Topic: Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them
How does Japan mark Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them?
Everyday topic
Japan's constitution belongs to the most explicit end of the separation spectrum. Article 20 stacks three statements: freedom of religion is guaranteed to all; no religious organisation shall receive any privileges from the state, nor exercise any political authority; and no person shall be compelled to take part in any religious act, celebration, rite or practice. Then the closing line: the state and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity. It does not merely guarantee a freedom; it names and forbids acts by the state itself. Article 89 adds a fiscal lock: no public money or other property shall be expended for the use, benefit or maintenance of any religious institution or association. The provision surrounds the question from five directions at once — freedom, privilege, compulsion, activity and money — which is the opposite design instinct from Taiwan's single sentence, and further still from Indonesia's declaration that the state is founded on belief in God.
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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