Discussion: New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
Damian J. Anderson
WELLSPRING OF FREEDOM
A PROGRAM OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY
Invites you to a discussion of
The State vs. Religion in France:
New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
A new, "anti-sect" bill passed by the French National Assembly represents the
latest effort of extremists in France to pass repressive legislation designed
to infringe upon the rights of religious believers and to restrict the growth
of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits,
Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Mormons and Unificationists, by
manufacturing a means to ban disfavored religions from France. According to
the bill, it "intends to provide individuals and the public authorities alike
with new causes of action to allow them to paralyze the activities of cult
organizations and render them harmless." While such language denotes a
desire to protect the lives and interests of the French people, in reality
this law limits and restricts the rights of all French people to practice
their beliefs as they wish. There is a great deal of interest and concern
over these recent initiatives in the French Parliament, as measures against
any religious or faith community in a free society will effect the lives of
countless believers, not only in France, but around the world.
Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000
Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: 116 O'Neill House Office Building
Speakers include:
--BRUCE CASINO, ESQ.
President, International Coalition for Religious Freedom
--JOHN GRAZ*
Secretary General, International Religious Liberty Association
--JOSEPH GRIEBOSKI
President, Institute on Religion and Public Policy
--JEREMY GUNN
Independent Scholar, and Member, OSCE Panel of Experts on Religion
--REVEREND HEBER JENTZSCH
President, Church of Scientology International
--KAREN LORD*
Counsel for Freedom of Religion, Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe
--OTHER INVITED GUESTS
To RSVP, or for more information, contact the Institute on Religion and
Public Policy at
202-835-8760 or via e-mail at ir...@religionandpolicy.org
*invited
Institute on Religion and Public Policy
1101 15th Street, NW, Suite 115
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 202-835-8760/Fax: 734-423-6153
www.religionandpolicy.org
--
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> http://www.unification.net
Rebecca Hartong
"Damian J. Anderson" <dam...@unification.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.04.100070...@www.unification.net...
> A new, "anti-sect" bill passed by the French National Assembly represents
the
> latest effort of extremists in France to pass repressive legislation
designed
> to infringe upon the rights of religious believers and to restrict the
growth
> of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits, ...
Jesuits?!?
> According to
> the bill, it "intends to provide individuals and the public authorities
alike
> with new causes of action to allow them to paralyze the activities of cult
> organizations and render them harmless."
Since when are the Jesuits a cult?!?
> Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000
> Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
> Where: 116 O'Neill House Office Building
I'm presuming this building is somewhere in DC... Does anyone know exactly
where?
Anton Hein
in alt.religion.scientology wrote
(<Pine.LNX.4.04.100070...@www.unification.net>):
>The State vs. Religion in France:
>New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
What a bunch of baloney. The law addresses cult-related crimes - crimes
committed under the cloak of "religion."
>to infringe upon the rights of religious believers and to restrict the growth
>of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits,
>Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Mormons and Unificationists, by
This is what the French report on cults actually says about the Baptists (it
doesn't mention Southern Baptists):
(...)
"But before we proceed, it is necessary to clear up a possible
misunderstanding: not all spiritual movements other than the traditional
religions, movements which are commonly called sects, are dangerous, such as,
for example, Baptists, Quakers, and Mormons. Their role can, sometimes, even
be regarded as very positive: "You meet the best and the worst in sects
(...). Sometimes, by means of the sects, some people find a sense of
belonging to a warm friendly group, others find again a direction for their
lives, others still are structured. Among my patients, some entered sects. I
would not want for them to come out of there for anything in the world,
because the sect is used by them temporarily as a tutor."
[...more...]
http://cftf.com/french/Les_Sectes_en_France/cults.html
Doesn't look like 'blacklisting' to me. Of course, certain "Baptists" - notably
Louis DeMeo - have gained quite a reputation as cult defenders. That is not
surprising once you know his connections:
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/d00.html#demeo
A reading of the report in its entirety is instructive, if only to highlight how
often cults misrepresent it.
For news articles regarding the proposed law, see
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/france-00.html#lawbill
Anton
--
Apologetics Index: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/
Apologetics and Countercult Information about Cults, Sects,
and Alternative Religious Movements - for Research and Ministry.
Rebecca Hartong
"Anton Hein" <ahein...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:l3r9msoapu9q37lk8...@news.xs4all.nl...
> http://cftf.com/french/Les_Sectes_en_France/cults.html
Thanks for the link, Anton!
Rebecca Hartong
"Rachel" <no...@becauseidontwantspam.com> wrote in message
news:060720001555585181%no...@becauseidontwantspam.com...
