Throughout the history of the civilized world, religion and politics have held a contentious relationship. Both religion and politics have played a role in influencing one another and in shaping the modern world. We have witnessed wars and genocides develop based around religious beliefs and faiths, and we have also witnessed religions develop and form around centralized politics. So, what is the difference between religious politics and political religion?
These are two different concepts, each unique in their own ways; however, there are many instances in which these two spheres intersect. This paper seeks to compare and contrast religious politics and political religion and illustrate the findings with some examples.
Religious politics is the application of religiously based reasoning to political attitudes and behaviors on a wide range of issues, including but not limited to, abortion, immigration, war and peace. In general, people who are believers and think religion matters in how they lead their lives will base their decisions in part on their faith on matters such as voting. Political religion, however, is a fundamental project of social or political transformation that involves beliefs and utilizes the mass mobilization of political institutions. One example of this would be the 1980s Catholic Church and the fall of Communism. Practicing Catholics had played a key role in forging common value and aims with liberal and ex-Marxist dissidents. Another example of this would be the Iranian revolution that mobilized Shia-Islam not only in Iran, but also in other parts of the world. Additionally, the Protestant Reformation that aimed to reform the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church serves as an example of this.
The Protestant Reformation ushered in an era in which people had to decipher exactly what roles religion and politics should play in each other’s spheres. The Anabaptists are an example of a people that answered in an extreme form on one dimension by rejecting the state and much of modernity to come to America. The Protestant Reformation consisted of several streams, some of which focused on the magistrates, the kings, and the queens. Others focused on the relationship between secular power, state power, and the faith. This was true of the Anabaptists. They had initially attempted to reform the world through radical means under the Radical Reformation. Their attempts at reformation had failed, so they had traveled to America and shifted from a radically active orientation to an orientation in which they believed in living a godly and biblical life as close as possible that rejects much of what they see as a corruption of flesh and of the modern world. They had challenged the relationship between the sacred and the claims of the secular, like the state and modernity.
The sacred division of labor was precisely the issue that had troubled the Anabaptists, and we see a basic division of labor develop everywhere. Perhaps the original division of labor was the distinction between kings and priests. Priests were considered to have some sort of sacred power, while kings had claimed jurisdiction and power through politics. These two spheres and two separate acts of life have always coexisted in both cooperation and in conflict. The relationship between religion and politics, thus, is never separate and there is never complete distinction. One must consider the distinction between church and state in this instance. The First Amendment to the United States’ constitution states that congress shall make no establishment of religion, meaning that there cannot be a national church, such as the Anglican Church that was the official church of Great Britain. However, another part of the First Amendment claims that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion and/or the free exercise thereof. Therefore, Congress cannot interfere in the public or private expression of faith, and it cannot prevent a religion from being a public actor or from having a political voice. This raises a key question: what is the relationship supposed to be between the mundane and the sacred, and how far can a faith or the state go?
This question regarding the extent to which both religion and politics have power is a key issue in every civilization because both religion and politics make general regulatory claims about the other. The mundane, like the state, makes claims about public order; while the institutions of the sacred, like the clergy, make claims regarding public morality. A common example of the intersection of both of these spheres is demonstrated through public education. What can and cannot be taught in public schools when it comes to faith? Many individuals want religion taught in public schools, while many others argue against it. Another example would be property rights. Religious institutions finance their clerics and do their charity work through the ownership of property. What happens in a dispute over religious property, and who should manage it? The state would argue that they should be allowed to handle the issue; however, religious law may have differing views when it comes to property rights. The issue persists even in American courts as some courts will apply religious law in such disputes, while others will not. Both religious politics and political religion will always affect public morality and the role of institutions in the sacred and mundane divisions of labor.
Political religion brings governance into question. How exactly does a religious institution choose to govern? Can it be more centralized like Catholic Church, or more decentralized like Protestants or Sunni Islam? There is a linkage between religious organization and belief. In general, monotheist faiths, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, create doctrinal uniqueness. All monotheist faiths believe that their own specific holy book is unique and is brought to humans by God in time. Each monotheist faith draws institutional boundaries between their faith and other faiths. This is not due to reasons such as exclusivity or jealousy, but rather it is because of the very nature of the faith itself. Christianity, for example, believes in justification by faith, and that through their belief in Jesus Christ, they may have an adequate relationship with God whose forgiveness was made for all through the death of Jesus. The doctrines of Judaism conflict with those of Christianity because Judaism has never accepted the viewpoints of Jesus that are attributed to Christianity. In Judaism, the central belief is the absolute unity and singularity of God, and it rejects the worship of a person as a form of idolatry. Islam, conversely, accepts that Jesus existed, but believes that Muhammad is the final messenger. Due to their uniqueness in doctrinal nature, it is impossible to move between faiths in monotheist religions.
While monotheist faiths tend to have doctrinal uniqueness, the alternative is presented through religions like Hinduism and Buddhism that exhibit doctrinal synthesis through their traditions. These doctrines are based on repeated synthesis of more aspects of different kinds of faith. Consequently, the institutional boundaries between one type of Buddhism and one type of Hinduism are blurred from the standpoint of monotheism, but not blurred from the standpoint of the believer of the faith. For example, in China, historically much of their religion has believed in personal welfare. So, unlike in monotheist faiths, if one believes that he or she is not receiving enough from his or her current religion and wants to improve his or her personal welfare, there is the option to move between religions without it being an issue.
The distinction between anti-slavery and abolitionism has demonstrated that religious politics and political religion have always been a part of the American religious landscape.
