9.2: Religion and Society

Countries that use religious guidelines to such as degree that they are intermingled with civil laws as known as religious states. The number of religious states in the 21st century is few, and most are Islamic countries, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, most countries, such as the United States, are not influenced by religion to such a degree. Such countries are called secular states, meaning religion is removed from government and laws, and citizens are free to worship as they please or not at all, if that is their choice. Today, the number of secular states far outnumbers religious states.

Religions also use social order to differentiate those within the community, as well as those without. For example, Judaism uses the term Gentile, which literally means "nation," in reference to anyone not born into the Jewish faith, while Islam uses Dhimmi in reference to a non-Muslim person living in an Islamic country; it literally means "protected person." Moving to gender, all major world religions give women lower status than men, which is reflected in numerous passage of scripture.

Although organized religion, as part of human society, cannot escape being involved with the economy, and cannot really function without money, we need to understand that there has always been an uneasy relationship between the world of religion and the world of material things. We will give just a few examples.

For religion, hand in hand with the problem of money, has always been the question of increasing one’s money. The problem of lending money at interest, especially at an exorbitant rate, occurs in several religious traditions. This practice is known as usury.

In Islam, the term used for usury is riba which literally means "increase". Riba is regarded as the opposite of zakah or the giving of alms, and is regarded as unacceptable individual profit–making at the expense of one’s fellow human being. Islamic banks have been established to allow Muslims to store their capital safely while not gathering interest. This does not mean that Muslims cannot invest their money in, for instance, a building, and sell it at a profit later. That is acceptable. What Islam objects to is "money making money" just by sitting in an account and not demonstrably helping the community.

Helping the Homeless

The question of usury has long been a thorny issue for relationships between Christians and Jews, because Church or Canon Law prohibited Christians from charging each other interest in 1179 CE. However, it said nothing about Christians borrowing money from Jews and paying interest.

Jews, on the other hand, were permitted to charge interest from Gentiles (non–Jews) if no other means of survival was available. At the same time, the Christian authorities refused to allow the Jews to farm or trade for a living. Thus, Jews became the money–lenders of Europe, and were much hated and persecuted because of it.