Religious Equality in America and White Christian Privilege

Khyati Joshi in her new book, “White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America,” documents how in diverse ways whiteness and Christianity is favored in the US. She argues that Americans believe that there is religious equality in the US because of the First Amendment. They think that the constitution and courts have been successful in making the US a land of religious freedom. Dr. Joshi contends that this belief is not true and links whiteness privileges to Christian privileges. In an article in Religious News Service by Simran Jeet Singh, Dr. Joshi explains using three key concepts: Christian privilege, Christian normativity, and Christian hegemony. Christian privilege is associated with the everyday advantages that Christians have in the United States. Christian normativity "refers to how Christian ideas, beliefs, and practices have become so entrenched in American society that they have become the national standard." Christian hegemony is linked with the state or government. It demonstrates the myriad ways in which the American state endorses Christianity. 

In Khyati Joshi’s new book, “White Christian Privilege,” Joshi brings religion into the conversation about privilege, arguing that our perception of whiteness suffers from an “optical illusion”: that religion is one place where there is equality in America.

Because it is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, we presume that religious equality is manifest in our society as well. Yet any analysis that neglects white Christianity’s role in creating and upholding whiteness, Joshi argues, fails to capture the full picture. 

Source: Religious News Service

Joshi upends our usual approach to these questions by focusing not on marginalized communities’ experiences, but the other side of the equation: how the dominant group has created, sustained and framed its distinct advantages. In helping us to see “the rules of society that have been constructed to benefit Christians,” Joshi connects the dots of just how this privilege functions.

The relationship between whiteness and Christianity becomes clearer as Joshi follows multiple threads through American history that inextricably intertwined one’s faith and the color of one’s skin. In the 1790s, the U.S. Congress passed a naturalization act that declared one must be a free white man of good moral character to become a citizen. Explicit about race and gender (white, man) but implicit about religion (good moral character), the legislation deftly linked whiteness and morality, itself an indicator of being a Christian in good standing.

Nearly a century later, when African Americans were granted citizenship through the 14th Amendment (1868) and the Naturalization Act of 1870, it seemed on its face a sign of racial progress. But non-Christian communities — East Asians, South Asians and Native Americans — were still denied citizenship, ensuring that who counted as an American had as much to do with religion as it did with race.

Joshi organizes the rules of Christian society using three key concepts. The first is Christian privilege, which pertains to everyday advantages that folks who identify as Christian or grew up as Christian have in the United States. She gives an example from her childhood in the American South in which a Hindu American named Suha is barred from starting on his high school soccer team because he refused to recite the Lord’s Prayer with his coach and teammates prior to their matches.

Suha’s story transported me back to my high school soccer days in Texas. My team, too, would recite the Lord’s Prayer before each game. I would kneel alongside my teammates and bow my head out of respect – it never occurred to me until much later that I could have requested we say a Sikh prayer as well. Christian prayer was the default, and that this seemed normal to all of us.

Joshi’s second concept, Christian normativity, is related: It refers to how Christian ideas, beliefs and practices have become so entrenched in American society that they have become the national standard. Christian — and particularly Protestant — ways of doing things come to be so normal that non-Christian approaches are perceived as deviant, even threatening. It doesn’t take much of a leap from there to understand why maintaining Christian normativity is at odds with achieving religious pluralism and religious equality.

The third bucket is Christian hegemony. Here the state is the power that endorses Christianity, inserting the words “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance and the inscription of “In God We Trust” on our currency. These and other examples, Joshi argues convincingly, point to how deeply Christianity has been established as our official religion.

The first half of the book, which recounts how these constructs have worked their way through American history, is fascinating and illuminating: fascinating because it helps us see the subtle and overt ways in which religion has partnered with race to produce American racism; powerful because Joshi sheds light on an aspect of white supremacy that is so often left under the hood.

In the latter chapters, rather than historicizing and teaching, she shifts slowly into practical matters, which comes as little surprise to those who know her social justice training. It’s also refreshing in an academic text, a genre that more often than not wallows in problematizing and stops short of solutions.

An entire chapter, “Making Meaning and Making Change,” offers helpful advice on how to move forward, as well as a vision for what it would take to establish religious equality and religious pluralism in America.

Two ideas of hers stuck out to me in particular, both of which I am yearning to see realized. One is changing our assumptions. Once we can see clearly past the optical illusion of Christian privilege, we will become conscious of how damaging our assumptions of Christian normativity can be for religious minorities. Seeing its harmful impact can and should move us to challenge and change our assumptions of what is normal and acceptable.

Second is Joshi’s suggestion of changing our paradigms. Living within a structure built on white supremacist and Christo-centric norms makes it difficult for those who are not white and not Christian to establish equal footing. Bending the structure, opening the door for other faiths to exercise privilege of their own, won’t work, as we will ultimately end up with the same results. A meaningful interrogation calls on us to replace it with a new paradigm, one that does not privilege any groups over any others.

These interventions are as powerful as they are compelling: It is clear that without these steps, we have no path to realizing religious equality and pluralism.

4th of July and American Religious Nationalism

Is the US a Christian nation? Does embracing Christian nationalism part of being a Christian in America? Is the 4th of July a Holy Day?

Angela Denker is a Lutheran pastor in her article "Christian nationalism, the border and Fourth of July church in Dallas" critiques the close link of American nationalism and Christianity. She visits a megachurch on the 4th of July and informs how the 4th of July has become a religious holiday as are many other national holidays in America. How America is worshiped almost as an idol in many churches: 

When I got there for Saturday night worship, I found out that Prestonwood had a big Fourth of July celebration planned for Independence Day. Pastor Jack Graham promised at the beginning of Saturday worship that they’d be “celebrating our freedoms as a country ... and singing patriotic songs,” as well as offering a pastor dunk tank, games and refreshments in the Dallas summer heat.

When I walked in, I noticed that the arena-style worship space that seats 7,000 had been covered with red, white and blue American flag bunting. Flags festooned the stage, and most of the screen designs and backgrounds were red, white, and blue.

As Graham concluded his welcome for the evening service, he said, “We’re going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem and honoring our service members.”

I had not said the Pledge of Allegiance since elementary school, and I could not help but think of the Ten Commandments — ostensibly as influential here as the pledge. The First Commandment, as found in the Book of Exodus, warns against worshipping and pledging allegiance to a flag and not to God, but no one around me seemed to mind, so, feeling a compulsion to conform, I put my hand on my heart and mouthed the words.

We then sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and sat as the songs for each branch of the armed forces played, and veterans and active-duty soldiers were invited to stand when their branch was called, and we applauded.

The idea of American exceptionalism having a biblical justification is not new, but Prestonwood made it fresh. The church had bright and compelling red, white and blue graphics with retro black-and-white photography, a guest preacher who specializes in travel to the Middle East, and even a special song. The video montage and song came next, followed by the guest speaker. 

Source: Family Research Council

Pastor Denker contrasts this deep entanglement of Christianity and the American state with another view where love of Christ and love for America are at war. She writes about her conversation with Dean Inserra, a prominent conservative evangelical pastor. He is a Liberty University graduate and the founder of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida. He is also an advisory member of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Inserra told me about a term from Southern Baptist theology that describes the current moment in American politics and religion. “In this linking of nationalism and Christianity, we are forgetting about the message of Jesus. ... When we do that, we have a gospel distortion.”

