Toleration Research Articles

20Economic Criticism

AbstractThis chapter on economic criticism assesses two recent books on the changing state of global capitalism. It then moves to a consideration of recent debates over neoliberalism as a category for thinking the relationship between economics and culture, before turning to a critical assessment of recent public-choice scholarship on state capacity and religious toleration.

Grounding Religious Toleration: Kant and Wolff on Dogmatic Conflict

This article examines Paul Guyer’s claim that we should attempt to ground the principle of religious freedom on the basis of Kant’s arguments for religious liberty. I problematise Guyer’s suggestion by investigating a hypothetical ‘dogmatic conflict’ between a scientifically and a religiously grounded belief. I further suggest that considering Christian Wolff’s philosophy might provide us with an approach which shares the benefits that Guyer identifies in Kant, while at the same time avoiding the issues Kant might run into that result from the occurrence of the dogmatic conflict. I start by providing a background to Wolff’s philosophy and explaining the notion of the dogmatic conflict. Then I present a potential contemporary case of the dogmatic conflict and try to see how it would be dealt with based on Guyer’s proposal. Finally, I consider what a Wolffian solution would look like, arguing that Guyer’s project might benefit from considering Wolff.

Mapping the epistemic arguments for religious toleration

AbstractIn the literature on toleration, epistemic arguments are commonly equated with John Stuart Mill's fallibilism according to which toleration of opinions is a necessary means to the attainment of truth. This conflation does not capture the variety of those arguments and it results from the fact that a proper analysis of epistemic arguments for religious toleration and a systematic account of their different types are still lacking. The purpose of this article is to provide such an analysis and to argue that those arguments come in four different types, which I name fallibilism, religious belief-forming process, epistemic parity, and differentiated access to religious truth or divine message. I also offer a mapping of those different types of arguments using the standard epistemic notions of justification, truth, and belief coupled with a distinction of focus in the epistemological approach – whether individually or socially focused.

The Reformed terreur panique of 1562: debating miracles and memory in seventeenth-century Le Mans

Abstract In Le Mans in July 1562, the Protestant troops who had been occupying the town left abruptly, and the Catholic population soon developed the tradition that the Huguenots’ panic was due to a miracle performed by the town’s patron saint, St. Scholastique. In 1667, Claude Blondeau, a Catholic lawyer, disputed this local memory of the First War of Religion and ignited a published dispute over the nature of historical evidence and the status of Church tradition. Blondeau by no means supported the Reformed takeover of his city, but he also intensely criticized the Catholic retributory violence that followed. The argument over the miracle of St. Scholastique demonstrates that disagreements concerning the memory and meaning of the Wars of Religion endured in French towns into Louis XIV’s reign and had implications for religious toleration and political order at a time when the stipulations of the Edict of Nantes were subject to erosion.

Oldenbarnevelt and fishes. Satirical prints from the 12-years truce

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the intended argument and conceptual backgrounds of two satirical engravings published during the Truce Conflicts in the Dutch Republic (ca. 1611–1621), with a special focus on the use of fish imagery and its political implications. The case under consideration shows a now historic perception of (giant) fishes employed for disparaging purposes in the context of a deeply polarised society over issues of religious orthodoxy and toleration.

Lockean Political Philosophy And Its Implications For Nigerian Politics

The political ideas of John Locke have greatly influenced the modern world. His political ideas have actually given to the modern world the concepts of constitutional government, religious toleration, representative institutions, the freedom of individual and private property. In addition, the philosophical theories are embedded in the American and British Constitutions. It is against this background that Lockean political philosophy and its implications for Nigerian politics are discussed in this paper. The paper concludes that Lockean Political Philosophy is of vital importance to Nigerian politics.

‘Satan in the form of an angel’? The Russian Orthodox Church’s controversial case against the Moscow brattsy, 1909 to 1913

ABSTRACT This contribution examines the Russian Orthodox Church’s controversial case against the popular lay preachers of scripture and sobriety, Ivan Koloskov and Dmitrii Grigor’ev, in the early years of legal religious toleration. Accused of heresy and excommunicated in 1910, the ‘Moscow brattsy’ were arrested and tried as ‘fanatical and immoral’ sectarians. In attempting to prove the brattsy’s alleged deviance to a sceptical public, clergy and missionaries resorted to morally and ethically questionable tactics including false accusations and the fabrication of evidence. While offering a window onto the fraught relations between clergy and laity as Russia entered a modern era of religious pluralism, tenuous democratic practices, and mass media, the case raises issues relevant to the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church, especially its ongoing mission to promote a single community of faith and tradition in a diverse and increasingly ‘mediatised’ public sphere.

