Concept
Anti-clericalism
Overview
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically, anti-clericalism in Christian traditions has been opposed to the influence of Catholicism.
Some have opposed clergy on the basis of moral corruption, institutional issues and/or disagreements in religious interpretation, such as during the Protestant Reformation. Anti-clericalism became extremely violent during the French Revolution, because revolutionaries claimed the church played a pivotal role in the systems of oppression which led to it. Many clerics were killed, and French revolutionary governments tried to put priests under the control of the state by making them employees.
Anti-clericalism appeared in Catholic Europe throughout the 19th century, in various forms, and later in Canada, Cuba, and Latin America.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
This is, properly speaking to exalt himself above all that is called God as Paul says, 2 Thess. 2, 4. Even the Turks or the Tartars, great enemies of Christians as they are, do not do this, but they allow whoever wishes to believe in Christ, and take bodily tribute and obedience from Christians.
Martin Luther, The Smalcald Articles
States what Anti-clericalism is.
All such people are held in contempt and derision, frequently in detestation, by the zealots of both parties.
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Anti-clericalism is.
Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but…
Edmund Burke, Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America
Close in meaning to Anti-clericalism; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Anti-clericalism
Related ideas
- Yale University Press
- Fiqh
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- Freemasonry
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- Atheism
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Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Russian philosophy.