Church and State

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The court of Justinian I

The relationship between church and state is a crucial one in the history of religious and political freedom. Many modern democracies separate church and state in order that government and religious institutions function independently of one another. The term "separation of church and state" most often refers to the combination of two principles: a secular government and freedom of religious exercise. However it should be noted that some governments that maintain state churches have a high degree of religious freedom, while some secular governments do not.

The term "church and state" refers generally to the relationship between government power and various religions, not only Christian churches. The phrase separation of church and state is often traced to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as creating a "wall of separation" between church and state. The phrase was later quoted by the United States Supreme Court, first in 1878, and then in a series of cases beginning in 1947.

Although the term is primarily discussed in the context of United States constitutional interpretation, it parallels various other international social and political ideas, including secularism, disestablishment, religious liberty, religious pluralism and laicite.

History

Ancient

In many ancient cultures, the political ruler was also the highest religious leader and sometimes considered divine. One of the earliest recorded episodes challenging this principle is the story of Moses and Aaron confronting the king of Egypt in order, ostensibly, to win the right to hold a three-day festival honoring the Hebrew god Yahweh. According to the Book of Exodus, the Hebrews' petition was granted only after a series of miraculous plagues were visited upon the Egyptians. Moses the led the Israelites out of Egypt, never to return.

Cyrus of Persia meets with Jewish leaders returning to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.

The first government declaration officially granting freedom of worship and thereby separating the religion of the state from local religious institutions was issued in the ancient Persian Empire by its founder, Cyrus the Great. Cyrus reversed the policy of his Babylonian predecessors and sponsored the return of captured religious icons to their proper places. He also funded the restoration of important native shrines, including the Temple of Jerusalem.

Ancient Jewish tradition, on the other hand, affirmed a strict state monotheism and attempted to suppress non-Israelite religions by destroying unauthorized altars and sometimes slaughtering the priests of rival faiths. Although many of the kings of Judah and Israel in fact tolerated other religious traditions, they were condemned for this policy by the prophets and other biblical writers.

File:Ashoka2.jpg
Ashoka the Great: "One must not exalt one’s creed discrediting all others."

In the Orient, the right to worship freely was promoted by most ancient Indian dynasties until around 1200 C.E. King Ashoka, (304-232 B.C.E.), an early practitioner of this principle, wrote that he "honors all sects" and stated: "One must not exalt one’s creed discrediting all others, nor must one degrade these others without legitimate reasons. One must, on the contrary, render to other creeds the honor befitting them."

In the West, Alexander the Great and subsequent Greek and Roman rulers generally followed a policy of religious toleration toward local religions. However, they also insisted that indigenous peoples pay homage to the state religion as well, a policy which put monotheistic faiths such as Judaism and Christianity in a position of either compromising their own principles or rebelling against the state's authority. Some emperors tolerated Jewish and Christian non-compliance with the requirement to honor the gods of the state, while others persecuted them as rebels and traitors. The Christian attitude toward the state, meanwhile, was generally based on the attitude that, when possible without compromising fundamental principles of the faith, one should “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Mark 12:17).

Later Roman Empire

Constantine's Conversion, depicting the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great to Christianity, by Peter Paul Rubens.

Under Constantine the Great, however, Christianity was officially favored over other faiths, and this formerly persecuted faith became the official state religion under Theodosius I in the early fifth century CE. It is from this point that issues of church and state begin to take major political significance. Ironcially, the later Roman Empire under Christianity repressed non-Christian religions and Christian heresies alike. Jews, too, suffered under the policy of Christian teachers such as Ambrose of Milan, who argued that it was improper for a Christian emperor to force a local bishop to rebuild a synagogue he had led his parishioners to destroy. Paradoxically, this precedent was also an important one for asserting the independence of the Western church from the state.

Under the influence of such teachers as Saint Augustine of Hippo, with Western church continued to adopt a somewhat negative attitude toward the state as a "secular" power whose role was to uphold law and order, and to punish those who do evil.[1]The Eastern church took a more optimistic view, seeing a more positive role for the state as God's agent in the creation of a good society. A third course would be adopted in lands affected by the rise of Islam.

