Journal of Church and State articles from January 1997

Journal of Church and State archives from January 1997

Religious coercion in a postmodern age.(Editorial)
January 1, 1997... In America and much of the West, we have lived for some time in an era that has prided itself on its tolerance in matters of religion. Not only have most major Western governments ceased official policies of religious coercion, but also the...

Religious traditions and health care policy: potential for democratic discourse?
January 1, 1997... Political participation empowers and transforms citizens. To participate in the public affairs of one's community is to call upon and to develop personal capabilities for speaking, taking responsibility, carrying through projects, and working...

Visions of a nation transformed: modernity and ideology in Wilson's political thought. (Woodrow Wilson)
January 1, 1997... Over the past several decades, our understanding of modernity has been profoundly changed. This change has occurred as a result of a body of critical scholarship that challenges the widely-held notion that the modern world is characterized...

Are the expectations for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act being realized?
January 1, 1997... When President Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act(1) (RFRA) on 16 November 1993, there was jubilation among the dozens of civil liberties groups that worked on this legislation--a measure unique in the entire history...

Contributions to human rights in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ethics.
January 1, 1997... Even in its unfinished state, the depth of insight in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics is inescapable. Though written in Nazi Germany in the midst of World War II and the Holocaust, it provides profound guidance for the formation of our own...

The Renovationist movement in the Orthodox Church in the light of archival documents.
January 1, 1997... Lenin and his government never made a secret of their ideological disapproval of faith in God. However, at the same time (especially after 1921), when it became a reality that the world revolution was not around the corner and that some form...

Testing the waters or opening the floodgates? Evangelicals, politics, and the "new" Mexico.
January 1, 1997... Pluralist democracies are emerging in many corners of the globe. Latin America is no exception and by some measures took the lead in the 1980s with a return to democracy in several countries. While Chile, Brazil, and Argentina are some of the...

Christian nationalism and its implications for educational philosophy.
January 1, 1997... There is a tendency among humans toward patriotism and nationalism.(1) Practically speaking, this tendency is easily understood. Each person's country or nation is perceived and typically functions as a defender against the aggressions of...

Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine.
January 1, 1997... By J.B. Rives. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 334 pp. $55.00. The period from Augustus to Constantine is without a doubt one of the most important eras in religious history, but efforts to trace the emergence of Christianity...

Flavius Josephus, the Zealots and Yavne: Towards a Rereading of the War of the Jews.
January 1, 1997... By Monette Bohrmann. Trans. Janet Lloyd. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1994. 392 pp. $40.95. Bohrmann believes that Josephus's opposition to the war with Rome should be seen as similar to the views of Johanan teen Zakkai and the school at...

The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age; 1200-1600.
January 1, 1997... By Andrew Colin GOW. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995. 420 pp. $111.50. Andrew Gow's study of the legendary "Red Jews" provides a compelling analysis of the evolution of Antisemitism in the light of a growing apocalyptic worldview. By tracing the...

The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296-1337.
January 1, 1997... By Clifford R. Backman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 352 pp. $59.95. This book reinterprets Sicilian history without denying the validity of earlier theses. Clifford R. Backman, after reexamining the sources, views the...

The Jews in Umbria: 1435-1484, vol. 2.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Ariel Toaff. Kinderhook, N.Y.: E.J. Brill, Inc., 1994. 461 pp. $125.75. After Schlomo Simonsohn's work on Jews in the Duchy of Milan and Renata Segre's work on Jews in Piedmont, in this book--the second of a three volume...

The Reformation in National Context.
January 1, 1997... Edited by Bob Scribner, Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.240 pp. $54.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. This volume is part of a series of collected essays that view thematic issues through the...

The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform.
January 1, 1997... Edited by Ole Peter Grell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 218 pp. $54.95. This book deals with a particularly turbulent period in the history of the Scandinavian countries. There is a popular notion of the Scandinavian...

Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism in the Restoration and Early Enlightenment.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Michael P. Winship. Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1996. 225 pp. $39.95. Michael Winship's Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism in the Restoration and Early Enlightenment does not so much address the Puritan theology of...

Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a "Peculiar People."
January 1, 1997... By Carl F. Bowman. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. 492 pp. $65.00 cloth; $19.95 paper. Bowman's scholarly and engaging sociological and historical interpretation of Brethren society has been eagerly received and...

