It has served us well, this myth of Christ. attributed to Pope Leo X (1513-21)
Until quite recently, the authority of the state and the authority of the church were closely connected. Monarchs were understood to rule by divine right, and religious leaders enjoyed significant influence over political decisions. After the religious wars of the Counter-Reformation, however, the question of the separation of church and state authority became more urgent and philosophers began to examine the assumptions that supported the status quo.
At the heart of the problem was the notion of an established church. Establishment brought with it certain privileges and prerogatives that varied from state to state: an exclusive right to practise its faith; a role in political institutions and appointments; financial support through taxation; and so on. Because of these structures the church was deeply involved in political decisions and its interests, rather than the interests of the state, became policy. At other times the interests of the monarch and the church dramatically clashed – an example is Henry VIII and his establishment of the Church of England free from papal authority – setting in motion the secular thinking that would lead ultimately to a complete separation of church and state. This has now become the standard liberal position: political authority in the modern West is based on the consent of the people rather than divine right, and all forms of establishment are generally viewed with suspicion.
The formal separation of church and state is intended to prevent discrimination by faith, to protect freedom of conscience and to ensure that political decisions (such as involvement in war) are taken for secular and not religious reasons. It is generally assumed that any state should be neutral on matters of belief – a position known as secularism (or in France, laïcité). But this neutrality is sometimes difficult to achieve. A recent law passed in France in 2004 bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. This is an explicit application of the principle of laïcité but the effects are far-reaching and may be considered anything but neutral. For instance, the law has widely been understood to target Islamic headscarves and veils: since the wearing of such religious clothing is an obligation, then it may be seen as prohibiting an expression of faith. Such questions about the practical meaning of neutrality arise whenever a government legislates against the interests of a religious group: by allowing shops to open on a Sunday, or legalising abortion, or investing in casinos. In these cases, religious objections have no legal force and the ‘neutrality’ of the state appears to actively disadvantage certain religious groups. Some thinkers distinguish between the neutrality of justification (not allowing religious interests to determine policy) and the neutrality of effect. In the case of the French headscarf ban, the justification is entirely secular and thus neutral, but the effect is more complex.
In some parts of the world this separation between civil and religious authority is not so strictly observed. Saudi Arabia and Iran both recognise Sharia or Islamic sacred law: legislative questions are deferred to religious, rather than political, authorities. Other Muslim countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia place ultimate authority in their secular constitutions: laws are made by politicians and jurists, not religious scholars, but the spirit of the law is strongly influenced by Sharia. Israel operates a mixed legal system, relying mostly on English common law but allowing Talmudic Law to influence civil matters like marriage and divorce.
Even in Europe, some modern conservatives argue for a strong established church on the grounds that shared forms of worship help to provide social cohesion and a sense of civic identity. This, of course, involves privileging one creed over another and would therefore have repercussions in an increasingly multicultural society.
The question of secular and religious authority has become more acute as nations have become more multicultural. Different faiths are subject to the same state laws; individuals may be affected by more than one cultural tradition; and a wide range of religious claims compete for political influence. A great deal of philosophical activity has been devoted to searching for the correct political response to this increasing diversity.
Modern thinking on questions of toleration and diversity really begins after the religious conflicts of the seventeenth century. On one side of the debate is Thomas Hobbes who argued that religious pluralism leads to political instability and therefore all questions of religious worship should be determined by the monarch:
It belongeth therefore to him that hath the sovereign power to be judge, or constitute all judges of opinions and doctrines, as a thing necessary to peace, thereby to prevent discord and civil war. Leviathan xviii 6
On the other hand, John Locke argued for the rights of different religious groups to co-exist and pursue their own practices insofar as they do not interfere with the rights of others. On the grounds that beliefs cannot be coerced, and that a wide range of faiths will prevent any one faith from becoming dominant, Locke insisted on a clear distinction between the political and religious spheres:
I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. Letter Concerning Toleration
Interestingly, Locke’s tolerance did not extend to atheists or Catholics: the former because they are subject to no divine law at all, and the latter because their allegiance is to a foreign power (the Pope). Neither party could therefore be trusted to contribute peacefully to society.
In the modern West, Locke’s general principle of toleration of religious belief has become the norm. Nevertheless, politicians continually face challenges from religious practice, whenever such practice comes into conflict with the obligations of government. Such challenges include religious calls to violent action; pacifist attitudes to military service; conspicuously religious dress; and the question of which values should be taught in schools – usually crystallising in the USA around the competing claims of evolution and intelligent design. The extent to which a government should tolerate such practices, and the grounds of a state’s authority to suppress them, are unclear.
A poignant illustration of this stems from the refusal of certain groups to accept medical treatment. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject blood transfusions and some Christian Scientists prefer prayer to drugs or surgery. It is not uncommon for a child from one of these religious communities to need emergency medical procedures, although the child’s parents may – as a point of faith – refuse such procedures. This gives rise to a conflict between the obligation of the state to protect its citizens, and the rights of the individual to practise a particular faith. These rights seem to include the freedom for parents to raise their children according to their own values, but in such a situation respecting this freedom will lead to the child’s deterioration or even death.
