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Separation of church and state


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See also: Separation of church and state in the United States

Constantine's Conversion, depicting the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great to Christianity, by Peter Paul Rubens.Separation of church and state is a political doctrine which states that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate from each other. The concept has been a topic of political debate throughout history.

Contents [hide]
1 Overview of the principle
2 History
2.1 History of the term
2.2 Ancient
2.3 Medieval
2.4 Modern
3 Secularism and theocracy
4 Enactment
5 Advocacy
5.1 Religious views on separation
5.1.1 Roman Catholic views
5.1.2 Other Christian views
5.1.3 Islamic views
5.1.4 Other religious views
5.2 Secular views on separation
6 References
7 See also
8 External links
8.1 International Separation of church and state
8.2 Europe
8.3 American activism in favor of separation
8.4 Origins of the phrase
8.5 Islamic activism in favor of separation
8.6 Religion and politics



[edit] Overview of the principle
The belief that religion and state should be separate covers a wide spectrum, ranging between one extreme which would secularize or eliminate the church, and theocracy, in which the government is an affiliate of the church. Some secularists believe that the state should be kept entirely separate from religion, and that the institutions of religion should be entirely free from governmental interference. Churches that exercise their authority completely apart from government endorsement, whose foundations are not in the state, are conventionally called "Free" churches.

A government does not cite a specific religious institution for the justification of its authority. However, some secular governments claim quasi-religious justifications for their powers, emphasizing the relationship mainly for ceremonial and rhetorical purposes. This is done for the general welfare and the benefit of the state, does not necessarily favor any specific religious group, and the state does not conform to any doctrine other than its own. This arrangement is called civil religion. Some secularists would allow the state to encourage religion (such as by providing exemptions from taxation, or providing funds for education and charities, including those that are "faith based"), but insist the state should not establish one religion as the state religion, require religious observance, or legislate dogma.

Some countries embrace a middle position, a compromise between secular and religious government. In these countries the state uses the powers of government to directly support a specific religious institution or established church. In Turkey for example, despite it being an officially secular country, the Preamble of the Constitution states that "There shall be no interference whatsoever of the sacred religious feelings in State affairs and politics."[1] In order to control the way religion is perceived by adherents, the State pays imams' wages, and provides religious education in public schools. The State has a Department of Religious Affairs, directly under the Prime Minister bureaucratically, responsible for organizing the Muslim religion - including what will and will not be mentioned in sermons given at mosques, especially on Fridays. Such an interpretation of secularism, where religion is under strict control of the State is largely at odds with the of the first amendment, and is a good example of how secularism can be applied in a variety of ways in different regions of the world. a theocracy exists when a religion establishes the government and religious law is applied to state policy under the direct authority of the religious institution. In a theocracy, the courts or officials of the religion direct policies of the civil government.

The separation of church and state is similar to the concept of freedom religion, but the two concepts are not the same. For example, the citizens in a country with a state church may have complete freedom of religion. And citizens in a country without a state church may or may not enjoy the freedom to practice their religion. In the United States, the structure and wording of the first amendment with both the establishment clause and the free exercise clause, demonstrates this difference. Both clauses have evolved an important body of case law from the U>S supreme court as well as lower federal courts.

While many states or nations permit freedom of religious belief, no country allows completely unrestricted freedom of religious practice. National laws, when they reflect important or fundamental governmental interests, may prohibit certain acts which some citizens may claim represent the free exercise of their religious belief.

In the United States, state laws can prohibit practices such as bigamy, sex with children, human and occasionally animal sacrifice, use of drugs, or other criminal acts, even if citizens claim the practices are part of their religious belief system. However, the federal courts give close scrutiny to any state or local laws that impinge upon the bona fide exercise of religious practices. The courts ensure that genuine and important religious rights are not impeded, and that questionable practices are limited only to the extent necessary. The courts usually demand that any laws restricting religious practices must demonstrate a fundamental or "compelling" state interest, such as protecting citizens from bodily harm. See for further discussion.


