Religion and the State

Religion, whether orthodox or popular, has historically played an integral part in Chinese society and contributed to a high level of cultural integration and the forming of a Chinese identity. Among the many popular deities venerated, the Lord of Guan was one of the most prominent and well-received. Originally a historical figure – the general from the state of Shu 蜀 in the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) – the person of Guan Yu 關羽
gradually departed from his original image as recorded by Chen Shou 陳壽 (233-297) in his Records of the Three Kingdoms 三國志, and instead was reimagined by people in different hierarchies and social positions. This paper attempts to provide a glimpse into the historical development of the Guan Yu cult. It focuses on the appropriation of the figure by various historical groups – Buddhists, Daoists, local people, and the imperial state – suit their needs and purposes. These historical agents constructed and expanded different versions of the Guan Yu myth that contributed to the widespread popularity of the deity’s image in both oral and textual narratives and in popular forms of worship. Whether it was Guan Yu who was converted to religious doctrines, Guan Gong as a deified god who assisted the local community, or Guandi who was standardized by conforming to state-accepted models, the cult of Guan Yu was an evolving social phenomenon that was susceptible to changes and adaptations once interfaced with other prevailing ideologies, social agencies, and power.

In this essay I argue that despite the scope of change in the realms of military, security, economic, and social policies, as well as changes in the legal sphere, the path dependency left by the institutions of the previous imperial and republican regimes has influenced the current arrangements for the regulation of religion by the state in China. This state of affairs has less to do with something specific to Chinese culture and more to do with the particular institutional context of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In the first section of this paper, I consider the influence of previous regimes' institutions that is still felt in the current regulatory mechanisms for the control of religion. Then, in the second section, I explore the current approach to religious affairs, drawing attention to its quadripartite dimensions: political, legal, administrative, and managerial. In a third section I examine the nature of the challenges faced by the Communist Party of China, the legal and state apparatus of the PRC, and the religious institutions. The discussion uses evidence from fieldwork that I have undertaken over the space of ten years on the philanthropic activities of Buddhist institutions in China. I conclude by discussing the political obstacles that stand in the way of implementing a secular state in China that is genuinely pluralist and supportive of religious diversity. Ré sumé : Dans cet essai, j'avance que malgré l'ampleur des changements dans le domaine des politiques militaire, sécuritaire, e ´conomique, et sociale, de même que dans la sphère juridique, la dépendance au sentier des régimes impériaux et républicain précédents a influencé le dispositif contemporain de supervision de la religion par l'E ´ tat

Using primary archival and other contemporary sources, this article explores the relationship between the Christian mission and Israel as a modern Jewish nation-state from its establishment in 1948 until 1965, when section 13a of the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law, 5722–1962, was enacted in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). Since the rebirth of the State of Israel, a number of Christian Protestant Churches and missionary organisations have worked to convert Jews to Christianity. The State of Israel opposed such proselytising yet wished to maintain its commitment to freedom of religion as stated in its Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, it did not wish to damage foreign relations with the Christian world.

Lecture presented to the Department of Indology, Kyoto University, 23 June 2018. 
 
Revised version of a lecture, “Pluralism, Patronage, and Documentary Protocol”
for the Seminar on Politics, Pluralism, and Patronage in Ancient India,
University of Texas, Austin, 3 November 2017
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/asianstudies/events/event.php?id=45165 ;
     
