How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Zagorin, Perez, PUBLISHER: Princeong>toong>n Unong>ivong>ersity Press, Religious inong>toong>lerance, so terrible and deadly in its recent manifestations, is nothing new. In fact, until after the eighteenth century, Christianity was perhaps the most inong>toong>lerant of all the great world religions. ong>Howong> Christian Europe and the West went from this extreme ong>toong> their present unong>ivong>ersal belief in religious ong>toong>leration is the momenong>toong>us song>toong>ry fully ong>toong>ld for the first time in this timely and important book by a leading hisong>toong>rian of early modern Europe. Perez Zagorin takes readers ong>toong> a time when both the Catholic Church and the main new Protestant denominations embraced a policy of endorsing religious persecution, coercing unity, and, with the state's help, mercilessly crushing dissent and heresy. This position had its roots in certain intellectual and religious traditions, which Zagorin traces before song>howong>ing ong>howong> out of the same traditions came the beginnings of pluralism in the West. Here we see ong>howong> sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers--writing from religious, theological, and philosophical perspectong>ivong>es--contributed far more than did political expediency or the growth of religious skepticism ong>toong> advance the cause of ong>toong>leration. Reading these thinkers--from Erasmus and Sir Thomas More ong>toong> John Milong>toong>n and John Locke, among others--Zagorin brings ong>toong> light a common, if unexpected, thread: concern for the spiritual welfare of religion itself weighed more in the defense of ong>toong>leration than did any secular or pragmatic arguments. His book--which ranges from England through the Netherlands, the post- Huguenot Diaspora, and the American Colonies--aong>lsong>o exposes a close connection between ong>toong>leration and religious freedom. A far-reaching and incisong>ivong>e discussion of the majorwriters, thinkers, and controversies responsible for the emerong>genong>ce of religious ong>toong>lerance in Western society--from the Enlightenment through the United Nations' Unong>ivong>ersal Declaration of Human Rights--this original and richly nuanced work constitutes an essential chapter in the intellectual hisong>toong>ry of the modern world.