Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells
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prayer in public (state) schools by the Supreme Court in 1962–3, and the legalization of abortion on demand in 1973, they re-entered the political arena led initially by Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. Since then, Christian fundamentalism has been a significant political and electoral presence, forming an important part of the Republican Party’s base and motivated most recently by the question of legalizing same-sex marriage.
In taking, generally speaking, a strictly literalist and inerrant view of Holy Scripture, emphasizing being ‘born again’ as a marker of faith, and adopting uncompromisingly conservative political stances, Christian fundamentalists form at best a large minority of America’s Protestant constituency, and far less than that in other Western countries. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that, contrary to the expectations of many scholars, it is a form of politicized religion that maintains a wide appeal (see Wilcox 1996).
Fundamentalist religious perspectives also have had a significant resonance within a number of contemporary Islamic countries (see Esposito 1997). Here, they have been associated with political opposition to the uncritical importation and adoption of Western secular values, which are viewed as having corrupted the community. Hence, to Muslim fundamentalists, what is needed is a rigorous re-establishment of Islamic law (Qur’an and Shari’a) as the sole framework for national political life. In pursuing such goals, they have been viewed on the one hand as passionate and dedicated believers but, on the other hand, they have also been seen as legalistic, intolerant, and authoritarian.
Such perspectives were first articulated by Hasan al-Banna who decried Western influence in Egyptian culture in the inter-war period. Through the Muslim BrotherÂhood, his ideas have since spread throughout the Islamic world to countries such as Pakistan, Algeria and Afghanistan. But perhaps their most enduring and notable resonance has been seen in the regime established in Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini in replacement of the modernizing leadership of the shahs. Under their rule, a French-based legal code was substituted for the Shari’a and the educational system partly secularized. Khomeini then led a revolution in 1979 that brought him to power as ‘Supreme Leader’ and enabled him to put into effect his traditional Islamic ideas, set out in his Islam and Revolution (1981). To him, Islamic teaching demanded the merging of religion and politics and the establishment of a theocratic state. In this way, in Iran as in many other countries, fundamentalism has been a major modality for religion’s seeking a central place in contemporary politics and public life.
The present era has also seen the development of a renewed relationship between Christianity and the political sphere through ‘political theology’ (Forrester 1988). Its founder was Johannes B. Metz whose Theology of the World (1969) was an attempt to correct the privatizing influence of modern Western culture which had led, in his view, to a neglect of the public and political sphere in favour of the private and individual. It also was an attempt to provide a faith-based assessment of the basic precepts that should govern the public pronouncements of religious institutions and leaders. For Metz, the Church has always been a political force in history and to him all theology, being in part a critique of the ‘political implicatedness’ of the Church, is necessarily political. In the past, he argued, the Church allowed itself to become politically engaged too uncritically with Constantinian Christendom being not the outcome of an evangelizing imperative but the product of a process of cooptation by the state presented as if it were the will of God. Similar but more contemporary examples of the potential for the political exploitation of Christianity can be found in Nazi Germany, in apartheid South Africa and even perhaps, in a democratic context, the association of evangelicals with the political Right in the United States. In the latter case, what such Christians see as the political expression of authentic religious commitments can
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also be viewed as a conservative political coalition co-opting religion to legitimate its powerseeking goals.
Religiously-inspired critiques of political arrangements have also arisen in a number of other strands of Christian thought, notable examples being black theology (Cone 1975) and feminist theology (Ruether 1983) both of which have been influential in shaping new understandings of racial and gender issues in America. Those understandings have focused around the theme of liberation, which has itself become a significant theological and political current in its own right. The term ‘liberation theology’ originated in Latin America with the publication of A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutiérrez (1974). With Bonino, Segundo, Boff and others, a powerful and radical religious critique of economic and social conditions was developed, focused on a commitment to the materially poor and the urgent need for political action to transform a fundamentally unjust society. Through the development of religious and social networks among the non-elite in Latin America called ‘base communities’ and strategic alliances with Marxist-inspired groups, liberation theology gave a whole new dimension to the way religion engaged with the Latin American political process.
A high-point was the Second General Conference of the Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellín, Colombia in 1968, which approved documents articulating a preferential option for the poor (1970). At the same time, however, it resulted in a clash with conservative religious and political leaders. Indeed, the linkage with Marxist analyses aroused opposition from the Vatican and the late Pope John Paul II whose experience of Communism in his Polish homeland had made him extremely hostile to such associations. For these and other reasons, since then the political impact of liberation theology in Latin America has diminished. Nevertheless, it has left a legacy in providing religious legitimacy for human rights that has resonated in other parts of the world, for example in Asia (Kee 1978: 127–50) and in South Africa.
In the latter case, there was a long history of human rights abuse, racism and oppression through the system of apartheid set up by the Nationalist Party when it came to power in 1948 and legitimated by the (white) Dutch Reformed Church in documents such as Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture (1976). Gradually, however, seeing this as a ‘pseudo-gospel’, religious groups became engaged with the resistance movement led by the African National Congress. Liberationist ideas influenced their contribution, especially in the Kairos Document (1985), which rejected both a ‘State theology’ of support for (white) political authority and a quietist ‘Church theology’ of focusing exclusively on saving souls. Instead, it called on the churches to engage directly in political action to challenge the satanic evil of apartheid (see Elphrick and Davenport 1997).
