This website is managed by Dr. John von Heyking in the Department of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge, Canada.  The website is intended to assist students and other scholars conduct research in religion and politics.  The focus is on Canada, but there are American and some international materials here as well.  If you have suggestions for additional resources, feel free to email me.

Last updated: February 15, 2006

INFORMATION FOR POLI 3521 (RELIGION AND POLITICS IN CANADA) STUDENTS

• Class Presentation schedule
• Multani v. Commission scolaire 2006 SCC 6.  Can a Sikh boy wear his ceremonial dagger (kirpan) to school, when weapons in general are banned?
  
• You can add Blackwater v. Plint, 2005 SCC 58 to your list of cases available for Paper #2.  It deals with whether the churches involved with running residential schools for natives are financially responsible, along with the Government of Canada.
• Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem 2 S.C.R. 551, 2004 SCC 47 is also available for Paper 2.  It deals with whether a condo board infringed on the religious freedom of a group of Jews who wished to change their property in contravention of the condo buyer's agreement.
  
• Congrégation des témoins de Jéhovah de St-Jérôme-Lafontaine v. Lafontaine (Village) 2004 SCC 48 is also available for Paper 2.  It deals with whether a city discriminated against Jehovah's Witnesses by refusing to make available land for their place of worship.
• Lakeside Colony of Hutterian Brethren v. Hofer (1992) 3 SCR 165 is available for Paper 2.  It deals with whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to adjudicate a property dispute in a Hutterite colony.  The property dispute raises questions whether the Supreme Court has a role in determining religious doctrine and membership of the community.
  

RESEARCH

General

•  Bibliography on Religion and Politics in Canada

•  Google.com Church-State Relations Listing
• Canadian Supreme Court decisions on religion
• ReligiousFreedom.ca's resource page on Canadian court decisions
  
• Findlaw.com's resource page on law and religion
• Religious Freedom Resource List (Canadian):  includes cases and other legal materials
•  U.S. Founders' Constitution on the First Amendment
•  Beliefnet (commercial site with links to various religious groups)
•  Barna Research conducts extensive polling on religious issues
• Professor Esau's large bibliography on law and religion (includes Canadian materials)
•  American Religion Data Archive
• Sacred and Secular:  Religion and Politics Worldwide by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (chapters posted on Norris's website)
• links for Islam
  
• links for political Islam
• links covering Politics and Religion (various religions)
• resources on Islam (at Answering-Islam.org)
  

Institutes at Universities

Academic Information on Religions in Canada

 Christian Commitment Research Institute (Canada)

 Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut

publishes Religion in the News, a useful summary of religion and politics in North America and the rest of the world

 Institute for Christian Studies

 Center on Religion and Democracy -- U. of Virginia

 Hartford Institute for Religion Research

 European Consortium for Church and State Research

 J.M. Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies

 Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University

 Apocalypticism and Millennialism: A Select Bibliography for Research

Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics

American Public Philosophy Institute

Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis

Institute for Philosophy and Religion at Boston University

Institute on Religion and World Affairs (Boston University)

Emory University Law and Religion Program

Program on Non-Profit Organizations at Yale Divinity School

 Catholic Social Thought

 James Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University

 CESNUR: Center for Studies on New Religions

 Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture

 Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning

History in the News:  Middle East (hosted by SUNY-Albany)

Internet Islamic History Sourcebook

• Islam and Human Rights (Emory Law School)
• 
  

Private Organizations

• Centre for Cultural Renewal (Canada) (includes cultural, political, and legal commentary from an interfaith perspective)
  
• Work Research Foundation (Canada) (economic and political commentary from an Evangelical perspective)
  

Citizens for Public Justice (Canada)

  Public Justice Resource Centre (has resources pertaining to various policy issues)

 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Council on Faith and International Affairs

Center for Public Justice (US)

Pew Trusts program on Religion and Public Life

 Public Agenda's study, "For Goodness Sake: Why So Many Want Religion to Play a Greater Role in American Life"

Brookings Institution's project on  Sacred Places, Civic Purposes

 Becket Fund

Beckett Fund's conference on  Religious Liberty and the Ideology of the State

Manhattan Institute -- Faith-Based Initiatives Project

International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief

 American Religion Data Archive

 Centre for Cultural Renewal

Canadian Institute for Law, Theology, and Public Policy

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

Discovery Institute (resources on religion, culture, and science)

Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research

 Faith and Reason Institute

Heritage Foundation resource page on Religion

CQPress Resources on Terrorism and Religion

• Introduction to Islam (at Middle East Institute)
• Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy
• International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World
• Institute of Islamic Political Thought
• Institute of Islamic Studies
• International Institute of Islamic Thought
• Minaret of Freedom Institute
  

Professional Organizations & Groups

• APSA Religion & Politics
• Canadian Society for the Study of Religion
•  Law and Religion section of the Association of American Law Schools
• Christians in Political Science (U.S.)
• Association of Muslim Social Scientists
  

COURT CASES (Canadian Supreme Court & some provincial decisions)

MEDIA (look below, under "Churches and Related Organizations," for publications of specific denominations)

