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1. So-called Free Religion is a concern of groups, especially in Germany, that want freedom in religion, not freedom from religion, which for them means no dogmatic or organizational commitments in their religion. Although rejecting dogmas and hierarchical structures, they form a union with special features and its own history. Free Religion has both Catholic and Protestant roots in German Catholicism and Protestant free churches (the so-called Friends of Light, or Protestant Friends). German Catholicism was an early liberal movement started as…

1. The Christian Community (Ger. Christengemeinschaft) is the name and claim of a movement that seeks to bring Christianity to fulfillment by a new reformation. It sees itself as the driving force of the “third epoch”—the first being that of a suprapersonal but unfree cultus (Catholicism [Roman]), the second that of the loss of the cultus and restriction to the personal alone (Protestantism). In the third epoch the suprapersonal, spiritual aspiration of free people will find cultic expression in the renewed sacramentalism of the Christian Community. 2.1. The development and many …

The International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) is a “world community of religions,” an oikoumene of world religions, and a world association of religiously liberal individuals and groups. It was founded in Boston in 1900 by American Unitarians. In 1999 it had member groups in 30 countries, with chapters in Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Netherlands, Philippines, and the United States. Overall, it had 10 million members. Represented in it are “free Christian…

1. The New Thought movement began with the American healer Phineas P. Quimby (1802–66), who laid the foundations for its spread with his great success in spiritual healing. His “science of health and life” and “mental science” were attractive because they allowed of direct practical application in treating the sick, and they quickly gained followers. In his Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), William James called it “the religion of healthy-mindedness.” 2. Helping the rapid spread of the movement was the work of early writers like W. F. Evans (1817–89), H. Wo…

In distinction from Indian or pseudo-Indian theosophical societies (see 4) of the Blavatsky type, theosophy in the traditional sense represents the concern in all religions to penetrate the deepest mysteries of the deity. In the early church and the Middle Ages “theosophy” was another term for theology. It came to be restricted to special kinds of Christianity only in the 18th century and now applies analogously to non-Christian phenomena. 1. Features As distinct from metaphysics and philosophy, theosophy relies generally on revelation. If this is not found in the …