The Encyclopedia of World Religions

344 S politics and religion

Pharaoh, a god. On earth he was the god H ORUS ; after his death he became the god O SIRIS . In south and east Asia, too, government and religion were closely connected. Starting in about 1100 B . C . E ., Chinese emperors claimed to rule according to the Mandate of Heaven. Later, offi cials in the Chinese government spent a great deal of time performing the cult of C ONFUCIUS . In India different rulers promoted different religions, such as H INDUISM and J AINISM . One famous emperor, A SOKA , promoted harmony among all religions but especially favored B UDDHISM . Buddhism provided the basis for government in other parts of south and southeast Asia, too, such as Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. In South America before the arrival of Colum bus, the Inca emperor was said to be divine. Aztec state rituals at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) are notorious for the human SACRIFICES that were performed. Greek and Roman states had their official reli gious practices, while each of the “Abrahamic” FAITHS —J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM —has sup ported governments. In ancient Israel a close con nection linked the kings with the Temple in J ERU SALEM . Today, Israel is a Jewish state. In the early 300s C . E . the emperor C ONSTANTINE made Christian ity a legal religion; in the late 300s C . E . the emperor Theodosius made it the only religion allowed. Christianity remained the official religion of Euro pean countries and governments established by Europeans until the founding of the United States. Islam has not accepted the idea that religion and government are separate spheres. For most Mus lims the best government is the government that observes God’s laws. People have given several reasons for such a close relationship between religion and govern ment. One reason is that religion makes a govern ment seem legitimate. For example, some Chinese thought that so long as an emperor ruled with the Mandate of Heaven, he was the rightful emperor. Another reason is that only religion can provide the morals society needs to survive. Even reli gious skeptics have believed this. For example, the Roman orator Cicero (106–43 B . C . E .) wrote that

Third, since pilgrimage is frequently done in a group, its religiously social meaning must not be overlooked. A pilgrim band can become a closely knit set of people with a shared spiritual experi ence. Many commentators have noted that, on pil grimage, ordinary barriers of rank and status and even gender fall away as the band gets farther from home and closer to the sacred site before which all are equal. Sometimes, as on the Muslim hajj, pil grims of all backgrounds wear the same plain white garments in the holy city to symbolize this. The ideal goal of a pilgrimage is to reach a place both outward and within oneself where one can break down all barriers to complete openness between persons, and between the human and the divine. This is an ideal that may not always be reached. Like everything human, even the most religious things, pilgrimage can doubtless be corrupted and debased. But it is surely better for humans to set forth on pilgrimage than to set out on missions of pillage and war. politics and religion In the United States, as in many other countries today, religion and politics— church and state, as they are often called—are sup posed to be separate. Indeed, most people agree that religious freedom is a good thing, although they disagree on what that means. It may seem surprising to Americans that in the history of the world, such a separation of religion and politics is a very recent development and an exception to a widely prevalent norm. In most places through out most of history, religion and politics have been closely linked. Until about 300 years ago, most people assumed that religion was necessary to good government. It would have been difficult to find a state that did not have a connection with religion. The first cities arose in southern Mesopota mia (southern Iraq today). They grew up around temples, and the priests of the temples ruled them. Ancient Egyptians considered their king, called RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT BEFORE THE MODERN ERA