The functional differentiation of society means that government, religion, commerce, art, education and science are increasingly independent, have different social functions, relate differently to one another, and that their lived meanings for us are different. Functional differentiation also drives the pluralism and relativism, global scope and individualisation that characterise postmodern society. In a society in which religious ritual is the mirror of individual dist...

The title ‘church and state’ will appear strange to most Bahai readers, since the Bahai faith is an independent religion born from Shiah Islam, not a church. However ‘church and state studies’ is the accepted name of a field of study which is not confined to Christianity. There is, for example, a Journal of Church and State, and research schools on the topic. These deal with the general issue of the relationship between organised religion and the institutional part of po...