A gospel distortion is the idea that another ideal is impeding the truth of the gospel. Inserra said the gospel distortion in the SBC during and before Trump’s presidency has its roots in Christian nationalism.

“We have to be Christian first. If you are American first, Jesus will be at odds with you,” he said. “Patriotism is not a fruit of the Spirit. It’s idolatry on the Fourth of July.”

Inserra pointed to national holidays that receive as much attention in the SBC as Christmas and Easter. “I say there are different high holy days in the Southern Baptist Church. Some churches have Pentecost and Epiphany. We have the Fourth of July, the Sunday closest to Veterans Day, the Sunday closest to Sept. 11. You go to a Southern Baptist Church on the Fourth of July, you’d think you were at a baseball game, eating a hot dog.”

Ira Stoll, a conservative editor and columnist, argued in his essay, The Theology of the Fourth of July, in Time magazine, that 4th of July is a religious holiday and it was the liberal icon President Kennedy who told us that. Ira quotes three different speeches, including his inaugural address, to prove his point. 

For instance, on July 4, 1946, Kennedy was invited to speak at the City of Boston’s Independence Day celebrations. 

Kennedy began by talking not about taxes, or about the British, or about the consent of the governed, but about religion. “The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense. Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American though and action,” he said

Ira contends that even if we ignore Kennedy, there is enough evidence from the founding documents and the founding fathers of America about the nature of the state that was imagined in the early years:

Whatever Kennedy’s motives were as a politician for emphasizing this point, on the historical substance he had it absolutely correct. The Declaration of Independence issued from Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, included four separate references to God. In addition to the “endowed by their Creator” line mentioned by JFK in his July 4 speech, there is an opening salute to “the laws of nature’s God,” an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the World,” and a closing expression of “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

A signer of the declaration, Samuel Adams, writing to a friend on July 9, wished the declaration had been issued earlier: “If it had been done nine months ago we might have been justified in the sight of God.”

George Washington, announcing the Declaration of Independence to the troops in a General Order dated July 9, wrote, “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country….knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.”

Ira ends his essay by saying that Americans can believe whatever they like but "the idea on which our nation was founded" was clearly religious.

Is there a separation of church and state in Islam?

Millions of people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, even scores of academics, believe that in Islam, there is no separation of church and state. They point out to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) being a prophet as well as the head of the state. The period of the first four righteous caliphs, the Rashidun (632-661), is also presented as evidence.  The presence of close links between Muslim kings and ulema (scholars of Islam) and the implementation of Sharia by Muslim sovereigns strengthens the case and finally, views of noted Islamists and examples of governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia are used to close the argument.

Several assumptions are made in these arguments that have no basis in history. These assumptions are based on applying a normative framework based on European experience on Islam. Understanding Islamic religion and history using European and Christian experience as the model will, unsurprisingly, lead to distorted and/or sub-optimal results. Following is an example of Muslims and Islam being considered copies of Christians and Christianity and Christian history of Europe being considered a model for Muslims to adopt:

Consider the most famous waves of Christian violence, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Wars of religion devastated Europe, killing huge percentages of national populations. States disintegrated and acts of terror were commonplace. The main impetus for these wars was the question of which Christian sect - Protestantism or Catholicism - would rule each state. Clergy had great amounts of political power, dispensing law and owning huge tracts of land. Nationalism was, as yet, weak. The question of which religion would dominate in which area was also the question of who would rule. 

Eventually Europe’s religious wars calmed down, and a solution was reached. In the Peace of Westphalia, it was agreed that governments - not clergy - would get to decide which religion would prevail in their territories...

Nowadays, the Middle East is embroiled in a set of conflicts that look a bit reminiscent of the European Wars of Religion. A few powerful, cohesive states - Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - are fueling proxy wars in anarchic areas like Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen...Just as the European Wars of Religion featured Christians mostly killing Christians, the Islamic Wars of Religion feature mostly Muslims killing other Muslims...The obvious solution, it would seem, is for Islam to come to the same collective realization that Christianity came to after 1648 - that church and state make for a volatile mix, and should be separated. (Source: Noah Smith: Islam Needs To Separate Church and State)

The antagonistic relationship that Christianity had with the state for its initial three hundred years has no parallel in Islam, whose relationship with the state was without serious disagreements. Furthermore, and more importantly, there has never been a church in the form of the Catholic Church in Islamic history. One can search far and wide and will not find it. There has never been a pope, with his bishops, in Islamic history that could speak for God. In medieval Europe, there was one Pope (except for a few decades) and many rulers, making the Pope's opinion and approval important. In almost all Muslim realms, in contrast, there was one king and scores of Muslim scholars to choose from. There were many kings who may have been excommunicated by Muslim clerics but since there was no central religious authority so there were few repercussions for the king (excommunicating clerics, however, suffered imprisonment, exile, and even execution for their transgression). Kings and emperors always had many more clerics to endorse them than those who reject them.    

Graham E. Fuller, in his book A World Without Islam (2012) brilliantly unpacks the differences between sway and power of the Catholic Church and the lack of anything similar in the Islamic history (as given in Separation of “church and state” in Islamic history):

Islam actually had no parallel to the intimate links between church and state in the West, where the church itself wielded great political and economic power.  While Islamists today — those speaking for forms of political Islam — constantly emphasize the indissoluble unity of religion and state in Islam (din wa dawla), in fact, this perception is largely a modern ideological construct: state power in Islam was virtually always distinct from the clerics.  Religious officials in Islamic states never appointed leadership or controlled the state.  (Clerical domination of the state in today’s Iran is a glaring exception, a modern Shi‘ite innovation.)  Even in Saudi Arabia the monarchy in most contexts is far more powerful than are clerical institutions.

To be sure, the legitimacy of Muslim rulers historically depended upon their implementation of Shari‘a law, at least in theory, but a great deal of the time rulers did not seriously implement its spirit, and they rarely could be overthrown for such religious lapses.  In fact, some medieval Muslim clerics inadvertently dispensed virtual carte blanche authority to misrule by secular powers by declaring that anarchy (fitna) was worse even than oppressive rule (dhulm).  Indeed, no sultan or Muslim ruler in Islamic history ever kneeled to ask forgiveness before a grand mufti in the way that Henry IV was forced to do before the pope in 1077 in Canossa for challenging papal authority on some key secular matters. Henry VIII of England had to break with Rome entirely simply to secure the divorce he sought from his wife.  Thus, intimate linkage between religious and state power marked most of Christian history in a way that has had no parallel in Islam.  (122-123)

And this lack of a Church, with a capital C, in Islam is not a historical development. It is what flows from the Quran and the Sunnah (of the Prophet), two basic sources of Islam. Nowhere in the Quran is there mention of the establishment of a Church. Similarly, the Prophet, in his life, did not establish a Church. Islam propagates a direct relationship between an individual and her God, enjoins Muslims to study the Quran and seek guidance from it. Clearly, this set-up does not favor the establishment of a powerful church and a priesthood that can rival kings. 