In the eastern of Byzantine Empire, the emperors, although sometimes defering to powerful bishops and monks on matters of theology, considered themselves to be the "supreme pontiff" of the Church as well as head of state. Justinian the Great promulgated the doctrine of harmonia, which asserted that the Christian emperor and the Church should work together for God's will on earth under the emperor's leadership. A strong supporter of Orthodoxy and opponent of heresy, Justinian secured from the bishops in attendance at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 an affirmation that nothing could be done in the Church contrary to the emperor's will. This doctrine remained in effect until the Ottomans conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) fifteenth century and the Ottoman ruler, Sultan Mehmed II, continued to practice the right of the Roman Emperor to appoint the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In the West, the Bishop of Rome emerged as the central figure of the Roman Catholic Church and often asserted his spiritual authority over various kings, on both theological and political matters. Pope Gelasius I promulgated the "Two Swords" doctrine in 494 C.E. insisting the the emperor must defer to the pope on spiritual matters and also declaring that the pope's power is generally "more weighty" that the emperor's. He wrote:

There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is the more weighty, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment. You are also aware, dear son, that while you are permitted honorably to rule over humankind, yet in things divine you bow your head humbly before the leaders of the clergy and await from their hands the means of your salvation.

In the meantime, the advent of Islam created still another attitude toward the relationship between religion and the state. Islamic lands generally recognized no distinction between religious and secular government until the period of the Ottoman Empire beginning with Osman I. Islamic lands were theoretically ruled by the Islamic codes, or shari'a, usually under a caliph as the supreme political leader. Although forcible conversions of non-Muslims were allowed in come circumstances, Islamic law guaranteed the rights of both Christians and Jews to worship according to their own traditions. Thus, Christians were usually granted greater religious freedom in Muslim lands than Muslim were granted in Christian countries; and Jews generally fared better under Muslim rulers than Christian ones.

Nationalism and the Renaissance

In Europe, the sumpremacy of the pope faced challenges from kings and western emperors on a number of matters, leading to power struggles and crises of leadership, notably in the Investiture Controversy of the eleventh century over the question of who had the authority to apppoint local bishops. A see-saw battle ensured during the succeeding centuries as kings sought to assert their independence from Rome while the papacy engaged in various strategies of reform and the exercise of considerable spiritual power against rebellious kings through such methods as excommunication and interdicts.

Henry VIII asserted royal authority over the Church of England.

During the Renaissance, nationalist theorists began to affirm that kings had absolute authority within their realms to rule on spiritual matters as well as secular ones. Kings began increasingly to challenge papal authority on matters ranging from their own divorces to questions of international relations and the right to try clergy in secular courts. This climate was a crucial factor in the success of the Protestant Reformation, not only in England, where Henry VIII successfully established himself as head of the Church of England after the pope refused to grant him a divorce, but also in Europe, where the Lutheran Church received crucial support from various princes determined to assert their independence from Rome for poltical as well as spiritual reasons.

Modern period

Despite the Reformation's success, the principle of separation of church and state was still far from being established. Indeed, the Protestant churches were just as willing as Catholics to use the authority of the state to repress their religious opponents, and Protestant princes often used their state churches for their own political ends. Years of religious wars eventually led to various affirmations of religious toleration in Europe, notably The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648. In England John Locke penned his Essays of Civil Government and Letter Concerning Toleration. These seminal documents in the history of church and state played a significant role in both the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and later in the American Revolution. Locke wrote:

The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.

Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is considered a pioneering model for modern religious freedom legislation.

Locke’s ideas on the primacy of conscience over both church and state were to be further enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. Another of Jefferson's works, the 1779 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, proclaimed:

[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief...

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen guarantees freedom of religious opinion.

The U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, passed in 1791, specifically banned the U.S. government from creating a state religion, declaring: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The French Revolution took a somewhat different attitude regarding the question of religious liberty. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) guarantees that: "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law."

While affirming the right to religious freedom, the French revolutionaries adopted a more militantly secularist path that its American counterpart. Not only would the state reject the establishment of any particular religion, it would take a vigilant atnace against religion involving itself in the political arena. The American tradition, on the other hand, tended to accept religious arguments in public debate and allowed clergymen of various faiths to serve in public office. These two approaches would set the tone for future debates about the nature and proper degree of separation between church and state in the coming centuries.

Contemporary

File:Elizabeth II.jpg
Elizabeth II, Queen of England, is also head of the Church of England.

