Notice there are no Jewish, Muslim, Sikh or other minority faiths — who face sometimes violent persecution — endorsing this task force. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes original benignity. People of all faiths have been drawn to our country, not only for the freedom to worship, but also the freedom from having one faith embedded into law.
The Rev. Our very liberty depends it. Melissa D. Mark Nichols will address a meeting of Soroptimist International… Continue reading. The Jefferson County Library will host a discussion about… Continue reading. The Jefferson County Library will host a discussion about…. The democratic West has long rejected theocracy, once known as Caesaropapism, a state in which Caesar and the pope are one. The current film Kingdom of Heaven portrays — albeit with tremendous historic license — the bloodshed caused by zealous Christian medieval crusaders who attempted to impose their rule over Jerusalem, then held by Muslims.
Today, no serious Christian or Jewish leader in America advocates a theocratic state. They recognize welding political and ecclesiastical power would corrupt both religion and politics and lead to tyranny, chaos, or both.
We have government chaplains in the Congress and the armed forces. The Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court building, and countless other government offices and monuments display religious images and quotations.
These time-honored manifestations of religion in American life have not curtailed freedom of belief or conscience, nor pointed to a theocracy. Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic and atheist citizens have equal rights and opportunities. Some literalists believe Earth was created 6, years ago, but they should not insist public schools teach only their views. They can freely teach their beliefs in their churches and religious schools.
On reflection, religious citizens and secular humanists may not be that far apart. They all are beneficiaries of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition.
Many secularists drink from wells they did not dig and are refreshed by waters they are reluctant to acknowledge. Sign up to receive EPPC's biweekly e-newsletter of selected publications, news, and events.
An extra dimension to these discussions is the rise of religious radicalism since the s and s. In Judaism, [4] Christianity, [5] and Islam, [6] it is the orthodox and fundamentalist currents that are on the rise. How should the state respond to this?
In this article we want to discuss five models for the relationship between the state and religion. That is because there are five positions the state can take with regard to religion. In other words, every country can choose from these five options to organize its relationship with religion. They are i the atheist state; ii the theocratic state; iii the state with an official state Church; iv the multiculturalist state, and v the agnostic state.
First, the atheist state. Atheism, in its most elemental form, is a-theism, i. This God is called God. Atheism has a long history, but because in the past atheists were almost always persecuted and punished, it is difficult to ascertain how many atheists actually existed. Because the label atheist was considered a stigma and could have serious consequences in some countries, many tried to avoid it, which means that we do not know how many atheists actually exist in the world.
So, for the same reason that we do not know how many liberals there are in North Korea or how many critics of Islam there are in Saudi Arabia most people prefer to keep their heads attached , we also do not know how many atheists there were in 16th and 17th century France.
Not until the 19th century, when religious persecution became less severe, did atheists become more outspoken. This means that it is a personal conviction of individuals that does not have any ambition to exert political power. It was considered a job of the state to try to destroy religion as a dangerous societal perversion. The former Soviet Union and Albania were the most famous examples of this. The claim that atheism as a private doctrine inevitably leads to state atheism is clearly false.
People can decide that smoking is unhealthy and therefore not smoke, or quit smoking. People can also advise others not to smoke. We can compare Hitchens and Dawkins with the doctor from this example. This is an essential difference. In the case of a theocracy, the representatives are not ordinary politicians but clerics with a powerful political ambition.
In a theocracy, religion is unavoidably political. It is possible to distinguish two types of religion: Religion as a framework of meaning for individual life. It sounds a bit strange, and that is why this terminology is not common, but it would be clarifying to distinguish between: Religious religion. The first certainly does not need to lead to the second contrary to what is often argued. But in his Theologico-Political Treatise , that same Spinoza also develops a scathing criticism of any political religion.
In the upcoming paragraphs, we will provide an extensive analysis of the theocratic state. This model of the relationship between state and religion deserves more time than the first model, because the theocratic state is a kind of ideal for modern-day theoterrorists. That is why it is highly relevant to study this model, just as it was relevant to study the model of the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
As is extensively discussed in The Freedom of Thought Report A global report on the rights, legal status and discrimination against humanists, atheists and the non-religious , [25] and all its predecessors, there is no freedom of religion or belief or freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia. The royal family, in cooperation with the religious establishment, forces all citizens to abide by the official Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.
Domestic terrorist violence such as the bombings in the capital, Riyadh forced the Kingdom to reconsider its approach to religion and civil liberties. In , there was a terrorist attack in Khobar that killed 22 people. The fact that religion is not just an instrument used by the government but also against the Saudi ruling family becomes clear in He had been a respected cleric and scholar who once taught the Saudi chief justice.
But when the Saudi royal family sided with the Western powers, they themselves became apostates in the eyes of the exceptionally pious. All Muslims have a duty to wage jihad against those who attack Muslim states. What this shows is that theocracies are always in a precarious position. In a democracy, any political leader can be replaced by a new leader who gets more votes from the people.