Historically, after the Prophet, the religious authority of the leader was withdrawn. The Rashidun, whose period is considered to be a model, to be emulated by all future leaders, by the Sunnis, did not have religious authority. They did introduce some new things or promoted some actions but their decisions regarding religion were always contested and remain contested today. They did not have the religious authority of a prophet, not even a pope. There were many companions of the Prophet who were considered equally or more well-versed in Islamic precepts and edicts than the four caliphs. It is nor without reason that the four righteous caliphs never claimed to be in communication with God or receiving any direct instructions (like the Prophet did). The Prophet also clearly told in his lifetime that after him, there would no revelation. The door of revelation, the direct communication with God, was permanently closed for all times to come after him. There is also no claim for a superior esoteric knowledge that the leader will have had over and above others. None of the caliphs claimed it. Although Shiites do believe Ali, the last of the Rashidun, had superior esoteric knowledge of divine rules, he ruled for only four years and what to say of his religious authority, his temporal authority was contested like none of the other three previous caliphs. During his whole tenure, he fought to end a rebellion and he was martyred before the rebellion ended.

If Rashidun could not (or did not) claim religious authority, the caliphs that came afterward had no choice but to leave religious authority in the hands of clerics. The caliphs after Rashidun were not very different from Christian or Hindu kings. They had attained power not because of their close association with Islam or the Prophet, but due to their superior military might and political acumen. They knew it and most of the Muslims under than knew it so there were not many attempts to enforce something different. Of course, there were few dynasties that did claim divine right to rule, such as the Fatimids, but their religious authority was never completely accepted in their own realm, what to say in the whole Muslim world.

The relationship between Muslim kings and emperors on one hand and the chief judge (Qazi ul-quzat) and chief law interpreter (Shiekh ul-Islam) -- two powerful positions generally reserved for clerics -- was mostly similar to the relationship between the king and the (grand) vizir. Vizirs had authority but they served at the pleasure of the king. The king could appoint any of the scholars of Islam to the above-mentioned posts and usually, the selection was based on scholar's acceptance of the sovereign's authority. 

The king had to publically follow Islam and enforce Sharia. But here again, kings had options. They could suspend or ignore rules they did not like. They could also publicly flaunt their non-acceptance of some parts of Sharia and get away with it. Most of the Muslim kings murdered their rivals (including their brothers, nephews, etc.) and fought wars against other Muslim kings, leading to the deaths of thousands of Muslims. Many of them drank alcohol and had harams full of women. 

Unsurprisingly, there is also an Islamic tradition of God-fearing, learned, and illustrious clerics avoiding and refusing any relationship with the rulers. All founders of the five major schools of thought of Islam (Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafa'i, Imam Malik, Imam Hanbal, and Shiite Imam Jaafar) had an antagonistic relationship with their state authorities. A few of them, such Imam Abu Hanifa, were offered the posts of chief faqih (interpreter of law) and/or chief judge but they refused. There are also some hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) that discourage people from accepting powerful appointments or having a close relationship with rulers:

Whoever goes to the gates of the ruler will endure trail/temptation. A person does not move closer to the ruler except that he moves further away from Allah. (Source: Musnad Ahmad 8619)

He who has been appointed a judge among the people has been killed without a knife. (Source: Sunan Abu Dawud 3571)

The rule of ulema or theocracy is a concept alien to Islam. Medieval Islamic texts, many written by clerics themselves, almost never present clerics as an alternative to a bad or unislamic ruler. The concept of Walayet-e-Faqih or guardian jurist (developed by Imam Khomeini and later enshrined in the Iranian Constitution) is a new concept even in the long Shiite tradition. Even now, many of the Shiite clerics both inside and outside Iran reject this concept.  

The above discussion also invalidates the last argument. The Islamists and the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia might claim that there is no separation of church and state in Islam but it is clearly not the case. Therefore, they can keep justifying their desires or their actions by pointing to something imaginary but their proclamations do not make it real. Some rudimentary knowledge of the Quran, the Sunnah, and Islamic history settles the question that the church and state are separate in Islam.

  

Emperor and Saint Constantine: From Paganism to Christianity

A few days back, we discussed how Christianity, in one century, traveled the distance and became a state religion from a persecuted cult (Christianity: From a Persecuted Cult to the State Religion). Now, we discuss the central figure of this story: Constantine the Great.

Emperor Constantine is a very interesting figure, He is called Constantine, the great, for his unifying of the Roman Empire, for being the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity and giving Christianity the role of state religion, and for his many other administrative and military reforms. He was also the first ruler to commission churches in the Holy Land and founded the great city of Constantinople (currently Istanbul). He convened and presided over the first ecumenical council in Nicaea (currently İznik, Turkey), although he was not yet baptized. The council of bishops was convened in 325 AD. The council agreed on the Nicene Creed (a summary of the proper Christian faith) that declared the divinity of Christ and that God the Father and God the Son are one being, thereby rejecting the idea that there was once a time when God the Father existed but God the Son did not. The Nicene Creed is one of the most important creeds in Christianity. For all his achievements in Christianity, he is considered a saint by Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church considers him isapóstolos (equal to the Apostles), a rank bestowed only on a few saints, and called the "thirteenth apostle."

Father Bill Olnhausen is the Pastor Emeritus of Saint Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Following are some excerpts from his blog post, from September 2019, about Emperor Constantine (the whole blog post The Story of Saint Constantine the Great can be accessed):

Was Constantine an ascetic? No. Was he a brilliant theologian? No. Was his moral life exemplary? Not always, by any means. Was he a miracle worker? No. Was he even a Christian? Not formally, until he was finally baptized almost on his deathbed. So why does the Church call him a saint? Read on... 

Constantine was ambitious. His goal was to reunite the Roman empire under himself. Maxentius was then emperor in Italy. Constantine and his army marched south [from Gaul (France)], prepared to meet his far superior forces. While crossing the Alps Constantine had a strange and transformative experience. This was the story he told ever after: In the morning sky he saw (some accounts say others saw it with him) a shining cross with the words “In this sign conquer”. Some say it was in Greek “En touto nika”, others that it was Latin “In hoc signum vincit”...  

At the time Constantine was still a pagan who seems to have worshipped the sun as the high god. But he must also have had Christian sympathies, perhaps because of his mother, for he had Christian priests accompanying his army, and they explained the vision to him. So he had the Chi-Rho painted on his army’s banners. One of the banners was kept in Constantinople for many centuries. (Probably it was destroyed by the Crusaders, along with many other things including the future of the Byzantine Empire.) The armies met at the Milvian Bridge on the River Tiber outside Rome, and Maxentius was defeated. It was October in the year 312. 