[edit] History

[edit] History of the term
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, quoting the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, he 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 and State."[2]

Another early user of the term was James Madison, the principal drafter of the United States Bill of Rights, who often wrote of "total separation of the church from the state" (1819 letter to Robert Walsh). "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote, and he 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" (1811 letter to Baptist Churches). This attitude is further reflected in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was originally authored by Thomas Jefferson, but championed by Madison. The Declaration guarantees that no one may be compelled to finance any religion or denomination.

... no 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; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. [3]

The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times. The first instance was 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 never used the metaphor of a wall separating church and state again until 1947 when it was used by Justice Hugo Black in the Everson case. The term was used and defended heavily by the Court until the early 1970s. Since that time, the Court has sought to distance itself from the metaphor, often suggesting the metaphor conveys hostility to religion. 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 bulldozer removing religion from American public life.


[edit] Ancient
In most ancient cultures, the political ruler was also the highest religious leader and sometimes considered divine. Under republican government, religious officials were appointed just like political ones.

Ancient Israel was different inasmuch as the King and the priesthood were separate and limited to their respective spheres of authority and responsibility, though interferences did happen as well. Later, under foreign supremacy, the high priest also held the highest civil authority in an autonomous theocracy.

Roman emperors were considered divine and also occupied the highest religious office. This was challenged by Christians who acknowledged the Emperor's political authority but refused to participate in the state's religion or to recognize the emperor's divinity. Because of this, Christians were considered enemies of the state and adherence to Christianity was punishable by death (e.g., Justin Martyr under Marcus Aurelius). At various times, this resulted in violent persecutions until the Edict of Milan in 313. The Roman Empire formally became Christian by edict of Theodosius I in 380.


[edit] Medieval
Main article: Separation of church and state (medieval)
In the West, the issue of the separation of church and state during the medieval period centered on monarchs who ruled in the secular sphere but encroached on the Church's rule of the spiritual sphere. This unresolved contradiction in ultimate control of the Church led to power struggles and crises of leadership, notably in the Investiture Controversy, that resulted in a number of important events in the development of the west.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, the Emperor had supreme power over the church and controlled its highest representative, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Eastern Orthodoxy was the state religion. When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, the Emperor was killed. The position of head of the Orthodox Church was given to Gennadius II Scholarius by the conquering Caliph and the Ottoman ruler, Sultan Mehmed II, who continued to practice the right of the Roman Emperor to appoint the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church.


[edit] Modern
Countries in the modern world have varying degrees of separation of church and state; some countries are stricter than others in disallowing church influence on the state. In some countries, however, the two institutions are heavily interconnected.(There are new conflicts in the Post communist world; see: State-Church relations in the history of educational policy of the first post-communist Hungarian government http://mek.oszk.hu/03700/03797/03797.htm#10)


[edit] Secularism and theocracy
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Secularism in government is a policy of avoiding or reducing entanglement between civil and religious institutions, ranging from reducing ties to a state church to promoting the secularization of public discourse.

There are automatic entanglements between the institutions, inasmuch as the religious institution, and its adherents, are members of civil society. Secularism requires the primacy of civil laws within its jurisdictions; but some policies provide for protections of religious expression, in order not to unnecessarily conflict with the claims of religion over the public lives of its adherents. Most forms of secularism propose policies guided by an interest in the free exercise of religion, and freedom also for lack of religion, for the sake of assuring equal protection under the same laws. But to the extent that religion cannot be a strictly private matter, some policies defined as "free exercise of religion" are, in terms of a religion which mandates a public duty for its adherents, restrictive of their religion in certain respects.

Some political philosophies, such as Marxism, generally hold the belief that any religious influence in a state or society is negative. In nations that have officially embraced such beliefs, such as the former Eastern European Communist Bloc countries, the religious institution was made subject to the secular state, in the public interest. Freedom to worship was subject to licensure and other restrictions, and the doctrine of the church was monitored to assure conformity to secular law, and inoffensiveness to the official public philosophy. In the Western democracies, it is generally agreed that such a policy is not conducive to freedom of religion.