Outside of South Africa, however, liberation theology has had only a limited influence in African politics (Gifford 1998: 30). Instead, as in Latin America, Pentecostalism has recently had much greater sway and its political influence has generally been indirect, operating more within the cultural than the political arena (see Martin 1990). In its American roots at the turn of the twentieth century, Pentecostal movements were concerned above all with the imminent end of the world in divine judgement and the consequent need to evangelize (see Bloch-Hoell 1964). As such, Pentecostal Churches, such as the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ, were little concerned with worldly politics.
Since World War II, however, and the non-arrival of judgement day, Pentecostalists became more open to political action, broadly defined. Black Pentecostalists, such as Al Sharpton and Eugene Rivers, stimulated by the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, turned to community involvement, tackling problems of juvenile delinquency and social welfare.
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But white Pentecostalists, such as Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson, inclined towards supporting the Christian Right, advocating prayer in public schools, and opposing abortion and homosexuality. It is this latter tradition which has had, through missionary action, a greater influence on the shape of Pentecostalism elsewhere. In Brazil, Guatemala and Chile, for example, Pentecostal leaders have tended to support conservative agendas, although a minority has also associated itself with calls for social and economic justice. In Africa, the ‘Faith Gospel’ of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin has also led to a stress on individualistic and personalized prosperity, this-worldly success through faith now, rather than on any directly political agenda. By default, therefore, it has had a substantially conservative influence.
Of course, the contemporary relationship between religion and politics has not only been influenced by ideas and issues emanating from the religious sphere. Modern political thought has also had an immense influence, not the least being liberalism. Stressing, at its core, the value of liberty and, in particular, a conception of personal freedom from external interference, liberalism provided much of the ideological framework within which Western Church–State relations are now conducted. Through its roots in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, liberalism developed a powerful critique of traditional arrangements. The idea of an established church, for example, was seen in the emergent pluralistic culture as a threat to individual religious freedom. What was needed was a disentangling of Church and State and the creation of a private sphere in which religion could prosper.
These ideas found their strongest expression in the United States where figures such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were instrumental in providing for both the disestablishment of churches and the protection of religious freedom in the First Amendment to the Constitution. But, as the decisions of the Supreme Court in subsequent years have made clear, it is an ambiguous and tension-ridden provision. Weber (1998), for example, articulates five distinct interpretations of what separation of Church and State might mean, various combinations of which have been used to justify differing judicial outcomes. Thus, the Court tolerates paid chaplains for Congress and state legislatures, and official prayers at the opening of their daily sessions, but has prohibited similar prayers in state schools. Indeed, the school prayer issue is still alive as the Court continues to strive for a reasoned balance between the twin imperatives of non-establishment and religious freedom. All in all, the whole American model remains much contested, in part for the confusion and uncertainty it has produced, in part for the way it seems in practice to support secularism by restricting a public place for religion which puts in jeopardy the very religious freedom separation is supposed to procure.
Not surprisingly, therefore, other countries have adopted Church–State models based upon neutrality through pluralism rather than neutrality through separation, that is an acceptance by the state of a public role for religion but competing alongside other secular ideas for influence (see Monsma and Soper 1997). At the same time, however, American liberalism has clearly influenced constitutional arrangements concerning religion in many parts of the world including Turkey, India and Japan, all cases where the constitutions have been secularized and religious freedom mandated. Indeed, its pervasive influence is attested to by the rise of fundamentalism.
Marxism represents another modern political ideology that has had a major impact on the relationship between religion and politics. For Marx, the central value was equality, or rather the absence of it within capitalism, which engendered gross inequality, exploitation and alienation. To him, religion was a symptom of more fundamental social and economic
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problems, it was ‘the opium of the people’, a form of cultural distortion that veiled a deeper material alienation. Such a fundamental antipathy toward religion led communists in the Soviet Union to espouse a policy of hostile Erastian control over, and restriction of, all public religious activity. Under Stalin, religious liberty was effectively dissolved. All churches had to be registered, public religious education was barred, many seminaries closed and much church property confiscated. The Russian Orthodox Church was reduced to the role of a political puppet (Ramet 1988).
Following the Soviet lead, the communist countries of Eastern Europe adopted similarly hostile state religious policies. Albania became the extreme case with the communist authorities proclaiming the abolition of religion in 1967. But the collapse of communist rule in 1989–91 has led to an institutional revitalization of religion and a renewal of its autonomy and political presence throughout the region. In Russia, the Orthodox Church has sought to provide support and legitimacy for the new regime as well as seeking the reassertion of its traditional privileges amidst the flowering of religious pluralism. In Poland, the Czech Republic and the former East Germany, the churches entered the post-communist era with considerable prestige and influence, having actively assisted in the overthrow of Communist rule. In Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, however, such was the compliant closeness of the churches’ relationship with the communist state that the new political era has been less accommodating.
