{"title":"Reformational Insights for the Study of International Relations","authors":"J. Chaplin","doi":"10.1163/23528230-08001003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/23528230-08001003","url":null,"abstract":"This essay presents a brief overview of selected insights deriving from reformational social and political philosophy, especially that of Herman Dooyeweerd, relevant to the study of international relations. Three clusters of potentially fruitful reformational concepts are identified. These relate to, first, the nature of the discipline of International Relations; second, the “structural purpose” of the state and other political entities; third, the plural, non-state actors of global civil society. It is proposed that distinctively reformational insights can offer illuminating orientations towards, or at least pose valuable research questions confronting, the development of a Christianly-informed ir theory today.","PeriodicalId":319208,"journal":{"name":"Christian Faith, Philosophy & International Relations","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125199526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Enduring Value of Christian Realism","authors":"E. Patterson","doi":"10.1163/23528230-08001002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/23528230-08001002","url":null,"abstract":"Christian realism is a “community of discourse” launched by Reinhold Niebuhr and his contemporaries that remains relevant today providing thoughtful perspective on contemporary policy challenges in the foreign policy analysis strand of the formal study of International Relations. The essay lays out some of the basic principles that unite Christian realists, considers whether or not it can be considered a strain of academic “International Relations Theory”, suggests areas for the growth of Christian realist discourse in applied political thinking today, and concludes with some differences between Niebuhrian and Kuyperian approaches.","PeriodicalId":319208,"journal":{"name":"Christian Faith, Philosophy & International Relations","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125202537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting Sphere Sovereignty to Interpret Restrictions on Religious Freedom","authors":"Dennis P. Petri, F. Visscher","doi":"10.1163/23528230-08001007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/23528230-08001007","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the Kuyperian concept of sphere sovereignty will be revisited in order to describe the multidimensionality of religious freedom. This article will show that true religious freedom requires not only a sovereign church sphere – the respect of church autonomy –, but also the freedom for religious expression in all other spheres of society. The first section will try to show that restrictions on religious expression in any sphere of society are restrictions on religious freedom. The second and third sections will provide examples of two global dynamics which in very distinct ways go against sphere sovereignty and specifically restrict religious expression in different spheres of society: “Islamic extremism” and “secular intolerance”. The article will conclude with a reflection about the virtues of sphere sovereignty as a guarantee against tyranny, and therefore also as a safeguard of religious freedom.","PeriodicalId":319208,"journal":{"name":"Christian Faith, Philosophy & International Relations","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122157412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Distinct Nature of the European Union","authors":"Sander Luitwieler","doi":"10.1163/23528230-08001006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/23528230-08001006","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to examine the distinct nature of the European Union (eu), specifically from a neo-Calvinist perspective. While Herman Dooyeweerd makes a distinction between a state and an international organisation, namely the United Nations (un), within his radical type of juridically qualified societal structures, he mainly deals with the state in his work. This article considers whether Jonathan Chaplin’s critique of Dooyeweerd’s distinction, focusing on coercion and legitimacy in the context of the un, may be helpful to establish the nature of the eu. In addition, it introduces another distinction to this end, namely between the state as a political community and the nation as a cultural community. This distinction suggests the need to think about an additional category in between an inter-communal relationship and a community: the eu as a “community of peoples”.","PeriodicalId":319208,"journal":{"name":"Christian Faith, Philosophy & International Relations","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121940636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}