State Church Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

A state church is a religious organization that receives official endorsement or significant financial subsidization from a government within a society. Official endorsement implies a legal statement to the effect that a specific denomination is the preferred faith of a government to the exclusion or significant limitation of all others. This may mean that other churches are not allowed to exist or proselytize within a nation or that the official state church receives significant legal, economic, or social advantages not available to alternative faiths. The heads of state churches are often appointed by state officials, and the salary of clergy are paid from public funds. In some cases, secular leaders claim to have say over official church policy and doctrine.

There are numerous reasons why governments prefer to maintain state churches and why religious leaders often yield to control of the state. From the vantage point of secular political authorities, state churches may lend religious legitimacy to secular rulers, making religious citizens more likely to comply with government policies. Political leaders often find it attractive to regulate tightly an institution that controls the creation and propagation of social values, norms, and beliefs. On the other side, leaders of a state church usually welcome the financial support of governments. In the absence of state tax support, religious organizations typically rely on voluntary contributions from parishioners. Additionally, state churches frequently enjoy protection from religious competitors as governments often will limit proselytizing activity of nonofficial churches via restrictions on property ownership, access to media, or outright bans on minority faiths.

Throughout history, state churches have been the norm. In early civilizations, shamans or priests would either be among tribal leaders or part of the ruling councils. This was common across many cultures of the world. Early Judaic history is replete with examples of state leadership being coterminous with religious leadership (e.g., King David). Christianity began its history as a minority religion under the Roman Empire, which heavily subsidized numerous pagan temples. In 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan that provided the Christian Church with funding equal to paganism. Though this edict did not technically make Christianity the official state church, the increasingly hierarchical nature of Christianity combined with a rapid drop in financial support for paganism quickly gave Christianity that status. The gradual split of Eastern Orthodox Christianity from the Roman Catholic Church did not affect the state church status of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire. Orthodox churches in Greece, Russia, and other parts of Eastern Europe became officially established in the Middle Ages. Through agreements with the Vatican, the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies made the Catholic Church the official state church in Iberia and Latin America. While the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s represented a reaction to corruption within the Catholic Church and was in part motivated by the church’s close affiliation with secular authorities, Protestant churches often were converted into state churches by various kings. State churches remained popular in the colonial British Americas even though religious dissenters had sought freedom from religious persecution by the Church of England. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans established their own religious organization as the state church in their colony. The Church of England retained official status and funding in the southern American colonies.

In Europe, a number of Protestant nations still maintain official state churches. Some nations such as Belgium and Germany provide special status and funding for multiple denominations, thus showing it is possible to maintain two or more state churches within a society. In recent years, Norway and Sweden have made movements toward disestablishing their state churches, although each church still receives significant public funding. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian government under Boris Yeltsin created an open religious marketplace where all churches received similar treatment. By 1997, however, the Russian Duma declared the Russian Orthodox Church to be the official state church and gave three other groups—Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism— privileged status.

The term state church typically refers to Christian societies, although the general concept of state control over religious organizations can be applied to societies with other faith traditions. In most nations with a Muslim majority, Islam is considered the state religion, wherein official sanction is given to the general faith tradition without an endorsement of any specific hierarchical leadership or institution. Many governments (e.g., Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia) provide substantial funding for state-favored mosques, clergy, and religious schools, but there are still Islamic clergy and mosques that exist outside of the strict control of the state. Turkey has been officially considered a secular state since 1923, although its government maintains ownership of and strict control over numerous mosques, giving these mosques a quasi-official status as state “religious institutions.”

Bibliography:

Ekelund, Robert B., Robert F. Hebert, Robert D.Tollison, Gary M. Anderson, and Audrey B. Davidson. Sacred Trust:The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Fetzer, Joel S., and J. Christopher Soper. Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Gill, Anthony. The Political Origins of Religious Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Rendering unto Caesar:The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Monsma, Stephen V., and J. Christopher Soper. The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Western Democracies, 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
Segers, Mary C., and Ted G. Jelen. A Wall of Separation? Debating the Public Role of Religion. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998.
Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Tracy, James D. Europe’s Reformations, 1450–1650. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

This example State Church Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.