Religion and State: A Comparative View

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Abstract

When Constantine announced Christianity as the
official religion of the Roman Empire in 14th century, a
great deal of attention has been attracted to the
relationship between religion and state and much
literature has appeared so far. The literature has not
much been directly refered to social scientists, being
based on a Christian interpretation of religious societies
and a Western concept of state. We are not intended to
study the origin of state, yet we are aware of the fact that
any intensive study of religion and state should be based
on methods rooted in different worldviews rather than in
religio-cultural traditions . As a result, religion and state
are comparatively studied in this article with respect to
worldviews such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity,
and Islam.