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Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Leni Franken

    1. Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp Centre Pieter Gillis, Antwerp, Belgium

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  • Exposes the contemporary relationship between religion and the state from a philosophical perspective
  • Presents a philosophical argumentation for church-financing and for a hands-off policy toward religion whilst systematically elaborating the conditions for financing
  • Provides useful guidelines to improve actual church-state policies Collates the work of a group of top scholars on the much debated issue of liberal neutrality
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life (BSPR, volume 5)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  3. Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73
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    2. Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 75-89

    3. Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Faith-Based Schools

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 91-107

    4. Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religious Education

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 109-124

  4. Church-State Models and Liberal Neutrality

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 125-125
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    2. Church and State: Legal Framework and Typology

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 127-133

    3. Political Secularism: Passive and Assertive

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 135-148

    4. Active State Support for Religion

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 149-181

    5. State Church or Established Church

      • Leni Franken
      Pages 183-198

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 199-211
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Keywords

About this book

This book focuses on the financing of religions, examining some European church-state models, using a philosophical methodology. The work defends autonomy-based liberalism and elaborates how this liberalism can meet the requirements of liberal neutrality. The chapters also explore religious education and the financing of institutionalized religion. This volume collates the work of top scholars in the field. Starting from the idea that autonomy-based liberalism is an adequate framework for the requirement of liberal neutrality, the author elaborates why a liberal state can support religions and how she should do this, without violating the principle of neutrality. Taking into account the principle of religious freedom and the separation of church and state, this work explores which criteria the state should take into account when she actively supports religions, faith-based schools and religious education. A number of concrete church-state models, including hands-off, religious accommodation and the state church are evaluated, and the book gives some recommendations in order to optimize those church-state models, where needed. Practitioners and scholars of politics, law, philosophy and education, especially religious education, will find this work of particular interest as it has useful guidelines on policies and practices, as well as studies of church-state models.

Reviews

“The particular richness and real contribution of Leni Franken’s work is the application of liberal theories of justice, which are rarely focused on religion, to the question of the legitimacy of financial state support for religion. … Leni Franken’s work shows that, even though we cannot claim that a state should finance religion in order to be neutral in a political liberal sense, we can at least say that the state can consider such financial support, without losing its neutrality.” (Stéphanie Wattier, Revue de droit international et de droit comparé, April, 2017)


“Franken has written an excellent and clear book on the question of the relations between State and Church and on the question of State support for religion within the context of liberalism Writing. ... I recommend this book not only to philosophers, theologians and political thinkers,but also to politicians, especially liberal politicians.” (Norbert Campagna, Ethical Perspectives, Vol. 24 (2), 2017)


“This volume collates the work of top scholars in the field. … A number of concrete church-state models, including hands-off, religious accommodation and the state church are evaluated, and the book gives some recommendations in order to optimize those church-state models, where needed. Practitioners and scholars of politics, law, philosophy and education, especially religious education, will find this work of particular interest as it has useful guidelines on policies and practices, as well as studies of church-state models.” (Georg Neureither, Religion - Weltanschauung - Recht (RWR), religion-weltanschauung-recht.net, May, 2016)


Authors and Affiliations

  • Centre Pieter Gillis, University of Antwerp Centre Pieter Gillis, Antwerp, Belgium

    Leni Franken

About the author

Leni Franken is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Her research interests are political and autonomy-based liberalism, church-state relations, neutrality, faith-based schools and religious education. In 2011, she edited Religious Education in a Plural, Secularized Society (Waxmann)

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