More generally, we can ask whether a person’s religious obligations outweigh their civic obligations – a question that was explored by Sophocles in his play Antigone. Antigone lost her brother in a civil war, and when the victorious government prohibited the burial of her brother’s corpse, she was faced with a choice between her secular and religious beliefs: obedience to the state or to her conscience. Since modern political authority is based on the consent of the people, it might seem that matters of conscience should outweigh matters of common law. But for the state to have any authority at all, it must override individual considerations in many cases. Given the ultimate concerns of religious faiths, such conflicts are particularly delicate. While the wishes of a sick child’s parents deserve respect, many would feel that saving the child’s life through a transfusion or surgery is serving the greater good.
It can be difficult to know what it means to ‘respect’ the beliefs of another group, if you think those beliefs are absolutely wrong. When different faiths clash, it is uncertain how far any one group should go to defend what it believes in the face of disagreement.
Multiculturalism raises an interesting epistemological question. Wherever different faiths coexist and are treated as equally valid forms of life, a multiculturalist perspective must understand their claims of truth as relative: each different faith is based on ‘truths’ that are the product of its particular culture and history, and thus no one faith should seek to impose itself on people from another background. But for each individual faith, the truth of their claims is absolute: Jesus was the son of God, the dead will rise to be judged. These absolute claims to truth are undermined and significantly weakened by the multiculturalist perspective.
With so many faiths available around the world, it seems clear that (in an absolute sense) they cannot all be telling the truth. How to understand and interpret diverse religious claims is a philosophically complex task. However, it seems that we have two choices: we must either acknowledge only one religion as true, or accept conflicting revelations as equally valid.
Exclusivist approaches insist that salvation can be found only in one faith and that other religions offer a false path. Such a position is plausible in the face of competing claims of truth or statements made in scripture which contradict the claims of other faiths. Of course, this does not entail hostility: other religions may have moral or aesthetic value and their believers may be sincere, but the exclusivist will nevertheless insist that salvation can only be reached one way. But there are problems with this position. Many do not have access to a particular message, for example those born before the birth of Christ or Mohammed; and all of us seem to a degree determined in our faith by the circumstances of our birth. Many theologians have felt that God is unlikely to reveal himself in only one cultural dress, and then condemn sincere believers unlucky enough to be born far away. In this sense, exclusivism seems chauvinistic and unforgiving, despite its appeal to a straightforward realism about truth.
Pluralist approaches, on the other hand, insist that there are many legitimate paths to salvation. The problem of competing claims of truth is resolved by appeal to a higher reality: conflicting claims are partial expressions of this higher truth which may be common to many religious traditions. Pluralists therefore place more emphasis on practice than on doctrine, and religious concepts are construed as metaphors that reflect our own local values projected onto the supernatural. In so far as religious discourse describes our experience of God, this seems uncontroversial. But differences between religions arise precisely because of disagreements about the nature of God and the higher reality, and this presents a challenge to the pluralist. If we do not know God’s true nature (because our understanding is local and metaphorical) then we simply cannot evaluate the truth of any religious claims; however, if we do have some knowledge of God’s nature, then we can evaluate these claims and some will be wrong. Since it is in the nature of religion to insist on a privileged understanding of God’s nature, it seems that each religion must be properly exclusivist, offering a specific type of salvation not available elsewhere.
One important area of enquiry into religious beliefs is their impact on gender issues, specifically the role of faith in contributing to sexism in society. Feminist analysis of religion has generally portrayed it as a patriarchal discourse which uses masculine ideas and symbols to reinforce a gender hierarchy.
Although there have been female deities in world religions, notably in the Egyptian and Greco-Roman belief systems, the monotheist tradition posits a God that is masculine. This is often claimed to be a metaphor: despite Jesus’ incarnation, God is not male in a reproductive sense but rather transcends gender. However, to use ‘He’ or ‘Him’ in this way is to elevate the masculine to the universal, and hence define the feminine as different or secondary. In the Abrahamic religions, God is stubbornly male: witness the titles of Lord, Father, King and so on. This embedded masculinity means that these religions speak less clearly to the needs of female worshippers. The role of women in the Bible also tends to reinforce this. Eve, for instance, was created from Adam’s rib as a companion and helper to her mate; examples of women allotted significant and positive roles, such as the Virgin Mary, are few.
There is also considerable controversy about the ordination of women in several churches. In fact, female leadership of any sort in religious institutions is relatively rare: Ellen Gould White and Mary Baker Eddy are notable exceptions to this. Since all major religions to some degree prescribe the role of women and endorse a traditional understanding of marriage and sexuality, many women have come to feel that their concerns are not adequately addressed by existing religions. As a result, feminist theologies (thealogies) like Wicca and the Goddess movement have arisen to meet these concerns.
One area of particular interest is the role of women in Islam. Distinction between the genders is deeply embedded in Islamic scripture, and Sharia law accords different rights and obligations to men and to women. These include matters such as the right to personal possessions, inheritance, dress code (the hijab), employment, marital rights, the status of legal testimony and so on. Laws regarding rape, and the advocacy of honour killings, are disputed by scholars. These asymmetries have been offered as evidence of gender apartheid in Islam; others see such practices instead as a product of society and unconnected to the essence of Islam.
Despite the almost universal separation of church and state in the modern West, religious claims continue to affect our understanding of ourselves as political creatures – particularly on issues of race, culture and gender. There is, as yet, no real consensus on the role of religion in political decision-making. As society becomes increasingly multicultural, and in light of the growing confrontation between religious fundamentalism and liberal democracy, it seems clear that religion will continue to be an important political phenomenon.