  Abstract:
Aśoka’s edicts (3rd-century BCE) expressed an ideal of civil religion that recognized that is realm was religiously plural, that all sects animated by a set of common concerns that his called dharma, that members of all sects sects were worthy of gifts (dāna), and that despite his particular attachment to the Buddhist order he himself offered patronage to all groups.  One particular act of patronage took the form of visiting the Buddha’s birthplace, building or improving cultic facilities there, and exempting the village from paying tax.  The latter enactments provided a model for religious patronage down through the ages in South and Southeast Asia.  Although later rulers have not promoted ecumenism so vigorously, many did adopt a policy of offering patronage to more than just their own preferred religious group.  This can be traced in the record of religious land-grant endowments and other gifts in later centuries that stipulate an expanding set of exemptions from tax-payments and other obligations to the king (along with other privileges conferring on the beneficiaries greater autonomy).  Property grants with such exemptions — for Buddhist and well as Brahmin beneficiaries — have survived from the beginning of the Common Era (in Sātavahana cave inscriptions, early Pallava copper-plates, etc.).  In broad terms, such grants embody a principle that religious aims and institutions have a justifiable claim to stand outside (or to be insulated from) the economic regime of the state.  This is furthermore justified by the principle, sometimes tacit, sometimes express, that religious undertakings contribute to the welfare of the society and the polity that supports them financially, that this support is an intangible asset of the state or of the donor.  When explicit justification is needed, sources point to the spiritual merit conferred upon donors, and more generally the maintenance of public virtue and order, and the continued security of the realm.  Sometimes it is even quantified, as when the king is said to derive 1/6 of the merit of approving a religious endowment because he thereby foregoes receipt of the normal tax, 1/6 of the revenue of the property.  In any case, the dissemination of a distinctively Indian model of patronage, in the form of legal mechanisms expressed in standardized diplomatic formulas (supported by scholastic textual models), provided an enduring basis for acknowledging religious pluralism (including an implicit notion of the analogousness of different religions).  Furthermore, such patronage implied that there was religious sphere conceptually distinguishable from secular affairs (in spite of the manifold ways in which religious individuals and institutions could and did participate in financial or commercial transactions).  Civic religion in ancient India, then, as in the modern world, was balancing act of granting the separateness of religion (i.e., its trancendence) while implicating it in the public welfare or the private welfare of the donor (i.e., its immanence).

With a view to analyzing the varieties of political secularism, this article takes into consideration four states - France, the USA, Turkey and India. State level initiatives in the formative phase relating to secularism have been scrutinized in the cases of France and the USA. How the main liberal political parties deal with the question of secularism has been analysed in the discussions on Turkey and India. The two political parties under scrutiny are the Republican People's Party (RPP) in Turkey and the Indian National Congress (INC).  This article attempts to conclude that in spite of similarities in the basic understanding of political secularism in the separation between religion and politics and state affairs, existing realities and historical trajectories shape the formation of definition, experiments and working of political secularism in a state.

D’innombrables ouvrages, articles, conférences et colloques ont traité – et traitent encore chaque année – de la complexe question des relations qui se tissent entre les groupes religieux et les États en Occident1, alors même que les deux entités se trouvent séparées de droit à travers des modèles variables de laïcité. En effet, malgré le caractère semblant désormais acquis de la laïcité dans cette région du monde, des influences continuent à s’exercer en continu entre religions et États à travers les relations qui les lient, qu’elles soient de nature régulatrice, d’influence ou encore mimétique. Bien que les avocats d’un abandon de la laïcité – même partiel – soient peu nombreux de nos jours, de leur côté, tant les acteurs étatiques que les acteurs religieux s’efforcent, à travers leur action, d’étendre un tant soit peu le pouvoir et l’influence de leurs entités respectives. De ce fait, des myriades de configurations possibles entre politique et religion se dessinent, au gré des acteurs, de leur culture et du contexte dans lequel ils évoluent.

This chapter considers the extent to which a state dedicated to the promotion of the republican account of freedom can and must go in order to promote appropriate civic skills in young citizens. It addresses the question in the context of the debate on religious schools and religion in schools.

A treatment of efforts to discriminate against women in public space in Israel as part of a theocratic agenda that threatens Israeli civil democracy. Analogy to racism.

Published in a Special Issue in the Jerusalem Post about Religion and State in Israel.

May 16 2021 Is Silencing Women, Holding Them Captive, To Be The New Norm in Israel? Jerusalem Post Special Issue on Religion and State

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/is-silencing-women-holding-them-captive-to-be-the-norm-in-israel-668053

Economists and sociologists of religion have claimed that religious establishment dampens religious vitality, leading to lower recruitment efforts, low attendance, declining membership within established congregations, and the 'crowding out' of non-established congregations. Conversely, these authors have told us, disestab-lishment will lead to more religious vitality. Remarkably, even though these claims rest on the connection between establishment and the organizational and membership behaviour of local religious congregations, no research has directly examined that connection. We use the 2008 Swiss National Congregations Study as well as historical data to assess the effect of different levels of religious establishment on both established and non-established congregations. We find that established congregations do indeed show less religious vitality than non-established congregations. Contrary to the claims of the economic literature, however , these covariations are not caused by differences in religious establishment on the cantonal level. Both our quantitative and historical analyses show that dis-establishment has not led to religious vitality for either established or non-established congregations. The only clear effect of disestablishment is a dramatic decrease of income for established congregations. Based on quantitative and historical evidence, we suggest that differences between established and non-established congregations are produced by differences in religious tradition and immigration flows, not by differences in levels of establishment.

