Separation of Chruch and State

September 4, 2005

What is seperation of church and state?

Let's look at the First Ammendment in the US Constitution.

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yet issues of seperation of church and state go well beyond the borders of the US.

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In the East in the 6th cent., Justinian was ruler of church and state equally, and thereafter the Orthodox Eastern Church in the Byzantine Empire was in confirmed subservience to the state. This domination of state over church is called Erastianism, after the theologian Erastus.

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In Russia the Orthodox Church was quite dominated by the state. In the former Soviet Union, especially in its early period, the Communist party fostered much antireligious propaganda, and a large percentage of the churches were closed. The Constitution of 1936, however, guaranteed freedom of religious worship, and the Russian Orthodox Church was subsequently revived. In 1944 two state-controlled councils were established to supervise religion; one regulated the affairs of the Russian Church, the other those of the other Christian denominations and of the Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist groups. Similar systems of state control also existed in many other Communist countries.

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After A.D. 400 there was no central power in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power, the see of Rome, which had claimed primacy from the earliest times. The barbarian invasions and the ensuing anarchy resulted in a tremendous growth in the power of the papacy.

With the appearance of strong political powers in Europe, particularly the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of France, a struggle began between the papacy and the temporal rulers. The principal contention was over investiture, but underlying it was violent disagreement as to the proper distribution of power; theories ranged from the belief that emperor or king, as ruler by divine right, should control church as well as state (a theory known also as caesaropapism) to the belief that the pope, as vicar of God on earth, should have the right of supervision over the state

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The most extreme form of Erastianism is seen in the Church of England (see England, Church of), of which the monarch is supreme head. This situation derives from the strongly political character of the Protestant Reformation in England.

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John Calvin tended to a view directly opposed to that of the reforming English monarchs; in Geneva he set up a virtual theocracy with the state subordinate to the church.

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The American idea of separation of church and state—complete noninterference on both sides—expressed notably in Jefferson's Virginia statute for religious freedom and in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, emerged.

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In Europe, the concept of separation of church and state is different from that in the United States, particularly in predominantly Roman Catholic countries. The wars of the Reformation produced, in the Peace of Augsburg (1555), a formula of cuius regio, eius religio [whose the region, his the religion], by which the ruling prince determined the religion of his territory. The compromise, curiously contrary to the idea of a universal Christian church, even more curiously corresponded to the principle practiced in Asia (e.g., the Buddhism of Asoka). It more or less prevailed in Europe after the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Religion thus in a certain sense became a national affair, particularly in Protestant countries.

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In the Roman Catholic countries of Latin America the contests between church and state were often bitter, particularly in Mexico, where the church wielded an enormous influence. This struggle led under Plutarco E. Calles to the practical abolition of the church in Mexico and the harrying of priests in the 1920s. Adjustments since that time have tended to an approximation of the complete noninterference rule prevalent in the United States.

September 4, 2005

From the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law 1996:

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[:"red"] Separation of Church and State: The separation of religion and government mandated under the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the U.S. Constitution that forbids governmental establishment or preference of a religion and that preserves religious freedom from governmental intrusion [/]

September 4, 2005

Some believe the following are violations of seperation of church and state:

Tax-exempt status for churches
Any government funding of religious institutions (pell grants, GI Bill, research grants, etc.)
Clergy being allowed to perform marriages
Govenment paid chaplins
Public prayers in Congress

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Separation of Chruch and State

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