A Collapsing Separation of Church and State: Religion's Influence on Politics

The separation of church and state is very relevant in American culture, given that one of the primary reasons America was founded was for religious freedoms.

At the time, the government of the British Empire hindered this freedom, and that hindrance proved to have extreme results. "Some 30,000 English Puritans migrated to New England, while Maryland became a refuge for Roman Catholics and Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Rhode Island, havens for Quakers... to say nothing of religions minorities from continental Europe, including Huguenots and members of the Dutch and German Reformed churches" (European Colonization North of Mexico).

There surely was no doubt in the minds of those settlers, as they crossed the Atlantic, that the citizens of any state are safer and happier when that state can make no laws regarding religious legality. They "were spared the incompetence and brutality of some other European empires, such as the Belgian and Portuguese empires" (British Empire). A war of independence was unavoidable however, as history proved, and they had to fight to protect the religious freedoms they claimed. People have many different ideas about what defines religious freedom.

In a democracy like America, religious freedom is generally thought of as a blessing, one often taken for granted. It allows any religion to be practiced without legal action leveled against it. In a theocracy, it might be considered a threat. A government that uses one religion as a guide to making laws and keeping the peace might view the entrance of another religion as an invasion or a rebellion of sorts. Whatever the viewpoint may be, religion is the ultimate social controlling device, one that taps into the moral core of a person to keep them in line. This device, in the hands of lawmakers and governors, has lethal power that has been proven time and time again.

In the year 33 B.C., Pontius Pilate had crucified a man named Jesus Bar Joseph. This roman governor (Pilate) found him innocent, but because of the pressure from religious leaders in the city, had him crucified. Followers of Jesus were hunted down in following years, labeled as members of a Jewish sect, murdered by religious mobs and on the whole found innocent by the leaders of state. These instances reflect just how dangerous religious authority is, either when lead by the state or allowed by the state. Jesus Bar Joseph was convicted based on his captor's beliefs. It is interesting to think about how the captors and their supporters felt. They claimed that he had blasphemed against their God and so must be put to death. If you agreed, then you would be doing a duty. You would be doing what is right. If you were Pilate, you would be playing a political card.

Bitter irony occurs, however, in cases where the oppressed become the oppressors. This happened when a Roman Emperor converted to Christianity. "Once Constantine had effectively placed Christians at the center of the imperial power apparatus, the question of what to do with the Jews naturally arose... the symbol of the cross... the Jews' historic crime, became central to Christian iconography" (Morris). Using the decision of a handful of religious leaders to decide the fate of a nation, the most powerful man in the world at the time (the Roman emperor) turned Byzantium into an empire similar to a theocracy.

However, the events of Rome and the British Empire's struggles of religious and secular power are not enough to show how important this issue is. We should also look at an event that claimed to encompass religious motives. The victims of the Salem Witch Trials were largely widows; widows that owned land that would be turned over to the church if anything should happen to them, say if they were executed. It turned out that the religious "threat" was actually far more beneficial to the church then it was harmful. The example of the Salem Witch Trials has something in common with the crucifixion of Jesus Bar Joseph, and that is that the local religious authority convinced the public of the threat of the victim and got their support. Once there was a mob behind the idea, very little could be done to stop it. The roman authorities would not oppose them, and the frenzied townsfolk of Salem, Massachusetts were prone to violence at even the thought of witchcraft being practiced in their fair little village.

The point to both of these stories is that Jesus Bar Joseph, along with all the citizens of Salem that were accused of practicing witchcraft, would have been better off if the power of the state had not been so heavily influenced by religious ideologies and beliefs. There is nothing particularly bad about letting religious beliefs influence political decisions, but letting them dictate those decisions leads to disaster.

Sources:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=668
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/worst.html