The Case Against Separation of Church and State

Published by The National Herald, April 1, 2005

The current humiliating scandals afflicting the Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem come at a time when religion in politics has also become a central issue in the United States.

Whether we read about Tom DeLay calling Congress into special session in order to curry favor among the religious Right over the Terry Schiavo case, the Church of Rome’s attempt to impose Vatican canon law regarding abortion and other issues on the American political system, or the tales of political and financial corruption rocking the Orthodox Church, we can have no doubt that organized religion has seized the headlines – most often to its detriment.

There is also little doubt that the constitutional separation of Church and State in the United States has significantly eroded in recent years, and that religion has become an important factor in our political life. A similar crisis wracks the Islamic and Jewish worlds, as well. Add to this the events of September 11, which portend new religious wars between Islam on one hand and Christianity and Judaism on the other, and we are left with a very serious question: What is the proper role of religion in our lives?

For many believers, the question itself sounds profane: they believe religion must be central to our lives if our salvation is important to us. Others see current events as proof that religion oppresses mankind and must be banished from our lives. Tolerant believers are being crushed between the twin poles of religious fanatics and the militantly anti-clerical. Both poles regard disagreement as heresy.

Unfortunately, most people fail to distinguish between religion in the personal sense of inspiring man to do better than he would have done if left to his natural instincts, and organized religious structures (e.g., the Church) which provide the institutions that carry out the good works of religion. The existence of organized religion is a sine qua non of civilization.

American history began with the presumption that the imposition of a State religion violates our freedoms. Many of the early colonists came to America to escape persecution by established State religions. The First Amendment to the Constitution forbade Congress from passing laws "establishing" any religion. Over the next two centuries, our courts have generally interpreted this to require the absence of personal religious expression, and not just organized religion, from the public domain. Are Nativity scenes at county courthouse really "establishment of religion," while making abortion an election issue not so?

Americans have watched society coarsen in this century, and many blame secularism in the cloak of "Godless Hollywood" and other mass media for undermining family and morality. Unfortunately, many American politicians have chosen to confuse the public into believing that making religious leaders into political leaders will solve America’s problems.

In Greece and Jerusalem, the Orthodox Church has come under withering assault on charges of corruption. The Church in America continues to endure a major crisis of governance. Never before has Orthodoxy faced such an existential internal threat.

The Anglican and other Protestants sects, meanwhile, are being rent asunder by controversy over ordination of female and homosexual clergy. Muslims share with their Protestant brethren the perception that secular governments have undermined their lives. Like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robinson, Osama bin Laden has a solution based on imposition of fundamental (as interpreted by the preachers) religious values.

The separation of Church and State has become a motif of modern progressive Government worldwide. But we may not have achieved our goal. By removing Government from the religious sphere, we may be doing a disservice to both the citizen and his faith.

Let us look at Orthodoxy as a case in point. At its apex, the Byzantine Empire exercised the tightest control over the Church. The Byzantines never forgot the biblical admonition that the "Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Orthodox Emperors raised and deposed Patriarchs who, in turn, controlled an organization which provided the best available educational and social welfare system in the Middle Ages.

At its most functional, the lay power directed the Church to use its resources in the services of the citizenry. The Turkish conquest changed all that. The Ottomans divided their citizens by religion and appointed their Church leaders to govern them on behalf of the Sultans. The Sultans gave unprecedented authority to Church leaders, not for the good of the citizenry, but to ensure subservience and facilitate the collection of taxes. In educating the oppressed and preserving the culture, the Church did excellent work and created a debt we can never repay.

The Ottoman State not being Christian, however, had little interest in the wellbeing or good governance of the Church. If the Sultan perceived disloyalty among his Orthodox subjects, he killed the Patriarch. But the Sultan had no interest in managing the Church. Now all-powerful, the Church hierarchy slowly became self-selecting and wealthy; ultimately, power corrupts.

Oddly enough, the Sultans treated Islam as the Greek Empire had treated the Church: A tightly controlled entity providing spiritual and educational services to the Muslim population. During Ottoman times, the state ruthlessly suppressed any attempt by Islamic clergy to play any other role than that allocated by the Sultan. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, governance has become weak in Islamic countries, and Islamic clergy, including those donning the robes of clergy, have begun to demand political control.

With independence, the Greek State did not reinstate the Byzantine model of direct involvement in managing the Church. Rather, it copied western models and made the Church even more independent by paying salaries and other emoluments, without demanding that the Church mobilize its resources to provide the education, welfare and other services the Byzantine Church had provided. The new Hellenic Republic instead decided to provide those services itself.

The vast majority of the population of any country or society will, to a greater or lesser extent, remain loyal to their faith and always susceptible to being manipulated by those who exploit that faith for political purposes. Only the blind would deny that reality in the United States, the Muslim world and elsewhere. Secular and religious Israelis are engaged in a life-or-death struggle for control of the Jewish State, for example. Even secular Europe is more likely to deny Turkey EU entry on religious grounds, rather than focus on the fact that Turkey will have great difficulty in meeting EU economic, political and social criteria.

Given that an uncontrolled Church, like any human institution, will always act in its own interest and not that of the general public, perhaps the time has come to reconsider the principle of the separation of Church and State.

In the United States, the government provides privilege and financial support to the various churches. Most American Churches (the Orthodox being a significant exception) are awesome money-making machines. Some churches do provide good schools and philanthropic institutions. But all are tax-exempt organizations, and the State requires nothing of them in the way of public services to justify this public support. The various American churches can be best compared to radio and television broadcasters who, in return for use of the public electronic spectrum, accept restrictions and requirements. Might it not be wiser to require organized religions to provide services for the public in return for their tax-exempt status?

Should Greece consider cutting off the Orthodox Church and thus completely eliminate what control the Greek State has over its governance and the possibility of mobilizing its wealth for the public good? The modern Greek State is an extremely democratic institution. Might it not be better to reestablish the control the Byzantine Empire exercised over the Church and mobilize its resources for the common good?

Doing the same in America would be challenging, but not impossible. Given the fact that hierarchical leadership of the Greek Orthodox Church remains a persecuted institution in a hostile foreign state, and Greek American miserliness has kept the Church in America in poverty, the lay community would need to set about seriously reforming itself.

If the Greek Orthodox laity in America could step up to their responsibility and provide the financial commitment to the "good works" of the Church, and not just to the bricks and mortar, it could then legitimately lay claim to managing the Church. Nothing in Orthodox tradition makes the Church anything other than the handmaiden of the flock. We have no story of the Pope at Canosa who humiliated an Emperor. But unless we first take charge of our weaknesses, any talk of control by American laity is either empty, or worse, a power grab by those who would like to exploit the Church for their own purposes.

The Hon. Ambassador Theros served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 36 years, mostly in the Middle East, and was American Ambassador to Qatar from 1995 to 1998. He also directed the State Department’s counter-terrorism office and holds numerous U.S. Government decorations.



Volume 7 Number 14 - Tuesday, April 5th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY