Jonathan Fox on Religion & State Around the World

tonygill — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:00:57 +0000

Research on Religion is pleased to welcome our first guest from outside the United States. Prof. Jonathan Fox of Bar Ilan University in Israel joins us to discuss the research findings from his Religion & State Project, which has not only proven to be of enormous benefit to scholars worldwide in terms of the data that has been collected, but has produced a vast literature on the relationship between government and religious institutions. Prof. Fox tells us how the project came about and what it has been involved in over the past decade. We then delve into the nature of religion-state relations, a term that is applied more broadly than “church-state relations” since Jonathan’s project encompasses all of the major faith traditions around the globe. We talk about definitional issues surrounding religious liberty and religious freedom, and differentiate this from the concept of “separation of religion and state.” We note that religious liberty and/or separation of religion and state is not just some dichotomous switch that one can turn on or off, but rather encompasses a number of different policies and decisions about what types of activities are permissible in society. Jonathan illustrates this with references to Baal, wiccans in San Francisco, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Prof. Fox then reviews the various broad patterns of religion-state relations including the separationist, neutrality, and laicism (or “laicite” in French) models. The U.S. is one of the few examples worldwide of the “separationist” model, and Jonathan points out how most of (secular) Europe tends to either have state-supported churches, state-favored churches, works on the “neutrality” model or — as in the case of France — tries to limit religious expression from the public sphere as much as possible. We then review some of the non-constitutional means whereby governments regulate religious minorities, including definitional issues of what constitutes a religion, what constitutes “hateful” religious speech, and even non-application of laws on the books. Tony provides some examples from Latin America based on his own prior research. The conversation then veers in a different direction to examine how religious beliefs and organizations influence the political landscape of their respective countries. Prof. Fox works through several categories in how this occurs in terms of conditioning worldviews, providing legitimacy, and organizing through religious institutions. The issue of worldviews is illustrated via how the European and Arab world diverged on their perspectives on the role of religion in politics following the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), wherein the Europeans removed religion from the realm of politics, and the Holy Roman Empire’s defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna (1683), which began several centuries of Europe’s dominance over Arab Muslim territory. Jonathan also notes that it is not just a clash of religious worldviews that determines political outcomes, but a clash between religious and secular worldviews that has become a factor in our world as of late. We then turn to the issue of legitimacy with Prof. Fox providing a very relevant analogy to explain the concept using the often familiar issue of trying to parent children. This discussion of how religions can legitimate governments opens the door for Jonathan to mention Tony’s first book, Rendering Unto Caesar, and Tony provides an example for how religious organizations can actually harm themselves by legitimating clearly unpopular governments. A bit of discussion of Turkmenistan and North Korea also ensues. We finish up with Jonathan’s thoughts on how religious organizations are ideally suited for mobilizing collective political action and his thoughts on what he has learned over the past decade working with his Religion & State Project. Recorded: July 22, 2012.

Ahmet Kuru on Islam in Europe

tonygill — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:00:40 +0000

How is contemporary Europe adjusting to the growing presence of Muslim immigrants and their second and third generation progeny? Prof. Ahmet Kuru — assistant professor of political science at San Diego State University — joins Tony to discuss the origins and demographic composition of Muslim immigration in post-WWII Europe. We primarily focus our discussion on France, Great Britain and Germany, though the responses of other countries are mentioned as well. Prof. Kuru notes how the demand for labor in the post-war era, combined with differering colonial legacies, shaped the issues surrounding the accomodation of Muslim immigrants in different parts of Europe. While Great Britain made citizenship for immigrants easy based on whether an immigrant came from a former colony, countries such as Germany made citizenship more difficult and existed under the expectation that immigrants would eventually return to their place of origin. Our discussion covers Prof. Kuru’s research on assertive secularism, wherein nations (e.g., France) intentionally seek to remove religion from the public sphere (though the implementation of such policies is not always consistent). We cover the recent ban on the Muslim headscarf (hijab) and oher controversies such as mosque construction and funding for religious education. We close out our discussion with a discussion of how religious policy is changing in Turkey and how that relates to the European situation, and why Muslims in the United States have found it esier to accomodate to the cultural and political landscape than in Europe. Recorded: February 7, 2011.

Research On Religion » headscarf ban

Jonathan Fox on Religion & State Around the World

Ahmet Kuru on Islam in Europe