Declaration Of Faith Research Articles

Charting the Path Not Taken: Pluralist Explorations in Early Modern Political Thought

It is the fate of theories of strong pluralism to be notable chiefly by their absence from the mainstream of modern Western political thought. Whether because of the concern to achieve a strong basis of unity amid warring religious factions, or, more strongly, to make a political declaration of faith in the autonomy of human reason, moderns have sought to develop rights-based theories of political rule upon whatever non-religious bases that people might be found to hold in common. And so from Hobbes to Hegel, from Bodin to Bentham, students of the mainstream of Western political theory learn that a healthy public life is one wherein people depend upon the things they have in common, rather than their differences.This paper explores the early development of this “common-basis” strategy, focusing on the 100-year period prior to Thomas Hobbes (approximately 1550-1650). It considers the strategies developed in this period that attempted to “filter out” certain complicating social phenomena or institutions - especially religion, but also the family, ethnicity and culture more broadly - in favor of a focus on the singular relationship between the individual and the state. As non-state social phenomena were diminished insofar as rights were concerned, differences between persons also faded from significance. The result was a modern politics of rights that systematically diminished vital features of political and social life, perhaps at the cost of the very resources we most need as we contemplate the great political challenges around us. The paper concludes with a consideration of the possibilities for a re-reading of the tradition, including a search for solutions from countries where the Protestant Reformation was “incomplete,” and where approaches other than the “common-basis” strategy were pursued in order to find ways that groups who disagreed on a great deal could live together peaceably. This results of such an exploration, the paper suggests, will have relevance, first, to those societies presently experiencing great conflicts, including violent conflicts, concerning religion and other differences, but second, to modern liberal democracies that experience great difficulty navigating the contemporary politics of difference.

البر (Al-Birru)

In this verse the whole philosophy of virtue has been explained in simple words. It is stated that the real or actual virtue is not turning face to the east or the west and that the main thing is to obey the injunction of the Creator unconditionally and sincerely. The real virtue is the belief in Allah and in the last day which is the Day of Accountability about the conduct of man and also to believe in the Angels and in the Divine Books and in all the Prophets of God (who were sent by Him from Hadrat Adam to Hadrat Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon all of them). After this declaration of faith and belief, it is to be proved by spending ones hard earned lawful property for the love of Allah Almighty on the people who are in need of it and on the kiths and kins of the orphans, the poor and those who have gone out in the cause of God and those who ask for and in releasing those who are under heavy debts and restraints and constraints and even enslaved. Thereafter as thanksgiving to stand before the Creator in prayer and then also pay the zakat to those who are entitled to it according to the injunctions of God as demonstrated by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and also to fulfil covenants, agreements and promises with full honesty and then if any difficulty hazard or any other uncalled for circumstance prevails to forbear and observe patience. This is the manner to prove true ones belief in la ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wasallam). Such are the people who have been declared by the Holy Qur'an who are the muttaqun (the pious, the righteous, the ones who observe rule of law as prescribed by the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah.

Review ofT. S. Eliot:The Contemporary Reviews

T. S. Eliot: The Contemporary Reviews. Ed. Jewel Spears Brooker. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004. xliv, 600 p. $110. Contemporary reviews of a writer's work are often of interest only as evidence of shifts in reputation or as raw material for reception studies. In T. S. Eliot's case, there is more at stake. Within the six years that separate the first review of Prufrock and Other Observations from those of The Waste Land (1917–1923), Eliot became the most praised and denigrated poet of his time. Reviewed by the old guard and by young writers who later became famous, he served as a lightning rod for controversies about modernism. The introduction to T. S. Eliot: The Contemporary Reviews by Jewel Spears Brooker provides a perceptive guide to the course of those contentions. As she remarks, the early reviews established a pattern that was to persist for a decade: emphasis on an intense and disturbing subjectivity in the poems, and identification of Eliot as a poet whose technical skill and subtlety could neither be imitated nor adequately characterized. After publication of The Waste Land, the subjectivity of the early poems could be construed as expressive of the consciousness of a generation—and condemned for its incoherence, negativity, and perverse intellectualism. A review of Poems 1909–1925 summed up Eliot's reputation at the time: "violently attacked, passionately admired, and . . . perfectly misunderstood" (p. 136). Publication of The Sacred Wood (1920) introduced another Eliot—one perceived as a "scientific" critic whose scholarship, intelligence, "superior attitude," "stiff and hidebound style," and "ice-cold heart" triggered suspicions about the poet behind the poems. In Homage to John Dryden (1924), one purpose of [End Page 176] Eliot's literary criticism became clearer. Edmund Wilson perceptively noted that Eliot praised those of his predecessors (for example, the metaphysical poets and French symbolists) who constituted a tradition of which Eliot himself was a part (124). "Tradition and the Individual Talent" served the same purpose and, in its emphasis on impersonality, replied to critics of his poetry who identified the subjectivity of its personae with the poet himself. In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth said that "entirely to enjoy the poetry which I am recommending, it would be necessary to give up much of what is ordinarily enjoyed." Eliot engaged in an analogous attempt to refashion taste. Literary modernism was presumed to be progressive. In "The All-Star Literary Vaudeville" (1926), Edmund Wilson referred to Pound and Eliot as writers of "the literary Left." When Eliot's prose of the twenties and thirties extended its range to include politics, religion, and society, the assumed connection between literary innovation and political radicalism began to collapse. His notorious declaration in For Lancelot Andrewes (1928) that he was a royalist in politics, an anglo-catholic in religion, and a classicist in literature prompted strictures from Wilson and Conrad Aiken. Approval of Selected Essays (1932) by the New York Times and the Sunday Times (London) was counterbalanced by the lukewarm reactions of the Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, Paul Elmore More, and sharply critical reviews in the New Republic and the Nation. Hostility reached its height with publication of The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) and After Strange Gods (1934). In the latter volume Eliot remarked that his "declaration of faith" in 1928 had been "injudicious," but he created a new basis for repudiation of his standpoint in his comment about the undesirability of many "free-thinking Jews" in nominally Christian societies—a remark that was noted only in passing at the time but that has recently dominated discussion of his work. For those plunged back into these contentions, it is a relief to encounter R. P. Blackmur's comment on After Strange Gods: "Nobler, and rasher, intentions cannot be conceived" (273). The first Eliot was a poet; the second was a critic. In the early thirties, Henry Hazlitt noted that...

