Religion and the State

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

Deconstructing the justifications currently heard in Israel for sex-segregated events in public space and in public institutions, like universities; exposing their speciousness and misogyny; and their role as the fore guard in a larger agenda of imposing theocracy in Israel.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/substitute-jew/

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.

An Op Ed against sex-segregation in Israeli universities, which some elements are advocating, ostensibly, in order to entice haredi (fundamentalist, ultra-Orthodox), men, in particular, who receive no basic secular education, to university study. Such a policy would inevitably and necessarily discriminate against women and subvert the fundamental purpose and mission of the university

No gender apartheid in Israeli universities - Opinion - Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-gender-apartheid-in-Israeli-universities-588216

An Open Letter to a serious contender for Prime Minister of Israel about the deal for the Kotel-- the Western Wall-- in Jerusalem,  a sacred Jewish national site. The particulars of the deal have been suppressed and/or misrepresented; the deal is not the progressive solution it has been touted to be. On the contrary; it would strengthen regressive, theocratic forces in Israel. There are far better alternatives.

Here is the link to the piece:


An open letter to Benny Gantz - Opinion - Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/An-open-letter-to-Benny-Gantz-579911

An analysis of the threat to constitutional democracy and the priniciple of equal rights posed by the ultra-Orthodo religious establishment in Israel, and the danger of dismissing this threat as only of marginal concern; or concerning only marginal, religious issues.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-haredi-establishments-threat-to-constitutional-democracy-and-equal-rights-no-marginal-issue/ .