History of Religious Toleration

Nas últimas décadas do século 17, na Inglaterra, em meio a um extenso debate em torno à tolerância religiosa, foram esboçados os contornos do secularismo jurídico que fundamenta os Estados modernos: neutralidade confessional das instituições públicas, respeito às convicções religiosas individuais e regulação civil de sua expressão
pública. Conhecer os pressupostos históricos específicos dessa fórmula é fundamental para lidarmos com os desafios de respeito à liberdade religiosa e a visões de mundo divergentes lançados no mundo contemporâneo.

La Storia delle religioni e la sfida dei pluralismi Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana di Storia delle Religioni -Roma, Sapienza, 8-9 aprile 2016 MORCELLIANA © 2017 Editrice Morcelliana Via Gabriele Rosa 71 -25121 Brescia Prima edizione: luglio 2017 Volume pubblicato dal Dipartimento di Storia, Culture, Religioni. Con il contributo di: Società Italiana di Storia delle Religioni. I saggi contenuti nel volume sono stati sottoposti a procedura di peer review. www.morcelliana.com I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento totale o parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microfilm), sono riservati per tutti i Paesi. Le fotocopie per uso personale del lettore possono essere effettuate nei limiti del 15% di ciascun volume/fascicolo di periodico dietro pagamento alla SIAE del compenso previsto dall'art. 68, commi 4 e 5, della legge 22 aprile 1941, n. 633. Le fotocopie effettuate per finalità di carattere professionale, economico o commerciale o comunque per uso diverso da quello personale possono essere effettuate a seguito di specifica autorizzazione rilasciata da CLEARedi, Centro Licenze e Autorizzazioni per le Riproduzioni Editoriali, Corso di Porta Romana n. 108, 20122 Milano, e-mail autorizzazioni@clearedi.org e sito web www.clearedi.org. LegoDigit srl -Via Galileo Galilei 15/1 -38015 Lavis (TN) Progetto firb, Futuro in Ricerca 2012: "La percezione dello spazio e del tempo nella trasmissione di identità collettive. Coabitazioni e/o polarizzazioni religiose nel mondo antico (i-vi secolo d.C.)" (coord. nazionale Luca Arcari -Università di Napoli Federico ii);

Quando la vita civile si ravviva nelle speranze della riforma, quando la politica mostra di affidarsi alle prospettive ragionevoli e critiche di miglioramento, è naturale che si cerchino nello sviluppo storico tempi e processi in cui prevalente appare il peso della volontà di razionalizzazione del reale, più forte e più consistente l'opera degli uomini per tradurre nei fatti quelli che la loro intelligenza critica sembra indicargli come obbiettivi del proprio progresso: l'antico motivo insomma dei «filosofi» che devono «regnare». Si spiega quindi l'interesse degli storici, dal 1955 in giù, per epoche e aspetti del rapporto tra intellettuali e politica. Al primo posto, ovviamente, il '700, le lumières ...

Were the Ottomans tolerant towards other faiths (especially towards the so called 'Peoples of the Book') during the reign of Sultan Sϋleyman the Lawgiver (r. 1520-1566)? This is a claim that many historians make and is based on formal and informal characteristics of the Ottoman Empire and the personality of the Sultan. In this paper I analyzed where these historians base this claim on, and whether this is a plausible statement. I did this by carrying out a secondary literature research. This paper will give the reader insights in the doubts that surround this claim. During Sϋleyman's reign the Empire was indeed formally tolerant, in line with the religious views of the Sultan who thought of himself as expander of the Ottoman Islamic realm and emperor of a revived Roman Empire. However, de facto this tolerance was very limited. Tolerance only followed after the 'Peoples of the Book', mainly Christians from the Balkan, were massacred, persecuted, and exploited after a region was conquered. Resistance would not even have been possible, even if these subjected peoples wanted to. Christians held an inferior position in the Empire after the conquests, and many of them kept being exploited and enslaved systematically. Limited tolerance seemed a pragmatic and religiously permissible way to expand power and influence of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. The Dutch adage 'rather Turkish than Papist' seemed a powerful way to show how intolerant the Spanish were, if the Dutch even preferred Turks who were intolerant and hostile towards Christians.

