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Locke, Martyrdom, and the Disciplinary Power of the Church

2003; Society of Christian Ethics; Volume: 23; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5840/jsce20032323

2326-2176

Jennifer A. Herdt,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

W TT Thile refraining from merely reinscribing liberal hagiographies of % / Locke, tfris essay questions recent accounts of Locke as facilitator of T t an insidious subordination of church to state in the early modern period. Locke's defense of toleration and the claims of conscience represent the recovery of key aspects of Christian charity, not the subordination of church to state, and his conception of church membership as voluntary serves as a salutary reminder that loyalty cannot ultimately be coerced, but resides in a bond of trust. While Locke's account of the church is inadequate and his attempt to sep arate civil and religious realms flounders, these flaws rested in part on problem atic assumptions about the fundamentally otherworldly orientation of Chris tianity and thus the purely instrumental character of the church. These are assumptions shared with earlier Christian thinkers and hardly distinctively modern or liberal.