The House of Lords and Religious Toleration in Scotland: James Greenshields's Appeal, 1709–11

This article examines how the House of Lords, as the ultimate appellate authority of the new kingdom of Great Britain, formed after the union of 1707, provided a degree of religious toleration for Scotland's episcopalian minority when they supported James Greenshields's appeal on 1 March 1711. Greenshields was a Scottish episcopalian minister who appealed to the Lords in February 1710 after he was imprisoned by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the English Book of Common Prayer to conduct a service for a private episcopalian congregation. The Lords’ decision confirmed that no law in Scotland proscribed the Prayer Book liturgy and provided a degree of legal recognition to the episcopalians who used it. This article examines the arguments that Greenshields and his supporters used to advance his appeal. In doing so, it sheds new light on the relationship between Scotland's established church, the nation's episcopalian minority and the new British state.

“Beyde borghers, beyde leken, en van al de rest ghelijck, buyten geus en catholijck”. Het beeld van omgangsoecumeniciteit in de Roomsche reijs en Extractum katholicum van Joannes Stalpart van der Wiele

The research presented in this article demonstrates the application of the imagological method to an analysis of the portrayal of interconfessional relations in 17th-century Dutch religious polemic literature by a Roman Catholic author, the priest Joannes Stalpart van der Wiele. The aim of this research is above all to identify how informal contacts between Catholics and non-Catholics were depicted in a literary discourse. The analysis focuses on Stalpart’s two texts, Roomsche reijs (Journey to Rome) and Extractum katholicum (Catholic extract), to identify images which may be classified as showing “interconfessional conviviality” and omgangsoecumene, twin concepts postulated by Willem Frijhoff. By pointing to the existence of themes related to religious toleration in the work of Stalpart van der Wiele, an author not associated with such ideas, a change of emphasis in the image of his oeuvre may be achieved.

Second-Order Arguments, or Do We Still Need Tolerance in the Public Sphere?

A number of widely discussed court decisions on cases of insults against religious feelings in Russia, such as the relatively recent “Pokemon Go” case of blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky or the lawsuit filed against an Orthodox priest by Nikolai Ryabchevsky in Yekaterinburg for comparing Lenin with Hitler, make pertinent the question of why toleration becomes so difficult in matters concerning religion. In this paper, I revise the classical liberal concept of toleration (David Heyd, Peter Nicholson, and John Horton), arguing that it is challenged by contemporary philosophers, who see no room for applying this concept in the “domain of identities”. The most prominent case of “primordial” identity, that is, the notion of identity as a given, is the claim of devoted believers for recognition. Should we replace the principle of toleration by the principle of recognition since the latter better corresponds to identity claims? To address this question, in the first part of the article I describe the mechanism of tolerant attitude (Nicholson, Heyd) and in the second part, I analyze the debates about the possibility or impossibility of inner religious toleration (Avishai Margalit, Cary Nederman, and Maxim Khomyakov) and further compare toleration and recognition as normative principles. In the light of the debates I took part in the conference hosted by the University of Southern Denmark in October 2019 as part of the project “Religious Majority/Minority in Public Space in Russia and Northern Europe: Historical-Cultural Analysis”, I come to the conclusion that the principle of toleration is preferable to the principle of recognition because the “second-order” arguments for toleration in a secular state will be universally acceptable (pragmatic argument) and, therefore, the principle of toleration is more logical (analytical argument). Following Peter John’s thesis about minimal recognition embedded in toleration, it may also be concluded that we need a normatively charged idea of citizenship, which could provide us with universal “second-order” foundation.

