Mutual Accommodation in the Church-State Relationship in China?

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhidong Hao ◽  
Yan Liu

The campaign of church demolitions and cross removals in Zhejiang from 2013 to 2016 has revealed some uneasiness in the religion-state relationship in China. The party-state has had a policy of “mutual accommodation” since the 1990s, and the official churches are good examples of such accommodation. But the demolition of Sanjiang Church shows the limits of the policy. In this case study, we argue that mutual accommodation between the two sides is still possible but constrained by two factors: the broad political and policy structure, and the individuals involved in the interaction between church and state. This case study helps to shed some light on an issue that has a far-reaching effect on sociopolitical change in China.

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-225
Author(s):  
Andrzej Friszke

This study of the struggle between the government of the Polish People’s Republic and Solidarity in the years 1981-1984 discerns three key actors in Polish politics: the Communist party leadership and security apparatus, the arrested leaders of Solidarity, and the bishops and advisers of the Catholic Church. The PRL government made strategic decisions in this period regarding repression and liberalization. Following initial advanced preparation for the trial of eleven arrested leaders of Solidarity and KSS KOR, the government attempted to coerce the arrestees into leaving Poland, thus weakening the movement’s legitimacy. The article demonstrates how the interaction between the leaders of the two sides – mediated by bishops and advisers – produced a new dynamic and a shift in the existing political mechanism. What was once a mass movement transformed into a more regular, staffed organization with a greater role played by leaders, who symbolized the continuity of the movement and enabled Solidarity to weather the period of repression. The article shows the changes and tensions in the Solidarity movement, along with the changes that were occurring in parallel on the side of the government and the mediating third actor, i.e., the Catholic Church. This case study of the strategic clash that occurred at the beginning of the 1980s illustrates the transformations that took place within the government and Solidarity – transformations that would prove crucial to the transition process in 1988-1989.


2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
DMITRI LEVITIN

ABSTRACTMatthew Tindal's Rights of the Christian church (1706), which elicited more than thirty contemporary replies, was a major interjection in the ongoing debates about the relationship between church and state in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. Historians have usually seen Tindal's work as an exemplar of the ‘republican civil religion’ that had its roots in Hobbes and Harrington, and putatively formed the essence of radical whig thought in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. But this is to misunderstand theRights. To comprehend what Tindal perceived himself as doing we need to move away from the history of putatively ‘political’ issues to the histories of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, patristic scholarship, and biblical exegesis. The contemporary significance of Tindal's work was twofold: methodologically, it challenged Anglican patristic scholarship as a means of reaching consensus on modern ecclesiological issues; positively, it offered a powerful argument for ecclesiastical supremacy lying in crown-in-parliament, drawing on a legal tradition stretching back to Christopher St Germain (1460–1540) and on Tindal's own legal background. Tindal's text provides a case study for the tentative proposition that ‘republicanism’, whether as a programme or a ‘language’, had far less impact on English anticlericalism and contemporary debates over the church–state relationship than the current historiography suggests.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Koutras

AbstractThe issue of State-Church relations should be examined in detail, to reveal why Christian Orthodox Church and State in Greece are two sides of the same coin. For many centuries, both Christian Orthodox Church and State have been the pillars of social cohesion in Greek society. This paper highlights the importance of Church and State separation in Greece nowadays.


Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge

Chapter 3’s discussion of kingdoms and orders in the context of political life leads naturally into the topic of this chapter: the church, the state, and their relationship. The present chapter locates the state (or, better, political authority in general) in relationship to Chapter 3’s categories by presenting it as one of the orders by which God’s structures the world. It is an important actor in the temporal kingdom, where God has ordained it to preserve the world through law. The church in its essence is an agent of the spiritual kingdom, bearing God’s redemptive word to the world. The themes of preservation and redemption, the kingdoms, and the orders find many of their concrete expressions in themes of the church, the state, and their relationship.


Author(s):  
Barley Norton

This chapter addresses the cultural politics, history and revival of Vietnamese court orchestras, which were first established at the beginning of the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945). Based on fieldwork in the city of Hue, it considers the decolonizing processes that have enabled Vietnamese court orchestras to take their place alongside other East Asian court orchestras as a display of national identity in the global community of nations. The metaphor of ‘orchestrating the nation’ is used to refer to the ways in which Vietnamese orchestras have been harnessed for sociopolitical ends in several historical periods. Court orchestras as heritage have recourse to a generic, precolonial past, yet they are not entirely uncoupled from local roots. Through a case-study of the revival of the Nam Giao Sacrifice, a ritual for ‘venerating heaven’, the chapter addresses the dynamics of interaction and exchange between staged performances of national heritage and local Buddhist and ancestor worship rituals. It argues that with growing concern about global climate change, the spiritual and ecological resonances of the Nam Giao Sacrifice have provided opportunities for the Party-state to reassert its position as the supreme guardian of the nation and its people.


Author(s):  
Maria Ricciardi ◽  
Concetta Pironti ◽  
Oriana Motta ◽  
Rosa Fiorillo ◽  
Federica Camin ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this paper, we analysed the efflorescences present in the frescos of a monumental complex named S. Pietro a Corte situated in the historic centre of Salerno (Campania, Italy). The groundwater of the historic centre is fed by two important streams (the Rafastia and the Fusandola) that can be the sources of water penetration. The aims of this work are to (i) identify the stream that reaches the ancient frigidarium of S. Pietro a Corte and (ii) characterize the efflorescences on damaged frescos in terms of chemical nature and sources. In order to accomplish the first aim, the water of the Rafastia river (7 samples) and the water of the Fusandola river (7 samples) were analysed and compared with the water of a well of the Church (7 samples). The ionic chromatography measurements on the water samples allowed us to identify the Rafastia as the river that feeds the ancient frigidarium of S. Pietro a Corte. To investigate the nature and the origin of the efflorescences (our second aim), anionic chromatography analyses, X-ray diffraction measurements, and the isotopic determination of nitrogen were performed on the efflorescences (9 samples) and the salts recovered from the well (6 samples). Results of these analyses show that efflorescences are mainly made of potassium nitrate with a δ15N value of + 9.3 ± 0.2‰. Consequently, a plausible explanation for their formation could be the permeation of sewage water on the walls of the monumental complex.


AJS Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-94
Author(s):  
Reuven Kiperwasser

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.


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