Abrahamic religions and modern nation states

After the establishment of the modern secular nation-states, religion became a personal matter rather than a social phenomenon and authority of the modern secular nation-state became central in social life with their laws, norms and practice. This article will argue that the main values of modern states and societies: nationalism and secularism are incompatible with Christianity, Islam and Judaism according to the doctrines stated in their holy books; the Bible, the Quran and the Torah which have the belief of the ultimate sovereign God. The doctrine of sacred texts; which designates a law and social system and depicts God as the ultimate sovereign. I call the problem between the modern states and religions: the issue of sovereignty, that is the issue of who is the ultimate sovereign.   

     The relation between the modern state and Abrahamic religions was examined by famous scholars such as Ernest Gellner, Adam Smith, Elie Kedourie and Erik Durkheim. They argued that nationalism is the new religion by underlining the similarities between Abrahamic religions and nationalism. The only difference being, a shift in the methods of identification: (German rather than Christian), social structure(my nation rather than my religion) and political aim(for Germany rather than Christianity). Unlike the previous scholars who were mentioned, I will mainly focus on the issue of sovereignty based on sacred texts and clarify the understanding of a God who is a law maker and the concept of religion which is inconsistent with the modern secular nation-states. The article will explain the issue of sovereignty in three parts for each Abrahamic religion. In the first part, the authority of God in civic life and his commands will be discussed in Judaism based on the Torah. In the second part, I will examine the commandment of Christianity based on the New Testament. In the third part, I will examine the understanding of divine law in Islam based on the Quran.

Judaism

     In Judaism there is one God who created everything, and God is not only a creator but also a commander and a law maker. According to the Torah (sacred written text of Judaism) God declared his laws to the people with his messengers after the creation of humankind. The prophets had the laws and declared them to the people. Then the law of Israel appeared, God made a contract with the sons of Israel. The commandment includes moral laws, basic beliefs such as the existence of only one God, how to worship God and social laws. In English, this commandment is referred to as religion. So, religion is not only based on simple belief system but it is also a social system in Judaism as it designates a specific code in which one is supposed to abide by. The divine law is the ultimate law of the sons of Israel and it shows the ultimate sovereignty of God.

Examination of the Bible:

     According to the Bible, there is a contract between the people of Israel and this testament is called Judaism, the religion of the people of Israel. This contract which we can refer to as the religion of Israel is about what they believe in and how they are supposed to behave. It includes fundamental beliefs such as worshiping only one God, when and whom to fight, how to behave to Israelis and foreigners, how to judge among people and laws and punishments, etc. In order to be a part of the religion, people must abide by the Testament. The Bible states that “You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him… you are to keep all his commands.” (Bible, 2008, Deuteronomy 26:17-18). This part explains that the Lord of Israel is God, so he makes the laws and gives commands. It also means that obeying God means preserving his laws and commands and the people of Israel have to obey all of his commands. The bible says “dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.”( Bible, 2008, Psalm 22.28). Thus, law making and commanding are basic features of the Lord. So, we can say that the God of Israel is the Lord and thus, the law maker of Israel.

    Living according to another law is forbidden in Judaism. People must live according to the commands of God no matter where. The Jewish Bible denies the law of the kings and believers should not obey their laws according to its teachings. The Bible says “You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. ⁴ You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. ⁵ Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.” (Bible, 2008, Leviticus 18:3-5). Thus, because God is the Lord of Israel, he is the only sovereign power who makes the laws for the people. The people of Israel are forbidden to obey any other law system. The laws of Egypt or the law of the US have no grounds of legitimacy and the people of Israel cannot be a part of that law system. The Jewish Bible interprets the following laws and practices of another nation as being heretic. The people of Israel either keep the law or they are punished. In this part, God punishes and rejects the people of Israel many times because they follow the laws of another nation: “who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.” (Bible, 2008, 2.Kings 17.7). Regardless of who makes the law and creates the practices of religion, the people of Israel should keep to the law of the covenant, their religion and must not be a part of the laws of the king of Israel and thus, they should not participate in their illegitimate act by applying their laws. On the other hand, Mendelssohn(1969) argued that the civic law and religious law should be separated. People are responsible for each other when they apply civic law (p.69). However, these verses also make the idea impossible. How can somebody divide the laws when applying non-religious laws is a great sin according to religion? As we have seen, this division is impossible according to the Bible.