Mary and William Dyer: Quaker Light and Puritan Ambition in Early New England by Johan Winsser

Reviewed by: Mary and William Dyer: Quaker Light and Puritan Ambition in Early New England by Johan Winsser Steven Jay White Mary and William Dyer: Quaker Light and Puritan Ambition in Early New England. By Johan Winsser. North Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. xii, 345 pp. Notes and index. Paper $24.95. This is a well written and thoroughly researched book. Its self-assigned task is to sort through all the time-worn myths which have circulated about the Quaker martyr Mary Dyer and put them into a proper perspective. This work has a foot in both the "puritan" and Quaker camps of early American history. Winsser does not capitalize "puritan" citing that "recent scholarship has recognized the wide diversity among puritans. Thus, many historians now eschew capitalization, which implies a more [End Page 58] discreetly defined concept and body" (p. 219). Thus, this review will adhere to this practice. The author attempts, successfully, to correct many of the myths surrounding Mary Dyer. She, as a devout Quaker, provides half of the story. Her husband William, identified as a puritan, provides the other half. Mary Dyer is famous in Early American history for her death. She was executed by the Massachusetts puritans in Boston in 1660 as a disruptive force conflicting with their "city upon a hill" and its "errand into the wilderness." After her death, Mary became more and more sanctified. It is this mythology that Winsser wishes to correct. The lore surrounding Mary Dyer over the years has distorted what actually happened. Mary became a legendary figure and this legend produced three identical statues all erected in 1958. Produced by Sylvia Shaw Judson, they were spread across the country in Boston, Philadelphia, and Earlham, Indiana. It would be the Indiana statue that would spark Winsser's interest in Mary Dyer and her husband. Winsser has produced a reliable and readable dual biography of a wife and her husband. The couple's story begins in old England, then travels across the Atlantic to Massachusetts, where it concentrates on the troubles that would cause Mary's death. But the book does not stop with Mary's demise, it concludes only at the death of William and examines the last years of his life without her. The book winds down with an epilogue that discusses the contributions of the couple and their impact on New England. The book concludes with a sampling of letters from both Mary and William which adds depth and puts their story into a proper perspective. Mary Dyer is widely revered as one of the four "Boston Martyrs" hung for religious dissent. She had been twice exiled from the colony and once almost hung to scare her away. But when she returned a third time, she was sentenced to death and executed. While Winsser admits that "by all accounts, Dyer was an extraordinary person," he cautions us to not make more of her in death than she was in life (p. 1). He believes "it is a mistake to cast Dyer and the New England Quakers as progressive proponents of broad religious toleration" (p. 7). Winsser wants to correct the traditional view of the puritans as "radicals . . . certain of their own righteousness" by pointing out that there were sanctimonious radicals on both sides of the Mary Dyer controversy (p. 7). He further states that neither side—Quakers or puritans—were supporters of religious toleration. Mary Dyer, he believes, should not be held up as an icon of religious [End Page 59] freedom. The Quakers, including Mary Dyer, challenged the laws and practices of Massachusetts to provoke a royal response. The Quakers were different from other dissenters because they were willing to suffer persecution and boldly sought it out. And Friends were highly effective in portraying the puritans as the persecuted who became persecutors themselves. Additionally, the Quakers were well funded and organized in their attack on the anti-Quaker laws of New England (p. 9). Winsser broaches the theory that the Mary Dyer Affair was a symbol of the "tension between individual liberties and the state's mandate to govern; between free speech and speech deemed to be offensive or disruptive; between the right...

De Simone , Peter T. The Old Believers in Imperial Russia: Oppression, Opportunism and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow (review)

