The Post-Secular State and Religious Liberty: The FBOization of Immigrant Integration (original) (raw)

The return of religion? : the paradox of faith-based welfare provision in a secular age

2014

For centuries, churches were the main institutional providers of welfare in Europe before the state took over this role in the late 19th century. The influence of modernization theory meant that modern welfare state theorists increasingly regarded religion and its impact on welfare as a relic from the distant past. It was anticipated that modern, differentiated, and industrialized societies would see the decline and inevitable disappearance of religious welfare provision along with religiosity. Surprisingly, however, at the beginning of the 21st century in many modern industrialized societies, religious institutions are increasingly becoming involved in welfare provision again. The religion blind classic welfare state literature offers no explanation for this phenomenon. This present paper argues that the resurgence of faith-based welfare providers is the reversal of a phenomenon that occurred in the late 19th century when modern states started to strip religious providers of their ...

Policy on Religion in the European Union

Religions, 2020

The main idea of article is that, even if EU has no competence in religious matters, what we can observe now is a creation of a very specific policy on religion. (1) Herein, I explain why the EU is interested in religion and how it is improving its competence with respect to it. Mostly, this is achieved by a transformation of religious matters into secular ones, falling under EU competences. I consider how the EU is treating religious matters in its primary and secondary law. Then, migration and accession policy are analyzed from the point of view of results for the religious structure of the European societies. Next, the issue of religion in the EU external policy is shortly studied as well as the impact of ECtHR and the European Court of Justice-ECJ jurisprudence on religious communities. Finally, we have a description of res novae in the EU approach to religion. The article adopts the Catholic perspective. This applies both to anthropology and to the institutional aspect. (2) The main methods used in the paper are analytical-synthetic and the analysis of legal texts. (3) We can justly talk about the EU policy on religion in statu nascendi. This policy is organized differently than at the nation-states level. (4) EU politicians need churches and religious communities to legitimize their political decisions and the integration process in general. They are tempted to "domesticate" religions and religious leaders and change religions from within. In this way, the political world subjugates the world of religion and takes control of it, which may result in a new kind of politics and legal resacralization. What is policy on religion? Although we use this concept relatively often, especially in post-communist countries in which dedicated ministries or their confessional departments existed, generally when someone speaks on this matter, one does not speak about policy but about law on religion, i.e., the law regarding religion, religious communities, and religious institutions. The law, however, is something different than policy. It is, in a sense, a tool, and the fruit of policy. Therefore, we create law in order to achieve certain political goals, and at the same time, we use law as one of the instruments of political action. Thus, if policy is a conscious action striving to achieve goals that directly or indirectly concern the life of the polis, i.e., a political community (in the etymological sense), then the law is only its element in the above sense. If the state were to pursue policy on religion, i.e., policy regarding religious communities and institutions, the question arises about the reasons for, and objectives of such action. In other words, why should the state be interested in religion and religious communities at all? It seems that at least five reasons for such interest can be enumerated. Firstly, there exist theocratic countries in the world, in which policy is treated (at least theoretically) as a tool for realizing God's will and a help in bringing their subjects to salvation. Secondly, we had and have ideological countries in the world (e.g., China or North Korea) in which the given ideology plays the role of a "secular religion". Any other religion in this situation is the competition in the struggle for the "souls" of citizens. The existence of any institutions, including religious ones, which would not be subject to state control, is also unacceptable.

Religion, Rights and Democracy in Europe

The Journal of Human Rights, 2019

Europe is a constellation of liberal democracies characterised by the conviction that the public sphere should be strictly secular and should rule out religious arguments from the realm of public reason. We may call this attitude 'the liberal confidence.' In the last years, the liberal confidence has been put under considerable strain by a number of cases such as the scarf, the cross in the classroom or the Mohammad cartoon saga. It quickly appeared that the liberal confidence could not provide convincing arguments to decide those issues. The principal explanation for the lack of a convincing liberal position is reflected in the dogmatic character of the liberal confidence which assumes, instead of articulating a sound justification, that religion, religious symbols and religious opinions are best kept away from our sight. This artificial situation creates more tensions than it solves and it is time to review this fundamental weakness in the liberal strand of thought. This problem raises various philosophical issues. First, it points to a serious epistemological problem, namely what is the status of religious beliefs in the formulation of public policies? Second, it raises a political issue regarding the relationship between political and religious institutions in European polities. Third, it brings back to the public forum the fundamental ethical question-How should we live?-by asking how can we possibly share the same polity without engaging in these issues in comprehensive terms that is, in a way that takes seriously everyone's religious and other beliefs alongside with other types of beliefs.