Should Liberal States Subsidize Religious Schooling?

Many liberals and secularists believe that religious schooling should not be publicly funded or that it should simply be banned. Challenging those views, I claim that although liberal states may refuse to fund and may even ban certain illiberal separate religious schools, it is impermissible, for distinctively liberal reasons, to completely ban publicly funded religious schooling. I will however argue that providing religious instruction within common public schools is more desirable than having separate religious schools. I argue that providing religious instruction within common public schools (for all religious options with enough adherents) is a better way to balance the educational interests of parents, children and society than (1) banning religious schooling altogether; (2) authorizing it but refusing to fund it; (3) or having publicly funded separate religious schools.     

Judges and Jews: congregational conflict and the Protestant secular in 19th-century America

This article shows how 19th-century Jews embraced the American legal system. In spite of the rhetoric of ‘religious freedom’ the fact that religious congregations were legal corporations meant that they were never fully ‘free’ from government oversight. In the absence of clear religious authorities, American Jews regularly invited state oversight into their religious affairs, and, seeking legal victory, they worked alongside judges to fit the dictates of Jewish law to the Protestant assumptions of American secularism. Three instances of Jewish congregational strife, dealing with practice, employment, and membership, are closely analyzed to demonstrate how outsider religious communities strategically navigated a legal system that was allegedly neutral but presumptively Protestant.     

‘Interfaith dialogue’ as a form of opposition of ‘minority religions’ to governmental pressure in Russia

Russian governmental policy toward non-traditional religious groups, especially so-called New Religious Movements (NRMs), is discriminatory. Despite Russia’s formal secularity, the government strongly supports the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), a position which results in various limitations on many other religious groups. As a result, legal actions have been initiated against new religious groups, for example the Bhagavad Gita trial in Tomsk, Siberia, and the designation of the literature of the Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘extremist’. However, pressure by the government can sometimes lead to the development of spontaneous interreligious oppositional associations. One important example is the ‘interfaith dialogue’ in Tomsk, where local leaders or representatives of religious groups, such as the Episcopal, Jewish, and Latter-day Saints (Mormon) churches as well as the Hare Krishna movement, unorthodox Buddhist groups, and local pagan movements, united to oppose governmental and ROC efforts to disband a Hare Krishna group in the Tomsk area. This research note presents results of a case study, which involved participant observation, of the phenomenon of oppositional interfaith dialogue in Tomsk in the period 2011–2014. I discuss factors that influenced its appearance, its relationship with the local government, and the methods of cooperation between the different religious groups within this association and offer some theoretical interpretations of these developments. The results of this case study illustrate new and important modern relationships between minority religions and the government in Russia.     

Caesarean Delivery: the Regulations on Religious Affairs in China,March 2005

Abstract

Taking effect in March 2005, the Regulations on Religious Affairs is an overdue delivery of a more benign policy towards religion in China. Comprehensive in scope, it was promulgated only after numerous drafts and six years of extensive consultation with the religious, academic, legal and human rights communities, followed by a nationwide effort to propagate the new policy at the national and local levels. The Regulations prescribes a new framework for state–religion relations, where the power of the state is limited by reducing government approval and certification requirements for religious communities. Religious organisations are granted increasing autonomy from state ideology, in managing their internal affairs, in owning and using religious property, and in accepting donations from within and outside China. The previous system of administering religious affairs through departmental micro-management and discretionary approval has been partly replaced by rule of law that sets limits on bureaucratic response time to applications from the religious communities, which are now empowered to lodge administrative appeals, challenge administrative decisions in courts, and sue for compensatory damages from illegal or negligent government action. While the state still manages and intervenes in religious affairs, the enactment of such legislation is a benign and overdue change in religious policy in the reform period in China.     

