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Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / Charles J. Griffin / This rhetorical history study attempts to refocus the narrow debate on the concept of the “Separation of Church and State.” Most scholars and popular organizations primarily focus their determination of the original intent of the Establishment Clause on the views of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Virginia. However, according to the United States Constitution it takes three-fourths of the states and two-thirds of Congress to ratify an amendment. As a result, most arguments on this topic center on an extremely small minority of evidence: one of fourteen states, and only one of eighty-one members of Congress to determine the Founders’ original intent. This study reverses this trend and consults evidence from all the states involved as well as the records of Congress. Since comparable documents are vital to understanding history, all the state constitutions, state bills of rights, and state proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution are consulted as evidence at the beginning of this study. Additionally, every reference of religion in the above documents are individually presented in order to alleviate concerns of potential evidence manipulation. Further, the debates in Congress and the multiple drafts of the Establishment Clause are evaluated in the process of determining the Founders’ original intent. Throughout the study, several useful tables have been constructed in order to facilitate the processing and evaluation of such a large base of evidence. The results of this study indicate a lack of evidence for the contemporary view that the Founders’ intent was to create a total separation between church and state. From the specific religious concerns voiced in the state ratification debates of the Constitution, what religious limits were written into state constitutions/bills of rights, and the amendments that states proposed concerning religion; it becomes evident that the Founders’ intention was only to prevent a particular Christian denomination from becoming the established "National American Church.”

The thesis is a study of the political relevance of the views of Karl Barth on Church and State as they relate to the apartheid State in South Africa. In other words, the thesis deals with the part that should be played by the Church in opposing the demonic power of apartheid. Barth's allembracing theology could be used as a catalyst to expose the evil of apartheid and the way in which this evil could be eradicated, in preparation for a democratic order. In Chapter 1, the investigator argues in favour of the use of a methodology which takes praxis as its focus. This suggests that praxis develops theory and the latter informs praxis. Praxis and theory affect each other, thus creating a circular movement wherein both theory and praxis are both individually necessary (or the development of the other). In Chapter 2, the investigator again describes Barth's early theology. A predominant characteristic of Barth's early theology is its concern about the Word of God as incarnated in Jesus Christ, and the attempt to focus its attention on the plight of workers in the employ of the capitalistic system. As the thesis develops in chapter 3, the researcher further shows Barth's contributions to the struggle between the Church and National Socialism and between the Church and communism, more especially in the countries falling within the communistic bloc. In Chapter 4, the investigator focuses strongly on the struggle of the Church against the tenets of apartheid ideology, using Barth's theology as a mediating voice. At the end of the thesis in chapter 5, the investigator deems it necessary to make suggestions and recommendations to round off the argument begun in the first chapter. The suggestions and recommendations are subjected to what obtains in Barth's theological ethics on the relations between the Church and State. By so doing, the investigator suggests ways and means by which South Africans can successfully work out a constitution which will enable all people in South Africa to prepare themselves for a new dispensation. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Theological Ethics)

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This dissertation examines the Catholic Church’s response to the mid-nineteenth century Mexican liberal Reforma through a study of the life and work of Bishop Clemente de Jesús Munguía (1810-1868), one of the most influential yet least-known ecclesiastical intellectuals of the period. A lawyer by profession, Clemente Munguía was first professor and then rector of the Morelia diocesan seminary, where he undertook a major reform of the school’s curriculum and also composed several textbooks on a variety of subjects, including grammar, literature, rhetoric, philosophy, theology, and law. Appointed Bishop of Michoacán in October 1850, Munguía distinguished himself for his staunch opposition to the state’s encroachment on the Church, as well as for his insistence on the need for religious intolerance in what he imagined as an “exclusively Catholic” nation. His protests against the 1857 Constitution and the liberal legislation enacted by President Ignacio Comonfort were a key factor in the outbreak of the Civil War of the Reform (1858-1860) and the subsequent French intervention (1862-1867), which resulted in the separation of Church and state and the collapse of Mexican conservatism. Unlike previous studies, this dissertation argues that Bishop Munguía’s opposition to the Reforma derived not from a blind “reactionary” intransigence, but instead from his desire to emancipate the Church from the subordinate status it had under the colonial ancien régime. Far from the stereotype of a backward and parochial intellectual, Munguía was a sophisticated scholar who sought to reconcile Catholicism with the larger currents of thought of the Atlantic Republic of letters. Indeed, he believed that the liberal revolution should be countered “with its own weapons,” a conviction which first led him to frame the defense of ecclesiastical prerogatives in the language of modern natural law, and then to claim for the Church the very power of constitutional interpretation. Although Munguía’s ideal of a “Catholic republic” became unfeasible after the liberals’ final victory in 1867, his efforts at consolidating ecclesiastical independence paved the way for both the Romanization and the social activism that characterized the Mexican Church during the latter half of the nineteenth century. / text

