Church and state
The concept of "church and state" involves the relationship and boundaries between religious institutions and governmental authority. Historically, this relationship has been complex, often intertwining religious power with political governance, particularly evident in the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, where it became the state religion by the 4th century. Over time, especially during the Reformation and Enlightenment, thinkers began advocating for a clearer separation to protect individual religious freedoms, leading to a gradual shift in policies in various countries.
In the United States, the founding principles established by figures like Thomas Jefferson emphasized the importance of separating church from state, enshrined in the First Amendment, which prohibits the formation of a state church and protects the free exercise of religion. Despite these legal foundations, the debate surrounding the separation of church and state remains deeply contentious, with differing interpretations influencing contemporary politics and societal norms. Globally, nations exhibit a range of approaches—some maintain strict separations, while others have enduring ties between religious institutions and state governance, as seen in places like Germany, France, and England. This ongoing dialogue reflects diverse cultural perspectives on the role of religion within public life.
On this Page
Church and state
The balance between church and state has long been a struggle. Although founded as an outsider religion and at first subject to persecution, Christianity quickly rose to power in the Roman Empire and was, by the 4th century, the state religion of Rome. This merging of secular and spiritual power allowed the church to wield considerable influence and grow in wealth and influence in Europe even after the fall of the Roman Empire. However, beginning with the Reformation, the church’s authority over secular matters was increasingly questioned on both spiritual and political grounds.
By the late 1700s, lawmakers, bolstered by the writings of John Locke and other thinkers, were increasingly moving to limit the overlap between church and state and in the United States, the nation’s founders expressly forbid the creation of a state church or the creation of any law that prohibited religious liberty. Yet even in the twenty-first century, the boundaries between church and state remain highly contested and the debate over separation of church and state continues.
Brief History
In many parts of the world in the twenty-first century the separation of church and government is considered an important way to safeguard a citizen’s right to participate, or not participate, in religion as he or she chooses, but for much of human history, the division between religion and politics was not as defined. In the ancient world, living in a certain geographic area often meant worshiping the god or gods of the ruler and current state or, as in the case of the Pharoahs of Egypt, even worshiping the ruler as divine.
Under the Roman Empire, tolerance for the practice of other religions varied widely by ruler. Emperor Augustus (c. 62 bce to 14 ce) allowed Jews living in Roman-controlled lands the freedom to gather and worship. When Caligula became ruler in 37 ce, however, he took away many religious liberties and fashioned himself as a divine ruler and god to be feared and worshiped by his subjects. In this unstable political-religious environment, Christianity was born and initially persecuted. Yet by 380 ce, with the signing of the Edict of Thessalonica, Nicene Christianity had grown to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, the church and its leaders grew in both power and wealth.
Over the next centuries, Europe became the setting for a number of dramatic struggles between the increasingly powerful church and the secular rulers eager to stake their claim on the continent. This also led to widespread abuse of power and in the 1500s, concerns of church corruption caused many to speak out and break away from the papacy. Among the most outspoken leaders of the Reformation, Martin Luther challenged the pope and the church’s overlap into the non-spiritual realm on theological grounds, using Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and other scripture to assert that God has actually ordained two governments, one secular and one spiritual. At the same time secular leaders were also questioning the church. Angry at Pope Clement VII, who refused to give the sovereign king an annulment, English ruler Henry XIII broke with the papal church and established his own Church of England. Henry XIII’s power play, hardly ensured more religious liberties for his subjects. Instead, the resulting persecution of those who did not adhere to Henry XIII’s new Church of England only managed to sow further seeds of discord, and by seventeenth century, many great thinkers, including John Locke, Pierre Bayle, and others were openly advocating for a clearer division between religious and secular affairs. Influenced by these thinkers, beginning in the late eighteenth century, countries began setting up barriers to separate both church and state.
Impact
Although in the twenty-first century many nations have adopted laws to prohibit the intermingling of church and state affairs, in reality secular governments and the church remain interconnected and the debate over how to balance the power and authority of the church and state continues unabated. In the United States, the concept of the separation of church and state remains a contentious issue in contemporary political debate as modern lawmakers still struggle to define the exact boundaries between the church and government imagined by the nation’s founders.
From the beginning, American lawmakers sought to protect religious liberties and prohibit the formation of a state church, and shortly after the United States gained its independence from England, Thomas Jefferson authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. This forerunner to the First Amendment helped ensure that the citizens of Virginia gained the independence to worship as they chose. Then, five years later in 1791, the Bill of Rights, building on the freedoms granted Virginians, was ratified, guaranteeing that Congress shall make "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Yet, even after the Bill of Right was signed into the law, the matter was hardly settled. In 1802 President Thomas Jefferson responded to a letter from a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, who complained that the state was infringing on their religious freedom. His response, which ensured the Danbury Baptists of "a wall of separation between Church and State" has become much cited in legal cases that help define the boundary between church and state in America.
In the twentieth century a number of landmark cases, bolstered by Jefferson's words, has further defined the separation of church and state: Among them are Engel v. Vitale in 1962, which prohibited religious instruction in public schools; Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968, which invalidated a law that prohibited the teaching of evolution; and Alleghany County v. ACLU in 1992, which ruled that a religious nativity scene inside a government building was not permitted.
Still, even with increasing plurality in the nation and Supreme Court rulings upholding the wall between church and state, many Christians in America still see the country as a fundamentally Christian nation, keeping the matter of church and state very much a part of contemporary political and church debate. For example in late 2015 after several terrorist attacks, the rights of Muslims in the United States and Europe were up for political discussion.
In Europe, once the battleground between secular and religious leadership, the separation of church and state varies considerably. In Germany, while the government is secular, taxes are still collected from the church. In France, the concept of Laïcité, requires the separation of church and state, but has been breached by government trying to limit personal expressions of faith, especially by Muslim women. In England, Henry XIII’s Church of England remains tied to the monarchy and church bishops retain seats in the House of Lords, a branch of Parliament.
Bibliography
Althaus, Paul. The Ethics of Martin Luther. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress P, 1972. Print.
Butz, David A., and Jayson D. Carvalho. "Examining the Psychological Separation of Church and State: The American–Christian Effect." Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 7.2 (2015): 109. Print.
Cavanaugh, William T. Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. Print.
Curry, Thomas J. C. The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.
Hanson, Eric O. The Catholic Church in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014. Print.
Hopkins, Carmen Teeple. "Social Reproduction in France: Religious Dress Laws and Laïcité." Women’s Studies International Forum 48 (2015). Print.
Lambert, Frank. The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print.
Marshall, John. John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.
Sorauf, Frank Joseph. The Wall of Separation: The Constitutional Politics of Church and State. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015. Print.
Winterling, Aloys. Caligula: A Biography. Berkeley: U of California P, 2011. Print.
Witte, John, and Joel A. Nichols. Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment. Boulder: Westview, 2011. Print.