Muslim female pilgrims visiting the citadel of Bam, Iran, prior to the earthquake that destroyed much of this ancient citadel in December 2003
The separation between Church and State only emerged in the late 18th century, as a result of the American Revolution. Many people had fled or migrated to America to escape coercion into a religion that was not theirs, and the idea of a State Church was anathema. Since then, a state independent of, and unaffiliated to, any particular religion has become the norm. Countries that emerged from colonialism during the 20th century have largely opted to be secular states. Within the Muslim world, however, such a divide between religion and State is almost unknown. Islam is a way of life that encompasses legal systems and administration, as well as prayer, instruction and morality. Islam is also recovering ground previously lost to secularism. For example, Iran and Afghanistan have both turned their backs on secular philosophies and reverted to Islamic states. Europe is in a state of transition. Northern Europe tends to be Lutheran or Anglican – traditions that helped create the notion of a distinct nation during the Reformation of the 16th century – but in recent years the Church–State partnership has weakened, exemplified by Sweden, which disestablished its Church in 2000. Southern Europe is Catholic; the Catholic Church held on to these areas in the face of the rise of the Protestant threat. It is the Holy See that negotiates the Church–State relationships in these countries, as with all majority Catholic
countries, leading to a very different relationship from that between Protestants and the State. Elsewhere in the world, religious ties are once again being developed or proposed. In India, one of the major parties overtly campaigns for Hinduism to be the state religion. In Burma and Sri Lanka, Buddhism is used as a rallying point for nationalism in the struggle between the majority culture and minorities.
State Attitudes to Religion
Nearly a quarter of the world’s states have formal links with a religion. Some have links with more than one. A few actively discriminate against all religions.
Christians make up a third of the world’s population, but receive more than half the world’s total annual income. This is because they are concentrated in the industrialized world, and their average annual income, at around $8,000, is well above the world average. This figure disguises an unequal distribution, however. While half of all Christians live in affluence, and over a third are comparatively well off, 13 percent live in poverty. Affiliated church members give over $270 billion to Christian causes. While 40 percent goes towards the running of their denominations and their local church, 60 percent is for agencies founded by Christian groups and run by Christians to support welfare programmes, health and education facilities, religious programmes, aid and development projects, and other charities or foundations. The finances of these parachurch agencies are independent of the Churches. Christians are also heavily involved in financial support of social and development programmes beyond or outside the boundaries of their Church, giving $27.1 billion to secular charities that provide, for example, famine relief, hospitals and medical research. While North Americans and Europeans make the largest individual financial contribution to their Churches, Christians in Africa, Asia and Latin America make a substantial contribution of their time and skills.
Christian Finance
The world’s 2.1 billion Christians donate more than $297 billion a year to support Christian and non-Christian causes.
Until the 1960s, attitudes towards religious education were largely polarized. In many countries it was not offered at all, either because of the separation of Church and State (as in France and the USA), or for ideological reasons (as in China and the USSR). In others, it was used to propagate the majority religion of the country (as in Saudi Arabia and the UK). Over the last 50 years there has been a shift and, where religious education exists, multi-faith education is increasingly the norm, although in many countries there is still a lively debate about whether the majority religion should be accorded special status. The former communist countries of Europe have undergone a huge shift since the early 1990s. From a complete ban on religious education under communism, a number of them have moved through a period where responsibility for religious education was held by the dominant religious tradition – Russian Orthodoxy in Russia, and Catholicism in Poland – to a situation where there is now a demand for multi-faith education. This has led to struggles between the Churches and the state education authorities. In many countries where there is no state religious education, religious groups run classes within the context of faith schools.
Religious Education
The relationship between State and religion is often revealed by a country’s attitude to religious education.
There are 1.6 million Christian missionaries, 99 percent of them working among existing Christians, and 70 percent in their home country. The 419,500 Christians working as foreign missionaries are managed by 4,100 mission boards and agencies. The annual cost of this work is $15 billion, provided largely by Church members. Just over 5 percent of Christian giving is for foreign mission work. As well as evangelization and Christian renewal, missionary work includes education, the provision of health programmes, partnership in development programmes including agricultural and environment projects, and work with communities on justice and peace issues. The largest numbers of missionaries still come from the traditional mission-sending countries in Europe and the Americas but, increasingly, former ‘mission field’ countries, such as South Africa, Nigeria and the Philippines, are sending missionaries to work abroad – sometimes back to the old, mission-sending countries themselves. In countries where foreign missionary activity is restricted or prohibited for religious or political reasons, internal missionary activity may not necessarily be banned. Where there is state opposition or community hostility towards Christianity and the sending and receiving of missionaries, in practice small numbers of missionaries may be sent or received, usually serving as chaplains or in secular occupations.
Christian Missionaries
The majority of Christian missionary work is among existing Christians. Most missionaries work in their country of origin.
While 72 million bibles were distributed in 2005, another 1.5 billion were estimated already to be in place – assuming that a bible lasts for 20 years. Agencies specializing in scripture dissemination keep account of six basic categories of scriptures: complete bibles; copies of the New Testament; portions of scriptures, which are usually a copy of one of the gospels; illustrated leaflets of up to eight pages; audio gospels; video gospels. These scriptures are distributed through commercial sales in bookshops, subsidized distribution in bible societies, churches and agencies, and free distribution by Gideons and similar organizations. In addition to publications of the Bible, some 45,000 Christian periodicals in 3,000 languages, with a combined circulation of 50 million, were produced in 2005. The USA publishes the highest number, with 8,000 titles. Since the 1990s, the internet has become a major means of access to Christian scriptures, literature and discussion. The complete Bible first appeared on the internet in 1996. By 2005, it was available online in 110 languages. In 2005 there were 420 million personal computers in Christian use, and an active Christian internet network of 360 million people.
The Word
The Bible is the most