Religion as Politics not Law: the Religion Clauses in the Australian Constitution1

Abstract

The Australian Constitution provides for the protection of religious freedom and prohibits establishment in very similar terms to the United States Constitution. Yet while Australian judges have often stated the importance of religious freedom in a democratic state and have defined religion in a broad, culturally sensitive way, they have taken a narrow approach to the scope of religious freedom and to the meaning of establishment. The end result is that the courts have played very little role in determining the boundaries of acceptable government or legislative behaviour in the regulation of religion. Instead, the key decisions have been left to the political branches of government, which have been given a broad scope of power to engage in all but the most direct and egregious breaches of religious freedom. This article begins with an overview of the history of the drafting of the religion clauses of the Australian Constitution and then gives a detailed analysis of the way in which those clauses have been interpreted by the High Court. It concludes that the approach of the High Court in interpreting the religion clauses narrowly, as a constraint on government power rather than a right, has limited the capacity of the Court to participate meaningfully in the key legal questions around religious freedom. While this approach might have been workable in the past, the growing complexity of regulating religion means that the courts need to be able to develop more sophisticated legal approaches to questions of religious freedom.     

Alternative Schooling Strategies and the Religious Lives of American Adolescents

I analyze the effects of Catholic schooling, Protestant schooling, and homeschooling on adolescents' religious lives and test three mechanisms through which these schooling strategies might influence religiosity: friendship networks, network closure, and adult mentors. Data from Wave 1 of the National Survey of Youth and Religion suggest that Catholic schoolers attend religious services more frequently and value their faith more highly than public schoolers, but attend religious education classes and youth group less often. Protestant schoolers' involvement in their local congregation is similar to public schoolers', but their faith plays a more salient role in their life and they are more active in private religious activities. Homeschoolers do not differ significantly from public schoolers on any outcome considered. Moreover, friendship networks, network closure, and adult mentors play a very limited role in mediating the relationships between schooling strategies and adolescent religiosity. Interpretations of these findings are presented and discussed.     

Predictors of Religiosity Among Youth Aged 17–22: A Longitudinal Study of the National Survey of Children

Predictors of youth religiosity were developed from eight domains: childhood training, religious schooling, cognitive ability, psychodynamic need, parenting style, role models, family life cycle, and background demographics. Data are from the National Survey of Children (NSC). Predictors were assessed when participants were 7–11 and 11–16 years of age. Religiosity was assessed when participants were 17–22 years (N = 1,046). After identifying the best predictors within a domain, an across-domain regression analysis was conducted to determine the predictors' relative contributions. The best predictors of youth religiosity were ethnicity and peers' church attendance during high school. Other predictors were, in order of decreasing magnitude: residence in the south, gender, religious schooling during childhood, maternal religiosity, church attendance during childhood, the importance mothers placed on childhood religious training, and an interaction variable identifying religious mothers who were very supportive. These analyses attest to the primacy of religious role models in the development of youth religiosity.     

Determinants of religious expression in the workplace

With the importance of religion to many individuals and the legal protections present in various countries, religious expression in the workplace is a phenomenon worthy of greater research and understanding. This study examined several potential antecedents of religious expression in the workplace. Results from a sample of employed individuals suggest that both individual and organisational factors, including individual religiosity, company culture and value congruence, influence the level of workplace religious expression.     

Contract governance of religious diversity in a German city-state and its ambivalences

ABSTRACT

This contribution discusses whether specific German policy instruments developed to govern relations between the state and religious communities are a decisive step towards legal equality or of limited impact when extended to non-Christian religious minorities. I research the effects of the 2012 ‘contracts’ concluded between the city’s government and the Muslim and Alevi communities in the German city (state) of Hamburg by drawing on academic research, analysing official documents and interviewing city officials and local politicians. I find that the contracts are a decisive step towards legal equality but bring with them shortcomings that show the limited impact of contract governance measured against the complex reality of (non-)religious life in contemporary societies.     

Federal District Court Decision Making in Public Forum and Religious Speech Cases, 1973–2001

This article investigates federal district court decision making in First Amendment lawsuits concerning religious expression and public forums. As trial courts, district courts are the first to adjudicate claims concerning religious speech in public places and thus they determine whether a public forum is open to expression in general, as well as grant or deny access to that forum for a religious speaker. With a comprehensive database of all district court cases concerning religious expression and public forum doctrine, we use logistic regression to measure the significance of several legal and extra-legal variables in order to explain district court outcomes.     