This essay argues that the early Calvinist tradition's views on religious tolerance change with the contemporary political context. It does so by drawing a direct connection between specific formulations of tolerance and the historical context in which they were written. It begins by delving into the most visible aspects of John Calvin and Theodore Beza's intolerance by looking at the points at which Calvin and Beza were secure in their power in Geneva. This is followed by a look at the unique mix of tolerance and intolerance found in what can be called " a move towards concord " by Calvin and Beza, as the possibility of France as a Calvinist nation appears to be on the horizon. The next section looks at the Reformed traditions tentative steps towards an ideology of religious tolerance in Calvin's early years as an outcast from France and Beza's elder years following the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The essay concludes by tying the theology of the early Reformed church into Calvinism's later impact on human rights theory and a reflection on how to best understand the development of religious tolerance.

The first of three projected parts on Montaigne's religious politics, this essay presents the text of the profession of faith Montaigne made in 1562. I analyze this profession with respect to theological issues in the 1540s, religious conflict in the 1560s, and Montaigne's place in the political landscape of Bordeaux's Parlement.

friendship, love, honest cooperation and social solidarity. In the middle of all the conflicts in the 17th century, his conception of tolerance would solve not only the problems of his own time but would also head towards the strenghtening of all positive values of humanity, individual as well as social, and towards the universal reformation of everything.

This is a PDF replica of the paperback edition of “The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience” by Alan E. Johnson. This book is also available on Amazon.com in Kindle ebook ($2.99) and paperback ($22.95) editions. The PDF does not support toggling between the endnote references in the text and the endnotes themselves, as does the Kindle edition.

This book is about Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), who was banished from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for advocating freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, Native American rights, and related matters. He founded the town of Providence in what became Rhode Island on the basis of full liberty of conscience and complete separation of religion and government.

For Errata and Supplemental Comments, see the separate document uploaded at https://www.academia.edu/34149040/Errata_and_Supplemental_Comments_updated_June_5_2020_to_The_First_American_Founder_Roger_Williams_and_Freedom_of_Conscience_by_Alan_E_Johnson.

Ciefom tohto strudndho prispevku je ukhzaf , Le v stredovekom filozofickoteologickom mysleni problematika tolerancie predznamenrlva obdobie rozkvetu tdmy tolerancie na podiatku modernlfch dejin Eur6py. Za poslednd desat'rodia sa medievalistika pokri5a rozbisra( mftus, Ze stredovekd obdobie eur6pskych dejin je epochou temna, ktorej je vzdialend predstava o tolerantnej spolodnosti. Tento negatfvny a pausalizujuci obraz stredoveku, kton-i prenikol hlboko do podvedomia sridasndho dloveka, je prirodzene provokativny a umocf,uje presveddenie, Ze stredovekd myslenie je obdobim intolerancie. Pretoze v stredovekom mysleni neexistuje monotematickf spis o tolerancii, mohlo by sa zdat, Ze intelektu6lni predstavitelia stredoveku nevenujf problematike tolerancie nrjakri pozornost'. K problematike ,,tolerancie" v stredovekom mysleni je moLne pristupovat' z r6znych pohl'adov, ktord si v5imajir n6boZenskd, kultirme, antropologickd, sociologick6 alebo pr6vne aspekty. Nebudeme sa zaoberat definiciou tolerancie alebo pouZivanim pojmu ,,tolerantia" v stredovekom mysleni obecne, pretoL,e sa tejto tdme venovalabohatd literatura. Pozornost'budeme venovat' vybranfm postav6m, kto{ich snahy o zmierenie a prekonanie konfliktov z nich robia ,,predchodcov" novovekych koncepcii tolerancie.l Prispevok bol pripravenj'v riimci Centra pro pr6ci s patristiclrymi, stiedovdkjmi a renesandnfmi texty (vlizkumn! zlmdr CMTF UP v Olomouci, MSMT 6t98959202).