Italy and Germany are following the example of other EU-countries and have started to establish a dialogue between the state and Muslim communities in order to promote integration. The objective of these initiatives is to develop joint and commonly owned solutions with representatives of Muslim communities, and to strengthen the moderate voices with a view to preventing radicalization. Due to divisions within and the heterogeneity of the Muslim minorities in both countries it has so far not been possible to establish single Muslim representations with genuinely representative organs.  Therefore both initiatives in Italy and Germany followed a top-down approach with the Ministers of Interior carefully selecting the members of these Councils and thus establishing a forum of state-dialogue for the first time.  The future will show whether this policy is successful.

It has long been debated whether it is possible to distinguish between secular and religious elements in 'Hindu law'. At present, the general view is that law cannot be separated from religion in the Indic context, not least because, according to the Shastras, Veda is the chief source of Dharma. Nevertheless, it is recognized that the Dharmashastra incorporates diverse elements: (a) explicitly stated norms of two types: (1) rules derived from priestly ritual codes, and (2) precepts drawn from the Arthashastra (political science) tradition; as well as (b) recognition of the authority of customs specific to region, caste, or profession. Although all these are subsumed within the Brahmanical system, we can discern different conceptions of the relative authority of brahmins and the ruler. This distinction of overlapping spheres of authority is reflected in the treatment of misconduct: the same act may entail punishment by the king as well as distant but automatic consequences due to the operation of karma, consequences that can be averted only by expiatory ritual performances. The ritual impurity of a sin also can have social consequences such as stigma or ostracism, which is likewise removed though expiation. Despite the interlinking of these spheres, their fundamental distinctness is acknowledged in the legal process prescribed in the codes as well as in the glimpses we have of actual legal practice in pre-modern India. Although the Dharmashastra overall represents a system of natural law based on the Brahmanical religious cosmology, it contains within it elements derived from a seemingly positive legal system based on the supreme authority of the king in settling disputes. Further, the distinction between brahmin and royal authority corresponds to a distinction, not between religion and law, but between two parallel and complementary legal subsystems, each with its own set of standards, procedures, and sanctions.

Discussion on Islamic values in 1945 constitution cannot be separated from the discussion of the relationship between state and religion. Islam, as part of a plurality in Indonesia as others such as ethnicity, culture and other religions, is very influential in formulation of 1945 constitution as a constitution in Indonesia. There was debate between secular nationalists and Islamic nationalists in the drafting history of the 1945 constitution, eventually as agreement the term associated Sharia / Islam was removed from 1945 constitution. Is Islam thus has no influence on 1945 constitution or 1945 constitution is not compatible with Islam? The answer is influenced how the understanding of the Muslim about religion. In 1945 constitution stated clearly about the embodiment of the values of unity, peace, justice, equality and protection of (human) rights. Islam in the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet includes the Medina charter also recommends to embody these values in all aspects of life including the social and state.

Values can come into conflict: promoting individual freedom may entail intolerance towards illiberal groups, while promoting tolerance of illiberal groups may entail accepting restrictions on the freedom of individuals. What should be done in such cases?
In Israel at present, some religious practices are offensive to the sensibilities of women and involve coercion. Coercion conflicts with the liberal elements of democracy that vouchsafes the rights of individuals. One of these is the right to follow one’s conscience and to practice one's beliefs as one sees fit, as long as this practice does not entail harm to others. This paper argues for separation between state and religion, deeming it necessary to avoid coercion and allowing people to pursue their conceptions of the good as long as they do not harm others. Israel today gives precedence to Judaism over liberalism. I submit that the reverse should be the case.

ABSTRACT Using primary archival and other contemporary sources, this article explores the relationship between the Christian mission and Israel as a modern Jewish nation-state from its establishment in 1948 until 1965, when section 13a of the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law, 5722–1962, was enacted in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). Since the rebirth of the State of Israel, a number of Christian Protestant Churches and missionary organisations have worked to convert Jews to Christianity. The State of Israel opposed such proselytising yet wished to maintain its commitment to freedom of religion as stated in its Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, it did not wish to damage foreign relations with the Christian world.