The French version of secularism is called laïcité. This model of a secularist state protects the religious institutions from some types of interference by the state, but public religious expression is also limited. The intention is to protect the public power from the influences of the religious institution, as these might be mediated through the decisions of its adherents, especially in public office (see anti-clericism). Religious perspectives which contain no idea of public responsibility, or which hold religious opinion to be irrelevant to politics, will be less impinged upon by this type of secularization of public discourse. Turkey, whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim, is also considered to be practising the laïcité school of secularism since 1923. Even though France comes from a Roman Catholic tradition and Turkey from an Islamic one, secularism in Turkey and secularism in France present many similarities.

Though the goal of a secularist state is to be religiously neutral, when the expression of religious opinion is excluded from the public sphere it is repressive of some aspects of religion. Ostensibly, it is equally repressive toward all religions in order to be equally protective of all from interference by others.

Many Western democratic nations place a high importance on the separation of the institutions of church and state. Some nations, such as the United States, Australia and Canada, even have specific clauses in their constitutions which are widely interpreted as forbidding the government from favoring one religion over another.

Other democracies, such as England, have a constitutionally established state religion but are inclusive of other faiths as well.[4] 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.

For example, in Norway, the King is also the leader of the state church. 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. The second article guarantees freedom of religion, while also stating that Evangelical Lutheranism is the official state religion.[5]

The opposite end of the spectrum from secularization 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 decided by professors of the official religion, and ordinarily the civil rights, or restrictions of rights of the unfavored group, are defined in terms of the official religion.


[edit] Enactment
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Separation of church and state occurs in different ways:

legal separation
voluntary separation, such as by churches teaching that religious ceremony should be confined to either the church or the home.
Some countries of the world have a stable separation between church and state, while other countries experienced political unrest over the separation. The 1905 French law on the separation of church and state started considerable controversy and even riots.

Separation of church and state is a notion related to, but separate from, freedom of religion. There are many countries with an official religion, such as the United Kingdom or Norway, where freedom of religion is guaranteed. Conversely, it is possible for a country not to have an official religion, or a set of official religions, yet to discriminate against atheists or members of religions outside of the mainstream. For instance, while the United States does not officially advance any particular religion, proponents of atheism were persecuted in many US jurisdictions in the 19th century and there are currently no known atheists in neither the House of Representatives nor in the Senate.

There are many different interpretations of the notion of separation of church and state. Numerous arguments in the gray areas between proponents of separation and proponents of mutual inclusion are played out in courts and legislatures the world over.

The following categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor is this an all-inclusive, definitive listing. Mixing and matching the various elements listed here provides perspective on the complexity and variability in attempting to implement church/state separation policies.

For each of these interpretations, there are groups and individuals who strongly believe in the exact opposite proposition.

Legal and Financial Separation I: the state should not officially establish a religion.
Legal and Financial Separation II: the state should not officially fund religious activities.
Legal and Financial Separation III:the state should not fund religious activities.
Legal and Financial Separation IV: the state should not fund non-religious activities sponsored by religious organizations.
Separation of State Authority I: the state should not prescribe, proscribe, or amend religious beliefs.
Separation of State Authority II: the state should not attempt to endorse or criticize any religious belief or practice.
Separation of State Authority III: the state should not interfere in religious hierarchies, nor interfere in issues strictly related to membership.
Separation of State Authority IV: 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.
Separation of State Authority V: 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.
Separation of State Authority VI: the state should not express any religious beliefs, or in any publication, speech, or other implement of state power such as currency, sworn testimony, oath of fealty to the state, or endorsements of national pride. The state should not imply any derivation of authority from any religious authority, nor should it express temporal supremacy in relation to religious belief or practice.
Separation of State Authority VII: political leaders should not express religious preferences in the course of their duties
Separation of Religious Authority I: no church should prescribe, proscribe, or amend civil or common law.
Separation of Religious Authority II: the church should not interfere in civil political processes or relations between the state and other nations.
Separation of Religious Authority III: no church should actively endorse any political figure, and should confine itself to moral, ethical, and religious teaching.
Separation of Religious Authority IV: no church should actively endorse any civil institution by providing religious services or religious expressions at that institution, nor favor one civil institution over another.
For instance, France is legally prohibited from funding religious activities (except for Alsace-Moselle and military chaplains), but funds some private religious schools for their non-religious activities as long as they apply the national curriculum and do not discriminate on grounds of religion.


