Wisely 's Bookmarks tagged germany → View Popular

You are here: Diigo Home > Wisely 's Bookmarks

Ads by Google

Expand All 1 - 20 of 27 Next ›

Peter J. Leithart » Blog Archive » Religious toleration

During the 1870s, Bismarck’s Germany embarked on a legislative program that aimed among other things at secularizing education and resulted in a religiously pluralist Germany. This might look like progress in liberty and toleration, but the whole process was driven by anti-Catholic hatred and prejudice, and by fear about clerical dominance of the state. It was a move expanding state power under the cover of the liberal goal of freedom.

Tags: germany, schools, religious-freedom on 2008-11-04 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.leithart.com

German Homeschooling Blues

What children need is not new and better curricula but
access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and paly to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not wherre we think they ouught to go) and to find out what they want to find out." (Holt, John Teach your own, Dell 1981)

Tags: homeschooling, Germany, mp3 on 2008-05-02 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.radio4all.net

5Expand

WorldNetDaily: Open season on homeschoolers

Tags: germany, homeschooling, parental-rights on 2008-01-15 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.worldnetdaily.com

The government letter is addressed to "School Administrations of State and Private Schools" and its subject line specifies "Custody withdrawal for violation of mandatory school attendance."
"The [German] court determined that the parents' refusal to send their children to either a state or a state approved private school is a misuse of parental custody rights, which violates the well-being of the child," the letter, dated just a few weeks ago, said, "and which requires actions by the family court. …"
"The behavior of German authorities against families who homeschool goes against the very fiber of what free and democratic societies stand for – that governments exist to protect the rights of people not to take them away," Mike Donnelly, a staff attorney for the HSLDA, said. "In Germany it appears that the judicial, executive and legislative branches of government do not care to protect the human right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children which includes the right to homeschool – a view shared by nearly all other western civilized countries."
The government letter was from the State of Bavaria's Ministry of Education and appeared to be directed to local school officials, essentially declaring an open season on homeschoolers in Germany.
It followed a recent Federal High Court decision, which now remains under appeal, that "schulverweigerung" – or those who "refuse" to give their children to public school authorities – actually are misusing their parental rights.

1Expand

6Expand

"Fear God. Honor the Emperor." - Books & Culture

Tags: germany, history on 2007-12-13 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.christianitytoday.com

In May 1934, concerned Christians from Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches in Germany met together in Barmen. The confessing church, as the group came to be known, opposed the increasing influence of National Socialism and issued a courageous call to resist Nazi dominance in the church. They called on their fellow Christians to "withstand in faith and unanimity the destruction of the … Evangelical Church in Germany." They warned of "German Christians" who dominated church government and subordinated Christian principles to National Socialism. "Fear God. Honor the emperor," they reminded their listeners, denying that the State "could become the single and totalitarian order of human life" or that the Church was merely "an organ of the State."¹

The Barmen declaration challenged the overarching authority of National Socialism and the quiescence of German Protestants. In any totalitarian regime, a comparable document would be a spirited defense of the church and its freedoms. In a German context, the Barmen declaration was particularly brave. Not only did it oppose the present government, it also opposed a long history of state direction of German Protestantism.
Wallmann's book exemplifies a common German genre that is relatively unknown in the Anglo-American publishing world. It is what Germans call a Handbuch, literally a handbook. Handbooks introduce a subject at a fairly high level. Like other handbooks, Wallmann's is not gripping, but it is very informative, and despite his initial designs to write for a lay audience, his book has been adopted by students. A reviewer even noted that a Protestant theologian could hardly successfully prepare for exams without recourse to Wallmann.
During the 17th century, the principle of episcopalianism (Episkopalismus) governed the Protestant church, which meant that territorial rulers assumed responsibilities previously held by bishops. The prince was the secular ruler and the head of the church. By the end of the century, the prince's power had been slightly redefined so that church administration became part of territorial administration. Church governance was one duty among the prince's other duties, a philosophy known as territorialism (Territorialismus).
Wallmann considers the Prussian church the epitome of a state church, where the church's freedom was secondary to the prince's aims. King Friedrich Wilhelm I (r. 1713-1740) created a united Protestant church out of Lutheran and Reformed churches in his territory. He stilled dissent by ordering pastors not to preach against the government. His successor, Friedrich II (r. 1740-1786), treated pastors as members of the civil service: they were to plant mulberry trees, introduce potato cultivation, and read police ordinances from the pulpit.
Wallmann notes that he considers it tragic that 19th-century theologians and pastors missed the big social questions of their times—industrialization, urbanization, and rapid social change—and instead spent their time debating forms of church government.
At the end of Wallmann's history, a nagging question remains. Why did the state direct the church for so long? Or to put it the other way round, why did the church look to the state for support for so long? Luther needed state protection to keep his head, but could there have been a later point where the church distanced itself from the state? At this point, the cultural roots of the author and the reviewer become exposed. It is self-evident for Wallmann that the state should support the church. For the reviewer, who grew up in a society ruled by the first amendment, it seems that some space between the state and the church benefits both.

Mary Noll Venables is a historian living in Ireland.

New Oxford Review

Tags: germany on 2007-11-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.newoxfordreview.org

1 - 20 of 27 Next ›

List 20 50 100

Notation: * = Private bookmark and comment|… = Clipping [?] | … = Public highlight [?]

Wisely 's Related Tags

Selected tags

germany

Related tags

See More Top Contributors

law lab mirrorside Christian Kreutz melle pelle Energy Net Diego Amicabile

Related Groups on Diigo

nuke.news

Members (2)

bookmarks (5664)
European Union

Members (3)

bookmarks (742)
Sustainable Energy

Members (75)

bookmarks (2043)

Wisely 's Bookmarks tagged germany → View Popular

Peter J. Leithart » Blog Archive » Religious toleration

Gerhard Von Rad

Homeschooling parents to appeal prison terms 7/29/2008

Government chases homeschool family 6/30/2008

Germany: Government chases homeschool family 7/1/2008

ADF Alliance Alert » Germany: Parents sent to jail for homeschooling 6/19/2008

Parents sent to jail for homeschooling 6/18/2008

German Homeschooling Blues

ADF Alliance Alert » American Homeschooling Missionary Family Allowed To Stay In Germany

German Court Denies Missionary Family Residence Visa over Homeschooling

U. S. Invest in Exiled Scientists?

ADF Alliance Alert » Home-school Germans flee to UK

iZAAR.de - Find Things and Meet People In Germany - KillerStartups.com™

WorldNetDaily: Open season on homeschoolers

WorldNetDaily: Homeschool family reaches England

German History Sources

Roots of Hitler's Evil

Homeschooling Missionary Family Narrowly Avoids German Deportation for Now

"Fear God. Honor the Emperor." - Books & Culture

New Oxford Review

Wisely 's Related Tags

See More Top Contributors

Related Groups on Diigo

Diigo - Highlight and Share the Web!