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Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions explores four instances of democratic governments becoming intertwined with religious matters: when the U.K. Supreme Court forced a government-funded faith school (the British JFS School) to change its admission policies; when The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Catholic Church could dismiss religion teachers in Spanish public schools; when the Italian government upheld mandatory crucifixes in all public school classrooms; and the Bladensburg World War I Memorial (the Peace Cross) case in Maryland, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross's public placement did not violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Method, Concepts, and Bottom-Up Research
- Chapter 2: Immunity, Government Funded Religious Associations, and Non-discrimination Rules: Examining the JFS and the Martinez Cases
- Chapter 3: Hegemonic Religions, Public Spaces, and Established churches
- Chapter 4: Entanglement of Faith and Government: Institutional Lessons from a Casuistic Research
- Conclusion
About the author
Nahshon Perez is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. His books include: Governing the Sacred: Political Toleration in Five Contested Sacred Sites and Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites, both with Oxford University Press (co-authored with Y. Jobani).
Summary
The institutional entanglement of religion and government takes many forms, including direct governmental funding of religious associations, legal recognition, and governmental endorsement of religious symbols in public spaces. The entanglement of church and state remains contentious in many democratic countries today. In fact, in Europe and North America, there are a growing number of instances of governments becoming entwined with religious matters.
Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions explores the entanglement of religion and government in a comparative analysis of four cases within democratic countries: the British Jewish Free School (JFS) case, in which the U.K. Supreme Court forced a government-funded faith school to change its admission policies; The European Court of Human Rights decision in Martinez, in which the Catholic church kept its right to dismiss religion teachers within the Spanish public school system; The Lautsi case, in which the Italian government successfully defended its policy of mandating a crucifix in all public school classrooms - at the European Court of Human Rights; and the case of the Bladensburg World War I Memorial (often called the Peace Cross) in Maryland, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross's public placement and maintenance funding does not violate the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment. Perez describes how these cases create complex, hybrid religious-statist institutions and outlines a novel framework for understanding these cases.
Additional text
This is a fascinating book that contributes to the study of comparative law and religion. It blends political theory and empirical social science in a novel and intriguing way. Erudite yet accessible, analytically sharp, systematically delivered, and impressive in detail, it deserves a wide readership among scholars of religion and politics, international law, comparative politics, and anyone interested in the scientific study of religion.