Meanwhile, the Marxist legacy continues in a number of countries still communist ruled. In Cuba, after the Castro Revolution of 1959, the new regime expelled priests, shut down churches, nationalized private schools and inducted seminarians into the military. And though Church–State tensions have eased in recent years, culminating in a papal visit in 1998, the political authorities still remain wary of any Church comment that might be deemed critical (see Kirk 1989). Similarly in the People’s Republic of China, a hostile Erastian religious policy is still largely in place. The State tightly controls religious institutions and restricts religious liberty. Indeed, the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76 led to thousands of religious adherents being jailed or killed. With the subsequent ascent to power of reformists, however, a slightly more liberal approach has gradually been taken. But the recent resurgence of religious activity, notably in the ‘Buddhist Law’ cult and the Falun Gong movement, has ensured that the State still maintains very strict limits on what is permitted. In short, though now muted and even transformed, Marxism retains an important indirect influence over contemporary Ârelationships between religion and politics.
The Enlightenment also gave birth to nationalism which similarly contributes much to current relationships between religion and politics. For nationalism, the central value is ‘nationhood’ and loyalty to its manifestation in the nation-state. It has witnessed myriad different relationships with the religious sphere. In some cases, nationalism has remained largely secular, for example in Scotland, the Basque Country and Quebec. In other countries, however, religion has been woven into it. In the United States, Christian (and especially Protestant) religious symbols and images have been used to help form a ‘civil religion’, a political culture in which connections are drawn between national identity and the sacred. These range from mythic religious ideas about America’s founding, through religiously defined views of political authority, to religiously informed political rituals and discourse.
In other contexts, religion has clashed violently with secular nationalism and the State by being the basis for a radical form of avowedly religious nationalism. Such has been the outcome in many parts of the Muslim world. For example, in Egypt an attempt was made by the Muslim Brethren to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser for his brand of secular nationalism
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in 1954. A radical offshoot of the Brethren succeeded in killing his successor, President Anwar al-Sadat, in 1981. Similar tense confrontations occurred in Afghanistan where Muslim groups overthrew the communist government in 1992, to then be replaced by the even more radical Taliban who established a strict and autocratic Muslim state (Rashid 2000) that was only overthrown by American military intervention following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Equally, in the Palestinian territories, a civil war took place following legislative elections in 2006 between Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), a movement of militant Muslim nationalists, and the more secular nationalist organization Fatah (Palestine Liberation Organization). The result left Hamas in effective control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 while Fatah was left in charge of Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
In South Asia, religious nationalism is at the root of continuing international tension between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. In India itself, Hindu nationalism has long been a militant force confronting both the religiously accommodationist nationalism of Mohandas K. Gandhi (who was assassinated) and the once-dominant Congress Party he led. In recent years, operating through a cultural organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the powerful Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party), Hindu nationalists have also been in bloody confrontations with Sikhs in the Punjab, and with Muslims at Ayodya in Northern India (Van der Veer 1994).
Religious nationalism is also an important element in the politics of Israel that arose historically through Zionism, a nineteenth-century movement to attract Jewish settlement in the Biblical Promised Land. While itself largely secular, being rooted in European antiSemitism and persecution, its religious elements have been represented in modern Israeli electoral politics by the National Religious Party (Mafdal) which is dedicated to Israel as a Jewish state – ‘the Land of Israel for the People of Israel according to the Torah of Israel’ – and by Shas and United Torah Judaism, dedicated to an even more theocratic conception of the Israeli polity. A particularly extreme form of Jewish nationalism was developed by Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the now banned Kach Party, who argued for the Torah being the basis for Israeli law and clashed with both secularized Jews and all he perceived to oppose the establishment of a Jewish nation-state. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by a follower of Rabbi Kahane for being too accommodating to the Palestinians.
Christianity too has been appropriated for nationalist causes in Europe for many centuries. Orthodoxy played a role in nationalist movements of Eastern Europe. In nineteenth-century Bulgaria, for example, nationalist ideas were linked to the desire for an independent Bulgarian Church. Equally, in Greece, the Orthodox Church has long played a part in the nurturing of Hellenic national identity, and is represented in modern Greek electoral politics by the People’s Orthodox Rally. Perhaps most notably, the Orthodox Church, and the Moscow Patriarchate in particular, have been influential in the development of post-Soviet Russian politics.
In the West, Protestantism helped form British national identity and undergirded wars with Catholic France. Nationalism and religion also became closely interwoven within the politics of Northern Ireland. The nationalism of the Protestant majority took the form of loyalty to the British Crown while many in the Roman Catholic community aspired to join a reunified Ireland. The presence of a major religious element in these two rival national identities deepened the sense of mutual distrust, and provided symbols and rhetoric to castigate the opposition. Not least, it made the search for peaceful reconciliation both protracted and challenging, although some resolution seems to have been finally achieved in 2007.
Similar problems afflicted Yugoslavia. The legacy of history left the country with three rival religious traditions, each intertwined with local communal identities. Orthodoxy has