On the Origin of the ‘Private Sphere’: A Discourse Analysis of Religion and Politics from Luther to Locke

Authors

  • Craig Martin St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY, United States of America.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.7899

Abstract

This essay supplements the recent literature on the social construction of ‘religion’ by demonstrating that liberal discourses on the ‘private sphere’ and the ‘separation of church and state’ originated in a rhetorical slippage between different uses of the word ‘religion’ in early modern Europe. However, contrary to much of the recent social constructionist literature, this essay demonstrates that the implemen- tation of the so-called ‘separation of church and state’ resulted not in an actual separation, but, rather, that this discourse masks the very real circulation of power from one institution to the other.

Keywords: Social Construction of Religion, Early Modern Political Theory, Privatization of Religion, Liberal Discourses on Religion, Liberal Political Theory, Separation of Church and State

Author Biography

Craig Martin, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY, United States of America.

CRAIG MARTIN is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY, United States of America.

Downloads

Published

2009-09-01

How to Cite

Martin, C. (2009). On the Origin of the ‘Private Sphere’: A Discourse Analysis of Religion and Politics from Luther to Locke. Temenos - Nordic Journal for the Study of Religion, 45(2). https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.7899

Issue

Vol. 45 No. 2 (2009)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2009 Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.

Author's Guarantee

  • The Author acknowledges that the Work will be publicly accessible on the Internet and that such access will be free of charge for the readers.
  • The Author guarantees that the Work is her/his original work that has not been published before and cannot be construed as copying or plagiarism. Furthermore, the Author confirms that the Work contains no statement that is unlawful, defamatory or abusive or in any way infringes the rights of others.
  • The Author confirms that she/he has secured all written permissions needed for the reproduction in the Publication of any material created by a third party.

User Rights

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, the Author/s and users are free to:

  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially,
  • However, the Work must be attributed to the original Author and source of publication.

The license of the published metadata is Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Author Rights

The Authors maintain the right to:

  • copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the Work,
  • the right to use the substance of the Work in future own works,
  • the right to self-archiving/parallel publishing (publisher's PDF allowed).

Rights of Publisher

  • The Publisher reserves the right to make such editorial changes as may be necessary to make the Work suitable for publication in the publication, e.g. style of punctuation, spelling, headings and the like.
  • The Publisher will publish the Work if the editorial process is successfully completed and reserves the right not to proceed with publication for whatever reason.
  • The publication entitles the author to no royalties or other fees. This agreement will be governed by the laws of Finland.