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A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.[1] A secular state also claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion, and claims to avoid preferential treatment for a citizen from a particular religion/nonreligion over other religions/nonreligion. Most often it has no state religion or equivalent.
A secular state is defined as protecting freedom of religion as pursued in state secularism. It is also described to be a state that prevents religion from interfering with state affairs, and prevents religion from controlling government or exercising political power. Laws protect each individual including religious minorities from discrimination on the basis of religion.
A secular state is not an atheistic state (e.g. Albania under Enver Hoxha), in which the state officially opposes all religious beliefs and practices. In some secular states, there can be a huge majority religion in the population (e.g. Thailand, Turkey, etc.) and in others there may be great religious diversity (e.g. India, Lebanon, etc.). Some may have de facto official religions, in which even though a government doesn't support or deny religion, it may require some members of its government to be a certain religion (e.g. Indonesia, Peru).
Secular states become secular either upon establishment of the state or upon secularization of the state (e.g. France). Movements for laïcité in France and for the separation of church and state in the United States began the evolution of the present secular states. Historically, the process of secularizing states typically involves granting religious freedom, disestablishing state religions, stopping public funds to be used for a religion, freeing the legal system from religious control, opening up the education system, tolerating citizens who change religion, and allowing political leadership to come to power regardless of religious beliefs.[2] Public holidays that were originally religious holidays and other traditions are not necessarily affected, and public institutions become safe from being used and abused by religion.
Not all legally secular states are completely secular in practice. In France for example, many Christian holy days are official holidays for the public administration, and teachers in Catholic schools are salaried by the state.[3] In India, the government gives subsidy in airfare for Muslims going on Haj pilgrimage(See Haj subsidy).In 2007, the government had to spend Rs. 47,454 per passenger.[4]
Many states that nowadays are secular in practice may have legal vestiges of an earlier established religion. Secularism also has various guises which may coincide with some degree of official religiosity. Thus, in the Commonwealth Realms, the head of state is required to take the Coronation Oath[5] swearing to uphold the Protestant faith. The United Kingdom also maintains positions in its upper house for 26 senior clergymen of the established Church of England known as the Lords Spiritual (spiritual peers).[6] The reverse progression can also occur, a state can go from being secular to a religious state as in the case of Iran where the secularized state of the Pahlavi dynasts was replaced by the Islamic Republic (list below). Since at one time all states had official religions and the situation has largely been reversed over the last 250 years, it may be concluded that there was a trend towards secularism in the modern period.[7][8][9]
Secular states and religious freedom[]
A secular constitution does not ensure religious freedom.[10] Religious states are "not the only or necessarily the worst violators of religious freedom".[11] Secular states can be as or more repressive than religious states.[11] Indeed, it is both the extremely religious and the extremely secular states which are the most oppressive, and because of this a "secular" state should not be presumed to entail religious freedom or tolerance.[11]
It is not only the communist or former communist countries which engage in the secular repression of religion.[11] Turkey, a secular state which purports to guarantee freedom of conscience, aggressively promotes secularism, favoring secular views over religion and controlling all aspects of religious practice.[12] Mexico, also a secular state, has, especially since it's 1917 Constitution a history of anticlerical religious oppression.[12] Churches could not engage in worship outside of a church building, own property, sue or defend itself in a suit, or engage in education; religious orders were outlawed, priests deprived of political speech and the right to vote.[12] Many of these restrictions were removed, but many remain, including limitations on the rights of freedom of speech.[12]
With regard to oppression by secular states, scholars have distinguished between what are sometimes called "friendly" and "hostile" separations of church and state.[13] The friendly type limits the interference of the church in matters of the state but also limits the interference of the state in church matters.[14] The hostile variety, by contrast, seeks to confine religion purely to the home or church and limits religious education, religious rites of passage and public displays of faith.[15]
The hostile model of militant secularism arose with the French Revolution and is typified in the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Constitution of 1931.[15][16] The hostile model exhibited during these events can be seen as approaching the type of political religion seen in totalitarian states.[15]
The French separation of 1905 and the Spanish separation of 1931 have been characterized as the two most hostile of the twentieth century, although the current schemes in those countries are considered generally friendly.[17] France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, however, still considers the current scheme a "negative laicite" and wants to develop a "positive laicite" more open to religion.[18] The hostilities of the state toward religion have been seen as a cause of civil war in Spain[19] and Mexico.
The French philosopher and a drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Jacques Maritain, noted the distinction between the models of secularism found in France and in the mid-twentieth century United States. He considered the U.S. model of that time to be more amicable, because it had both "sharp distinction and actual cooperation" between church and state, what he called "an historical treasure", and he admonished the United States: "Please to God that you keep it carefully, and do not let your concept of separation veer round to the European one."[20]
List by continent[]
Africa[]
Americas[]
Asia[]
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Europe[]Secular states map
Oceania[] |
Former secular states[]
- Template:Flag (1947-1956) After enforcement of 1956 constitution Islam was instituted as the state religion.
