Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid

Samenvatting

Governmental authorities have to deal with religion on a daily basis: via individual citizens or religious organisations, in the framework of subsidy applications or measures against the radicalisation of believers. More than a year after publication of ‘Religion and the public domain, guidelines for municipalities’, a joint production of the Association of the Netherlands Municipalities and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom relations, we discuss the room for cooperation between the government and religious organisations within the limits of the principle of separation between church and state. Both the legal framework and practical examples from different municipalities will be brought up. Three rules (of play) are exemplified in particular, namely that contacts between government and religious organisations or parties on an ideological basis do not lead to a substantive involvement with the faith itself, or with internal church matters, that the contacts serve to realise non-faith related public goals and that the government is held tot treat religious organisations or parties on an ideological basis equally. Having regard to those rules (of play) cooperation is very well possible.