Every Moses has cause to fear his Phineas. Both models, the atheist state and the theocratic state or the philosophies behind these models: political atheism and religious fundamentalism , do not seem very attractive.
Contrary to all expectations, theocracy is back in force nowadays. The atheist state has more or less disappeared from the world, while the theocratic state, against all expectations, is enjoying a considerable revival.
But the quotation does not say what this means, exactly. They do not fight for demo cracy, but for theo cracy. Exactly what constitutes a theocratic state is, of course, open to debate.
And such countries surely exist in the world. Many states still uphold apostasy laws by which people who wish to change religions have to be punished. In all probability though, they have no interest in that to begin with.
Many people who live in Western democracies will consider that last statement to be rather brash. What makes it complicated for many people is that they believe there is no such thing as universal values.
This attitude runs counter to the perspective the Universal Declaration of Human Rights hoped to establish in Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. So the freedom to change religions is not some sort of vague moral demand, but a basic human right.
However, what worries many commentators when, for instance, Saudi Arabia or Iran is criticized in the Western world, is that they believe that the West does not have the right to judge. The distinction that is usually made between a theocracy model 2 and a country that has a state religion model 3 is that a system with a state religion allows other religions to exist alongside it. Proponents of state religions usually claim that their system is a good idea, because members of minority religions are not persecuted.
And it is true that in a state-religion system, dissenters are not necessarily persecuted. But does that make a state religion an appealing idea? Not quite, because the position of minorities, both religious and non-religious, in a country that has a state religion is not ideal. Because they are discriminated against. After all, the state chooses a single religious position and grants it privileges. In other words, although model 3 of the relationship between Church and state is better than models 1 and 2, it still does not fully satisfy.
Especially in countries with a high level of secularization and religious pluralism, state religions create inequality in the form of religious privileges for a specific part of the population, and this undermines the legitimacy of the state.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. As Brian Grim concludes in a country comparison on the freedom of religion, the First Amendment protects minority religions and the state against the tyranny of a dominant religion, and the Second Amendment protects religion against the tyranny of the state.
The waning of state religions has been a gradual process in the Western world. In countless matters, the privileges of a single religion often Christianity granted by the state have been challenged. She studied law at the South Texas College of Law and gained great notoriety in the s with the trial of Murray versus Curlett , in which she took on the mandatory daily prayer in public schools. The immediate cause of this was the fact that her son William was required to participate in Bible readings in a public school in Baltimore.
In the end, on 17 June , the Supreme Court ruled in her favor, and the daily prayer in public schools was ended. It turned her into one of the most controversial people of her day in the United States. This verdict abolished the discriminatory practice of making civil servants profess a belief in God in order to be considered for a job in the civil service.
Another subject that has created a big stir is that of religiously neutral education. The American lawyer and human rights activist Clarence Darrow — made a big contribution on this point.
Darrow was born in a family that was once religious but had gradually lost its faith. So they feigned adherence to the faith, and the children were sent to Sunday school. Darrow later became one of the most iconic jurist in the United States. He specialized in labor law, but he also defended many freethinkers and anarchists. The most important case of his career is of significance to the subject of this chapter: the Scopes Monkey trial of It started with the introduction of a law in Tennessee in that banned the teaching of Darwinian evolution in schools.
The driving force behind it was the fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan — , a politician and jurist who had tried and failed to become president of the United States three times.
On the basis of this law, John T Scopes — , a twenty-one-year-old teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was prosecuted. He stood accused of corrupting the minds of the young in biology classes, in which he taught evolution. When Darrow learned that Bryan had offered to act as special prosecutor, he decided to offer his services to Scopes. It was a brave decision; public opinion strongly disfavored Scopes. Initially, Scopes was convicted, although the trial had offered Darrow a chance to submit Bryan to pointed questioning.
On appeal though, the verdict was overturned, now favoring Scopes and thus the teaching of evolution. In the modern world, a system with a state religion is increasingly viewed as an anomaly, for the reasons mentioned. In May of , Norway decided to separate the protestant, Lutheran Church from the state. In Parliament, there were votes in favor and only 3 against. This looked promising. Unfortunately though, the Norwegian Parliament made a number of reservations that can be viewed as conflicting with the measures being taken.
If the Norwegian Church is no longer a state Church, then there is no reason to mention it in the Constitution. At least, not as long as Wicca, Scientology, Hinduism, and Islam are excluded from the Constitution which is undoubtedly the case. Other developments in Norway are equally worrying.
It may have given up its privileged treatment of Christianity, but it has replaced it with other privileges. Now, all religions can receive preferential treatment over non-belief. According to the fifth model the secular or agnostic state , which we will discuss after this, this is still wrong.
But first we will further analyze the fourth model of the relationship between religion and state, because that is really what Norway has now become. The fourth state tries to avoid the problem of unequal treatment by trying to support all religions equally.
The state does not have an obligation to a single religion, but to all of them: the obligation to treat them all the same.
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