Category: religion
Secularism and the World Order
In today’s article, an author complains that “current institutions reflect the statist and Euro-centric origins of the United Nations.” “Many Muslims,” he writes, “believe that the West is using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests and promote Western political and …
What is a Religious War?
Today’s article comes from an interesting place: a discussion of religious conflict in Israel, published 3 days before the Palestinian attack. Even more surprising, it is not about a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims, but one among Jews. The subject is a statement by an Orthodox member of the Knesset that the current social …
An Adventist Take on Spinoza
I was surprised to find an article in a Seventh-Day Adventist journal praising Baruch Spinoza. Adventists tend toward literal interpretations of scripture — their very name concerns the literal interpretation of the Sabbath — and Spinoza’s view of religion is high metaphorical. In some ways, it is hardly compatible with a traditional understanding of God, …
Secularism and the State
I get an alert email from Google whenever “Peace of Westphalia” pops up on a new site. These generally fall into one of two categories. First, there are those in the “Executive Intelligence Review,” a publication put out by the LaRouche movement. If you aren’t old enough to have lived through the 1980’s, you probably …
Sabbatai Zevi
We generally associate 1492 with Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, but it was a remarkably eventful year in other respect. Even without leaving the confines of Spain, it was the year that the Reconquista was completed and the year that Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews. Similarly, 1648 is known to the West primarily as …
The Meaning of Religious Freedom
I have argued on several occasions that the Peace of Westphalia was synonymous with religious freedom long before it took up its modern association with sovereignty. And yet, religious freedom is a contentious subject, even for people who believe in it in principle. The Peace of Westphalia did not grant freedom to all religions, only …