TOOL OR LENS? WORLDVIEW THEORY AND CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE LEGAL ACTIVISM
This article combines historical and philosophical analysis to examine and critique the ideas motivating Christian conservative legal activism. Such activists routinely claim to be motivated by a Christian worldview, which they define as a comprehensive explanation of reality that determines all the...
| Published in: | Journal of law and religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2021
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
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| Further subjects: | B
worldview philosophy
B Legal Theory B judicial politics B Christian conservatives B Culture Wars |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article combines historical and philosophical analysis to examine and critique the ideas motivating Christian conservative legal activism. Such activists routinely claim to be motivated by a Christian worldview, which they define as a comprehensive explanation of reality that determines all their thinking and action, including their legal activism and argumentation. Examination of the historical and philosophical roots of the concept of worldview identified by Christian thinkers reveals two understandings of the concept: an analytic tool for rationally comparing the evidence for different social philosophies, and a pre-theoretical lens that determines what counts as evidence in the first place. Christian conservatives have largely favored the first sense of worldview as a tool to understand issues like sexuality and gender identity in an essentialist way and to demonstrate with foundationalist logic the rational superiority of their legal conclusions about these issues. However, a comparison of the Christian conservative worldview and the queer theory worldview illustrates how this understanding of worldview as a tool fails because there is no neutral perspective outside of any worldview, from which one could examine and compare one to another. The idea of worldview as a pre-theoretical, historically, and socially contingent lens can be more productive. Embracing this notion of worldview in a personalist way is necessary to build a culture of dialogue that uses narrative to pursue the truth while also respecting and honoring the different perspectives from which these narratives are told. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Reference: | Errata "TOOL OR LENS? WORLDVIEW THEORY AND CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE LEGAL ACTIVISM—CORRIGENDUM (2021)"
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/jlr.2020.58 |