function held and the circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the Genesis story of creation, God worked to create all things; Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge; and God decreed that humankind would toil for survival as punishment. But God promised that labor would offer us spiritual rewards-we would share in God's discernment Of good from evil. From this labor decree, we entered into an ongoing relationship with God in working toward a just ordering of all things. Does Artificial Intelligence represent a threat to God's work covenant for humankind? I explore moral concerns about AI, such as meso-scale work displacement, and the creation of a false Eden that relieves humankind from labor. Al's potential to become sentient and selfdirecting suggests a breach in the labor covenant that unites humankind with God's purpose. I explore three hypothetical scenarios where employees raise religious objections to AI aspects of their work: (1) a Jewish journalist whose news stories are blended with Al background content that occasionally infuses white Christian nationalist themes; (2) a Catholic teacher in a public high school whose district has replaced its Judeo-Christian literature curriculum (e.g., The Scarlet Letter) with a pan-global, AI generated curriculum that teaches universal morals through artificial avatars; and (3) a group of AI scientists from all major faiths who refuse to work on an AI nuclear weapons system on grounds that it could self-direct a rogue assault that destroys life on earth. My legal analysis focuses on (1) Groff v. Deloy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023), (2) Kennedy v. Bremerton School District 597 U. S. 507 (2022), and (3) Gateway Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America, 414 U.S. 368 (1974), and subsequent cases that pertain to these hypotheticals. Although these landmark cases broadened religious rights and concerted activity to save one's life by refusing work, none offers hope for resolving these disputes in favor of employees. AI's promise of cost-e®ciencies for businesses, and its impersonal personality, equip this technology with a stealth mask that constrains religious liberties. While it closely mimics human thought and behavior, its amoral personality poses a threat to alienating humankind from the work partnership that God willed for us during our creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]