Mark Movsesian has a long piece in the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion analyzing the conditions under which religious symbols can be displayed in public settings. Recognizing that this is, in the words of NYU law professor Joseph Weiler, a “debate that won’t go away” in either Europe or the United States, Movsesian argues that rival conceptions of what constitutes “neutrality” form the real hinge of the debate. These definitions are are primarily backed up by cultural traditions:
The different conceptions of neutrality reflect institutional and cultural realities. Institutionally, the Supreme Court’s status as a constitutional court allows it to adopt a stricter version of neutrality than the [European Court of Human Rights], which must accommodate a variety of national church-state arrangements, including establishments. Culturally, the Supreme Court’s conception of neutrality reflects what sociologists of religion refer to as the American model, which sees churches as voluntary associations that must compete in a free religious market.
The American model rejects government expressions of support for particular churches as inappropriate market distortions. In contrast, the ECtHR’s thinner conception of neutrality comports with what sociologists refer to as the European model. National religious cultures in Europe vary, of course, but important similarities exist that allow one to speak in terms of a common model, including the tendency to see churches, not as ‘competing firms’, but as ‘public utilities’ that provide a kind of religious infrastructure for the nation as a whole. Although the European model rejects outright state indoctrination, it accepts what the American model would forbid as impermissible symbolic endorsements of the dominant local church.
Read his full article here.
June 17th, 2012 | 1:57 pm
An excellent article
The “public utility” model certainly applies to the European countries I know best, Scotland, England and France, despite their institutional differences.
In England and Scotland, where the Catholic Church has traditionally been a minority faith, Catholics have largely adopted the “Congregational” model. As a Catholic Scot, educated in England, I remember being very struck by the way a French priest will speak of having, say, 6,000 parishioners, when he has a regular congregation of, perhaps, 300.
June 18th, 2012 | 3:16 am
Mr. Movsesian takes an interesting view when analyzing the differences between American and European approaches to church and state affairs. I find his almost economic terminology such as “free religious market” and “competing firms” or “public utilities” to be somewhat similar to the ideas presented by British Historian Niall Ferguson in his book (and documentary) Civilization: The West and the Rest. I certainly have a very difficult time agreeing with some of Ferguson’s conclusions. For example, he makes the argument that the reason why church attendance has declined in Europe while remaining relatively stable in the United States is because, “The reformation in Europe became nationalized which led to ‘state monopoly churches’ (like the Church of England.) The United States by contrast has maintained a separation of church and State, thus leading to competition between various churches.” In other words, Ferguson is arguing that, “in religion as in business, state monopolies are inefficient.” This explanation for the decline of church attendance in Europe is a bit too ‘worldly’ and ‘temporal’ for my taste. I also think that it is a difficult explanation to reconcile with the widespread church attendance that Europe experienced during the High Middle Ages, when both the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the secular rulers had quite a “monopoly” on religious practice. But, perhaps I’m misunderstanding or misinterpreting something that Ferguson said.
Ferguson also, at times, repeats what I would consider to be common misconceptions about the
differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. He says very uncritically that, “Until the
Reformation, Christian religious devotion had been seen as something distinct from the material
affairs of the world. Monks in cloisters and hermits in caves were the norm. But the protestants
were different. For them, thrift and industry could be a new reflection of hard working holiness.”
While there is obviously a certain level of truth to this statement, I can’t help but feel that it is an
oversimplification. Ferguson seems to lack knowledge or understanding of St. Ignatius Loyola’s
spirituality of “finding God in all places [including at work]” or of Aquinas’s reflection on
Rom. 1:18 where he writes, “As long as man is acting in his heart, speech, or work in such a
manner that he is tending toward God, he is praying; and thus one who is directing his whole life
toward God is praying always.” As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen stated, “There is no work
in the world that cannot be sanctified.”
A final criticism that I have of Ferguson is his statement that, “Wherever Protestant missionaries
went, they promoted literacy, with measurable long-term benefits to the societies they sought to
educate; the same cannot be said of Catholic missionaries prior to Vatican II.” An old example of
Catholic missionaries using literacy to spread the faith to the people that I can think of is the case
of Saints Cyril and Methodius who were sent to preach to the Slavs of Great Moravia
(encompassing much of present day Central Europe). The two Saints, according to tradition, invented the Glagolitic alphabet (the oldest known Slavic alphabet) to be used to teach the Slavs the Bible and the teachings of the early church fathers, as well as to transcribe the local civil and legal codes. They also received special permission from the pope to pray the Mass and to baptize entirely in the local Slavic tongue so that the people would better understand. Finally, they established the Great Moravian Academy to teach the new system of writing.
I have probably gone very much off topic from the original intention of this post so I’ll simply suggest that, although Ferguson’s ideas are debatable, he still presents some fascinating material in understanding the relationship between religion, economics, and politics in the west. That, I believe, contributes much to what Mr. Movsesian covers in his writings.
Links to Dr. Ferguson’s book and the PBS documentary:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1846142733/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_1
and http://www.pbs.org/wnet/civilization-west-and-rest/
June 18th, 2012 | 1:27 pm
GAZokal12
It is hardly surprising that church attendance was high, when ecclesiastical censures, backed up with the threat of civil penalties for the recalcitrant, were used to enforce church attendance.
From the mid-seventeenth century, in most of Europe, enforcement, which had passed into the hands of the civil authorities, tended to be used selectively, to identify and penalise dissenters. In England, the debates around the Occasional Conformity Act of 1711 (repealed in 1719) are very instructive.
June 19th, 2012 | 9:47 am
Michael PS,
Thank you for mentioning the Occasional Conformity Act of 1711. I will have to look it up and read more about it.
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