God as the Lord of Israel commands people of Israel that regardless of a person’s nation, he must obey the law of God. Thus, the law of Israel is universal. ^“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’” (Bible, 2008, Leviticus 24.22). The people of Israel do not have any right to change the law because the right of commanding laws is reserved solely to the Lord of Israel, God. So, it is impossible to say that the people of Israel created new laws. Creating new laws is outside of their jurisdiction. “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.” (Bible, 2008, Deuteronomy 4.2). Thus neither Kings nor people possess this authority but it is only God who has the authority to make a law and people can just apply it rather than transform or change it. As Şemot(2002) argued, the Jewish Bible is the law book of any king of Israel and they have to keep, read and apply it(p.387).  

The bible separates people as Israelis and others. They are fundamentally different according to the Bible. For example, the bible says that  ^“You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you.” (Bible, 2008, Deuteronomy 15.3). Israelis are brothers of each other, and they cannot even get married with foreign women (Ezra 10). They fight against polytheists. Thus, in the law of Israel, religion is the vital factor that shapes social relationships and designates the manner of behavior based on this belief. The law also elevates Jews in relation to other nations. Spinoza (1951) had stated that the only way in which the Hebrews surpassed other nations is the way they incorporate the Bible’s conduct with the government. Because the Jewish bible is not just a philosophical text but more importantly it is political (p.46).

As a result, the ultimate sovereignty over nations is owned by God in Judaism. God uses his sovereignty and commands laws for people. The word “Lord” includes the meaning of ultimate sovereign and law maker. God as the Lord of Israel, rejects any Lords except himself and makes his laws and demands people to not obey other laws. Being a Jew means living according to the law of God in any part of the world, no matter where. Thus, the people of Israel must not live according to the laws of other states. Furthermore, the bible separates people according to their religions and stresses the brotherhood of Jews regardless of where they are. So, there is a fundamental conflict between modern nationalism and Judaism on the basis of social relations and ties. There is also a conflict between modern secular state understanding and Judaism in terms of sovereignty and legitimacy, which we will focus on in the fourth part.

 Christianity

     Christians believe in the Jewish bible (Christians call as old testament) but they also believe in the New Testament: the collection of 27 books and 4 of them explain the life of Jesus Christ who is a Jew and the protagonist of Christianity. Many of the others were written by the apostles of Paul. For Christians the Old Testament is the holy book like the New Testament but the legitimacy of the laws of the old testament is questioned when some scholars argued that the laws of the Old Testament were abolished with Jesus when others argue that this is not the case. Both scholars accept the sovereignty of God in the public sphere, but the role of the Old Testament is very crucial because almost all of the laws in the bible are also in the Old Testament. I believe that the issue of the Old Testament is discussed contradictorily in the speech of Jesus and the letters of the apostle Paul. Firstly, I will focus on the significance of the message of Jesus and its relation to sovereignty and the laws of the Jewish Bible. Then I will compare his message with that of the apostle Paul’s.

     Jesus Christ emerged as the new prophet of the Jewish people and as the new king of Israel in Jerusalem, the holy city of Judaism. He argued that the Old Testament is the book of God and its laws are valid. He speaks about the laws of the Old Testament: “Do not think that I have come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place.” (Bible, 2008, Matthew 5,17-18). So, he rejects the claim that he is the abolisher of the laws of the Jewish bible, but his role is to fulfill the agreement. Because Jesus declares the Old Testament was not abolished, all the principles of the Old Testament that I have mentioned in the previous part should be valid for his followers.

     There are discussions in the Bible about the teachings of Jesus and Jewish scholars. Jesus argued with the Jewish scholars not about whether the laws of the Jewish Bible were valid but why they did not abide by them. Jesus argued that the Jewish scholars did not give judgement according to the laws of the Jewish Bible. He argued that they made their cultures superior and ignored the laws of God. For example, according to the New Testament scholars, the Jews condemned the behavior of Jesus and his friends for not washing their hands before the meal. Jesus responded to them with the Jewish Bible, the message of Isaiah: “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
⁷ They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’

⁸ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (Bible, 2008, Mark 7. 6-7). Jesus calls the Jewish scholars hypocrites and he resembles the Jewish scholars to the infidels in the period of Isaiah by quoting him from the Jewish Bible. In addition, he argues that the worship of the people who don’t judge among people without the law of God is a meaningless act. So, what he means by hypocrites is that they claimed to be a part of the religion of God but in reality, they were not. Jesus continued this part by explaining why they were not a part of the religion and why they were hypocrites. He argued that the scholars had their own traditional law which is contradictory to the law of the Jewish Bible and they chose to apply this traditional law rather than the law of God. Hence, in the words of Jesus: “you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition” (Bible, 2008, Mark 7:13). Thus, he asked the people to reject the other laws and live according to the laws of God. Jesus taught these subjects in Jerusalem in accordance with the Bible. Jerusalem was a part of the Roman Empire in that period so he advised that people should live according to the law of the Jewish Bible rather than the Roman law because as it is explained in the part of Judaism, the people of Israel cannot live according to another law.

     The teachings of Paul the apostle was entirely contradictory with the teachings of Jesus in the Old Testament. According to him, Jesus came to tell the people that the laws of the Old Testament was abolished, and Christians should not keep to it. He mentions the laws of the Old Testament as follows: “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances” (Bible, 2008, Ephesians 2.15). According to Paul, Jesus was not one of the prophets of Israel. They had to keep the law, but Jesus came and abolished the law that creates “walls” between nations (Bible, 2008, Ephesians 1.14). Paul calls the laws a wall because it was separating people according to their religion. He also thinks that the laws of the Old Testament were the reason of the sins and he calls these laws the “law of the death” (Bible, 2008, Corinthians 8.1-5). So, all these principles and the laws of the Old Testament were abolished with Jesus and therefore, people are no longer constrained with the law, but now they can create their own laws which are completely permissible for Christianity.

    Paul’s views are not inconsistent just with the gospels but also with the letters of James in the New Testament. James thinks that people should keep and live according to the law of God (Bible, 2008, James 2:8-12). He also says that “There is one Lawgiver” (Bible, 2008, James 4.12). So, God is the only law maker and his laws were not abolished according to him. Yet, the overwhelming majority of Christians agree with Paul and they think Christians don’t have to keep to the law of old testament.

Islam

The Islamic understanding of the laws is completely the same with the Jews. According to the Quran, which is the holy book of the Muslims, God sent a message and communicated his laws to the prophets. Like the Old Testament, the Quran declares these laws and demands the obedience of Muslims. The Quran says that “Legislation is not but for Allah” (Ates,1990, Quran 12.40). Thus, God is the only authority who makes laws and designates how people must live and proceed with their affairs. “whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the disbelievers.” (Ates,1990, Quran, 5.44).  Hence, accepting only the laws of God and rejecting any other law is the main condition of Islam. The Quran insists that only God can judge among people and whoever refers to the law and judgement of any other authority are disbelievers even if they suppose that they identify themselves as Christian or Muslim (Ates, 1990, Quran 4.60). Furthermore, Muslims are just brothers of one another like in the Old Testament(Ates, 1990, Quran 5.55) and religions and books came to judge among people throughout the history(Ates, 1990, Quran 2.213), so the law is the demonstration of the sovereignty of God on Earth as it is in the Bible. Ibn-I Kesir(1994) calls the Mongol emperor Cengiz Khan an infidel because he had another law book, and he argued that there is a consensus among Muslim scholars in that whoever makes or judges among people with something which did not come from God (p.244). So, like in Judaism people must obey the one true God and his laws to be a Muslim. Otherwise they would worship other things as Qutb(2017) argued because they did not determine their laws, customs, norms, traditions, lifestyles, cultures according to the Commandment of God (p.66-73).

Modern nation states and the religions

In the first three parts it is shown that Judaism, the message of Jesus and Islam creates a kind of mindset in which God is the ultimate authority and he shows his authority with the laws he designated to the people. People must keep to these ultimate laws in any place of the world. God is the only law maker of these religions and people cannot obey any other system of law. Furthermore, the established social structure is also different in religions and only believers are brothers of one another, and the society is separated according to their religions. These ideas are inconsistent with the idea of modern secular nation states. Nationalism is the main channel of unification of peoples for political purposes. This subsequently defines itself as a nation. The main doctrine of the nation-states is the state, laws and that social phenomena should be regulated according to the will of the nation. Thus, not the will of God, but the will of people determines the laws and structures of society. That is the main legislation system of modern states. People regardless of their religions share a common system of laws. However, A Jew or a Muslim cannot legislate according to the laws of such states and they cannot apply them, as I mentioned the books of religions call the people who legislate or obey another book as disbelievers. But in Paul’s Christianity that can be different due to the views on the old testament. According to Paul the laws of God were abolished, so humankind has the authority to create laws as God did. This, in a way, makes the prospect of a secular state possible for Christians because there is no law which encompasses all people in the many parts of life.

