Journal of Church and State articles from March 2008

Journal of Church and State archives from March 2008

Revisiting China's "Great Wall" of separation: religious liberty in China today.
March 22, 2008... In the autumn 1986 issue of the Journal of Church and State, Dr. James E. Wood, Jr., founding editor of the Journal, pronounced that the "winter is past," referring to the end of China's most aggressive period of repression of religion. Dr....

A shilling for Queen Elizabeth: the era of state regulation of church attendance in England, 1552-1969.
March 22, 2008... Throughout Christian history, churchgoing has been widely regarded as one of the most important and tangible expressions of religious observance. Yet, before the Reformation, failure to attend services was subject solely to ecclesiastical...

The dawn of the age of toleration: Samuel Pufendorf and the road not taken.
March 22, 2008... It was the last gasp of the ancient regime of privileged tolerance. When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, he did what generations of kings, emperors and princes had done for millennia before him--either grant or revoke the right...

Can a Baptist be president? Jimmy Carter and the possibility that John Smyth may have been right after all.
March 22, 2008... The obvious answer, of course, is "Yes, a Baptist can be president." It happened four times during the 20th century. Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, gill Clinton: they all served as President of the United States and they all were...

Strategy trumps precedent: separationist litigants on the losing side of legal change.
March 22, 2008... Previous research determined that interest groups appearing before the Supreme Court did not modify their legal arguments when these groups found themselves on the losing side of legal change This article is based on research conducted to test...

The partnering of church and school in nineteenth-century Sweden.
March 22, 2008... The causal link between modernization and secularization forms the core of secularization theories. With modernization, rationalization leads to a "demythologization" of the world; technology reduces the occasions in which humans seek divine...

Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition. By Donald J. Dietrich. Piscataway and London: Transaction Publishers, 2007. 234pp. $59.95. Especially during its early chapters, Human Rights and the Catholic Tradition seems a misleading title for...

Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's 'Black Theology and Black Power'.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology and Black Power. Edited by Dwight N. Hopkins. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2007. 269. pp. $24.95 paper. Dwight N. Hopkins has pulled together twenty very...

The Politics of Secularism in International Relations.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Polities of Secularism in International Relations. By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. 247 pp. $22.95 paper. The global religious resurgence that began in the 1960s and swelled in the 1970s...

Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity. By Veit Bader. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007. 386 pp. $59.95. Viet Bader, a professor of sociology and of social and political philosophy at the...

Religious Freedom in the Liberal State.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Religious Freedom in the Liberal State. By Rex Ahdar and Ian Leigh. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005. 410 pp. $125.00. Rex Ahdar and Ian Leigh claim that religious freedom is "under increasing pressure" in liberal democracies. In...

Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Beyond Toleration: The Religious On)ins of American Pluralism. By Chris Beneke. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 305pp. $35.00. Professor Beneke's subject is the development of pluralism in eighteenth-century America, with the...

The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century. By Gordon Lynch. London: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. 2007. 218 pp. $74.95. Gordon L ch believes that the secularization assumption is flawed; evidence of...

How Free Can Religion Be?(Book review)
March 22, 2008... How Free Can Religion Be? By Randall P. Bezanson. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 296 pp. $29.95. Occasionall one finds a book in the crowded field of church-state relations that takes a well-mined subject and presents...

Bad Faith: The Danger of Religious Extremism.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Bad Faith: The Dangers of Religious Extremism. By Nell J. Kressel. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007. 327pp. $26.00. Neil Kressel's book is a wide reaching and comprehensive analysis of faith which harms others, particularly terrorism....

Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education. By Diane L. Moore. New York: Palgrave Division, 9.007. 226pp. $9.6.95 paper. In her well-designed book, Moore presents her...

Unity in Diversity: Interfaith Dialogue in the Middle East.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Unity in Diversity Interfaith Dialogue in the Middle East. By Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Areal I. Khoury, and Emily Welty. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007. 285 pp. np. This book is an indicator in many ways that...

Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power: Charismatic Christianity in Ghana.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power: Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. By Jane E. Soothill. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007. 261 pp. np. Jane E. Soothill appears to be well qualified to write this book on Charismatic Christianity, the...

Activist Faith: Grassroots Women in Democratic Brazil and Chile.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Activist Faith: Grassroots Women in Democratic Brazil and Chile. By Carol Ann Drogus and Hannah Stewart-Gambino. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. 212 pp. np. This book provides a fascinating look into a...

The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century. By Hans J. Hillerbrand. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. 504 pp. np. Hans J. Hillerbrand, one of the deans of Reformation studies, wrote a history of...

Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe: 1500-1800.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe: 1500-1800. By Kaspar von Greyerz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 307pp. $25.00. The title of this new book is broad indeed, and despite the more than 300 pages, it would be impossible...

The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492 to 1975.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Disinherited" Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492 to 1975. By Henry Kamen. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 2007. 508 pp. $34.95. Henry Kamen, an Oxford-educated historian residing in both Spain and the United States, has...

Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation. By Jerome Dean Mahaffey. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007. xiii + 295 pp. $39.95. Rhetoric scholar Jerome Dean Mahaffey's new book,...

Providence and the Invention of the United States: 1607-1876.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607-1876. By Nicholas Guyatt. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 326pp. $75.00 cloth; $24.99 paper. Of the various historiographical myths laid low by Nicholas Guyatt's...

In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement. By Michael Lienesch. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 352 pp. $34.95. In spite of the fact that Americans...

The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America. By Bruce Dierenfield. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. 240 pp. $35.00. Today, issues like abortion, intelligent design, and gay marriage represent the...

Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing, By Stuart A. Wright. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. np. Stuart A. Wright's Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bornbing is a stellar study of the confluence of factors...

Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. By D. Michael Lindsay. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 332 pp. $24.95. Faith in the Halls of Power is a powerful book that will challenge every serious...