The many variations on separation of church and state can be seen today. Some countries with high degrees of religious freedom and tolerance have still maintained state churches or financial ties with certain religious organizations into the twentieth century. In England, for example, there is a constitutionally established state religion but the British tradition is very inclusive of other faiths as well.[2] In Norway, similarly, the King is also the leader of the state church, and the 12th article of the Constitution of Norway requires more than half of the members of the Norwegian Council of State to be members of the state church. Yet, the country is generally recognized to have a high degree of religious freedom.[3] In countries like these, the head of government or head of state or other high-ranking official figures may be legally required to be a member of a given faith. Powers to appoint high-ranking members of the state churches are also often still vested in the worldly governments. These powers may be slightly anachronistic or superficial, however, and disguise the true level of religious freedom the nation possesses.

Several European countries such as Germany, Austria, and several Eastern European nations officially support certain religions such as the Catholic Church, Lutheran (Evangelical) Church, or the Russian Orthodox Church, while recognizing other churches as legitimate and refusing to register newer, smaller, or more controversial religions. Some go so far as prohibit unregistered groups from owning property or distributing religious literature.

File:Headscarftr.jpg
Turkish women wearing head scarves

Other countries maintain a militant brand of separation church and state. Two prominent examples are France and Turkey.[4] The French version of separation is called laïcité. This model of a secularist state protects the religious institutions from some types of state interference, but public religious expression by religious institutions on political matters are limited. Religious minorities are also less free to express themselves by wearing distinctive clothing in the workplace or in public schools. A more liberal secularist philosophy is expressed in the American model, which welcomes a broad array of religious expression and goes out of its way to facilitate religious minorities in the workplace, public schools, and even prisons.

The opposite end of the spectrum from separation is a theocracy, in which the state is founded upon the institution of religion, and the rule of law is based on the dictates of a religious court. Examples include Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Iran. In such countries state affairs are managed by religious authority, or at least by its consent. In theocracies, the degree to which those who are not members of the official religion are to be protected is usually decided by experts of the official religion.

A special case may be seen in the Marxist-Leninist countries, in which the state takes a militantly atheistic standpoint and attempts to varying degrees to suppress or even destroy religion, which Marx saw as the "opiate of the people" and a tool of capitalist oppression. Some have argued that in Marxist states, the ideology of Marxism-Leninism constitutes a kind of atheist religion, and that such states in fact do not separate "church and state" but replace a theistic state religion with an atheistic one. While Marxist-Leninist states today are rare, North Korea still officially holds to this ideology and China still adopts a hostile attitude toward various religious groups based in part on the Marxist attitude of its leaders.

The principle of separation

"Separation of Church and State" is often discussed as political and legal principle derived from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." The concept of separation is commonly credited to the combination of the two clauses: the establishment clause, generally interpreted as preventing the government from establishing a national religion, providing tax dollars in support of religion, or otherwise favoring any single religion or religion generally, and the free exercise clause, ensuring that private religious practices not be restricted by the government. The effect, of prohibiting direct connections between religious and governmental institutions, while protecting private religious freedom and autonomy, has been termed the "separation of church and state."

There are automatic entanglements between the institutions of religion and the state, inasmuch as religious organizations and their adherents are a part of civil society.[5] Moreover, private religious practices can sometimes come into conflict with broad legislation not intending to target any particular religious minority. Each of these complicate the idea of absolute separation.

Beliefs on the proper relationship between religion and government cover a wide spectrum, from secular government to state atheism to varying degrees of theocracy. Along the line, a number of distinctions and issues are raised.

James Madison

The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Another early user of the term was James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Bill of Rights, who wrote of the "total separation of the church from the state." [6] "Strongly guarded... is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States," Madison declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." [7] This attitude is further reflected in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson, but championed by Madison.