Achieving community justice through faith-based initiatives

Prior to 1996, most churches and other faith-based organizations were ineligible to receive federal funding for community services. In a little noticed provision of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 known as 'charitable choice,' the federal government allowed religious groups to receive money for social programs without requiring them to censor their religious expression or give up their religious identity. States, with varying degrees of vigor and success, have partnered with faith-based organizations to provide community services that serve the purpose of transitioning people from welfare to work. Recent political developments and legislation suggest an expanded role for faith-based organizations to receive federal money to develop community services, including money for community justice projects. The Comment begins with an overview of the political and legal contexts that allow the development of promoting community justice initiatives through faith-based efforts. Next, there is a discussion of practical considerations that influence decisions of churches and faith-based organizations to participate in these activities. Finally, there is discussion of the roles social scientists and others might play to facilitate community justice initiatives through faith-based efforts.     

Freedom of Expression,Laïcité and Islam in France: The Tension between Two Different (Universal) Perspectives

ABSTRACT

In France, freedom of expression is perceived as a sort of liberté matricielle, a matrix of other fundamental freedoms. As such, it is reflected in many constitutional provisions, including those referring to religion. In addition, the practical exercise of freedom of expression remains strictly linked with the principle of laïcité, which is part of the institutional, legal and intellectual history of the French Republic and has even become the basis of its founding “values.” All this, however, also implies an accentuation of individual freedom of expression, which normally takes precedence over the protection of religions, sometimes justifying caricature of divinities, rules, rites and symbols. The legal cases related to the right to satirical expression are examples of this. The article underlines the role of freedom of expression in the light of the principle of laïcité, which normally rejects the communitarian dimension of religious rights, which may explain some important aspects of, on the one hand, the evolution of legislation regarding both hate speech and blasphemy within French liberal constitutionalism and, on the other, the relationship between freedom of expression and the secular state. This approach offers a possibility of better evaluating existing French law in relation to some religious nomoi groups, specifically, Islamic organizations. These issues are particularly analysed from two perspectives: the right to criticize or challenge religions and the right to satirize. This analysis makes it possible to identify the legal limits of freedom of expression before and after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo tragedy and highlights the difficulties faced by the so-called laïcité à la française in dealing with today's multicultural societies. The need emerges for a proper balance to be struck between religious diversity and protection of human rights – not only the rights of groups to be different, but also the rights of persons within these groups, which also involves the efforts of religious denominations to articulate their claims in order to make them more compatible with constitutional rights, including those referring to freedom of expression.     

Identity,Inequality, and Legitimacy: Religious Differences in Primary School Completion in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This study uses survey data from 17 countries in Sub‐Saharan Africa, along with country‐level indicators, to examine the relationship between religious identity and the odds of completing primary schooling, as a key aspect of socioeconomic inequality. The results reveal a significant and robust schooling disadvantage for Muslims and those of traditional African faiths both relative to Christians at the aggregate level as well as within 13 country samples. This effect is seen in both rural and urban areas and is slightly smaller among men versus women, though it is still large and significant. The effect is also larger in countries in West Africa, with greater Muslim populations, with cooperative church‐state relations, and with mandatory religious education in schools. I interpret these results to indicate greater obstacles to the establishment of the legitimacy of the formal school system among Muslim and traditionalist families and communities, as a still troublesome legacy of the historical links between Christian missionization and the colonial project.     

How much Latin should a rabbi know? State finance and rabbinical education in nineteenth-century France

In 1829, the French government authorized the establishment of anofficial national rabbinical academy charged with creating amodern French rabbinate that would facilitate the integration ofFrench Jewry. The most effective method of achieving this goal,however, remained the subject of continuous debate, both withinthe government and within the Jewish Consistory (the officialJewish administration of France) which oversaw the school operation. State involvementintensified after 1831, when the government assumed theresponsibility for the Jewish religious budget. Thereafter, therabbinical school budget depended upon the government's politicaland financial support. Under these circumstances, the Jewish administration neededto pay careful attention to government expectations for theschool and its students. The study of Latin and Greekconstituted one of the focal points for debate between theConsistory and the State, and generated discussion within bothgovernment and Jewish circles. Rabbinical students studiedclassical languages as a regular part of their education; thedegree of emphasis placed upon these subjects, however, variedover time. This article argues that the Latin issue gainedgreater importance as a result of the financial relationshipbetween Judaism and State in nineteenth-century France, and thatthis relationship gave the State considerable leverage in shapingthe curriculum at the French rabbinical school. For schooladministrators, these political and budgetary issues necessitateda course of study delicately balanced between government andJewish ideological goals and the practical realities of running arabbinical school.     