Constantine's vision of a shinning cross (by Italian renaissance artist Raphael)

 Source: The Story of Saint Constantine the Great 

Constantine was now Augustus, sole emperor of the west, but he was not like other emperors. When he marched into Rome, he did not make the customary reprisals against the vanquished. More significantly, he boldly refused to make the customary sacrifices to the Roman gods. This was dangerously “politically incorrect”, for the Roman elite were chiefly pagan. Even though Christians were highly suspect, one of his first acts was to forbid the persecution of Christians. His famous Edict of Milan, made in the year 313 jointly with Licinius, the new emperor of the east, declared tolerance for all religions. And from the beginning Constantine gave special privileges to the Church. He ruled that the Church could again own property and directed the return of seized property. He ordered the return of Christian exiles. He decreed that the Christian Lord’s Day (“Kyriake” in Greek), the day of Christ’s resurrection, be the imperial weekly holiday. (“Sunday” is a pagan name for the first day of the week.)... 

Constantine soon decided to reunite the empire under himself and under the Christian God. He and his army moved east. In May 324 the combined armies numbering over 300,000 men met outside the Greek city of Adrianopolis. (In those days wars were usually fought outside cities and did not normally involve civilians. May we please go back to the old days?) Licinius was defeated and fled and finally surrendered that September. Constantine was now sole emperor, east and west. 

Now the empire was united under the Christian God. However, to Constantine’s great frustration, Christians were not united. Far from it, there was bitter division between the Orthodox and the Arians, who denied the divinity of Christ – or it may be they just misunderstood the meaning of divinity. So one of Constantine’s first acts, the next spring, was to call a Council of Christian bishops in Nicaea, a city on the west coast of Asia Minor, to try to unite the Church. It is said 318 bishops attended. This became known as the First Ecumenical Council. Constantine himself presided and gave great honor to those who had been injured during the persecutions. It is not clear whether Constantine understood the theological issue. Above all he wanted unity. Among the bishops at the Council, at least, he got it. After some early contention, the final vote was 316 (probably) to 2 against Arius and for the Orthodox.  

All this time Constantine had never been baptized. Historians wonder why. Some people at the time (mistakenly) delayed Baptism till late in life, lest they fall into major sin after the Washing. Even the great Saint Basil, raised in a profoundly Christian family, was not baptized till he was an adult. Or maybe Constantine delayed for political reasons, not wanting to entirely abandon the pagans, so he could be emperor “to all the people”. He never explained. But early in the year 337 he fell ill and quickly was baptized. It is said he abandoned his imperial garments and wore only his white baptismal robe for the rest of his life, which was not long. He died on Pentecost, May 21, 337, and ever since on this day the Church has honored him and his mother.

Emperor Constantine thus became Saint Constantine. Was he a true believer? Maybe. He certainly made Christianity the preferred religion of his Empire, baptized, and united Christians. And Rome and Christianity were never separated after him.

More on the tussle between and merging of Islamic and Persian identity in Iran

The tussle between the Islamic/Shiite identity and the Persian ethnolinguistic identity is continuing. Since the 19th century or even before, Iranians are debating which of their two identities is real and authentic and which one is affected and false or which one is dominant and which one is recessive. The Iranian state also sways, sometimes moving in one direction and then in the opposite direction. During the time of Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79), the Persian identity remained the ascendant and principal identity but since the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic identity became the paramount identity while Persian identity became recessive and invisible.

However, during the last decade, it appears the pendulum has changed direction again. The Persian identity is rising and there has been an attempt by the elite to appropriate it, without rejecting the Islamic identity. Former President Ahmadinejad was the first one from the top elite of the Islamic regime to also acknowledge/lay claim on the Persian identity (See blog post Afraid of Ahmadinejad). He loaned the famed Cyrus Cylinder from the British Museum in 2014 and exhibited it in Iran,  taking pride in ancient Persian history, while not discarding his Islamic identity (He claimed, without much evidence, that Cyrus was mentioned in the Holy Quran). Last year, there was more evidence that the people and political elite are embracing the Persian identity and do not consider it contradictory to their Islamic identity. In October 2016, thousands of Iranians visited Cyrus's tomb and President Rouhani joined the celebrations via Instagram, “Persepolis is one of the invaluable and unique remains of the ancient history of this land, which demonstrates the antiquity of the civilization, the ingenuity, the wisdom, and the management skills of the great people of Iran, as well as their monotheism.” (See blog post Is Persian Identity rising again in Iran?). The last part of the message establishes a link between Cyrus and Islam (i.e. monotheism) and makes sure that Rouhani is not accused of rejecting Islam. This embracing of both identities is new for the elite but many Iranians have no problem doing it. As explained in a previous blog post, in the Iranian society, many groups embrace both religious and ethnolinguistic identities:

However, it would be a mistake to consider both groups as mutually exclusive and some scholars, even partisans, do not completely reject the arguments of their rivals. Except for the opinionated, the difference between the two groups is whether the emphasis is placed on religion or ethnolinguistic characteristics as the primary constituent to the Iranian identity.

For example, many Persian nationalists claim that Islam in its true form is only practiced (i.e. Shia/Twelver sect Islam) in Iran and Islam was saved from Arabs and others only by Iranians. So, they view Islam as part of Iranian identity but do not accept that Islam gave Iranians a new identity. Instead, they claim that it was Iranians, a group at a much higher level of civilization than Arabs, that saved Islam by adopting it, otherwise, Islam's achievements would have been few and it would have been far less successful. 

Similarly, Islamic nationalists accept that Iranian Islam (Twelver sect) is superior and give homage to ethnolinguistic identity perspective by arguing that Iranians have a special affinity with the true religion, Islam, as they are special, seekers of what is true and right. For them, the Aryan/Iranian/Shiite Islam was and is the real Islam while the Semitic/Arab/Sunni Islam is the adulterated false version, despite Prophet Muhammad being an Arab. (See blog post Iranian 'Persian-National' Identity)

Source: Shrine of Sahabi Salman Al Farsi (The Persian)

Amir Taheri's article informs us how efforts to bring Iran and Islam closer has led to the renovation of the tomb of Salman Farsi (Salman, the Persian), who was a Persian and one of the earliest non-Arab converts of Islam and a confidant of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He also talks about the recent popularity of non-Islamic names in Iran:

The current new fascination that many in Iran feel for Salman is part of the movement for “Iranian Islam” which has been gaining ground in the past few years. Iranian history in the past 15 centuries has often see-sawed between religion and nationalism. The rise of one has often been accompanied with the decline of the other and vice versa.

“Partly because of dissatisfaction with the role of (Shi’ite) clerics in politics, Iran is experiencing a growing anti-religious trend,” says Mehrangiz Bayat, a Tehran researcher.
That analysis is backed by some prominent clerics. For example, Grand Ayatollah Shubeir Zanjani, one of the top clerics in Qom, warned last week that involvement in politics had contributed to the decline of the authority and popularity of the Shi’ite clergy in Iran.

Ultra-nationalists, including pan-Iranists who dream of reviving the Sassanid Empire in one form or another, have seized the popular disaffection with the ruling clergy as template for attacking Islam as “an alien Arab religion imposed on Aryan Iranians by the sword.” They ignore the fact that the mass of Iranians converted to Islam long after the 80-year-old Arab occupation of parts of Iran had ended. The concept of the “Iranian” or ”Aryan Islam” has been launched to counter the claim of “alien Islam”....

