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Entries Tagged as 'Freedom of Religion'

Freedom of Religion in a Secular Society @ Auckland University this Monday

September 8th, 2011 No Comments

As part of AUSA’s Human Rights week at the University of Auckland, and in association with Thinking Matters, Matt and I will be giving a free public lecture with Q&A on the topic “Freedom of Religion in a Secular Society” on Monday 12 September from 7-8.30pm in Clock Tower Lecture Room 032. The Facebook page for [...]

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A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? on Video

August 26th, 2011 4 Comments

Thinking Matters and Evangelical Union hosted an event at the University of Auckland for Jesus Week entitled A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? This event was essentially a conversation between Theology, Philosophy and Law on the topic of Religion in Public Life. It featured Matthew Flannagan - Analytic Theologian, Glenn Peoples - Philosopher and Madeleine Flannagan - Legal Scholar [...]

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A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? Part III Madeleine Flannagan – Law

August 26th, 2011 139 Comments

A few weeks ago, as part of Jesus Week at the University of Auckland, Thinking Matters and Evangelical Union hosted an event entitled A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? This event was a conversation between Theology, Philosophy and Law and featured Matthew Flannagan - Analytic Theologian, Glenn Peoples - Philosopher and Madeleine Flannagan - Legal Scholar. The video is still [...]

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The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists and the Privileging of Secularism

December 20th, 2010 189 Comments

The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (“NZARH”) has a statement of aspirational ideals for the New Zealand state on their website. Entitled “The Tolerant Secular State” it is anything but. The first two sentences of the document exhibit a confusion which is inherent throughout (and commonly found in discussions of church and state): “The [...]

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The Separation of Church and Self: Rethinking Separationism

December 16th, 2010 119 Comments

Is it just for a pluralistic society to ground its public policy on religious premises? What role should religion play in such a society? Debate over questions like these has figured in theology, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence and popular culture for centuries. In contemporary Western pluralistic society the debate continues. Even for those unfamiliar with [...]

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Middleton Grange, Free Exercise and the Gay Rights Movement UPDATED

July 26th, 2010 284 Comments

Over at GayNZ.com’s Proclamations of the Red Queen blog, Craig Young is in a celebratory  mood. Middleton Grange, a Reformed Evangelical Christian school has been forced by law to pay reparations and have their management undergo “human rights education” because they dismissed a netball coach on the grounds that he openly engaged in homosexual conduct. Middleton [...]

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Guest Post: No Official Religion in God’s Own?

April 6th, 2010 124 Comments

David Simpkin is a Hamilton based lawyer with an interest in church-state issues. He studied law at the University of Auckland and holds a BA majoring in history and political studies. David is married to Susan and has a infant son, Caleb. He attends Whitiora Bible Church in Hamilton. David writes: As a holiday weekend that coincides with [...]

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Chai Feldblum: “We Should not Tolerate Private Beliefs”

January 27th, 2010 4 Comments

In “Diatribe: To All Da Haters” (originally entitled “Queers and Destiny: Who Hates Who”) an article published a few years ago in Critic (the student magazine of Otago University) I wrote the following: … If teaching that homosexual conduct is wrong is akin to racism or propagation of apartheid, then the aforementioned religious organisations are [...]

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Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part VI

December 3rd, 2009 No Comments

In my last posts, beginning Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I,  I set out the doctrine of religious restraint and critiqued some of the key arguments in support of it. I looked at the objection that the argument from respect is too thin, that applied consistently it excludes too much and Audi’s response to [...]

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Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part V

November 30th, 2009 1 Comment

In my last posts, beginning Religious Restraint and Public Policy: Part I,  I set out the doctrine of religious restraint and critiqued some of the key arguments in support of it. I looked at the objection that the argument from respect is too thin, that applied consistently it excludes too much and Audi’s response to [...]

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