> In article <3P595.23$ov6....@news1.southeast.rr.com>, "Rebecca
> Hartong" <praet...@cox.rr.com> wrote:
> > Since when are the Jesuits a cult?!?
>
> The entire Roman Catholic Church is one huge cult.
> parade of a mere man as if he were a god, the pandering to idolatrous
> worship through bowing down and kissing his
> ring, the insistence that he be addressed as His Holiness the Pope (or
> Father) of all Christians cannot but confirm to any
> Christian -- let alone professed cult-watchers -- that Roman
> Catholicism is a cult.
Ah.... a kook!
There's nothing quite like a genuine Catholic-hating kook to brighten up a
Thursday afternoon!
Starshadow
Rebecca Hartong <praet...@cox.rr.com> wrote in message
news:xN695.104$YI6....@news1.southeast.rr.com...
Yeah, that froth goes nicely with my afternoon coffee.
Thanks, Rebecca, for getting to her before I had a chance to.
;>
--
Bright Blessings,
Starshadow (SP4, KoX) (remove lovesxenu to reply)
"Feminism--the radical notion that women are people, too"
Fredric L. Rice
>WELLSPRING OF FREEDOM
>A PROGRAM OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY
>Invites you to a discussion of
>The State vs. Religion in France:
>New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
That's insane. France is _rightfully_ curbing criminal abuse by criminal
cults -- something that needs to be done in the United States.
Trying to pretend that France's proposal has anything to do at all with
religion is simply insane.
--- "de omnibus dubitandum" All is to be doubted --- Descartes
24-hour file archive access: (626) 335-9601 (FidoNet 1:218/890.0) SP4
The Skeptic Tank: http://www.skeptictank.org/ http://www.nots.org/
"I offered him an OT3/Xenu flyer. It was somewhat like offering
garlic to a vampire..." - Keith Henson (http://www.xenu.net/)
ptsc
>Since when are the Jesuits a cult?!?
I love Jesuits! They'll argue about anything!
They'll even turn around and argue the other
side of it, too.
ptsc
Mark
>
>The entire Roman Catholic Church is one huge cult.
>
>
share a few of the outward characteristics of a cult, but there are some
important differences; they don't use mind-control for a start.
There are some cults which do make use of pseudo-Roman Catholic
theology; IIRC the leader of the recent Ugandan cult seemed to derive
her credibility largely from her claimed visions of the Virgin Mary.
Below are a few paragraphs from an analysis of how cults work, which I
am in the process of writing, which I hope may be broadly relevant here.
(Why Christianity didn't start as a cult is in para 4)
..................
Hierarchies and the politics of personal belief
Many belief systems could be described as aspirational and hierarchical
(or soteriological), in the sense that they proclaim an ideal to be
realised, and propose a path or a lifestyle for believers that leads
towards realisation of the ideal. Often, such a belief system is
associated with a church or with an organised community of believers,
which ostensibly supports and encourages individual believers in their
efforts to realise the ideal for themselves.
In the earlier section 'Organisations and their belief systems', various
questions and criteria were proposed as a means of investigating the
nature of a particular group or community of believers. Enquiring about
roughly where the belief system fits in the quasi-religious spectrum,
about how self-referential the group and its belief system are, and
about who the preceptors and moral arbiters of the group are, can be
helpful in gaining an understanding both of the organisational structure
of the group and also of the interior dynamics of the group's belief
system. The particular area of enquiry proposed in this section, is into
the interior dynamics or politics of how an individual believer
interacts with the organised body of believers.
Is the group's hierarchical belief system, with its beliefs about higher
and lower levels of personal realisation and understanding, used to
justify a hierarchical power structure within the organisation? Do the
formal institutions of the belief system tend to support the aspirations
of believers, or do they tend to subordinate believers to the interests
of the institutions? Is the belief system and its institutions for the
benefit of believers, or are believers for the benefit of the belief
system, its institutions, and their leaders? This sort of question can
only really be answered by insiders, people with some understanding of
the 'inner life' of the belief system, who have had some hands-on
experience of how the ethos and interior dynamics of the group actually
work out from the point of view of an engaged believer.
It is sometimes suggested that Christianity might have begun as a cult.
The Christianity of Jesus and his disciples was relatively unorthodox in
its time, and might well have met several of the criteria proposed so
far for identifying a cult. However, a saying such as 'The sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the sabbath.' [18] does imply a spirit and
an ethos centred on the needs of a believer, rather than on the needs of
the institutions of the belief system. While it is admittedly rather
difficult to discern the 'inner life' of believers two thousand years
ago, early Christianity would appear to fail Lifton's criterion for a
cult of 'Doctrine over Person'.[4] It may be that some of the subsequent
institutions of Christianity might at times have fallen prey to some
degree to authoritarian or cultish tendencies. Personal belief can
sometimes harden into group ideology, and in a sense, any belief system
may be capable of being interpreted and applied either in a cultish or
in a non-cultish manner, depending on factors which are not definable
purely in terms of formal doctrines, but which may be uncovered by an
understanding of the 'inner life' of the belief system and its
institutions.
