Dutch profit tax does not formally exclude religious organisations. Therefore, these organisations may have to pay tax over their income. The way this tax is determined is dictated by the law on corporate taxation: Wet op de vennootschapsbelasting 1969. In practice however, religious organisations are seldom taxed. In this article I investigate whether there is a formal reason to exclude this type of organisations from taxation, leading to the conclusion that there is no such reason.

The battle over the school system is one of the liveliest chapters in Dutch constitutional history. It resulted, in 1848, in the constitutional acknowledgement of a dual system of education: education provided by public authority (‘public education’) and private education (practically synonymous with confessional education); and, in 1917, in the constitutional guarantee of public funding for the latter on the same footing as the former.
The battle over the school system is usually described as a battle for freedom of private, confessional education from the start. This article shows that prior to this, in the first stage of this battle, the concept of ‘private education’ itself had to be invented and that the concept of ‘public education’ had to develop a different meaning. Public education, the notion used in the Constitutions of 1814 and 1815, originally meant education in schools in contrast to house education. It was this broad concept of education that was entrusted to the care of government and, therefore, not free. This article focuses on the first half of the 19th century. On the basis of original sources it traces the fascinating process of the birth of these new categories, that determine the Dutch education system up to now.

To what extent does liberal democracy still manage to realize the principle of expressive liberty? This article argues that, just as by the ethically monistic character of certain theoretizations of Confucian democracy, expressive liberty is threatened by a Western ‘civic totalism’ that insists that ‘politics enjoys general authority over subordinate activities and institutions because it aims at the highest and most comprehensive good for human beings’ (Galston). The ideal of liberal democracy will remain fundamentally flawed, as long as the sovereignty of the people on which its political legitimacy is more and more exclusively based hinders instead of advances a true sort of value pluralism.

In this article, the Roman perspective on the relations between the Roman imperial cult and monotheistic movements in the same period will be investigated. In modern scholarship, this Roman point of view has been underrepresented. This article will aim to create a better understanding of the religious conflicts that arose between ca. 44 B.C.E. and 313 C.E and serve as an example for attempting to understand the ‘alien’ side in religious conflict. This article will conclude that Roman religion has to be seen in the context of imperial politics to explain not only the conflicts between the Roman state, Jews and Christians, but also the rise of the imperial cult.

Spiritual assistance to people in an institute, was of old a task of churches and religious or philosophical communities. In the intramural health care more and more health care chaplains are working, the position of which is based only on an appointment of the management and not at the same time on a mission of a church or comparable community. This is experienced as a problem, because there is no supervision on the qualities of these health care chaplains. Therefore a committee recently proposed to establish a Council for Independent Spirituality, who tests the qualification and the competence of unattached health care chaplains and take care of their work.

The Dutch Social Support Act aims at a bigger role for the civil society in informal care. This appeal includes churches. In this article, the question is: do churches indeed want to participate more in social support? And what is subscribed to churches in the Social Support Act?
Formal documentation of all denominations formulate an active role of churches, both in society in general and more specifically in social support. In national legislation, the Social Support Act does not describe clearly what its expectations of churches are. This is partly so because the Law only gives a general frame for new policy, and local governments make their own policy based on their specific local situation. Local government show a wide variety of possible roles they expect from churches. These roles differ in some aspects from the roles churches describe themselves. Churches themselves do not clearly communicate to governments what they are willing and capable to do in the field of social support; maybe so because they do not realized yet how big the changes induced by the Social Support Act are.

The article deals with an unknown chapter of the history of Muslims in the Netherlands in the interwar period. It follows the public debate about the construction of the first mosque in The Hague before the Second World War. The first initiative was made in 1929 by the Dutch convert to Islam Mohammed Ali van Beetem, who played a leading role among the Indonesian Muslim community in the Netherlands. After more than two decennia of debate and negotiations with the municipal authorities in The Hague, the first mosque was finally built by the Ahmadiyya-mission in 1955.

Religion-related stress is the product of a predominantly secular society in which people are confronted with diverse religious practices. The phenomenon occurs where public meets private. How can employers ensure compliance with conflicting religious and other commitments in the workplace? The concept of respectful pluralism as formulated by Douglas Hicks in his book Religion and the Workplace, may go a long way to negotiating a solution to the debate between conformity and diversity.

