Separation of Church and State

The Double Throne

When the Emperor Justinian (527-565 A.D.) sat in state to judge a civil matter he sat on the right side of a double throne. To his left on the seat beside him were the gospels. The gospels represented Christ and he, Justinian was sitting on His right side. In all civil matters Justinian was the supreme authority.

When Justinian judged religious matters he sat on the left side of the throne and the gospels were absent. In religious matters the Emperor Justinian was also the supreme authority. He sat on the throne in the place of the Gospels to represent Christ on Earth.

Justinian was practicing nothing new. Constantine the Great was the supreme authority of Roman Paganism. He was also the supreme authority of Roman Christianity. As Emperor, he was the supreme authority of the Roman State. He was later made a Christian saint.

All the Roman Emperors, pre-Christian and Christian, combined both the religious as well as the civil authority. The Roman Empire deified its Pagan Emperors. The Roman Church sanctified its Christian Emperors. The multitudes worshipped both in their life times.

Power Corrupts

Lord Acton directed his dictum, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," at authority figures like the Emperor Justinian. Roman Emperors were the absolute authorities of all matters that came before them. Their every word, wish or whim was law in matters both religious and civil.

Academic Freedom

Plato started the Academy in 387 B.C. It was the bulwark of ancient Greek polytheistic thought and philosophy. In 529 A.D. Justinian closed the school with a religious edict. He pronounced an anathema upon the heads of the seven remaining scholars who had to flee for their lives. They sought sanctuary in Persia under the protection of the Persian Emperor Chrosoes. Chrosoes invited them to reestablish their Academy in Persia under his protection and patronage.

Persia of the day was religiously tolerant but it was somewhat barbaric with dogs eating corpses lying in the streets etc. It was too much for the gentle souls of the groves of Academe. They could not return to any place in the Roman Empire since they were under a death sentence from the Emperor. They were loath to stay in Persia since the culture shock was more than they could bear. Chrosoes came to their rescue. In a treaty with the Roman Empire, Chrosoes inserted the provision that the seven scholars could return to the Roman Empire. They could live in peace as long as they did not reestablish the Academy. Justinian approved the treaty. The scholars returned to the Roman Empire and lived their lives in peace and comfort. Salman Rushdie should be so lucky.

Hypatia was a scholar of the first rank. She was the leading philosopher of Greek polytheistic thought and the librarian of the library of Alexandria. The Bishop of Alexandria pronounced an anathema on her. The mob stoned her to death and burned the library.

The Law

The early Christians hotly debated the issue of whether one could be a good Christian without observing the Mosaic law. Eventually, ChristianIty developed it's own religious law.

Modern Israel has a vociferous minority trying to introduce religious law into the government of Israel.

Islam has had phases of strict interpretation of Islamic law and liberal interpretations. In fact in some eras the liberals persecuted.

The flowering of Islamic culture coincided with those times when they were tolerant of other religions, as they were in the beginning. Moslems had tolerance for what they called the "People of the Book," that is, the Bible. In the early days of Islam, it was safer for Jews and heretic Christians to live in Moslem conquered territories than to live in the Roman Empire. The Moslems kept them out of the reach of the Emperor.

Early in the history of Islam a rift developed between the Shiite Moslems and the Sunni Moslems which exists to this day. Persia was the stronghold of the Shiites and continues to be so today. Installing an Islamic Republic in Iran is a continuation of the Shiite tradition. They have an avowed purpose to spread Islam by revolution. Their object is to create Islamic Republics wherever they can.

The Mongol conquerors held shamanistic beliefs. In general, the western religions did not persuade them. Genghis Khan and his grandson Kublai Khan played one religious group off against the other. By so doing they achieved a competitive stability.

The Ottoman Turks, the final conquerors of Constantinople, were the successors to the Caesers. They had an elaborate arrangement to balance off Christians and Moslems.

According to Islamic law no Moslem could be a slave. All members of the Sultan's government, from the Grand Vizier to the lowliest clerk, were slaves of the Sultan. No Moslem, therefore could be a member of the Sultan's government. The Sultan's personal guard, the Janissaries were Christians. They were prisoners of war, abducted from conquered Christian territories, or bought as slaves. No Moslem served in this elite group.

After World War I, Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish State, insisted on the separation of state and religion. A condition which prevails in Turkey to this day. Fundamentalist Moslems in Turkey are seeking more recognition as are those in Egypt.

Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie has fallen afoul of a religious law that dates from ancient days. Every age has used the death sentence to achieve conformity of thought. The religious leader of an Islamic State, pronounced the death sentence on Salman Rushdie for his book, Satanic Verses.

Religious authorities have taken similar actions throughout history. The various Christian inquisitions are examples, particularly the Spanish Inquisition. The burning of witches in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 17th century is another example. All these actions seek conformity of thought under pain of death.

Soviet style communism sought to end the influence of religion by banning it all together. It ended up substituting communism for religion and continued to persecute people for failure to subscribe to orthodox communism.

The Soviet leadership is using glasnost to separate communistic ideology from the pragmatic operation of the Soviet State.

Pronouncing anathema upon the head of Salman Rushdie may be perfectly legal under Islamic Law. In legal systems which guarantee individual rights and freedoms the Ayatollah's call for his execution is conspiracy to commit murder.

Free Speech

Salman Rushdie did not falsely shout, "Fire!" in a crowded theater. He was well within his rights to free speech, according to U.S. and British law.

From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, he blasphemed the Prophet, an act warranting the death sentence under absolutist Islamic law.

The Separation

The Age of Reason saw the separation of absolutist Christianity from the state in Western Europe. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are products of this reasoning, as are the legal codes of the Western democracies. We have seen these same principles applied to Japan and the West German Federal Republic with stunning success.

Freedom of religion and absolutist religious dogma are not mutually compatible especially when the absolutist religion is the paradigm for civil law and civil rights.

Islam has been around since the 7th century. The Shiites came into being shortly after Mohammed's death. The separation of their civil law and their religious law does not appear likely soon. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, individual liberty, are all ecological properties of democratic government.

The absolutism of dogma and the relativism of democracy do not mix.

Toleration

Maybe the answer to peace in the Middle East is something as simple as religious toleration. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, after all, are all branches of the same tree and in spite of their differences they do have much in common.

The social evolution of the natural rights of humankind has been a long hard struggle all over the world. To continue the evolution to a humane society and the humane unalienable rights is the long hard struggle which is still ahead of us.

Religion is a cosmology. It was our first cosmology and it forms an important part of human being, that is, being human. Religion and religious thought enhance and add to the unalienable rights but can not substitute for them or supplant them. Diversity makes ecosystems stable, both genetically driven ecosystems and human language based technological ecosystems.

Our differences — not our similarities — make us great.

. . . Ted Sudia . . .

© Copyright 1989
Institute for domestic Tranquility