Topic: Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them
How does China mark Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them?
Everyday topic
The structure of Article 36 of China's constitution rewards reading sentence by sentence, because each one adds a qualification. The first grants the freedom: citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. The second forbids compulsion in both directions: no state organ, public organisation or individual may compel citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion, nor discriminate against citizens who do or do not believe — protecting non-belief symmetrically with belief, which is not common among these seven constitutions. The third adds the qualifier: the state protects normal religious activities, and no one may make use of religion to disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. The fourth addresses the outside: religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination. The article therefore does four things at once: grants a freedom, bars compulsion both ways, bounds the protected activity, and severs religious organisation from abroad. Where Japan's text restrains the state, the restraints here fall on the state, on organisations, on individuals and on foreign actors alike.
What is this topic?
The very first line of Article 29 of Indonesia's constitution is that the state is based upon belief in the One and Only God. Brazil's Article 19 runs the other way, forbidding the Union, the states and the municipalities to establish religions, subsidise them, or maintain relations of dependence or alliance with them. Japan's Article 20 goes further into detail — no religious organisation may take privileges from the state, and public authorities are kept out of religious teaching and observance altogether — with Article 89 barring public money from religious bodies. The American First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. China's Article 36 guarantees freedom of belief but protects "normal religious activities" and states that religious affairs are not subject to foreign domination. India's preamble calls the republic secular, while Article 25 includes the right to *propagate* religion. Taiwan's Article 13 is seven characters long: the people have freedom of religious belief.
Sources and dates
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