Shaping Schooling Success: Religious Socialization and Educational Outcomes in Metropolitan Public Schools

This paper analyzes religious socialization as it relates to schooling success. I propose and test a multilevel model of involvement in church activities as providing integration and motivation toward schooling success among metropolitan U.S. public high school sophomores. Results indicate that respondents' participation in church activities is related to heightened educational expectations, and that these more intensely religious students score higher on standardized math/reading tests, even while controlling for variables that often show religious effects to be spurious. The hypothesis that church involvement's effect varies by ecological context–it being a better predictor for students in poorer neighborhoods than average or wealthy neighborhoods–was not supported.     

The Academic Advantage of Devotion: Measuring Variation in the Value of Weekly Worship in Late Adolescence on Educational Attainment Using Propensity Score Matching

This study measures the effect of regular worship attendance at age 17 on total years of schooling by age 25, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Expanding on previous work, this study estimates differences in the impact of worship attendance by race and family income status using propensity score matching. Individuals who frequently attend religious services complete .69 more years of schooling than similar individuals who do not frequently attend services. There are significantly greater returns to attendance for low‐income youth and no significant difference in returns by religious affiliation. These findings suggest that religious observance provides greater benefits for low‐income individuals or perhaps provides resources high‐income individuals have access to elsewhere. Moreover, this study extends previous work by examining a more recent and nationally representative sample of youth and by using methods that allow for greater causal inference.     

Religion and the judgement of obsessionality

Abstract

Ninety-six lay participiants read case vignettes of two OCD sufferers, one high on religious activity and one low on religious activity. Possible confounding factors were balanced. Obsessionality and psychological symptoms were seen as significantly more likely in the OCD sufferer with a high level of religious activity, compared to the OCD sufferer with a low level of religious activity, though sadness and tension were not. Limitations of the study are discussed, as are possible interpretations of the findings.     

Religious Beliefs,Religious Contexts,and Perceived Interactions with Ex-Offenders

Religious institutions can provide a means of support and resources for many people, particularly, individuals who have criminal histories, specifically parolees, sex offenders, and insanity acquittees. When these individuals are released into the community, they often face difficulties in acquiring shelter, work, and social support. Out of their own volition or as a result of faith-based prison programs, they might turn to religious institutions for help reintegrating into the community. However, whether congregation members are more or less accepting of these individuals is unaddressed in the current literature. Two studies assess the relationship between religious beliefs, religious contexts, legal attitudes, and perceived social interactions with parolees, sex offenders, and insanity acquittees. Results suggest that religious beliefs, legal attitudes, and religious contexts play an important role in individuals’ perceived interactions with these individuals. Religious contexts, specifically, might facilitate more positive social interactions with parolees. Implications are discussed.     

Asynchrony in Attitudes Toward Abortion and Gay Rights: The Challenge to Values Alignment

Political commentators tend to assume that Americans who share a particular religious affiliation think similarly about values issues and that values questions are aligned. Although religious affiliation is a strong predictor of attitudes toward abortion and gay rights, there is differentiation within denominational subgroups with respect to both; for example, while majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics favor gay marriage, many of their respective co‐religionists do not. Further, aggregate survey data shows asynchrony in within‐group attitudes on abortion and gay rights; for example, whereas Hispanic Catholics are more likely to support gay marriage than legal abortion, black Protestants are more likely to support legal abortion than gay marriage. Abortion and gay equality are discrete issues and give rise to divergent attitudes based on the lived reality of different ethnoreligious groups. These findings challenge the utility of the construct of the “values voter,” and underscore that abortion and gay rights should be recognized as separate public policy domains.     

Religious Perspectives on Abortion and a Secular Response

This paper concerns the medical, religious, and social discourse around abortion. The primary goal of this paper is to better understand how seven of the world’s major religious traditions (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian, and Hindu) address abortion ‘in the clinic’. We do not aim to critique these commentaries but to draw out some of the themes that resonate through the commentaries and place these within complex social contexts. We consider the intersection of ontology and morality; the construction of women’s selfhood; the integration of religious beliefs and practices in a secular world. We suggest that for many women, religious doctrine may be balanced with secular logic as both are important and inextricably linked determinants of decision making about the termination of pregnancy.