[edit] Advocacy

[edit] Religious views on separation

[edit] Roman Catholic views
The Catholic Church's 1983 Code of Canon law, while not laying down general rules about relations between Church and State, considers that a religious and moral education in harmony with the conscience of the pupils' parents is an integral part of education, and obliges Catholics to try to secure its inclusion: "Christ's faithful are to strive to secure that in the civil society the laws which regulate the formation of the young also provide a religious and moral education in the schools that is in accord with the conscience of the parents" (canon 799) [6]

American Catholics, some suffering discrimination from mainstream, majority Protestants, eventually came to see the separation of church and state as a positive development (in contrast to the long standing Church tradition). The work of Jesuit priest and theologian John Courtney Murray in the 1960s was significant as he developed a theological justification of the separation view based upon St. Thomas Aquinas's observation that there existed a necessary distinction between morality and civil law; that the latter is limited in its capacity in cultivating moral character through criminal prohibitions. As Murray said, "it is not the function of civil law to prescribe everything that is morally right and to forbid everything that is morally wrong."[7]


[edit] Other Christian views
Some Baptists support separation also, and hold the assertion that separation of church and state does not mean separation of God and state. In particular, many radical Anabaptist movements, sensitised by the persecution they suffered under both Protestant and Catholic authorities, held that the state should not interfere in religious affairs and vice-versa. The earliest well-known formal plea for separation of church and state in England, called Religious Peace: or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience. was written to King James by a London citizen named Leonard Busher,[8] a man later identified as an Anabaptist.[9] In 1868, the renowned Baptist pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon perhaps best summed up the separationist Baptist stand thusly:

Which shall we wonder at most, the endurance of the faithful or the cruelty of their tormentors? Is it not proven beyond all dispute that there is no limit to the enormities which men will commit when they are once persuaded that they are keepers of other men's consciences? To spread religion by any means, and to crush heresy by all means is the practical inference from the doctrine that one man may control another's religion. Given the duty of a state to foster some one form of faith, and by the sure inductions of our nature slowly but certainly persecution will occur. To prevent for ever the possibility of Papists roasting Protestants, Anglicans hanging Romish priests, and Puritans flogging Quakers, let every form of state-churchism be utterly abolished, and the remembrance of the long curse which it has cast upon the world be blotted out for ever.[10]

Since the 5th century, the Coptic Church has advocated separation of church and state. Most Unitarian Universalists advocate separation of church and state.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long held to the doctrine of separation of church and state due to the long antagonism local and state governments have had towards their faith. Mormon writings have affirmed "[n]o domination of the state by the church; No church interference with the functions of the state; No state interference with the functions of the church, or with the free exercise of religion; The absolute freedom of the individual from the domination of ecclesiastical authority in political affairs; The equality of all churches before the law." [11] [12]

However, some Christian groups, such as the Christian Voice and the Christian Coalition, have become highly and vocally involved in promoting what they believe to be Christian values in government.


[edit] Islamic views
Islam holds that political life can only function properly within the context of Islamic law. To such believers, since God's law is universally true and beneficial to all people, any state law or action opposed to God's law would be harmful to the citizens, and displeasing to God. Many Muslims consider the Western concept of separation of Church and State to be rebellion against God's law. There is a contemporary debate in Islam whether obedience to Islamic law is ultimately compatible with the Western secular pattern, which separates religion from civic life.