The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times, first in 1878. In the Reynolds case the Court defended marriage as between a man and a woman and denied the free exercise claims of Mormons in the Utah territory. The Court used the metaphor again in 1947 when it was used by Justice Hugo Black in Everson. The term was used and defended heavily by the Court until the early 1970s. Since that time, the Court has distanced itself from the metaphor, often suggesting the metaphor conveys hostility to religion in contrast to Jefferson's original meaning "...in behalf of the rights of [religious] conscience." In Wallace v. Jaffree, Justice Rehnquist presented the view that the establishment clause was intended to protect local establishments of religion from federal interference— a view which diminished the strong separation views of the Court. Justice Scalia has criticized the metaphor as a bulldozer removing religion from American public life.[8]

The finer points

Separation of church and state can occur in various ways. In practice the principle has not been a simple one. Now should separation of church and state be considered as synonymous with "separation of religion and politics." Indeed, some would argue that by in limiting the political right of persosn speaking in the name of religious principles, inlcuding clergymen, and even religious institutions, the state in fact violates the principle of religious freedom which "separation of church and state" was designed to uphold.

A list of the various types and degrees of separation between church and state discussed and implemented in various parts of the world could include the following:

U.S. schoolchildren recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
  • The state should not officially establish a religion.
  • The state should to act in a way that tends to favor certain religions over others, or which favors a religious attitude over a non-religious one.
  • The state should not officially fund religious activities.
  • The state should not fund indrectly fund religious activities such as voluntary prayer meetings and Bible studies at public schools or religious displays on public properties.
  • The state should not fund non-religious activities sponsored by religious organizations, such as "faith-based" but non-religious charitable programs.
  • The state should not prescribe, proscribe, or amend religious beliefs.
  • State should not attempt to endorse, criticize, or ban any religious belief or practice, such as the wearing of distinctive religious clothing or the practice of animal sacrifice.
  • The state should not interfere in religious hierarchies, nor interfere in issues strictly related to membership. This becomes a particular difficult question when members of a religious congregation sue a religious institution either for control of assets or damages resulting from the behavior of religious officials.
  • No state action should have the primary effect of engaging in religious practice. Any such appearance of a state religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.
  • No state action should have the primary effect of restricting religious practice. Any such appearance of interference in religious practice must be unintentional and coincidental.
U.S. 20-dollar bill with the slogan "In God We Trust
  • The state should not express religious beliefs, whether in a publication, speeches by public officials, currency, or endorsements of national pride.
  • Political leaders should not express religious preferences in the course of their duties
  • No religious organization should attempt to prescribe, proscribe, or amend civil or common law.
  • A religion should not interfere in civil political processes or relations between the state and other nations.
  • No religious institution should actively endorse a political figure, but should confine itself to moral, ethical, and religious teaching.
  • No religion should actively endorse any civil institution by providing religious services or religious expressions at that institution, nor favor one civil institution over another.

See also

American

Historical

  • William Bradford (1590-1657), Plymouth Colony
  • Roger Williams (theologian), Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
  • William Penn, Province of Pennsylvania (inc. Delaware Colony)

Contemporary

  • Americans United for Separation of Church and State
  • Freedom From Religion Foundation (Freethought)
  • American Civil Liberties Union
  • North American Religious Liberty Association
  • People for the American Way
  • Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council

General

  • Laïcité
  • State religion
  • Antidisestablishmentarianism
  • Freedom of religion
  • Status of religious freedom by country
  • Religious toleration
  • Christian anarchism
  • Christian Reconstructionism
  • Islamic leadership
  • Ayatollah Mohamed Hossein Kazemini Borujerdi
  • Dogma
  • Enlightenment
  • Intellectualism

External links

International Separation of church and state

Europe

  • http://en.calvinism.ru - articles against separation of church and state and against feminism. Theocratic Calvinism, theocracy, theonomy, Biblical law solves problems of western nations, applied reformed theology website located in Russia. English and Russian sections

American activism in favor of strict separation

American activism against strict separation

Origins of the phrase

Islamic activism in favor of separation

Religion and politics

References
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  1. ↑ Augustine's teaching is the origin of the term "secular," by which he refered to the period prior to Christ's second advent.
  2. ↑ Status of religious freedom by country, United Kingdom. Wikipedia.
  3. ↑ The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway
  4. ↑ Turkey's policy has changed somewhat in recent years with the advent of a less-secularist government.
  5. ↑ Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 312 (1952). ("Otherwise the State and religion would be aliens to each other — hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. Churches could not be required to pay even property taxes. Municipalities would not be permitted to render police or fire protection to religious groups. Policemen who helped parishioners into their places of worship would violate the Constitution.")
  6. ↑ (1819 letter to Robert Walsh)
  7. ↑ (1811 letter to Baptist Churches)
  8. ↑ Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)

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