-
2012 Arthur O. Lovejoy Lecture Civil Religion—Metaphysical, Not Political: Nature, Faith, and Communal Order in European Thought, c.1150–c.1550
- Journal of the History of Ideas
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 74, Number 1, January 2013
- pp. 1-22
- 10.1353/jhi.2013.a495239
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
“Civil religion” has been a topic much on the minds recently of intellectual historians, political theorists, social scientists, and others concerned about the relationship between the “public sphere” broadly construed and forms of religious belief. I argue that certain Christian thinkers during the medieval period accepted the view that religious faith formed a useful feature of social order, but they did so from an essentially metaphysical perspective. I consider the writings of John of Salisbury, Marsilius of Padua, and Bartolomé de Las Casas in support of my thesis.