Resistance Theory

While it is not the purpose of this paper to address the broad debate over the role of Beza in changing Calvin's thought immediately following his death, the specific case of On the Rights of Magistrates does provide a clear refutation of the above historiographical narrative. Specifically, Calvin's thought as it was expressed in The Institutes of the Christian Religion appears to have served as the fundamental framework around which Beza crafted his argument in On the Rights of Magistrates. In the realm of political theory, Calvin's understanding of the role of government and rulers is reflected in the explicit assumptions about government which Beza makes. Furthermore, Beza uses a number of theological concepts which mirror the theological focuses of the Institutes itself. Finally, Calvin bequeathed to Beza a series of practical rules for how different elements of the political order should relate to one another. Therefore, John Calvin's The Institutes must be seen as a crucial influence on Theodore Beza's On the Rights of Magistrates.

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

In the past years ideological elements that guaranteed cohesion and loyalties in early modern societies have become a key interest of scholarship. Revolving around the notion of amor patriae (love of country), this study shows how this classical idea with its civic humanist connotations was transferred into the context of monarchical theory of the (German) Empire. The book further explores how love of country fitted into European debates on the nature of commonwealth and the citizen's duties. Combined with an analysis of humanist images of the German fatherland and nation, this concept's application is examined in the German pamphlet literature from the conflicts of the late 16th century to the end of the Thirty Years’ War. The result is a refreshing portrait of the confessional era in Germany, which is often simply characterized by sectarian and political divide.

The present study is concerned with aspects of the complex forming of modern European states in the works of the Lutheran jurist Dietrich Reinking. Reinking is well-known for his loyalty to the German emperor in the so-called Reichspublizistik (the new science of German imperial constitutional law). However, only few scholars have further elaborated on his late work "Biblische Policey" (1653), which is at the centre of this article about Reinking’s state theory. As a so-called politica Christiana (Gute-Policey literature), the "Biblische Policey" reveals as the basic theological framework an enriched lore of the Lutheran three-estate theory. Reinking refers not only directly to Luther’s Lectures on Genesis, but also, for instance, to the shaping of later orthodox Lutheran theologians (as a principle of church constitution). And yet the difference to contemporary theological works is most obvious, as Reinking did not show much interest in denominational positioning, but was rather concerned with the fundamental controversy of the reason of state (Staatsraison). Since, overall, one can determine tensions and progress in the gradual integration of the theory of reason of state (anti-Machiavellism, neo-Stoicism respectively Tacitism) as well as in his construction of a “biblical state” (the relation of the empire to the territorial state, and the three estates to monarchy; differentiation of the state and society; separation of church and state competences), it is plausible to consider Reinking a paradigm for emergent processes and trends of modern stateformation. Ultimately, the question of the relevance of religious, denominational, and explicitly biblical orientations and models is raised again.

On the morning of January 7th , 2015, two masked gunmen burst into the headquarters of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebda, murdering 11. When the gunmen's affiliations with Islamic fundamentalism were discovered, it helped to reignite a debate which has plagued French discourse over the last decade: religion's role in mediating entry into the French state.  At the core of the discussion is a question which Patrick Weil recently articulated in the context of post-Revolutionary French citizenship laws, "What makes one French?"  Contemporary answers to this question invariably circle around the issue of secularism. However, the role of religion in the notion of French citizenship has a much longer pedigree. For most, this history is told from the perspective of the French state extending citizenship to previously marginalized religious groups.  Often overlooked is the means by which these marginalized groups themselves conceived of belonging within the French nation.  This paper aims to examine one such influential minority religious group: the Huguenots of the sixteenth century. This period of the Reformation is critical because it shattered, in the words of Scott Gordon, the "unity of the Christian community. "  In the case of France, the secretion of Calvinism from Geneva into the French countryside resulted in nearly forty years of civil war which consumed the second half of the sixteenth century.  While commanding a majority of the French nobility at one point of the conflict, Reformed Christians only accounted for 6-7% of the population on the eve of the seventeenth century.  Nonetheless, the very presence of these nonconformists within the otherwise Catholic French body politic necessitated new ways of conceiving French political and social identity.

Henry Sacheverell’s speech in his own defence on the eighth day of his parliamentary trial (9 March 1710) was by all accounts a show-stopping performance. The speech was an effective political performance at a show trial originally designed to condemn the principles he had enunciated in his controversial 1709 sermons at Derby and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Sacheverell avoided any forthright or elaborate defence of his beliefs with regard to the legitimacy of resistance during the Glorious Revolution in order to appear humble, orthodox, and loyal to the queen and to the Protestant succession. As such, he presented himself as a sort of living martyr for the high church cause. While this strategy was itself deeply controversial, it was also rather successful in spinning the debate from one about ‘revolution principles’ to one about the persecution of a loyal clergyman.

In order to understand the form, the effectiveness and the purpose of Sacheverell’s trial speech, one must take its pathetic form and its widespread distribution, both in print and manuscript reports, into account. The sympathy garnered for Sacheverell due to his speech was a public relations success for the Tory cause in the short run, but it also entailed a solid commitment to the Hanoverian succession that remained deeply controversial within high church circles.

This article introduces the notion of ‘respectable resistance’ as a way of conceptualizing French notables’ protests against German policies during the occupation of the département of the Nord in the First World War. It argues that this did constitute a form of resistance that was relatively widespread, occasionally organized, and legalistic. Although this opposition was largely unsuccessful in practical terms, it sometimes worked as a stalling tactic. Its real success was as a performative demonstration of the notables’ defence of compatriots, reinforcing their social/political status, and it was born of patriotism, a sense of duty, but also fears of future judgement.

This chapter reviews the educational literature on student resistance and attempts to recast it in the context of authoritarian capitalism. It proposes a pedagogy of resistance and disobedience with specific goals and political content. Resistance must be distinguished from rebelliousness as reaction without clear political meaning. Student resistance in inner city schools has been one of the largest sustained guerilla warfare campaigns since the advent of mass literacy. Henry Giroux's analysis proposes to reframe school failure and oppositional behavior away from functionalism and mainstream educational psychology to political analysis. Authoritarianism and commodification seem to be among the leading ideologies shaping education, particularly the educational vision of the Trump administration with the appointment of Betsy DeVos, a multi-millionaire, second-generation, religious right funder, as Secretary of Education. Such educational process of estrangement functions to alienate students from the world around them, from themselves, and from each other.

Page 1. uan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanis Political Thought Harald E. Braun Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700 Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. The Jesuit Juan de Mariana (1535-1624) is one of the most misunderstood authors in the history of political thought. ...