SEER, 98, 1, JANUARY 2020 176 De Simone, Peter T. The Old Believers in Imperial Russia: Oppression, Opportunism and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow. The Library of Modern Russia. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2018. xvi + 263 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £69.00: $95.00. Peter T. De Simone’s study of the Rogozhskoe Cemetery community is a welcome addition to the literature on Old Belief in tsarist Russia. Founded on the outskirts of Moscow as a burial site for the city’s ‘priested’ Old Believers (popovtsy) during the outbreak of plague in 1771, Rogozhskoe became an important centre of Old Belief in the empire as a whole, partly because of the wealth of the Old Believer merchants who provided generous funding for the community’s sacred spaces and charitable institutions. De Simone traces the history of the community through four chronological periods. In its first decades, Rogozhskoe benefited from Catherine II’s relatively tolerant policy towards Old Belief, and its prestige was enhanced in the aftermath of the Napoleonic occupation of Moscow in 1812, when the community’s merchants made important contributions to the rebuilding of the city. With the appointment of the ultra-Orthodox Filaret (Drozdov) as Metropolitan of Moscow in 1821, however, pressure came to be exerted on the Rogozhskoe Old Believers to convert either to official Orthodoxy or to Edinoverie (‘Unity of Faith’), the state-sponsored movement which preserved the old rite while recognizing the authority of the Holy Synod. Legislation from 1822 onwards restricted the ability of Old Believers to recruit priests from the official Orthodox Church, and this encouraged the Rogozhskoe community to support the establishment in 1846 of an Old Believer hierarchy at Belaia Krinitsa, in Austrian Ukraine, that could ordain priests and bishops for the popovtsy in Russia. The timing, however, turned out to be unfortunate. The outbreak of the European revolutions in 1848, followed by the Crimean War and the Polish insurrection of 1863, understandably raised the Russian government’s suspicion of a religious movement whose hierarchy was based abroad. It also weakened the Old Believers’ claim to represent a true Russian identity; and since Old Belief had arisen in the seventeenth century largely as a protest against Greek influence on Russian Orthodoxy, it was particularly ironic that their new Metropolitan, Amvrosii, was Greek. After 1846 Rogozhskoe claimed to be a central institution of Old Belief as a whole, although not even all of the priested Old Believers recognized the legitimacy of the Belokrinitskaia hierarchy. Perhaps surprisingly, the accession of Alexander II in 1855 and the introduction of his ‘Great Reforms’ brought relatively few benefits to the Old Believers. In 1856 the Rogozhskoe community was falsely denounced for having illegally celebrated the Divine Liturgy (the Eucharist). This led to the sealing REVIEWS 177 off of the altars of its Nativity and Intercession cathedrals, preventing their use for religious services. It was only at Easter 1905, against the background of the developing revolution, that the altars were re-opened, on the eve of Nicholas II’s decree on religious toleration. De Simone’s account of the history of the Rogozhskoe community provides a detailed and illuminating picture of many aspects of the lives of the Moscow popovtsy, including the architecture of their cathedrals, the activities of their charitable and educational institutions and the growth of merchant dynasties such as the Morozovs and the Riabushinskiis. The author has made good use of archival materials, although his attitude towards his sources is somewhat uncritical, producing a highly sympathetic picture which sometimes verges on the hagiographical. De Simone focuses on the relationship of the Rogozhskoe community to the state and the official Orthodox Church, while largely ignoring its position in the broader spectrum of Old Belief. He says little about the attitude of the Rogozhskoe priested community to its priestless counterpart, the Moscow Preobrazhenskoe Cemetery community, nor to other priestless and priested communities throughout the Empire. Many of the more radical groups considered the Moscow popovtsy to be hopelessly compromised, not least by their swearing of the oath of loyalty to Alexander III after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. It is not too surprising, therefore, that the authorities were mistrustful...

A New Rival State? Australia in Tsarist Diplomatic Communications by Massov Alexander (review)