Since many churches can no longer be used for divine worship, the canonical procedure for the relegation of churches to profane use has gained much interest among both faithful and citizens who want a church not to be closed down or even demolished. Many times parishioners take recourse against the Bishop’s administrative decree deciding the relegation of a church to profane use, i.e. that the church building is no longer designated for Catholic worship. It is extremely important for a bishop, therefore, to fulfil all the requirements of the law in making this decision. In this article the different steps of this procedure and of the administrative recourse to the Congregation of the Clergy and the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature are explained.

This is the second part of an analysis of the use of the qualification of the state as ‘neutral and impartial organiser of religions’ by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the first part of which appeared in the previous issue of this Journal. This part sets off with a discussion of the use of the qualification of the state as ‘neutral and impartial organiser of religions’ in cases concerning the place of religion in education. Subsequently, a variety of cases is dealt with that challenge restrictions on religious liberty set by the state or restrictions by third parties tolerated by the state. Finally, this contribution offers an overarching reflection on the use by the ECtHR of the qualification of the state as ‘neutral and impartial organiser of religions’ in its case law. It concludes that this qualification, which has no explicit treaty basis, is an inadequate standard for use at the international level and that the ECtHR itself is hardly ‘neutral’ in its application of the standard.

Financial relationships between state, churches and religious organisations have existed for a long time in Dutch history. This could be understood from a general interest point of view in the nineteenth century and the social welfare state. However, that century and the welfare state do not exist anymore. Also society and people have changed. Do the financial relationships still exist nowadays and if so, to what extent and how should one assess these financial relationships? In order to deal with these questions, the article gives a comprehensive overview of the current situation of different financial relationships between state and religious organisations against a constitutional and historical background. It is argued that most of these relations are legitimate under certain conditions and that the constitutional framework of separation of church and state should not be overestimated in this field.

The chaplaincy in penitentiary institutions shows a peculiar co-operation between the state and the religious communities. The chaplains provide a safe opportunity for supporting the detainees. The growing religious individualisation as well as a political rethinking of the role of religions institutions ask for system adaptations. In particular, the denominational approach is subject to discussion.

In the contemporary reform of the Dutch welfare state, civil society plays a prominent role in the solution of individual needs. This article investigates, from a normative point of view, the consequences for the churches as part of civil society. The outline of this policy is decentralization of welfare to local communities, saving of money, and a more active role of citizens in need to solve their problems alone. Then the normative framework is sketched with the help of the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching (personality, subsidiarity, solidarity and common good), as well as ‘caritas’. The consequences for the churches are analyzed, first from the perspective of their participation in this legal and policy-framework. There is a great complementarity in theory and practice, but research shows that local governments are reluctant in cooperating with churches, which have to be careful that their own identity will be instrumentalized. Second, the consequences are analyzed for the core business of churches: it appears that the government wants to have an insight in the processes of giving meaning to life of individuals to give the help (financially), efficiently and effectively, according to the policy goals. Thus, although the government wants to appeal to civil society and calls upon the churches explicitly, the paradoxical consequence will be that the free expression of religion will be limited in the functioning of the future welfare state.

Honour based violence has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years in the Dutch public debate. However, given that honour can be damaged and restored in many ways, defining this kind of violence is rather difficult. The term honour based violence is an umbrella concept. This article explains how, within this concept, the relationship between religion and violence in the name of honour is understood.

Since 2001 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) regularly applies the normative characterization of the state as a ‘neutral and impartial organiser of religions’ in its cases. This qualification has no explicit basis in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Where does it come from, how does the ECtHR understand this, in which type of cases does the ECtHR use it and with which result? This essay analyses the use of this qualification by the ECtHR and aims to provide an answer to these questions. It asserts that the qualification of the state as ‘neutral and impartial organiser of religions’ is an inadequate standard and examines wether it may harbor other normative dimensions that are important in the relation between state and religion. After introducing the first case in which the ECtHR used this qualification, the first part deals with cases concerning conflicts within and between churches, equal treatment of religious groups in multi-tiered church and state systems, and pupils in public schools wearing religious garb. The second part will appear in the next issue of this Journal and continues with an analysis of cases concerning the place of religion in education, and various alleged interferences of religious liberty. It concludes with a reflection on the use by the ECtHR of the qualification of the state as ‘neutral and impartial organizer of religious’.