Many commentators argue that there is a flaw in Bayle’s plea for tolerance: the so-called “conscientious persecutor aporia.” In order to show the wrongness of persecutions, Bayle appeals to the primary ethical imperative of obeying the “dictates” of one’s conscience. It is wrong to oblige others to do something that their conscience judges to be bad because it obliges them to do something immoral. But if the integrity of conscience should always be respected, it seems that, as a consequence, one must not stop fanatics whose consciences order them to persecute dissenters. Therefore, Bayle’s theory appears to justify intolerance. However, I demonstrate that there actually is no “conscientious persecutor aporia.” The semblance of an aporia results from 1) a confusion between two steps of Bayle’s argument, and 2) errors in interpretation of his moral philosophy—specifically, the conditions for an action to be good and the nature of conscience.

There is a direct relationship between epistemology and one’s attitude toward those with whom one disagrees. Those who think that the truth is diffucult to ascertain can be expected, other things equal, to tend to tolerate (in the sense of sympathizing with) those with whom they disagree, as the blameless victims of an opaque reality. Those who think that the truth is easy to ascertain can be expected, other things equal, to tend to be intolerant (in the sense of being unsympathetic) toward those with whom they disagree, who perversely refuse to acknowledge what should be clear to any well-intentioned inquirer. However, these tendencies toward tolerant or intolerant attitudes can be offset by other factors; and they do not, in any case, necessarily dictate whether one will favor tolerant or intolerant policies regarding those toward whom one feels tolerant or intolerant. The complex relationship between epistemology, tolerant or intolerant attitudes, and tolerant or intolerant policies is evident in the thought of prominent early-modern Protestant theologians who, under the pressure of rampant and violent religious disagreement, theorized tolerance.

The reorganization of the poor relief system in Dutch cities in the second half of the 17th century marked a new manner of confessional coexistence in which dissenting communities were entrusted to care for their own poor co-religionists. In the negotiations to solve the financial problems of Utrecht from the 1620s to the 1670s, which led to the separation of charity along confessional lines in 1674, Catholics did not remain passive. They were one of the actors, along with the Dutch Reformed Church and the political authorities. All the actors attempted to defend their own interests by referring to the term ‘public’ based on their own definition. Catholics actively created room for survival by participating in the delimitation of the ‘public’. The public sphere was a much more dynamic space and Catholics had much more active agency in the delimitation of the ‘public’ than previous studies have assumed.

When French revolutionary troops arrived in the Dutch Republic at the end of 1794, the promise of new liberties became the subject of considerable tension and conflict. In order to steer the revolutionary process in their favour, various interest groups across the Dutch Republic set up political societies that soon acquired significant power. From these societies arose a new generation of politicians, which for the first time included Catholics, dissenting Protestants, and even Jews.

But the egalitarian and tolerant idealism of the Revolution caused tensions among religious groups. Conservative Calvinists could not accept the loss of the close connection between the Calvinist church and the state and guild members feared competition from previously excluded minorities. Many historians have since claimed that these and other difficulties resulted in a closing down of the Dutch Enlightenment, the establishment of a broadly Protestant governing and cultural elite, and the confessionalization of politics and even sociability in its many forms.

This paper examines the issue of confessional diversity in Dutch organized sociability during the revolutionary period. Drawing on case studies from Amsterdam, Leiden, and Nijmegen, it will trace the rise and fall of the religiously neutral model of sociability generally associated with the Enlightenment, and specifically with the revolutionary period. It will explore how within the various forms of sociability in this period, a variety of ways was developed to deal with the newly controversial fact of religious difference.  The key point it makes is that the rise and fall of the confessionally neutral clubs and societies cannot be described simply as the success or failure of the discourse of tolerance, and that more attention should be given to the ability of some individuals from religious minority groups to consolidate positions of influence slowly built up during the pre-revolutionary years.