REVIEWS 177 off of the altars of its Nativity and Intercession cathedrals, preventing their use for religious services. It was only at Easter 1905, against the background of the developing revolution, that the altars were re-opened, on the eve of Nicholas II’s decree on religious toleration. De Simone’s account of the history of the Rogozhskoe community provides a detailed and illuminating picture of many aspects of the lives of the Moscow popovtsy, including the architecture of their cathedrals, the activities of their charitable and educational institutions and the growth of merchant dynasties such as the Morozovs and the Riabushinskiis. The author has made good use of archival materials, although his attitude towards his sources is somewhat uncritical, producing a highly sympathetic picture which sometimes verges on the hagiographical. De Simone focuses on the relationship of the Rogozhskoe community to the state and the official Orthodox Church, while largely ignoring its position in the broader spectrum of Old Belief. He says little about the attitude of the Rogozhskoe priested community to its priestless counterpart, the Moscow Preobrazhenskoe Cemetery community, nor to other priestless and priested communities throughout the Empire. Many of the more radical groups considered the Moscow popovtsy to be hopelessly compromised, not least by their swearing of the oath of loyalty to Alexander III after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. It is not too surprising, therefore, that the authorities were mistrustful of professions of loyalty by a community that aspired to a leading role in a movement that included groups which still identified the tsar as Antichrist. The monograph is thoroughly researched, with a full scholarly apparatus and some well-chosen illustrations. Unfortunately, however, the author’s style is somewhat pedestrian and repetitious, and the publisher has allowed far too many typos to slip through the proof-reading net. But overall this is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Russian religious history. Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies Maureen Perrie University of Birmingham Massov, Alexander; Pollard, Marina and Windle, Kevin (eds). A New Rival State? Australia in Tsarist Diplomatic Communications. Australian National University Press, Acton, ACT, 2018. xiii + 353 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. AUS$ 55.00 (paperback). This volume covers six decades of despatches by imperial Russia’s consular representatives in Melbourne, from the establishment of a Russian consular service in the Australian settler colonies in 1857 to the Russian revolutions SEER, 98, 1, JANUARY 2020 178 of 1917. The reports selected from the Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii (AVPRI) throw an interesting light on the growing relations between the two countries in this period. But they also offer useful insights into the economic, social and political history of the Australian federation. Ever since Leopold von Ranke based his history of the Reformation on the Venetian relazioni ambasciatori, historians have learnt to appreciate the value of foreign diplomatic sources for the study of a country’s internal history. Historians of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia will similarly find much of interest in the reports compiled by the eight Russian consuls. At the same time, their despatches also reveal the cultural, social and political norms of the country which they represented in this fast modernizing outpost of the British world in the Southern hemisphere. Its dynamism elicited admiration and fascination, but it also met with an altogether more traditional Russian response of hostility towards uncontrolled, from-the-bottom-up change, unfettered by governmental direction. Russia’s first contact with the Antipodes occurred in 1807, when the Russian sloop Neva put into Sydney harbour en route from Kronstadt to Alaska. From the early 1850s onwards there was an increase in immigration from Russia to Australia, triggered initially by the ‘gold fever’ of 1851. This first wave of immigration lasted until the 1890s, to be followed by a second in the decade before 1914. Indeed, on the eve of the First World War, the Russian community inAustraliaincreasedby120–150permonth.Inbothperiods,therecentarrivals were drawn mostly from the peasant class, reflecting the shortage of available land in Russia. But there was also a significant element formed of political refugees and oppressed ethnic minorities. Following the Polish uprising in 1863, Poles arrived in substantial numbers (doc. no...

