Overview

The institutional entanglement of religion and government takes many forms, including direct governmental funding of religious associations, legal recognition, and governmental endorsement of religious symbols in public spaces. The entanglement of church and state remains contentious in many democratic countries today. In fact, in Europe and North America, there are a growing number of instances of governments becoming entwined with religious matters.Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions explores the entanglement of religion and government in a comparative analysis of four cases within democratic countries: the British Jewish Free School (JFS) case, in which the U.K. Supreme Court forced a government-funded faith school to change its admission policies; The European Court of Human Rights decision in Martinez, in which the Catholic church kept its right to dismiss religion teachers within the Spanish public school system; The Lautsi case, in which the Italian government successfully defended its policy of mandating a crucifix in all public school classrooms - at the European Court of Human Rights; and the case of the Bladensburg World War I Memorial (often called the Peace Cross) in Maryland, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross's public placement and maintenance funding does not violate the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment. Perez describes how these cases create complex, hybrid religious-statist institutions and outlines a novel framework for understanding these cases.

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9780197579718

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Reviews

Is there anything new to say about the entanglement of religion and the state? On the evidence of Nahshon Perez's book , the answer is an emphatic yes . What distinguishes this work is its remarkable methodological self-awareness. Perez defends a novel approach to doing political ethics, which combines casuistry and what he calls a contextual methodology, and which jointly yield rich and quite novel theoretical dividends. This book will be a must-read for both political theorists and for empirical researchers working on the relationship between the state and religion. * Daniel Weinstock, Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy, McGill University *

"In Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions, Nahshon Perez explores multiple modes of entanglement of religion and the state in modern democracies, each with its own set of implications. The precision Perez brings to his analysis is impressive. Underlying his comparison of entanglement and separation models are fundamental concerns about the status of religious minorities. This book has much to offer not only to those who are interested in contemporary political theory on religion and the state, but also those interested in the treatment of religious minorities in other times and contexts. * Deeana Copeland Klepper, author of Pastoral Care and Community in Late Medieval Germany: Albert of Diessens Mirror of Priests * Nahshon Perez has written a book that greatly advances our ability to evaluate entanglements between religion and government. Moving beyond simplistic conceptions of separation between religion and state, it offers an empirically-informed framework for teasing out the different forms that interactions between religion and government can take. It breaks down the interests that are potentially threatened by church-state entanglements, including civic equality, nondiscrimination, and freedom of association, pushing us to consider the possibility that different regimes threaten these interests to various degrees and that some forms of interaction between religion and government are consistent with or supportive of these interests. This important book provides us with new tools to evaluate the merits of separationist claims. * Nomi Stolzenberg, Nathan and Lilly Shapell Chair in Law, USC Gould School of Law * In his Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions Nahshon Perez breaks new ground in the study of the entanglements of religion and the state in democracies. Perez does so by employing an approach that is innovative both normatively and methodologically. Unlike many for whom the separationist departure point for analysis - that separationist models of religion and state are normatively superior in democratic settings - is set in stone, Perez's novel casuistic bottom-up approach and analytic sharpness succeeds to originate nuanced lessons from real-life cases of entanglement. Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions will undoubtedly become an important reference point for students of religion and state. * Aviad Rubin, University of Haifa. Author of Bounded Integration: The Religion-State Relationship and Democratic Performance in Turkey and Israel * Using a selection of fascinating and telling case studies, Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions builds from the ground up to develop a practical method that can guide both political theorists and policymakers through the labyrinth of entanglement. Written with sharp clarity that nevertheless pays careful attention to the complexity of nuanced details, it is an essential intervention in the scholarship on religion and state in liberal democracy. * Lihi Ben Shitrit, University of Georgia. Author of Women and the Holy City: The Struggle over Jerusalem's Sacred Space * Is there anything new to say about the entanglement of religion and the state? On the evidence of Nahshon Perez's book , the answer is an emphatic ""yes"". What distinguishes this work is its remarkable methodological self-awareness. Perez defends a novel approach to doing political ethics, which combines casuistry and what he calls a ""contextual"" methodology, and which jointly yield rich and quite novel theoretical dividends. This book will be a ""must-read"" for both political theorists and for empirical researchers working on the relationship between the state and religion. * Daniel Weinstock, Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy, McGill University * Worldly Politics and Divine Institutions is a valuable book... Perez offers an excellent summary of the difficulty of these religious-political entanglements and a framework for how best to address them. * J. Christopher Soper, Perspectives on Politics * This is a fascinating book that contributes to the study of comparative law and religion. It blends political theory and empirical social science in a novel and intriguing way. Erudite yet accessible, analytically sharp, systematically delivered, and impressive in detail, it deserves a wide readership among scholars of religion and politics, international law, comparative politics, and anyone interested in the scientific study of religion. * Nilay Saiya, Journal of Church and State *"

Author Information

Nahshon Perez is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. His books include: Governing the Sacred: Political Toleration in Five Contested Sacred Sites and Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites, both with Oxford University Press (co-authored with Y. Jobani).

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