- Template:Flag - Proclaimed a secular republic upon independence in 1971, President Hossain Ershad instituted Islam as state religion by the eighth amendment to the constitution (passed in June 1988), citing the need to do so to combat any rise in fundamentalist and/or extremist militant movements.
- Template:Flag - Became a secular state in 1925 after Reza Pahlavi was installed as Shah. Islam was re-instituted as the state religion in December 1979 following the adoption of a new constitution.
- Template:Flag (Chapter 1, Article 2 of the 2005 Constitution, constitution is subject to review by the Constitutional Review Committee and a possible public referendum in 2007)
- Template:Flag (1960-2007) Constitution with "laïc" removed
See also[]
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Look up secular in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Civil religion
- Laïcité
- Religious police
- Secular education
- Secularism
- State atheism
- State religion
- Theocracy
Notes[]
- ↑ Madeley, John T. S. and Zsolt Enyedi, Church and state in contemporary Europe: the chimera of neutrality, p. , 2003 Routledge
- ↑ Jean Baubérot The secular principle
- ↑ Richard Teese, Private Schools in France: Evolution of a System, Comparative Education Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (May, 1986), pp. 247-259 (English)
- ↑ http://www.financialexpress.com/news/haj-subsidy-has-air-india-fuming/360651/0
- ↑ Coronation Oath
- ↑ Different types of Lords
- ↑ Harris Interactive | News Room - Religious views and beliefs vary greatly by country, according to the latest Financial Times/Harris poll
- ↑ Summary of Findings: A Portrait of "Generation Next"
- ↑ Secularization and Secularism - History and nature of secularization and secularism till 1914
- ↑ Marshall, Paul A. Religious freedom in the world, p. 13, 2007 Rowman & Littlefield
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Marshall, Paul A. Religious freedom in the world, p. 16, 2007 Rowman & Littlefield
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Marshall, Paul A. Religious freedom in the world, p. 14, 2007 Rowman & Littlefield
- ↑ Maier, Hans and Jodi Bruhn Totalitarianism and Political Religions, pp. 109 2004 Routledge
- ↑ Op. cit.Maier & Bruhn 2004, p. 110
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Op. cit.Maier & Bruhn 2004, p. 111
- ↑ Martinez-Torron, Javier Freedom of religion in the case law of the Spanish Constitutional court, p. 2, Brigham Young University Law Review 2001
- ↑ Stepan, Alfred, Arguing Comparative Politics, p. 221, Oxford University Press
- ↑ Beita, Peter B. French President's religious mixing riles critics Christianity Today, Jan. 23, 2008
- ↑ Payne, Stanley G. , A History of Spain and Portugal, Vol. 2, Ch. 25: The Second Spanish Republic , p. 632, (Print Edition: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973) (Library of Iberian Resources Online, Accessed July 11, 2009)
- ↑ Carson, D. A. Christ And Culture Revisited, p. 189, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008
- ↑ Article 8 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 2 of Constitution
- ↑ Botswana - International Religious Freedom Report 2007
- ↑ Leaders say Botswana is a secular state
- ↑ Article 31 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Preamble of Constitution
- ↑ Article 48 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 11 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 2 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 14 of Constitution
- ↑ Preamble of Constitution
- ↑ Articles 10, 14, 19 and 21 of Constitution
- ↑ Senegal - International Religious Freedom Report 2007
- ↑ Appendix 1: Draft Constitution for the Republic of Somalia
- ↑ South Africa - International Religious Freedom Report 2007
- ↑ Article 19 of Constitution
- ↑ Section Two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
- ↑ Article 8 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 77 of the Constitution
- ↑ Summary Honduras Constitutions (English)
- ↑ Article 130 of Constitution
- ↑ Article II of Constitution Sección 3
- ↑ Amendment I of 1791
- ↑ Article 36 of Constitution
- ↑ Preamble of Constitution
- ↑ Article 20 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 20 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ Religious Intelligence - News - Nepal moves to become a secular republic
- ↑ Article 2, Section 6 of Constitution
- ↑ Section 38 of Constitution
- ↑ Статья 11
- ↑ Article 11 of the Constitution
- ↑ Article 2 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 70 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 7 of Constitution
- ↑ Articles 7 and 14 of Constitution
- ↑ Articles 7.1 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 20 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms
- ↑ Article 40 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 2 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 140 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 60 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 99 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 29 of the Constitution, Article 9(1) of Law 489/2006 on Religious Freedom
- ↑ Article 14 of Constitution
- ↑ Article 11 of the Constitution
- ↑ Article 1 of Constitution
- ↑ The Swedish head of state must according to the Swedish Act of Succession adhere to the Augsburg Confession
- ↑ Section 116 of Constitution
- ↑ Section IV Article 2 of Constitution
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