The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson

Reviewed by: The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson Morris Rossabi The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017. Pp. xx + 614. $40.00 cloth, $40.00 e-book. One of Professor Peter Jackson's objectives in Mongols and the Islamic World is to refute outlandish assertions that have sprung up after a legitimate attempt to reevaluate the position of the Mongols in history. In the 1980s, specialists sought to offer a balanced appraisal of the Mongols rather than the popular image of savage and barbarian interlopers who devastated much of Asia. Without ignoring the massacres and destruction the Mongols engendered, scholars of their history also write about the Mongols' roles in promoting contacts among Eurasian civilizations, constructing capital cities in Daidu (or Beijing) and Tabriz, supporting the arts, and restoring the old Silk Road trade. Unlike popularizers, who actually perform very useful services, vulgarizers go beyond these interpretations, perhaps to attract wider audiences. They claim that Chinggis Khan (d. 1227) played a role in the making of the modern world, believed in religions toleration, supported women's rights, and ruled via democratic practices; Chinggis Khan allegedly transmitted his policies and practices to his descendants. Perhaps an even more extraordinary claim is that the rampages and destruction of the Mongol invasions scarcely differed in scale from the killings and damage in the contemporaneous conflicts in Europe. Such conceptions have gained currency among the general public, as well as with a few policy makers, students, and even deans of prestigious business schools. Jackson performs a signal service in demolishing these myths. He shows that the Mongol invasions were more devastating than the medieval European wars of the same time. Chinggis Khan ordered appalling massacres. When his favorite grandson died in a battle at Bamiyan, he "ordered his troops to kill every living creature and decreed that nobody should ever live there [after the city fell]" (p. 158). Both resistance and submission could lead to annihilation. On other occasions, the Mongols killed captured adult males and enslaved women and children. Bloodbaths persisted in the campaigns of Chinggis's grandson [End Page 244] Hülegü (d. 1265) in Central Asia and Iran. The Persian accounts no doubt exaggerate the figures for people killed, but after carefully sifting the evidence, Jackson labels some of the incidents as "slaughters" (pp. 157, 170). Forcible migrations of the subjugated contributed to the economic catastrophes. The battles and conquests also damaged considerable amounts of land, and the Mongol pastoralists were not careful about agricultural land. Nor were they solicitous of irrigation complexes. The economies of the regions they conquered eventually recovered, and commerce, which the Mongols favored, revived rapidly. Jackson also dispels myths concerning the Silk Road commerce. He suggests that overland trade was not always safe, and merchants and caravans still encountered perils in undertaking long-distance commerce. Conflicts among the various khanates also, on occasion, impeded such trade. Yet other researchers, citing the travels of Genoese merchants, the Nestorian Rabban Şawma (d. 1294), and Marco Polo (1254–1324), note that travel across Eurasia continued despite the hazards.1 Jackson then challenges the Mongols' vaunted policy of religious toleration. He cites numerous instances of Mongol purges directed at specific religions. The Ilkhan Ghazan (r. 1295–1304), who converted to Islam, initiated an assault on Buddhism, ordering the destruction of Buddhist images, converting Buddhist temples into mosques or madrasas, and compelling Buddhist monks to accept Islam. The Ilkhan Abū Saʾid (r. 1316–1335) destroyed Christian churches in his capital city in Tabriz. In 1280, Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), who relied on Muslims for their administrative and financial skills, nonetheless forbade circumcision, the Muslim method of slaughtering animals, and the recitation of prayers five times a day. Jackson also points out that the Mongol conquerors of West Asia burned down or damaged mosques, although, unlike the Christians in Spain and other regions, they did not convert mosques into churches. They also destroyed mausoleums, shrines, madrasas, and libraries, which housed Islamic and Christian texts. As Jackson writes, "the new masters of Asia did not simply permit the observance of all faiths...

The Latitudinarian Influence on Early English Liberalism

This paper takes the unexpected position that early liberal thought developed in transformative events within the Anglican Church during the second half of the seventeenth century. The historical evolution of religion laid the foundation of English political and intellectual philosophy, as supported by works written by the branch of Anglican churchmen known as the Latitudinarians. I will argue that these ministers were foremost in advancing the argument for religious toleration because their religious writings held political consequence. Toleration was the principle value of liberalism in the late seventeenth century because the problem of Dissenters was so pertinent to English religious life. In contrast to the official Anglican Church policy of intolerance of anything that did not conform to the official catechism of the Church, the Latitudinarian minsters-turned-bishops encouraged toleration and accommodation of religious thought in their sermons, ideals they based on their novel understanding of individuality, rationality, and theology. While not Dissenters themselves, the sympathy of these clergymen for Dissenters was evident in their pamphlets, books, and sermons.

Whither Religious Moderation? The State and Management of Religious Affairs in Contemporary Indonesia

The extent of religious values and symbols in encompassing the direction of Indonesian nation state from the beginning of modern Indonesian history was the most popular determinant contestation in Indonesian political activism along with the emergence of the new sentiments of nationalism and anti-colonialism. Following the embracement of Pancasila (the Five Principles) as the state socio-political foundation, Indonesia would be neither a secular state in which religion was absolutely separated from the state, nor a religious one where the state was organized on one particular faith. Bearing in mind that religion is very important in the state system, the state normatively defines its role on religious affair, as clearly outlines in the Constitution, paving the way for the government to take religious affairs as part of its service. For many decades, the government is very active to promote religious toleration among the communities given to the heterogeneities of religious groups in Indonesia. Implicit here is the importance of a well-grounded policy that continually balances the degree of level of contribution of religious groups in forming a unique Indonesian identity. Hence when Indonesian people identify themselves with particular religious grouping, it does not mean that they have less loyalty to Indonesian nation- statehood. It seems clear that retaining religious (and cultural identity) is not the same thing as political allegiance to a country. Ethnic or religious loyalties do not detract from wider loyalties to the country. For them both loyalties are mutually defining their very existence.

