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George Fox and Some Theories of Innovation in Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Claire Disbrey
Affiliation:
London

Extract

The histories of religions are notable for stories of innovators – people who feel compelled to rebel against the religious beliefs and practices of their time, who come up with novel religious ideas, and, whether intentionally or not, start new religious movements. Theories about the nature of religion need to give an account of religious innovation that accommodates these stories, and most claim that they do, even if only in retrospect. The baffling discovery is that the same historical characters are used to exemplify quite incompatible theories of innovation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

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page 62 note 3 Ibid. p. 416, ‘The philosophic climate of our time inevitably forces its own clothing on us’. And see p. 69/70.

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page 63 note 1 Ibid. p. 176.

page 63 note 2 Ibid. p. 188, ‘It is not just that as a matter of historical fact the practice of worship precedes the explicit formulation of belief, but that we can worship, without being able to say clearly what we believe…so the language of liturgy is at the heart of the matter.’

page 63 note 3 Ibid. p. 200.

page 64 note 1 Ibid.footnote to page 200.

page 64 note 2 Ibid.

page 64 note 3 Ibid.p. 210. ‘Any explanation can provide an occasion for conversion.’ Maclntyre quotes the return of Shatov's wife in Tolstoy's The Devils and Wordsworth's brother's death. He comments that only those over–impressed by metaphysics would want to suggest that any logical process is involved.

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page 68 note 1 A crisis which came to fruition in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan in 1651.

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