      Allan Bloom argued that religion turns out to be a need such as eating or having sex in the US and they have no effect on politics (Breslauer, 1993, pp.149). Not only in the Us but also in the almost all nation-states the religions are either secondary or isolated from politics. Thus, modern states have taken the most important role and have become the ultimate sovereign actor while religions became secondary during the emergence of modern nation-states. According to Kedourie(1993), This transformation started with the ideas of enlightenment (p.60-82). The creation of the will of the people created the new religion, nationalism. This led to the new form of identification of people with the names of nations rather than their religions. Gellner(2008) adds to Kedourie that the new religion is spread by the institutions such as education(p.63-74). The understanding of dying for a nation is a clear example of its replacement to the religions. There are many war stories in the religious texts however they only refer to the sanctity of fighting in the name of God. This is very similar with, for instance, the holiness of dying or working for the “German nation”. More importantly, the understanding of brotherhood is also different in nationalism and classical religions. In the classical religions, people are separated according to their religions. People have strong social ties if they share the same religion. However, the sense of brotherhood in nationalism is very different. People from different religions are seen as brothers of one another.

Nationalism has their own sacred symbols and ultimate loyalty understanding like religions have. As Hayes(2016) argued that the idea of religion is very similar with the idea of modern state. According to him the idea of Church in the medieval era is very similar to the institutions of modern states. In both cases people are willingly subject themselves (p.144-157). They both have eternal character, nationalism has unending future and eternal past like God has. Furthermore, there are holy symbols in nationalism like in the religions. Smith pointed out that national flag is the supreme symbol of devotion and expression of faith is made in the salute to the flag and the flag is a sacred, holy object. The national anthem is also a powerful sacred symbol. In contrast to the ultimate loyalty to the God, German anthem “Deutschland uber alles” cannot be explained by feel of loyalty but it refers to that loyalty of Germany should be more than any loyalty (Smith, 1994, pp.94). These ideas are not only similar to the understanding of the religion, but it is also the concept of God. As I have mentioned in the Abrahamic religions God is the Lord which means ultimate power who shapes society and people only worship him. But in nationalism people have ultimate and holy purposes, meaning of like and loyalty not to the God but the nations.

To sum up, there is a conflict between modern nation states and Abrahamic religions in many areas. In religions God is the ultimate authority who makes laws when modern nation states create their own laws. Nationalism is the idea of based on the brotherhood of people who share the same ethnicity or fatherland but in religions only the believers are brothers of each other. Nationalism has its own holy and sacred symbols and purpose of life or death when religions have their own.

References

Hayes, C. (2016). Nationalism : A religion. New Brunswick (U.S.A.): Transaction.

Breslauer, S. (1993). Judaism and civil religion (South florida-rochester-saint louis studies on religion and the social order, no. 3). Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press.

Smith, J. (1994). Quasi-religions : Humanism, marxism, and nationalism. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Kedourie, E. (1993). Nationalism (4th, expanded ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Gellner, E., & Breuilly, J. (2008). Nations and nationalism(pp.63-74) (2nd ed., New perspectives on the past). Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Quṭb Sayyid. (2017). Milestones. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service (P) Ltd.

Kesir, I. (1994). Büyük i̇slam tarihi (Çağrı yayınları, 53). İstanbul: Çağrı.

Ateş, S. (1990). Kur'an-ı kerim ve yüce meali. İstanbul: Yeni Ufuklar Neşriyat.

International Bible Society. (1984). The holy bible : New international version. East Brunswick: International Bible Society.

Spinoza B. (1951). A theologico-Political Treatise. New York: Dover.

Mendelssohn M. (1969. Jerusalem and other jewish writings. Alfred Jospe. NewYork: Schocken.

Farsi, M., Yanni, D., Saylağ, S., Asa, E., & Haleva, Y. (2002). Tora : Türkçe çeviri ve açıklamalarıyla tora ve aftara. İstanbul: Gözlem.