According to reports, which cannot be independently verified, the “brain” behind the idea of an “Aryan Islam” is an obscure cleric named Hassan Yaaqubi who, although he has never been seen or heard in public, is supposed to have authored more than 40 books.
Other clerics have tried to promote the idea of an “Aryan Islam” by claiming that Hussein Ibn Ali, son of Ali Ibn Abitaleb and Fatimah, married Bibi Shahrbanu a daughter of the last Sassanian King Yazdegerd, initiating a fusion of Islam and Iran. “All descendants of Hussein have Iranian blood in their veins,” says Ayatollah Sobhani. “This means an unbreakable human bond exists between Islam and Iran.”

Iranian nationalists, however, reject that idea and claim that Bibi Shahrbanu, whose shrine near Tehran attracts millions of pilgrims every year had been taken a captive and never converted to Islam.

Another cleric, Ayatollah Husseini Qazwini, claims that Iran’s Islam bond was strengthened by the Twelfth Imam, known as the Hidden Mahdi al-Montazar, emerged from his Long Absence in secret and married a girl from Tehran, ensuring the continuation of the “sacred line of Ali” with generation after generation of people with “Iranian blood in their veins.”

However, the traditional Iranian conflict between nationalism and religion seems set to intensify. According to government sources, more and more Iranians now use non-Islamic names for their new-born children. That has led to a decision by the Central Registration Office at the Ministry of Interior last Thursday to toughen rules for using “non-Islamic” names.

Spokesman for the registration office Seyf-Allah Abutorabi told a press conference that the ministry would also help those who wish to replace their non-Islamic names to do so with a minimum of bureaucratic hassle. (See Iranians Debate the Reality of ‘Aryan Islam’)

Poland and the Catholic Church

Catholicism is generally considered the most vital ingredient of Polish identity. It is argued that during the last five centuries, the Polish state fought battles against the Russians (Orthodox Christians from the East), Ottomans (Muslims from the South) and Germans and Swedes (Protestants from the North and West), so defending Poland or defending the Catholic Church became one and the same and Catholicism formed the basis of Polish nationalism. Poland was partitioned between its neighbours in 1785 and did not exist as a state till 1918. During the nineteenth century, with the state gone, Church gained more importance. Catholic priests played a key role in Polish insurrections against occupiers. However, contrary to what is portrayed, Church was not the only expression of Polish resistance and, during the occupation, while priests supported the insurrections, the Holy See asked Poles to accept the Russian Tsar as their divinely anointed emperor. In 1945, its liberty was again compromised when it became a Communist state. During the post-1945 dark period, the Catholic Church was at the forefront, strengthening the myth that the Catholic Church was essential to Poland. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Archbishop of Warsaw (1948-81), was the undisputed leader of the resistance against Nazis and Communists for decades and the fall the Communist regime (1945-89) was aided by the selection of another Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II in 1978. The Catholic leadership, unsurprisingly, promoted the religious nationalism. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński once said that "nowhere else is the union between Church and nation as strong as in Poland." Pope John Paul II declared, "Without Christ, it is impossible to understand the history of Poland." The charismatic "Polish Pope" made the Church very popular and the linkage between Poles and their faith is still strong: 99% of the Polish children are baptised, 93% of weddings are also solemnized in Church and between 90% and 98% of the Poles will affirm their belief in the Catholicism. The national myth and the present demography helps make most Poles believe that Poland was always homogeneously Catholics, with few 'foreigners'. However, in reality, Polish state has always been ethnically and religiously heterogeneous. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland (or Poland-Lithuania) was a diverse nation, with Jewish, Orthodox, and Protestant communities. Ethnic Poles lived with Ukrainians, Belarusian, Prussians, Lithuanians, Jews and Livionians. It was only after the Counterreformation movement that Catholics established their hegemony and not only physically banish some non-Catholics from the Polish state but also expelled them from the state's historical narrative (See Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland). During the interwar years, when the Catholic Church again became dominant, it again tried to establish its hegemony and tried to restrict the religious freedoms of minorities.

Largest Catholic Church in Poland: Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń
Source: Christian Tourism

The present-day Poland is very homogeneous. Ninety eight percent of the population belong to Polish ethnicity and around ninety percent are Catholics. However, this homogeneity is a recent phenomenon. Even before the Second World War, Catholics only had a two-thirds majority in Poland.  In 1921, newly revived Poland, "Rome's most faithful daughter," had 62.5% Roman (Latin) Catholic, 11.8% Eastern Rite Catholic, 11% Greek Orthodox, 10.8% Jewish, and 3.7% Protestants citizens. The war, change of borders, and voluntary migrations and forced deportations bequeathed Poland its religious and ethnic homogeneity. Ukrainians and Belarusians became part of Soviet Union and Germans were either killed in the War or fled or were expelled later on. Jewish minority was either destroyed in the Holocaust or fled. The homogeneity of Poland was further aided by the migration of Poles from Kresy ((Eastern) Borderlands), an area that was part of pre-WWII Poland but was annexed to the Soviet Union after 1945. 

In the 1990s, after democratization and defeat of communism, Catholic Church's influence increased. For instance, abortion, which was legal since 1956, was made illegal, except for few exemptions, in 1993. The Polish law on abortion is one of the most restrictive in Europe. The Church vigorously campaigned for the bill. Even the Pope came from Rome to campaign for the bill. There was such emotional support for the bill that its opponents felt threatened but the religious right was even then not happy with the law: 

Lawmakers approved the measure in January after heavy lobbying by the Roman Catholic Church and in a climate of such emotion and intimidation that virtually all state hospitals had already stopped performing abortions. Gynecologists who perform the procedure say they are targets of threats and attacks by militant anti-abortion campaigners...

Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, the associate general secretary of the Polish Bishops' Conference, said that the church was unhappy with the law as passed because "the principle 'Thou shalt not kill' does not allow any exceptions."

Halina Nowina-Konopka, a member of Parliament from the Christian National Party, said the law did not go far enough.

"It just regulates when you can kill and when you can't," she said. "It devalues human life in that it makes one life worth less than another. It's like ancient Sparta where they threw individuals who were less fit off the cliffs." ( See Tough Abortion Law Provokes Dismay in Poland)

Not only this law is still on the books, but there also have been attempts to ban abortion completely.

In 1993, the Polish state signed a concordat with the Church. This agreement was declared as a model for other post-communist countries by the Pope. The important thing to note was that the concordat was agreed and signed before the new constitution. Therefore, the Polish Constitution (1997) had to conform to the concordat, not the other way round. In fact, several drafts of the constitution had to be adjusted to conform it to the concordat. The concordat has been criticized for various reasons. Once signed, the concordat ended any possibility of constitutional separation of church and state. It also ended the equality of all religions before the state. The Catholic Church acquired a special position within the state because of its special relationship. Under concordat, the state promised to provide Catholic religious education in state schools if requested. The Church also made state declare seven religious days as public holidays. The state also accepted the role of Catholic military chaplains, administered by the (Catholic) military bishopric, in the Polish military forces. The controversial rightwing Radio Marya was also protected under the concordat (See Polish concordat (1993): Text and criticism)

The 1997 Constitution also shows several elements of religious nationalism. The preamble mentions God twice and the following sentence emphasizing Christian heritage of Poland:

Beholden to our ancestors for their labours, their struggle for independence achieved at great sacrifice, for our culture rooted in the Christian heritage of the Nation and in universal human values, 

The following articles go against the principle of the secularity of state:

Article 25(4): The relations between the Republic of Poland and the Roman Catholic Church shall be determined by the international treaty concluded with the Holy See, and by statute. 

