Talk:State religion

"Some senior clergy actually have the right, by virtue of their job, to sit in the upper house of the legislature" - well it beats having that right due to their great-great-great-grandfather's job. Not that further improvements couldn't be made, of course. Totnesmartin 11:42, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

So effin' true Keepgerbils(in a cage)! 11:50, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

It's not that bad. A whie ago a law was made that banned hereditary positions in the house of lords, and now you have to be awarded the position. The house of lords is also less powerful than the house of commons, as the house of lords can only decide to stop a bill that passed in the house of commons twice. Therefore, if the house of commons votes something through parliament 3 times, it will pass automatically on the third time without interference from the house of lords, though the reigning monarch can veto anything, but that power is rarely used (the Queen has never used this). Also, the number of bishops in the house of Lords is very small compared to the total number of members, so they have relatively little impact when voting on something based on religious position alone.&mdash; Unsigned, by:. 62.254.216.181 / talk / contribs
 * And about time. Blair chickened out of electing the "upper" house & I don't think I'll see it but there's always hope. Susan  purrrrr  12:09, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Video Games? Really? Does that  bit  have  a  purpose? REFreeman 9:24  20  September  2009
 * Makes sense to me - it is an attempt to analyze how the state's attitude toward religion affect the state's success, and thus very interesting. And, at least since "Populous", I am not a gamer at all. If it makes sense to me, in this case, it's probably quite sensible - rational, even. It's also amusing, which is a factor we strive for here.  01:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Freedom of religion vs state religion
As seen in the "weird borderline cases" a country can have a state religion or facets of state religion while still guaranteeing freedom of religion. Hence a litmus test of "guarantees freedom of religion" won't give clear results... Maybe we should define what having a state religion means? IMHO the state listing what religion you are on your salary slip is indeed akin to it having a (several) state religion(s) Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:03, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This whole article is badly formulated. I am not at all sure of the point or why it exists? There are for example no current governments I can think of currently that do not allow practice of the a religion of some type. And very few states enforce the practice of a certain religion while banning others. Saudi Arabia I suppose? --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 14:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think this article mixes up two things and badly. Freedom of religion and secularism. A state can be secular and not guarantee freedom of religion and a state can guarantee freedom of religion (be it de jure or de facto) while still maintaining an official state religion. And that's not even getting into historical cases like the religio licita in Ancient Rome before the Christians messed up the whole shebang... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, agreed. It is a confused (and confusing) article.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 14:28, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the usual procedure in these cases thaen? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * An instance of a state church + freedom of religion is Denmark, whose constitution (Chapter I, § 4) stipulates that (my translation): "The Church of Denmark is an evangelical-Lutheran church and as such it is supported by the state". Similarly, its Chapter VII, § 66 points out that "The constitution of the Church of Denmark will be decided through legislation" and in § 69 "Those congregations that differ from the Church of Denmark will have their activities regulated through legislation". Note that these paragraphs are all among those that have been left unchanged since the first constitution from 1849 (as have all those leaving a host of powers to "the king", though today this de facto means the government/cabinet).
 * I'd suggest that freedom of religion is the guiding criterion and leave a redirect from this article to that and have a section on state churches where both clear cases (Saudi Arabia) and complicated ones (Denmark) are delineated. After all, it's freedom of religion (or rather lack thereof) that is clearly missional, whereas whether a state has an official church is only interesting insofar as it receives some kind of preferential treatment that amounts to discrimination against other religions. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:47, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well even the (on the face of it) "benign" Christian state churches in Western countries while not as bad as Saudi Arabia, still have tremendous influence and are protected by the state. In many places in rural Germany for example there is a Catholic Kindergarten and a Lutheran Kindergarten. And if you work in the field, you can chose between being baptized to either faith or moving to a big city where there might be a secular Kindergarten. Oh and now you will say "But if the church pays the musician, they can call the tune!" Well, that's not the case. About 80 to 90 % of the budget of such church run Kindergartens are public subsidy. Sometimes it all is public subsidy. There recently was a case of a Catholic hospital in Cologne that refused to give the Plan B pill to a woman... And they are in their legal right to do that according to German law! I am sure missional things can be said about that, albeit almost all of that are one off sui generis cases in each and every countryAvengerofthe BoN (talk) 15:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'd say that topically, the cases you've mentioned fall under the heading religious discrimination, rather than state churches. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:29, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The article is essentially a stub with lists. Israel does, in fact, have a state religion and so if the article is kept Israel must stay. But I have no objections if a majority decided to jettison the entire thing.---Mona- (talk) 16:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If we say Germany has no state religion, we also have to say Israel has none... But of course this is not about facts, is it, Mona? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 17:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Avenger, you are free to make the case that Germany has a state religion. Can such a case reasonably be made?---Mona- (talk) 18:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Mona's edit warrior-tastic "Orthodox Judaism is state religion of Israel" statements...
First of all: There is no law that says so. Second of all: This would be news to the secular Jews living in Israel. Third of all: Read the fucking article, Mona Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 18:29, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * See WP on State Religion and Israel. Also see the documentation I provided in our article.---Mona- (talk) 18:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Israel is at some place between having a state religion and being fully secular. Just like (on varying places of this same scale) England, Germany, Canada, Norway, Iceland and several others. Nonetheless, Israel is currently undergoing a process of secularization (with the exception of Jerusalem, where Islam is on the rise) and civil marriage (which already exists through the "Cyprus backdoor") as well as public transport on the Sabbath is only one leftward shift in the next Knesset election away. But of course, these types of nuances are all too complicated for our resident anti-Zionist to comprehend. A smart person once said "Truth resists simplicity". Said person was right. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 18:49, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * alternate hypothesis: avenger is in the wrong and the edit warrior-- "Paravant" Talk & Contribs 18:50, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's fitting that you changed your signature to green ink given that you don't even address a word of what I said on a content level... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:01, 11 November 2015 (UTC)


 * This is wrong, Israel does NOT have an official state religion, although Judaism interferes in politics and marriage. The system is confessional, so there is Muslim and Christian authority too. If the person is not Jewish, they aren't subject to the rabbinate. --Gh1900 (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

From WP:

"The structure and goals of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel are governed by Israeli law, but the law does not say explicitly that it is a state Rabbinate. However, outspoken Israeli secularists such as Shulamit Aloni and Uri Avnery have long maintained that it is that in practice. Non-recognition of other streams of Judaism such as Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism is the cause of some controversy; rabbis belonging to these currents are not recognized as such by state institutions and marriages performed by them are not recognized as valid. As of 2011 marriage in Israel provides no provision for civil marriage, marriage between people of different religions, marriages by people who do not belong to one of nine recognised religious communities, or same-sex marriages, although there is recognition of marriages performed abroad." That's more or less what our article says.---Mona- (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

National church
I added a bit about the difference with a national church. Some of the examples listed are national churches not state churches/religions: they currently have no link to the state (they are disestablished or not established) but historically they were responsible for providing religion to the nation, with special legal rights and duties, and still see their role as ministering to the entire nation. Examples include most Lutheran churches in northern Europe, and (maybe) the Church of Scotland. In some cases it's actually quite hard to say if something is a state religion or not: the Church of Scotland is legally free of state control, but it has a slightly special legal status in some areas (as well as historically being established and still considering itself the national church). --Annanoon (talk) 16:12, 5 September 2019 (UTC)