Of the civil magistrate: John Witherspoon’s doubly religious toleration

ABSTRACTIn 1788, the newly unified Presbyterian churches in America adopted a version of the Westminster Confession which, in contradistinction to the 1647 version, prohibited the magistrate from ‘giving … preference to any denomination of Christian’. Instrumental to this change was John Witherspoon, whose views on religious toleration became encoded in the revised confession’s insistence on disestablishment. This paper discusses Witherspoon’s idea of religious tolerance, and argues that it is ‘religious’ in a double sense: Witherspoon endorses the toleration of religion for the sake of religion. This paper proceeds in three parts; first, by examining the springs of Witherspoon’s religious toleration through his life and thought in eighteenth-century Scotland; second, by turning to Witherspoon’s mature thoughts and actions in favour of religious toleration in America; and finally, by evaluating the legacy of religious tolerance bequeathed by Witherspoon to the Presbyterian Church and the United States at large.

Absolute Equality and Absolute Difference: Gandhi on the Plurality of Religions

This paper will consider the ideas of absolute equality and absolute difference that are part of Gandhi’s vision on the plurality of religions. It will fall into three sections. The first section is entitled “Thinking samadarshana through samabhava-Gandhi on “equimindedness” and religious ‘others’”. It will seek to bring out the central ideas in Gandhi’s thoughts on the plurality of religions. In this context the paper will briefly examine the difference between Gandhi’s arguments for absolute equality and the liberal position on religious toleration. The second section will elaborate Gandhi’s reasons for thinking the absolute equality of all religions and will be entitled “The Religion at the heart of all religions- Truth or God”. The third section will be entitled “The truth-untruths of religious others and the duty of resistance: Difficulties with a relativist reading of Gandhi”. It will recapitulate the different strands of the argument in the paper and bring out the implications of ahimsa as love as it transforms resistance to what one thinks of as the truth-untruths of religious ‘others’ in a plural context. It will also take issue with an important contemporary reading of Gandhi, that of Professor Akeel Bilgrami, who reads Gandhi’s position along the lines of a “thorough going relativism about Truth”. In the course of the paper it is hoped to unpack the absolute equality in absolute difference that constituted Gandhi’s vision on the plurality of religions.

Muslim Theologies of Solidarity and Disavowal and the Challenge of Religious Pluralism

ABSTRACT Rawls' conception of political liberalism does not reckon exclusivist salvation religions to be, for that reason alone, unreasonable. He posits, however, that exclusivist doctrines of salvation are likely to become more generous in their views of the religious other with the experience of toleration. While the religious welcome toleration by the majority, relaxation of doctrines of salvation dilutes the urgency of religious truth, and so reduces a religion's ability to justify its existence. Paradoxically, political toleration creates a countervailing demand within a religious community to articulate more precisely what is intolerable in the religious other. This paper explores the dialectic between toleration and nontoleration in the history of Muslim sects and suggests that this history offers lessons on the kinds of strategies that can be successful in promoting religious tolerance in a Muslim society, as well as the limits that might reasonably be expected in those societies.

‘No Empty Place for Complementing Doubt’: The Spaces of Religious Toleration in Andrew Marvell’s ‘Flecknoe’

Abstract Andrew Marvell’s ‘Flecknoe, an English Priest at Rome’ (1646) is a striking document in early modern debates over toleration and an exemplar of their rhetoric and design. Considering ‘Flecknoe’ together with Upon Appleton House (1651), I argue that Marvell uses spatial terms and satiric forms to present confessional rivalry and complementarity. Satire itself might be thought of as a practice of toleration in these poems, at once mocking the languages and gestures of opposing religious confessions and allowing the poet to draw close to—to contrive a surprising intimacy with—the convictions and practices of others. The result is a brilliant interweaving of the ideas and experiences of religious and erotic toleration: Marvell sets liberty of the spirit alongside liberty of the body in these poems’ scenes of forbearance.