The Uraguayan theologian Juan Segundo, writing not about cults but from
a perspective of socio-critical hermeneutics, which is concerned with
issues of land ownership and education amongst other things, maintains
that 'the alienating sin of the world is ideology', and that 'liberation
from ideology requires opting for the exercise of an ideological
suspicion in order to unmask the unconscious ideological structures
which dominate and which favor a powerful, privileged minority.' [19]
The questions here are: is the ideology or belief system used to justify
a hierarchical power structure? Does the locus of power lie with the
individual, or with the institutions of the belief system? Do the
institutions of the belief system tend to the democratic or to the
autocratic? In terms of the ideology or belief system of a cult, the
paradox is, of course, that an investigator (or potential new member)
has to exercise a hermeneutic of faith as well as of suspicion, if they
are to succeed in penetrating into the mind set of a cult member and in
unmasking therein any 'unconscious ideological structures which dominate
and which favor a powerful, privileged minority.' In the case of a cult,
the 'powerful, privileged minority' is of course the cult leaders and
hierachs.
...
[18]'The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.' -
Parable of the wheat field, Mark chapter 2, verse 27. There may be
equivalent 'believer centred' statements in other religions. In Buddhism
for example, there is the parable of the raft (Digha-Nikaya, ii, 89;
Majjhima-Nikaya, i, 134), in which the raft, representing the beliefs
and practices of Buddhism, is to be cast aside once the further shore
(enlightenment) is reached.
[19] J. L. Segundo, Evolution and Guilt, New York: Orbis, 1974, p 52
--
Mark Dunlop
roger gonnet
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> a écrit dans le message :
Pine.LNX.4.04.100070...@www.unification.net...
>
> WELLSPRING OF FREEDOM
> A PROGRAM OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY
>
> Invites you to a discussion of
>
> The State vs. Religion in France:
> New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
>
the
> latest effort of extremists in France to pass repressive legislation
designed
growth
> of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits,
> Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Mormons and Unificationists, by
to
> the bill, it "intends to provide individuals and the public authorities
alike
> with new causes of action to allow them to paralyze the activities of cult
> desire to protect the lives and interests of the French people, in reality
> this law limits and restricts the rights of all French people to practice
> their beliefs as they wish. There is a great deal of interest and concern
> over these recent initiatives in the French Parliament, as measures
against
> any religious or faith community in a free society will effect the lives
of
> countless believers, not only in France, but around the world.
>
> Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
> Where: 116 O'Neill House Office Building
>
roger gonnet
Anton Hein <ahein...@xs4all.nl> a écrit dans le message :
l3r9msoapu9q37lk8...@news.xs4all.nl...
> On Thu, 06 Jul 2000 18:53:45 GMT, "Damian J. Anderson"
<dam...@unification.net>
> in alt.religion.scientology wrote
> (<Pine.LNX.4.04.100070...@www.unification.net>):
>
> >New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
>
> committed under the cloak of "religion."
>
growth
> >of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits,
> >Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Mormons and Unificationists, by
>
(it
> doesn't mention Southern Baptists):
the best is saying jesuits are targeted... I like that! what a lies pack...
roger
roger gonnet
Damian J. Anderson <dam...@unification.net> a écrit dans le message :
Pine.LNX.4.04.100070...@www.unification.net...
>
> WELLSPRING OF FREEDOM
> A PROGRAM OF THE INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY
>
> Invites you to a discussion of
>
> New Legislation Threatens Religious Liberty in France
>
the
> latest effort of extremists in France to pass repressive legislation
designed
growth
> of 173 "blacklisted" groups, including Southern Baptists, Jesuits,
> Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, Mormons and Unificationists, by
to
> the bill, it "intends to provide individuals and the public authorities
alike
> with new causes of action to allow them to paralyze the activities of cult
> organizations and render them harmless." While such language denotes a
> desire to protect the lives and interests of the French people, in reality
> this law limits and restricts the rights of all French people to practice
> their beliefs as they wish. There is a great deal of interest and concern
> over these recent initiatives in the French Parliament, as measures
against
> any religious or faith community in a free society will effect the lives
of
> countless believers, not only in France, but around the world.
Well, there is a great deal of concern about the criminal cults. And about
those supporting them...
roger