Article 53(3): Parents shall have the right to ensure their children a moral and religious upbringing and teaching in accordance with their convictions. The provisions of Article 48, para. 1 shall apply as appropriate.

Article 53(4): The religion of a church or other legally recognized religious organization may be taught in schools, but other peoples' freedom of religion and conscience
shall not be infringed thereby. 

Article 104(2): Deputies, before the commencement of the performance of the mandate, shall take the following oath in the presence of the Sejm:
"I do solemnly swear to perform my duties to the Nation diligently and conscientiously, to safeguard the sovereignty and interests of the State, to do all within my power for the prosperity of the Homeland and the  well-being of its citizens, and to observe the Constitution and other laws of the Republic of Poland."
The oath may also be taken with the additional sentence "So help me, God."

Article 130: The President of the Republic shall assume office upon taking the following oath in the presence of the National Assembly:
"Assuming, by the will of the Nation, the office of President of the Republic of Poland, I do solemnly swear to be faithful to the provisions of the Constitution; I pledge that I shall steadfastly safeguard the dignity of the Nation, the independence and security of the State, and also that the good of the Homeland and the prosperity of its citizens shall forever remain my supreme obligation."
The oath may also be taken with the additional sentence "So help me, God." 

Article 151: The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers and ministers shall take the following oath in the presence of the President of the Republic:
"Assuming this office of Prime Minister (Deputy Prime Minister, minister) I do solemnly swear to be faithful to the provisions of the Constitution and other laws of the Republic of Poland, and that the good of the Homeland and the prosperity of its citizens shall forever remain my supreme obligation."
The oath may also be taken with the additional sentence "So help me, God." (See The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2nd April 1997)

Guardian Council, 12 Holy Men

The Council of Guardians or Guardian Council of the Constitution (Shoraye Negahban-e Qanun-e Assassi) is the most powerful constitutional body in the current Iranian political system, much more important than the Iranian elected legislature (Majlis: Islamic Consultative Assembly). Guardian Council has been called Iran’s most powerful body (that controls Iranian democratic framework), most influential body, one of the most significant institutions under by the Supreme Leader, and de-facto Upper house of the Iranian legislature (p-41). Why the Guardian Council is so powerful when there are a host of other constitutional bodies, such as Majlis, Expediency Council, Assembly of Experts, etc?

Let's first see how the Guardian Council is constituted.

According to the Iranian Constitution of 1979, the Council has 12 members. Six of these members are Islamic jurists and are selected/nominated by the Supreme Leader. The other six civil jurists are specialists of other branches of law and are elected by the Majlis from among the list of Muslim jurists provided by the Head of Judiciary (Article 91). The term of the Guardian Council is six years (Article 92).

It appears that at least six members of the Guardian Council are (indirectly) elected and, therefore, they would be more concerned about the popular opinion. However, this is a facade as the six "elected" members are also from the list provided by the Head of the Judiciary, who is in turn selected by the Supreme Leader (Article 157). The Majlis cannot independently elect even one member of the Council. Hence, one can safely say that the Supreme Leader has almost complete control on who serves on the Council.

Source: Iran's Guardian Council

Why Guardian Council is considered so powerful?

First, the Iranian Constitution gives the Guardian Council many powers. Some of its most important powers are the following:

• Vetting all the candidates for the President, Majlis and the Assembly of Experts before the elections: This means that one cannot become a member of the Majlis or the Assembly of Experts or become President without the approval of the Guadian Council. Even if all the Iranian voters want to elect a particular person as President, they cannot do it unless the Guardian Council approves. The Guardian Council can and has not allowed many popular candidates to run in the elections. Furthermore, the Guardian Council also supervises any referenda or any other direct recourse to the public opinion  (Article 99);
• Approving every piece of legislation passed by the Majlis: All legislation passed by the elected Majlis needs the approval of the Guardian Council to become law. The Council judges all legislation on basis of its conformity with the official religion (Islam- Twelver Shia sect) and the Constitution. If Council does not approve, a draft law, even if it is passed by all members of the Majlis, will remain a draft law. There is no provision to bypass the Guardian Council. Majlis itself cannot overrule Council's rejection by a two-thirds or three-fourths supermajority. In fact, according to the constitution, the Majlis does not hold any legal status if there is no Guardian Council in existence. If there is disagreement between the Council and the Majlis, the case goes to the Expediency Council, which like the Guardian Council is a body nominated by the Supreme Leader and usually has all the members of the Guardian Council as its members (Article 4, 72, 91, 93 and 96);
• Sole interpreter of the Constitution: Like the Supreme Court in many countries, the Guardian Council has the power to interpret the constitution and its judgment is final (three-fourths majority required). The Council is also part of the constitution-amending process (Article 98 and 177).

Source: Deep-Seated Entanglements, RAND

Second, the Guardian Council consists of only twelve members. Comparing it with the membership of Majlis (290 members), Expediency Council (usually 30+ members) or Assembly of Experts (usually 80+ members), one can fathom how much more power an individual member of the Guardian Council would have, even if powers of all these constitutional bodies were equal. The fact is that the Guardian Council has greater powers than all these bodies and it is smaller then all of them, making it extremely powerful.

Third, the Guardian Council is powerful because its decisions, in most cases, are final. Its decisions regarding interpretation of the constitution cannot be contested. Similarly, its decisions regarding the vetting of candidates or election results are legally conclusive.

Finally, Council is powerful because constitution does not bar re-appointment of its members. Therefore, Guardian Council members can stay on for decades, if they retain the confidence of the Supreme Leader. The current Chairman of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, has been a member of the Council since its first establishment in 1980 (37 years) and has been its chairman since 1992 (25 years). Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, another member, has been part of the Council since 1988 (29 years). Ayatullah Sayed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, another member, was earlier also part of the Council from 1992 to 1999. Then, he was appointed as the Head of Judiciary (1999-2009) and in that capacity was nominating Guardian Council candidates to the Majlis and then he again became a member of the Council in 2009. 

90 years old Ayatollah Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, with the Supreme Leader

Source: ‘Election Violations’ Used Against Rouhani

From the above analysis, it is clear that the Guardian Council plays a crucial role in the continuous clerical control of the Iranian political system. If Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) protects it militarily, the Guardian Council protects it constitutionally and legally.

Related blog post: Is Iran's Supreme Leader subject to oversight? Constitutionally yes, but...

Bible as Tennessee's Official book: Religious symbolism and the US Constitution

The United States is the only country in the world which neither restricts/regulates the practicing of minority or majority religions nor passes any religious legislation, proving that the church-state relationship in the US is unique in the world. However, as argued in this blog previously, this was not always the case. Religion and state were intertwined for decades at the sub-national level. For example, several US states had religious tests for public office (See American Secularism: A historical view of separation of the Church and the State in the US). Though attempts to link majority religion (Protestantism or Christianity) to the state never stopped in the US, one can detect a new enthusiasm to subvert religious neutrality enshrined in the US Constitution recently.  