The God of Peace: Toward a Theology of Nonviolence.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By John Dear, S.J. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994. 212 pp. n.p. As a dedicated and imprisoned activist in the Berrigan tradition, John Dear's peace witness deserves a wide hearing. As an author our verdict must be more mixed. Both books...

The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By John Dear, S.J. Baltimore, Md.: Fortkamp Publishing Company, 1994. 252 pp. $17.95. As a dedicated and imprisoned activist in the Berrigan tradition, John Dear's peace witness deserves a wide hearing. As an author our verdict must be more...

Christianity and Democracy: A Theology for a Just World Order.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By John W. de Gruchy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 291 pp. $59.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. In his most recent work John W. de Gruchy, professor of Christian Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, continues his...

Modern Halakhah for Our Time.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Emanuel Rackman. Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1995. 195 pp. $29.95. Central to the operation of any legal system is the belief in its legitimacy. But as Max Weber noted, this belief in the legitimacy of legal authority has...

Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Peter van der Veer. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994. 247 pp. $40.00 cloth; $14.00 paper. The rise of religious nationalism in the twentieth century, and its persistence in large parts of the globe as we move toward...

Contemporary Zoroastrians: An Unstructured Nation.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Rashna Writer. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994. 292 pp. $42.50. Church-state scholars should find this book an interesting read as a portrait of the struggle of a religious minority to survive as a community despite...

One Earth, Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Paul Knitter. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995. 218 pp. $16.95. This book with a supportive foreword by Hans Kung is an important contribution to contemporary discussions of interreligious dialogue. The book begins with an engaging...

Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience: A Mormon/Humanist Dialogue.
January 1, 1997... Edited by George D. Smith. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1994. 162 pp. $23.95 cloth; $14.95 paper. This book, which is a product of the first humanist-Mormon dialogue, examines issues of conscience, academic freedom, and feminism in...

Hail Mary? The Struggle for Ultimate Womanhood in Catholicism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Maurice Hamington. New York: Routledge, 1995. 216 pp. $55.00 cloth; $16.95 paper. No Christian symbol is as multivalent as Mary, the mother of Jesus. This slim volume describes the development of Mary within Roman Catholicism, from her...

Educating the Women of Hainan: The Career of Margaret Moninger in China, 1915-1942.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Kathleen L. Lodwick. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. 255 pp. $35.00. In this book Lodwick deftly weaves snatches of letters sent home from the mission field into "Margaret's story" (p.10), a pleasantly readable...

Confessions and Tyrants: The Prison Testimonies of Boethius, Thomas More and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
January 1, 1997... By Jamie S. Scott. New York: Peter Lang, 1995. 279 pp. $49.95. Christians and Tyrants is a comparative study of the "literal" and "literary' witness offered by three Christian martyrs. The structure of Jamie Scott's book is straightforward....

Durkheim Through the Lens of Aristotle: Durkeimian, Postmodernist, and Communitarian Responses to the Enlightenment.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Douglas F. Challenger. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994. 251 pp. $59.50 cloth; $22.95 paper. In the tradition established by Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and Sheldon Wolin more than a quarter century ago,...

Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Phillip E. Johnson. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995. 245 pp. $19.95. Although the majority of Americans hold the theistic belief that there is a Supreme Being who created and sustains the universe, members of the...

American Sacred Space.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... Edited by David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1995. 320 pp. $39.95. It's about space. American sacred space. But don't expect descriptions of houses of worship or analyses of Graceland. This...

For God and Country: The History of a Constitutional Challenge to the Army Chaplaincy.
January 1, 1997... By Israel Drazin and Cecil B. Currey. Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV Publishing House, 1995. 241 pp. $39.50. Katcoff v. Marsh never made it to the Supreme Court; it is not discussed in literature on the First Amendment. Israel Drazin and Cecil Currey...

Hurrying Toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools, and American Protestantism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Conrad Cherry. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1995. 373 pp. $24.95. Cherry examines the self-understanding of liberal Protestantism in the United States that led to the establishment of divinity schools in the context of...

Koresh: The Waco Holocaust.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Edwin Felix. Houston, Texas: Univers de Presse, 1994. 204 pp. $14.95 paper. Anyone wishing to investigate the details of the Branch Davidian tragedy of 1993 can do so without a concern for a lack of materials. The burgeoning...

Grant Us Courage: Travels Along the Mainline of American Protestantism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1997... By Randall Balmer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 154 pp. $22.00. In the second of what the author proposes as "a multivolume series on religion in America at the end of the twentieth century," Randall Balmer continues the...