This essay aims to reexamine the debate on the impact of Fascism on religious studies, by reconstructing what Raffaele Pettazzoni, one of the founding fathers of this field of research in Italy in the first half of the twentieth century, meant by “religion of the state.” His research on the origin of the religious state in Iranian history and in the Greek polytheistic prototype of the polis offers a key to the interpretation of his further analysis of the religious Fascist phenomenon. Mingling approaches of both political science and history of religions, this study constitutes an introduction to a new understanding — which remained hidden in Pettazzoni’s texts — of Fascism as a degeneration of state religiousness. While Fascism is an example of the sacralization of politics (according to one of the leading historians of Fascist ideology, Emilio Gentile), Pettazzoni showed how in other ways Fascism perpetuated the pre-Christian crisis of the religious state.

The paper deals with ways of transmitting and re-producing religious memory, religious knowledge and knowledge on religions through the education system in the Czech Republic. The paper summarizes the concept of religious memory as defined by D. Hervieu-Léger. The paper also defines two distinctive yet interconnected aspects of religious memory, "religious knowledge" and "knowledge on religions". "Religious knowledge" can be defined as a set of information as seen through the perspective of a specific religious tradition; "knowledge of religions" is broader and encompasses all information on the topic of religions. Religious memory in both its aspects is re-produced, transmitted and disseminated by various agents – the system of education represents one of these channels through which religious memory is reproduced. The paper also takes into account two different aspects of the process of reproducing religious memory through education: normative and practical. It explains the importance of examining the normative aspect in connection to the practical aspect of applying the laws regulating the access of the churches to the education system. The author also briefly treats the topic of defining the concept of “religion” in connection to the topic of his research and applies B. Saler’s prototypical definition of religion. Defining thus the field of research, the paper examines two legal norms regulating the access of religious organizations to the school system: the Education Act and the Law on Churches and Religious Societies. From the normative point of view, the legal norms set equal requirements for all churches and religious organizations as far as the access to the state school system is concerned. In reality, not all churches which are interested in obtaining the “special rights”, including the access to the school system, can meet the strict requirements as defined by the law. The legal requirements disadvantage alternative religions or non-Christian religions and minor religious groups. Applying the economic approach to this situation, the paper ascertains that the competition of churches at religious marketplace is not entirely free: the state power interferes with the competition by restrictions and regulations. The legal practice allows the Czech state to keep its control over the process of maintaining religious memory through the state school system. The case of religious education in the Czech Republic can be seen as a good example of state control over the "authorized memory" or the reservoir of knowledge that allows keeping the sense of historical continuity within the society. It also reveals that the image of the modern Czech society as "secularized", "irreligious" or even "atheist" can be too simplistic and that religion and the state interfere vividly within the public sphere of the Czech society.

Edited by three sociologists and comprised of essays from a distinguished group of social scientists, ‘Religion and the State’ considers the uniquely modern frictions between politics, economics, and traditional faiths. Far from a simplistic exploration of secularisation […] The tensions of religious liberty and religious conviction are familiar, yet the authors of this volume consistently urge us to stop seeing the secular and the religious as distinct realms. […] A giant step toward greater sophistication is found through evidence provided here.’ —Gerardo Marti, ‘LSE Review of Books’ blog

‘[A]n extraordinary voyage into Anglo-European social theory and research.’ —Arthur W. Frank, ‘Canadian Journal of Sociology’

‘There is something here for everyone who wants to be au courant with the ways in which religion and the capitalist economy co-create each other, with citizens and believers both increasingly conceived as consumers. A valuable contribution to the contemporary debate on secularism and secularization.’ —John Torpey, City University of New York Graduate Center

This volume addresses a central problem of contemporary states, namely how to manage the eruption of public religions. While the liberal framework formerly regarded religion as simply a matter of private practice and conscience, in modern states religion has often come to challenge the so-called Westphalian model of church-state relations, and has brought into question many liberal notions of secularism and tolerance. There is much discussion about post-secular society in which religion has to be taken seriously in public affairs. This collection of case studies – looking at Turkey, Singapore, India, China, Britain, Europe and the United States – explores a number of examples in which the state exercises some degree of management of religion, thereby bringing into question the traditional separation of religion and state. This study also attempts to refine the notion of secularization by examining this process in terms of political arrangements (church-state relations) and the role of religion in everyday life. Ultimately, this study reveals that there is no uniform or standard pattern of secularization in modern societies.

Readership: The book will be useful to scholars and undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of sociology and political science, as well as general readers interested in the topics of religion, state and civil society.