A pesquisa foi desenvolvida com o intuito de compreender um pouco da inserção dos evangélicos nas instituições políticas brasileiras, em uma tentativa de articular tal fenômeno com o debate sobre a representação partidária. Por que um \"Partido Evangélico\" não foi formado, embora tal grupo eleja uma quantidade expressiva de representantes em grande parte das eleições desde a última Constituinte? O trabalho empírico consistiu no teste da hipótese de inexistência de uma identidade entre os evangélicos que justificasse o fato de um partido político não ter sido criado. Através de um conjunto de dados sobre os eleitores e outro sobre os deputados estaduais de todo o país, não foi observada a presença de posicionamentos distintos, de uma identidade política que tornasse, tanto os eleitores quanto os deputados evangélicos singulares, diferenciados dos demais grupos. Também foi constatada a fragilidade do modelo de formação de partidos a partir de identidades políticas no caso brasileiro, caracterizado pela alta fragmentação partidária e por uma falta de distinção na maioria dos partidos. / This research was developed with the purpose of understanding the insertion of the evangelicals in the Brazilian political institutions, an attempt to articulate such phenomena with the debate on the partisan representation. It\'s puzzling that an \"Evangelical Party\" was not formed even after the expressive amount of elected representatives this group has had since the last Constituent Assembly. Why is it so? The empirical work consisted in testing the hypothesis that there is no common identity among the various evangelical groups that would justify the existence of a political party. Through a data set of the voters and another one of the representatives of the whole country, the presence of distinct positions was not observed. There isn\'t a political identity that would turn the evangelical voters and representatives distinguished from the others groups. This work also evidenced the fragility of the political parties\' formation model based on identities. In the Brazilian case, this is characterized by a high partisan fragmentation and a lack of distinction between most of the many political parties.

This dissertation presents an overview of Church- State relations in Mexico from 1924 to 1938. It examines the actions and motives of prominent national leaders, the papacy, the episcopate, and the Mexican citizenry to determine justification and culpability. This dissertation presents several conclusions. When Calles enforced the anticlerical provisions of the Constitution of 1917, the clergy withdrew from the churches in protest. The episcopate as a body bore a moral responsibility for the Cristero rebellion that resulted, but avoided implication in the movement. Because the Church's supporters were in the minority, that institution in 1929 accepted a settlement requiring clerical obedience to the constitution. Churchmen consoled their parishioners with the thought that the Church would rise again.

The problem of this study was to determine legal, moral, and social responsibilities and practices of the Texas public school system in dealing with religion. The purposes of the study were (1) to determine the impact of state and federal judicial decisions on religious practices in schools, (2) to review the historical background for trends of religious practices in the public schools of Texas, (3) to determine the social and professional influence on religious practices in public schools, and (4) to survey current religious practices from a select sample of public schools in Texas to determine if schools were basically sectarian. The following conclusions are inferred: I. It is not the intention of the Supreme Court of the United States to deny the existence of a Supreme Being, but rather its intention is to assure each individual freedom from any form of an established religion. 2. School policies do not delineate the role of religion in public school, 3. Through careful planning, progress could be made in developing policies for a study of religion which will complement, not supplement, the religious teachings of the home and of the church. 4. There are many opportunities for public schools to provide religious materials and courses in religion which are within the legal scope of Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States.

朱宇晶. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-326) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Zhu Yujing.

The author employs research skills from law, history and religion in order to present an account of the relations of law and religion in Oregon's history from its earliest days to the present.