On April 14th, 2016, Tennessee Governor vetoed the bill to make Bible the official book of the state. Governor Bill Haslam wrote in a letter to the Beth Harwell, speaker of the statehouse, in which he rejected the arguments of the bill sponsors:

As you know, last year the Attorney General opined that designating The Holy Bible as the official state book of Tennessee would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution and Article 1, § 3, of the Tennessee Constitution which provides that "no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship."

In addition to the constitutional issues with the bill, my personal feeling is that this bill trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text. If we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, then we shouldn’t be recognizing it only as a book of historical and economic significance. If we are recognizing the Bible as a sacred text, then we are violating the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Tennessee by designating it as the official state book. Our founders recognized that when the church and state were combined, it was the church that suffered in the long run. 

I strongly disagree with those who are trying to drive religion out of the public square. All of us should and must bring our deepest beliefs to the places we are called, including governmental service. Men and women motivated by faith have every right and obligation to bring their belief and commitment to the public debate. However, that is very different from the governmental establishment of religion that our founders warned against and our Constitution prohibits.

Is this bill had passed, Tennessee would have been the first state to have the Bible as the official state book. Even the veto was an achievement for bill's sponsors as, in 2015, a similar bill was passed by the House by failed to get the approval of the majority of Tennessee senators. The sponsors of the bill intend to press on and try to override the governor's veto, which only require a simple majority in both houses.

While arguments of those opposing the bill are well known and ably and succinctly presented by the Governor, it is interesting to take a look at the arguments of the bill supporters.

Roger Gannam, senior litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel, argued:

The government’s adoption of the Bible as the state book would not be an endorsement of Christianity or Judaism or the contents of the book as religion,” Gannam said. “But certainly could have adopted the Bible as a proper recognition of the influence it had on the foundations of Tennessee law and political thought.

Gannam said that Haslam’s reasoning was based on an “erroneous interpretation of the Constitution.” and called the governor’s veto disappointing. Liberty Counsel offered its legal services free of charge if the bill/law was challenged in courts.

David Fowler, a former Tennessee state senator and president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), gave four reasons why recognizing the Holy Bible as official state book is important:

• Having a state book is not unconstitutional and no book is more worthy of being Tennessee's state book than the Holy Bible: Regarding the constitutional debate, we need to begin with the acknowledgment there is nothing unconstitutional about having a state book. And as Rep. Matthew Hill said, if we’re going to have a state book, what other book could we name that has had the kind of historical, practical, and economic impact as that of the Bible? There is none.
• We should be neutral to religion, not hostile to religion: But if the constitutional point is that no religious text can even be entered into the debate, then I submit that we are not being neutral on the issue of religion. Rather, we are advancing secularism at the expense of religion. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart remarked in a different Establishment Clause context: "[A] refusal to permit religious exercises [in schools] thus is … not … the realization of state neutrality, but rather … the establishment of a religion of secularism, or at least, … governmental support of the beliefs of those who think that religious exercises should be conducted only in private."
• The objective of Establishment Clause was not to divorce religion from the public affairs: Further, from a constitutional perspective, neither the “separation of church and state” referenced in a letter by Thomas Jefferson (and not found in the Constitution) nor the Establishment Clause were ever intended to divorce religion or its influence from the public square. As Supreme Court Justice, Harvard law professor, and author of the first comprehensive treatise on the Constitution, Joseph Story, wrote in 1833: "The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government."
• Bible is an important part of our heritage and forgetting one's heritage makes one gullible: Karl Marx once said, “A people without a heritage are easily persuaded.” Mr. Marx was merely reflecting what God knew was true about us. It is why He constantly urged His people to set up memorials; they needed to remember who they were. Whether one was “right” or “wrong” before God in supporting or opposing the “Bible bill” I’ll leave for others to debate, but I am fully persuaded of this: there are many who would have us remove from our public life and the public square any recognition of our religious heritage. And perhaps they do so for the very reason given by Mr. Marx – it makes it easier for them to persuade us to do things that, in a different generation, knowing who we were, we would not do.

Some constitutional experts have contended that such bills are largely symbolic (having no effect on the lives of the people or on how the government was run) and, therefore, it would be difficult to challenge them and to declare them unconstitutional. For example, Douglas Laycock, Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and a leading scholar in the areas of religious liberty, has argued:

Judges are likely to think that this is de minimis - to minor to care about. They don't tell the president that he can't issue Thanksgiving proclamations or host a national prayer breakfast, and judges are likely to view this the same way.

Keith Werhan, a constitutional law expert at Tulane University Law School, agreed, 

You can promote religion so long as it doesn't rise to the level of establishing a church...  Throughout history, the Supreme Court has not gotten worked about these types of things.

As discussed above, the fight for making bible as the state's official book of Tennessee is by no means over. The sponsors of the bill will try to override the veto next week. Similar bills have also been presented in other Southern states. The LA Times reported in January 2016 that two Democratic members of the Mississippi House of Representatives, Tom Miles and Michael Evans, were proposing a bill to make the Bible the official state book of Mississippi. In Louisiana, a similar bill was presented in 2014 but was later withdrawn by the sponsor, Rep. Thomas Carmody. 

Putin, wars, and Russian Orthodox Church

Mark Woods, the contributing editor of Christian Today, calls Russian Orthodox Church a tool in the hand of President Putin. In his article, How the Russian Orthodox Church is backing Vladimir Putin's new world order, focuses on growing Russian religious nationalism.

Thousands of miles away (in Russia), however, there's an ideological synergy between Church and State which is just as unhealthy. Under its leader Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has backed the aggressive expansionism of President Vladimir Putin, which has seen him extend Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Kirill described Putin at a religious leaders' meeting in 2012 as "a miracle of God". It supported a government crackdown on "gay propaganda" in 2013. The ROC has made billions from trading concessions granted to it  by the government. It is increasingly asserting its position as the largest of the 14 self-governing Orthodox Churches and is using its political muscle in support of Putin's aims. It's no friend to evangelicals, especially in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, seeing them as puppets of the West.

Wood is particularly critical of the role played by the current head of ROC, Patriarch Kirill. He mentions that Kirill has been accussed of being a KGB agent and his usage of ROC's special previliges in the 1990s to earns billions for the Church and himself. Kirill, however, denies any personal benefits from the past financial dealings.

Wood quotes Ukrainian academics, mainly from Ukrainian Catholic University, to details the closeness of the ROC and Russian state or the subordination of the  ROC to Putin agenda. The choice of experts is problematic and raises doubts about Wood's thesis.

Wood quotes Mykhailo Cherenkov, a Ukrainian Baptist and a Professor in Philosophy at Ukrainian Catholic University, as arguing that fall of communism left an ideological vacuum, which has been filled with Orthodoxy. t was the "new ideological binding agent" that Russia needed to survive:

It was Orthodoxy that served as the main ferment in the formation of a new Russian identity from the beginning of Putin's presidency. If, in Soviet times, the mark of the majority was political atheism, then now it is political Orthodoxy.

