Introduction

This chapter treats the role of religion in political life.  More specifically, it covers what freedom of religion requires when religious people run for government office and when religious groups endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns.  It concludes by explaining why religious influence is good and provides a summary of the principles learned. 

Guiding Principle

People should not have their rights limited because of their religion.  Therefore, if participation in politics is a right, that right should not be limited because of somebody’s religion. 

Topics

Running for Governmental Office

What does freedom of religion require when religious people run for office?  Can ecclesiarchs, such as ministers, pastors, rabbis, or other leaders, run for office?  What if their own religion restricts them from running for office?  Can the state intervene to make a church change that restriction?  This section explores these questions. 

A few hundred years ago, most countries had state-established churches, and no one could hold governmental office without belonging to the state church.  In England, for example, all public servants were required to be Anglicans, or members of the Church of England.  When the United States won its independence from England, the people wanted to establish a regime of religious freedom.  For that reason, the US Constitution prohibited a state-established church and allowed people from any religion, or from no religion at all, to run for office or work in government (Article VI of the Constitution provides that “No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or Public Trust under the United States”).  This allowance is essential to religious freedom.  If citizens have the right to run for office or apply to work in government, that right should not be restricted because of a citizen’s religious affiliation or lack thereof.  This does not mean that people can’t take a candidate’s religion into account when they vote; they can.  All freedom of religion requires is that no one should be prohibited from serving in government because of their beliefs. 

Does this right apply to religious clergy who want to run for office?  The United States Supreme Court confronted this very question in 1978 when a Baptist minister was prevented from serving as a delegate to his state’s constitutional convention.  The state court upheld the prohibition on two grounds: first, the law did not burden the minister’s freedom of belief; and second, excluding clergy from political affairs was necessary to prevent the establishment of a state religion.  But the US Supreme Court reversed the state court, holding that freedom of religion is more than freedom of belief. “The right to the free exercise of religion unquestionably encompasses the right to preach, proselyte, and perform other similar religious functions, or, in other words, to be a minister,” and this right would be violated if ministers could do not what every other citizen can do, like applying to be a delegate at a constitutional convention.  The Supreme Court also explained why allowing ministers to serve in government would not lead to the establishment of a state church:

The essence of the rationale underlying the Tennessee restriction on ministers is that if elected to public office they will necessarily exercise their powers and influence to promote the interest of one sect or thwart the interests of another. . . However widely that view may have been held. . . the American experience provides no persuasive support for the fear that clergymen in public office will be less faithful to their oaths of civil office than their unordained counterparts.

Therefore, the right to run for office extends to all people, including people who want to make a career out of their devotion.  Of course, some churches actually prohibit their clergy from serving in government, and there is nothing wrong with that.  Consider the Bremen Evangelical Church Case, decided by the German Constitution Court in 1976.  A provision of Bremen Evangelical Church law required any of its clergymen elected to a public office to take a leave of absence from the ministry while in office.  The German local court found that the church’s rule violated German constitutional law, which stated that “persons elected to [Parliament] are protected from being dismissed from their employment because of their intention to serve in Parliament.”  The Federal Constitutional Court, however, reversed the decision, finding that “churches bear a qualitatively different relationship to the state than do other large social groups” and as such, the court should not interfere with the internal affairs of the church.  Governments should respect church autonomy. 

Participation in Political Campaigns

Is there anything problematic with religions endorsing political candidates?  Donating money to political campaigns?  Or forming political parties?

Religious people or groups can participate in political campaigns in the same that any other person or group can.  Some countries have a constitutional provision like the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, which reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  This provision is sometimes taken to require the “separation of church and state,” where government stays out of religious affairs and religions stay out of political affairs, but this interpretation is not orthodox.  James Madison, the principal architect of the US Constitution and the drafter of the Establishment Clause, was elected as a congressman in part because of the aggressive campaign efforts of prominent Virginia Baptist minister John Leland.  As one scholar put it, “Leland’s contributions to Madison’s election cast doubt on any approach to the Establishment Clause that would limit or discourage participation by religious leaders and religious communities in the political arena.”

In 1954, the US passed a law that stripped religions of their tax-exempt status if they participated in political campaigns, suggesting that the government was adopting a more secular interpretation of the Establishment Clause.  But the Executive Branch has repeatedly declined to enforce the law, and in May 2017 President Donald Trump issued an executive order forbidding the law’s enforcement.  Religious groups are not penalized if they donate money to political causes or campaigns. 

Religions don’t often try to form political parties, but they are free to do so, as long as this power is not used to force people to join a particular religion or to subvert democracy.  For example, in the late 1990s a Muslim political party was formed in Turkey that sought to force citizens to wear Islamic headscarves in state schools and advocated for establishing the supremacy of the Qur’an through a holy war (jihad).  Party leaders said that the secular legal system should be replaced by a theocracy.  When it became clear that the party might win a majority in Parliament, Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that it must disband, a ruling that was upheld by the European International Court. The European court reasoned:

A political party may promote a change in the law or the legal and constitutional structures of the State on two conditions: firstly, the means used to that end must be legal and democratic; secondly, the change proposed must itself be compatible with fundamental democratic principles.  It necessarily follows that a political party whose leaders incite to violence or put forward a policy which fails to respect democracy or which is aimed at the destruction of democracy and the flouting of the rights and freedoms recognized in a democracy cannot lay claim to the Convention’s protection against penalties imposed on those grounds [emphasis added].

The Benefit of Religious Influence in Politics

Setting aside the requirements of religious freedom, it’s worth asking whether it’s good to have religious people and organizations involved in politics at all.  History suggests a qualified yes.  Religion played an important role in the Civil Rights movement and in the movement to eliminate the slave trade and end slavery.  William Wilberforce, the 18^th century British politician who persuaded England to eliminate the slave trade, was motivated by his belief that all humans were brothers and sisters, being children of the same God.  The first systematic arguments against slavery were made by the Puritans, and the American abolition movement of the 19^th century began in churches.  Indeed, US President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in part because he promised God that he would do so.  And Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. couched his arguments in explicitly religious terms. 

Religion can also help to justify intuitive beliefs when they come under attack.  For example, in a 2005 Israeli Supreme Court case dealing with the treatment of people accused of being terrorists, the Court held that such people cannot be treated like animals and stripped of all of their rights.  Justice Rivlin wrote that “human dignity is a principle that applies to every person.”  The Jewish Justice Aharon Barak agreed but went further in her concurrence and appealed to Genesis 1:26-27: “And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness. . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  Justice Barak thus grounded the concept of equal dignity in the divinity that is inherent in all persons; religion allowed him to explain why equal dignity was a true principle.  These sorts of explanations can motivate someone to stand by her beliefs about things like equality when they come under attack.