Identity crisis: Greece, orthodoxy, and the European Union

Orthodox Christianity and the legacy of the Byzantium are integral parts of Greek national identity. As the only Orthodox member state of the European Union Greece has been involved in a controversy of the inclusion of religion on identity cards. The statutory position of the mention of religion on official documents was recently changed by the socialist government, which enacted a privacy act omitting the declaration of faith, occupation or family status from newly issued state identity cards. Archbishop Christodoulos, who represents the Church of Greece and has undertaken a rigorous campaign of defending the Greek Orthodox tradition against the forces of globalisation, has strongly reaffirmed the right of citizens to specify their faith on identity cards. The article is a pilot study presenting a content analysis of the controversy by examining Greek and non-Greek perspectives on the issue, as they are expressed in a sample of Greek and international newspaper articles. The author analyses the different arguments and opinions of the conflict and explores the key themes raised by the controversy, namely the challenges and tensions posed by Greece's Church and State model, increasing religious diversity, and its dual, western and eastern, heritage.

FROM CESSPOOL TO SEWER: SANITARY REFORM AND THE RHETORIC OF RESISTANCE, 1848–1880

IN 1855, THE REVEREND GIRDLESTONE zealously promoted sanitary reform in Britain, claiming that the movement was “pregnant with the most important advantages to the human race, in every point of view — social, moral, and religious” (29). Girdlestone’s claim provides a useful starting point for considering representations of reform, as this view of the redemptive powers of cleanliness has been accepted by many historians as a characteristic Victorian attitude.1 But while it is true that many Victorians believed that sweeping public health reforms could fuel the physical and moral regeneration of the urban poor, it is also true that others responded to these reforms with fear, anger, and suspicion: an active strain of resistance flourished within Victorian sanitary discourse. That scholars have privileged the Victorians’ declarations of faith in matters of cleanliness and to some degree shared in these sentiments should not surprise us. The idea of public health reform as universally advantageous accords not only with our own sense of the desirability of sanitary techniques such as flush-toilets and water-borne sewerage, which have become naturalized in the West, but also with a narrative of historical progress.2 While this essay does not dispute the fact that the sanitary idea gained wide acceptance in the period, it does seek to shift the focus away from Victorian faith to Victorian apostasy in matters of reform.

Monetarism in Canada and the World Economy

The candour of Gerald Bouey's declaration of faith in monetary targeting, infrequent in public pronouncements of central bankers and decidedly uncharacteristic of governors of the Bank of Canada, serves as a simple reminder of the enthusiasm with which Canadian state officials greeted monetarism. Productivity and economic growth were declining in Canada, while current account deficits and unemployment were both rising and the numbers of days lost to strikes was higher than in any other OECD country.

Cancer – A Declaration of Faith

Cancer – A Declaration of Faith

Cancer – A Declaration of Faith

Cancer – A Declaration of Faith

Antonio Caso: el mito de su liberal mentalidad político-social

The political and philosophical work of Antonio Caso has been the object of uncritical admiration by many writers. However, a careful and detached reading does not support this admiration. His polemical writings show us a mean, arrogant mind, obsessed with his exclusive truth which he seeks to impose, and lacking any theoretical prespective. It was only at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution that Caso began to criticize the dominant positivist philosophy (associated with the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz) in the name of idealism. An enemy of liberalism and socialism, a fierce defender of order and an élitist, he fought a rearguard action against all the changes brought about by the Revolution. His attack on socialist education and on V. Lombardo Toledano made him the instrument for the conquest of the University by Catholic groups. Caso was anything but a liberal. His conservative vision finds expression in his admiration of the Spanish colonial past, his declaration of faith in favour of social-nationalism, and his pseudo-scientific anti-feminism (based on the difference between ovaries and testicles). This article thus reveals to us a very different Caso.