Being partiotic and Orthodox became synonyms and wars of the Russian state became holy wars. Cherenkov argued:

The goal of the 'Holy War' is not seizure of territory, or change of power, or defeat of opponents, but the victory of faith over all lack of faith and false teaching, of the only right picture of the world over all wrong ones, of truth over all untruths. If Rus is Holy, then her faith and truth are the only Orthodox ones.

Wood then quotes a more extreme view by Joshua Searle, a lecturer at Spurgeon's College and Visiting Professor at Ukrainian Catholic University. Searle contends that the ROC is not real Christian Church:

It needs to be made clear that the ROC hierarchy is essentially a political construct. The church structure is based not on gospel values of freedom, truth and enlightenment, but on fear, authoritarianism and the promotion of nationalism under the guise of religious zeal. This kind of fake patriotic religion deifies the State and gives divine sanction to a nation's imperialism.
The ROC can even invoke the name of "God" as an idol who has bestowed a special blessing and favour on Russia, which then allegedly gives 'Holy Russia' the right to invade and conquer neighbouring territories and subdue their peoples. Such a sham Christianity, which is a denial of Christ and the gospel, will always refuse to accept any higher power and will ruthlessly destroy any forms of genuine Christian faith that go beyond cultural or national identity.

George Soroka does not agrees with Wood as he sees not only harmony but also tension in the ROC-state relations in Russia. He has written a very insightful article on ROC's relations with the Russian state in Foreign Affairs. In his article, Putin's Patriarch: Does the Kremlin Control the Church?, Soroka explains that the ROC and the state in Russia do not have a dominant-submissive relationship. The widely-held perception that the Church is the handmaiden of the Russian state is not true. President Putin and Patriarch Kirill support each other most of the time and Putin is usually the more assertive partner but there are differences. 

Source: Foreign Affairs

The Church has prospered since the break-up of Soviet Union and more so under Putin as Soroka illustrates:

Meanwhile, the church has benefited from the close ties between its leadership and the government. In 2011, then President Dmitri Medvedev granted the patriarch a residence in the Kremlin. In late 2010, Russian legislators passed a long-awaited bill allowing the return of Church property seized by the Soviet Union, codifying and expediting a process that had been proceeding piecemeal since the 1990s. The Russian Orthodox Church and affiliated organizations have also been the country’s biggest recipients of presidential grants in recent years, receiving more than 256 million rubles in funding between 2013 and 2015.

And Putin has used the ROC despite the separation of church and state in the 1993 Constitution. Putin has used the Church's symbolic power to not only defeat his enemies both inside and outside Russia (Chechens, liberals, democrats, terrorists, etc.) but also to unify the new Russian state under a defensive, inward-looking nationalism.

Soroka concludes the article contending that the Kremlin and the ROC still have many differences so the real partnership is not between them but between the civil religion “Orthodoxy without Christ” and Putin’s rhetoric and defensive nationalism.

Symphonia, or harmonious, mutually respectful coexistence, represents the ideal of Church-State relations in Orthodox thought. Unfortunately, it has seldom been achieved, and post-communist Russia is no exception. Russia today is still in the process of exiting the ideological vacuum that resulted from the Soviet Union’s collapse. What is emerging in its stead remains inchoate, a selective culling of the past that mixes Orthodox imagery with Soviet triumphalism, interspersed with an increasingly inward-looking nationalism.
Yet this is not ultimately a coherent narrative; it will eventually crumble under the weight of its own historical contradictions. Putin’s conundrum is that he wants the Russian Orthodox Church to help legitimate the restored Russian state while eliding the abject persecution the church suffered under the Soviet regime, just like he wants to emphasize the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany in WWII without coming to terms with the horrific crimes of Stalin.

Where does this leave the church? It is not as an institution subordinate to the Kremlin, but neither does it stand on equal footing with the regime in Putin’s Russia. Moreover, despite recent internal efforts to quell dissent, the church still embodies diverse opinions and viewpoints. As a result, the real synergies are not between the church and the Kremlin but between a burgeoning civil religion that Chapnin terms “Orthodoxy without Christ” and Putin’s muscular brand of statist rhetoric. In a society where over 70 percent of citizens identify as Orthodox even though the percentage of active churchgoers is in the single digits, the cultural resonance of the church is as obvious as its doctrinal relevance is moot, making it ripe for political exploitation. In contemporary Russia, it is not the Orthodox Church but the jingoistic Orthodox atheist that is the regime’s greatest ally. 

Is religious nationalism a necessary condition for state Islamization?

Defining Islam’s role in state affairs is an issue that has bedeviled most Muslim majority countries (MMCs) since their independence from colonial rule. Debates about how Islam/sharia relate to constitutional provisions, policies and penal laws polarize the populace in thee countries and national consensus on this issue is a rarity. Sometimes it appears that a consensus has emerged about state Islamization in an MMC and the country has moved on to more mundane and less polarizing issues. However, soon events bring the issue back to the fore. As more MMCs democratize, new parties and social classes assume power and take a fresh look at their country’s problems. Public debates become more open in these fragile democracies and new constitutions, laws and policies are approved. Islamic precepts are part of these debates, implicitly or explicitly, because Islam is a powerful social force in these societies. Governments cannot ignore it even if they want to.

Yet, despite the similarity of circumstances in many MMCs, the success of state Islamization is varied. In some countries, it has succeeded to transform the state but in others, it’s conspicuous because of its absence. Some analysts have argued that this variance is due to differences in the popularity of Islamic movements/parties in the MMCs. They contend that popular Islamic parties cause state Islamization directly by implementing it after coming to power or indirectly by pressurizing those in power. Others have countered these arguments by pointing out that most of the successful state Islamization projects have been completed under autocratic regimes. They argue that authoritarian regimes use state Islamization to acquire legitimacy.

Source: The Islamization of Pakistan

Both these propositions have weak support. Recent news coming from the Middle East also does not support the argument that Islamic parties’ victories necessarily lead to state Islamization as Islamic parties have largely failed to Islamize the state even after winning elections in Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. Similarly, linking autocracy with state Islamization is difficult as most autocratic regimes in the MMCs have brutally suppressed Islamists and rejected state Islamization. So, what are the causes of state Islamization? Why, in some MMCs, Islam plays a large role in state affairs, while in others it has almost no influence on state laws and policies? 

It can be argued that it is Islam’s role in the nationalism of an MMC that influences the extent of state Islamization in that country. Scholars have pointed out that the relationship of religion with nationalism and religion’s role in the state may be closely linked. Successful state Islamization by authoritarian regimes or by Islamist parties may be possible only in MMCs where nationalism and Islam are intertwined. Even in non-Muslim countries, religion plays a much larger role in the public sphere and in the governmental affairs of countries where national identity is linked with a particular religion than in countries where nationalism is based on ethnolinguistic ties or has a civic character. Religious leaders in countries like Israel, Malta and Ireland have regularly influenced political issues and legitimized this intervention on the basis of their religion’s special relationship with the state.