•  Canadian Christianity
•  Faith and the Media (run by Joyce Smith at the University of Toronto)
• Gallup's Religion News and Polls
•  Christianity.ca
•  Christianity.ca --- Politics

•  PBS's Religion and Ethics News Weekly
•  Christian Week (Canada's Christian weekly)
•  Religion News Service
• Professor Stackhouse on religion and the media
• First Things, published by the Institute for Religion and Public Life
•  Lutheran Journal of Ethics published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
•  Christianity Today
• Christianity Today's  Politics and Law Page
• Books and Culture:  A Christian Review
• The Daily Star (Lebanese English-language newspaper coverage of events in Middle East)
  
•  Sojourners (American magazine on Christianity & politics)
•  World (American magazine on Christianity & politics, published by Marvin Olasky, one of President George W. Bush's top advisors)
• Toronto Sun columnist, Marianne Meed Ward

CHURCHES AND RELATED ORGANIZATIONS

•  Lutheran Office for Public Policy
•  Holy See (Vatican)
•  Catholic Insight
•  Western Catholic Reporter
•  Spiritus (Alberta Catholic advocacy group)
•  Crisis Magazine
• United Church of Canada:  Church and Public Arena
•  United Church Observer
•  The Eyeopener
•  Presbyterian Church in Canada: Justice Ministries
• Anglican Church of Canada's statement on  residential schools
•  Anglican Journal
•  Canon Law
•  Classical Anglican Net News
•  Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
•  Canadian Council of Churches
•  Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
•  Canadian Society of Muslims
• other Islamic materials
•  Canadian Council of Christians and Jews
•  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)
• statements on  Political, Governmental, and Community Affairs
• Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani of Iraq:  http://www.sistani.org/html/eng/
• Gamal al-Banna
• Etudes Musulmanes (in French)
• Secular Islam
• 
  

ADVOCACY GROUPS, BLOGGERS, AND PERSONAL WEBSITES

•   The Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative
• Canadian Council of Christian Charities
•  Faith and Justice Network (has lots of links to Canadian faith-based advocacy groups)
• Academic Info:  Religions in Canada (has links to many different religious groups, primarily non-Christian)
• Muslim Public Affairs Council (USA)
• Ijtihad:  Dr. Muqtedar Khan's Column on Islamic Affairs
  
• Center for Religious Freedom (A Division of Freedom House)
• some information on  Native Spirituality
•  Canadian Islamic Congress
•  Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
•   Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House
• National Council of Churches (USA)
  
• Humanist Association of Canada
•  Canadian Council of Christians and Jews
•  Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice
•  International Christian Concern (monitors persecution of Christians worldwide)
•  Work Research Foundation
•  Citizen Impact Canada, Inc.
•  Jewish Parents for Equality in Education Funding
•  Civil Rights in Public Education, Inc.
•  Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League
•  The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
•  Religious Freedom Information
•  International Coalition for Religious Freedom
• Professor Paul Marshall's testimony to the U.S. Department of State on religious freedom abroad
•  Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative
•  Citizen Impact Canada
• Irshad Manji
• Gamal al-Banna
• Abolkarim Soroush
• No to Political Islam Petition
• Apostates of Islam
• Islamicity
  
• other groups listed at  mapleleafweb.com

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

• Religion and Politics discussion list at Mapleleafweb.com (sponsored by the Department of Political Science, University of Lethbridge)
• Various statements by religious groups on Canadian antiterrorist legislation:
•  Canadian Council of Churches
•  Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
• an analysis of U.S. presidential candidate George W. Bush's approach to faith and public life
• Toronto Globe and Mail columnist, tells Canadian Opposition Leader, Stockwell Day, to "Leave the Prayer Book at Home"
• ... and Bill Blaikie, M.P., points out that Christianity does not necessarily translate into conservatism
• the Hill Times argues that the debates over Stockwell Day, in Canada, and Joe Lieberman, in the United States, signals an increasing role for religion in public discourse
• information on the publication, Faith and Public Life, published by the Citizens for Public Justice, which includes speeches by Members of Parliament such as Diane Ablonczy (Canadian Alliance), Bill Blaikie (NDP), Elsie Wayne (PC), and Daniel Turp (Bloc Quebecois)
• some information on  Native Spirituality
• Ontario government's statement on religion in public elementary schools
• the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled, in its Waldman decision, that Ontario must extend public funding to all religious minorities and not just Roman Catholics
• I have examined secularism and religious liberty in Canada in my "The Harmonization of Heaven and Earth?," published in the special edition (Vol. 33, no. 3, 2000) on Religion, Morality, and Law of the University of British Columbia Law Review
• Professor Orwin discusses the "openness" of contemporary religiosity
• David Kilgour, M.P. (Lib.) for Edmonton Southeast, talks about politics and religion
• U.S.  White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
• Office for Faith-Based Initiatives for Texas (under then- Gov. George W. Bush)
• Barry Cooper, Unholy Terror: The Origin and Significance of Contemporary, Religion-based Terrorism

• click here for information on your court presentation and paper
• Diagram On Possible Configurations Of Religion & Politics In Modern World

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