Shahnon Ahmad's No Harvest but a Thorn

No Harvest but a Thorn opens with a sentence whose emphatic brevity outlines the macrocosm governing the interlocking spiritual, emotional, and physical environment inhabited by Lahuma and his family. ThatLife and death, dearth and plenty, are in the hands of God. In the hands of Allah the Almighty. (p. 1)is simultaneously religious doctrine and empirical attitude, declaration of faith and supplication. Moreover, the quartet of primeval forces, announced with stark simplicity of tone, creates a powerful, complementing sense of time as a cycle felt through significant events. Thus marshalled, the four key words emphasize further both their antithetical and complementing relationships (life-plenty, death-dearth) and the degree to which events, and the processes they embody, control the rhythms of life in Banggul Derdap. Allah presides over cause and effect. As the pair of sentences occurs four times in the first eight, relatively short paragraphs of Chapter 1, the realities of these basic equations are installed as constants in the readers' awareness. A vital point regarding what constitutes an essential part of Lahuma's existence is being urged vigorously for their benefit. Their world view, limited though it proves, derives from and remains utterly dependent on these dominant elements in the macrocosm. Village life, which takes hard, unremitting labour for granted, is prone to sudden, tragic turns — a fact that alters the scale we are inclined to adopt when assessing the tenor and the general quality of life.

Declaration of Faith

Declaration of Faith

The Columbus to Castro Course in Latin American History

The introductory survey is the single most important course we offer in Latin American history. What we attempt to achieve, how we go about it, and the interest we generate among our students will determine our success or failure in opening to them what Lewis Hanke rightly calls “a significant segment of world history.” Course organization is an intensely personal matter, yet formal and informal discussions at recent conferences have convinced me that an airing of some thoughts on the matter is needed.A declaration of faith is necessary before proceeding. I do not agree with those who would abolish the introductory survey and substitute a “problems” course or an assortment of country histories. A problems course tends to distort the richness and diversity of the area's historical growth unless the student has some foundations such as those provided by an introductory survey. I do not dismiss a problems course for undergraduates.

Towards Reconciliation (Interim Statement of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Commission). 6s. - The Ordinal (Report of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Commission). 4s. - The Immediate Task. A Study Guide, is. 9d. (The above published jointly by Epworth Press and S.P.C.K.) - Relations between the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of England (A Report, published by S.P.C.K.). 5s. - A Declaration

Towards Reconciliation (Interim Statement of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Commission). 6s. - The Ordinal (Report of the Anglican-Methodist Unity Commission). 4s. - The Immediate Task. A Study Guide, is. 9d. (The above published jointly by Epworth Press and S.P.C.K.) - Relations between the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of England (A Report, published by S.P.C.K.). 5s. - A Declaration of Faith. The Independent Press. 3s. - Volume 21 Issue 3

III A Declaration of Faith in Swiss Presbyterian Churches

III A Declaration of Faith in Swiss Presbyterian Churches

II The Proper Age for the Declaration of Faith

II The Proper Age for the Declaration of Faith

Book Review: Inside the Free Churches. By G. Thompson Brake. Epworth Press. 1964. 8s 6d.; A Declaration of Faith. Commission Two of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Independent Press. 1964. 2s. 6d.; The Church and Christian Unity. By Henry St John, O.P. Darton, Longman and Todd. 1964. 2s. (paperback), 6s. 6d. (cloth).; Ecumenical Dialogue at Harvard. The Roman

Book Review: <scp>Inside the Free Churches</scp>. By G. Thompson Brake. Epworth Press. 1964. 8s 6d.; <scp>A Declaration of Faith</scp>. Commission Two of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Independent Press. 1964. 2s. 6d.; <scp>The Church and Christian Unity</scp>. By Henry St John, O.P. Darton, Longman and Todd. 1964. 2s. (paperback), 6s. 6d. (cloth).; <scp>Ecumenical Dialogue at Harvard</scp>. The Roman

Credo — a declaration of faith concerning speech education

This is a philosophical statement about the role of speech as related to general education and better living. Part I concerns the student, Part II, the teacher. It is a section from a speech recently delivered before the teaching staff of the beginning speech course at the University of Kansas.

The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, 1658. Edited by A. G. Matthews, with an additional notice by Daniel T. Jenkins. Pp. 128. London: Independent Press, 1959. 9s.

The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order, 1658. Edited by A. G. Matthews, with an additional notice by Daniel T. Jenkins. Pp. 128. London: Independent Press, 1959. 9s.

Ransom in ‘Samson Agonistes’

Milton's comprehensive ability to synthesize diverse elements from different traditions according to his artistic purpose is one of the most outstanding ways in which he manifested his originality. Even Manoa's attempt to ransom his son, one of the most remarkably original episodes in Samson Agonistes, has not only profoundly Christian overtones, but also, I should like to suggest, two classical analogues.To the Christian reader the word ‘ransom’ inevitably suggests Christ's redemption of mankind, ‘Thy ransom paid, which Man from death redeems’. Just as surely as Job's declaration of faith, ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’, has been taken as an anticipation of Christ; the correspondences between Christ and Samson would have been evident to Milton's audience.

Declaration of Faith

Declaration of Faith