[edit] Other religious views
Religious opponents of secular government hold that while the state should not establish a particular state religion or require religious observance, it still must be infused with religious ethics and values in order to operate "properly", and needs to encourage ethical and beneficial religious belief, both inside and outside of government. These persons argue that the teachings of religion are the basis of law and civil society and that a society which discourages the promulgation of those beliefs cannot function. Furthermore, these groups argue that religious groups ought to be involved in politics in order to assure that laws are passed which reflect what they perceive as universal truths.

Other religious persons argue that the State ought to maintain an established church.

Another view is that the state should provide a default religion for the large number of citizens who wish to identify themselves as religious believers without actively choosing between the various alternatives. A slightly more extreme version of this is that the state should determine (or at least have the power to determine) the doctrine and structure of the state religion - this is the position in England, and has links to ideas underlying Erastianism. However, there need not be obligation on individuals to follow the state in religion in such cases.


[edit] Secular views on separation
Some people desire the legal separation of church and state in order to keep superstition out of government. For example, many atheists, agnostics and freethinkers believe it inappropriate for government to be controlled by a religion.

The church might harm the state. For example, religious conviction might cause the state to become involved in a disastrous war, or to remain pacifist when force is necessary for the preservation of the state. It may also influence public policies in a manner detrimental to those who do not follow all the church's teachings.

This sentiment has not been universally held, however. For example, Charles Maurras of France, a non-Catholic, thought that the influence of the Catholic Church was necessary for the continuation of his country and political objectives.


[edit] References
^ The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey. Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM).
^ Jefferson, Thomas (1802-01-01). Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists. U.S. Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
^ Bureau of International Information Programs. Backgrounder on the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. U.S. State Department. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
^ Status of religious freedom by country, United Kingdom. Wikipedia.
^ The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway
^ Roman Catholic Church. Code of Canon Law. intratext.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
^ Murray, John Courtney. Memo to Cushing on Contraception Legislation. Murray Archives, file 1-43. Full text available from the Woodstock Theological Center website.
^ Busher, Leonard (1614). Religious Peace: or, a Plea for Liberty of Conscience.
^ Whitsitt, Dr. William (1896). A Question in Baptist History: Whether the Anabaptists in England Practiced Immersion Before the Year 1641?. C. T. Dearing, pp. 69-70.
^ Spurgeon, Charles H. (August 1988). "The Inquisition". Sword and Trowel. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
^ Clark, James R. (1965). Messages of the First Presidency. Brigham Young University, Department of Educational Leadership & Foundations. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.
^ Political Neutrality. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-30.

[edit] See also
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
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

[edit] External links
This article or section deals primarily with the United States and does not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.


[edit] International Separation of church and state
International Religious Freedom Report 2006. U.S. Department of State. Retrieved on 2006-10-08.
Hogan, Michael, Ph.D. (2001-05-16). Q:Which other governments have separation of church and state issues?. Australian review of Public Affairs, quoted by www.procon.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-30.

[edit] Europe
Human-Etisk Forbund (Norway)

[edit] American activism in favor of separation
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Scholars in favor, with historical documents on-line
ReligiousRightWatch Blog
Freedom from Religion Foundation (Freethought)
American Civil Liberties Union
News and commentary on the Separation of Church and State from a liberal atheist
North American Religious Liberty Association
People for the American Way
Interfaith Working Group
American Jewish Committee (Jewish)
Anti-Defamation League (Jewish)
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council

[edit] Origins of the phrase
The Federalist Papers
History of the Separation of Church and State in America
"The Intellectual Origins of the Establishment Clause" by Noah Feldman, Asst. Professor of Law, New York University, 2002.

[edit] Islamic activism in favor of separation
Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS)
International Coalition Against Political Islam
No to Political Islam

[edit] Religion and politics
The Privatization of God
God in Government
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