Between the "Already" and the "Not Yet": A Peace Perspective and a Catholic Theological Viewpoint on Religion and Politics

Abstract

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article questions the mainstream idea about the relationship between religion and politics that associates the church and state separation with a strict private—public division. Agreeing with the former distinction, we criticize the latter from the perspectives of both Catholic theology and peace and conflict studies. Both fields offer adequate reasons to challenge this narrow dualism, envisioning the spheres of religion and politics as complementary and mutually enriching. In response to increased violence involving religions across the globe, "religious peacebuilding" is currently developing approaches to explain such conflicts and inform peacebuilding methods and strategies. Additionally, the theological-emphasis on the eschatological presence of the "already" appeals to Catholic faith to pertinently reflect upon and frame public life. Consequently, we plead for the critical and beneficial engagement of religions in the public sphere as "not yet" sufficiently acknowledged.     

The public relevance of the church and Catholicism in Italy

Abstract

This article highlights the particular situation of the Catholic religion in Italy which distinguishes itself for its systematic organization, active association-forming and cultural vitality, unrivalled in any other European country either Protestant or Catholic. On the one hand the church in Italy still disposes of such a wealth of clergy and religious figures, dioceses and parishes, educational and social institutions, ecclesiastical groups and associations, and so on, that it can maintain a diffuse presence scattered over the national territory; it deploys numerous forces and resources which form an integral part of normal social relationships that animate civil society. On the other hand, the church and Italian Catholicism today are particularly active at a cultural level, with their contribution of ideas and experience on vital questions arising in social coexistence (ranging from the family to bioethics, from religious freedom to the secular State, from national identity to the multiethnic presence, and so on).     

Belonging without believing: Catholics in contemporary Italy

Abstract

This article seeks to illustrate some characteristics of the religiosity of Italians, focusing on Catholicism and interpreting the data in the light of the model of religious economy. The issue of belonging to the Catholic Church is addressed first, with an emphasis on problems of measurement and on the factors which underlie the differentiation of religious orientations in Italy. Next, the practice of Catholicism, primarily attendance at Mass, is examined as an indicator of the diffusion and vitality of the Catholic Church, and its course since the Second World War is described. Finally, the article deals with the issue of belief, showing Italians’ widely diffused propensity to ‘deviate’ from full Catholic orthodoxy. Our analysis shows that while the Catholic Church has maintained its pre‐eminent position in Italy's internal religious market, it has lost ground in recent decades and at present must contend with a considerable lack of both vitality and orthodoxy.     

Presencing the divine: religion and technology in the Latin West

ABSTRACT

For over a millennium, Catholic and Protestant traditions have deployed technologies to address the central paradox of the Christian faith: God’s absence after Easter. The following essay brings together scholarship on religious technics in the Christian Latin West during the medieval and early modern periods with a focus on the performance of presence. Medieval actors utilized an array of techniques, instruments, and contraptions to manifest the divine power present in holy matter. The movement of artifacts and people across medieval and early modern horizons mobilized and multiplied the effects of sacred proximity. The Society of Jesus’ emphasis on sensuality in worship and spectacle linked older forms of ritual piety with routinized religion. The shift from a predominantly Christian to modern culture in the West did not terminate organized religion’s close association with technology, but extended the experience of spiritual presence in the West through industrial and post-industrial, digital means.     

Barack Obama's Political Theology: Pluralism,Deliberative Democracy,and the Christian Faith

Abstract

Obama won the 2008 election precisely because he crafted a political theology that enabled him to create a truly progressive Democratic Party religious and racial-ethnic minority platform that welcomed pro-choice and pro-life social-justice leaning Catholics and Evangelicals into a new coalition. His political theology was directly influenced by Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright and the black church civil rights tradition, white liberal Protestantism, his mother Ann Dunham's skepticism and free spirit, and Evangelical and Catholic leaders, advisors and opponents. Obama's best and most comprehensive statement on his political theology is his chapter on "Faith" in his New York Times No.1 best-selling autobiography The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006). Obama contends that religiously motivated people must learn the art of compromise, proportion, and how to find shared values. They must translate their religious concerns and vision for America into universal rather than religion-specific values, which must be subject to debate, amenable to reason, and applicable to people of all lifestyles and faiths or no faith at all. They should also be willing to sublimate their ultimate theological and religious convictions for the common collective good. Secular people likewise must adopt a similar approach towards religious people and activists.     

New idols: Catholicism in the face of Fascist totalitarianism

Abstract

This article explores the attitudes of the Vatican and Catholic culture towards Fascism and Fascism's political religion during the pontificate of Pius XI, in the context of the Catholic church's rejection of modernity as a new epoch of paganism that took the form of political mysticism. It shows that despite the Concordat of 1929, the papacy reacted with growing alarm to the Fascist regime's ‘sacralization of politics’ that threatened to make Catholic religion a handmaid of the totalitarian state.     

Religion and the US Presidency: Politics,the Media,and Religious Identity

Abstract

The relationship between religion and the presidency impacts both the viability of candidates and the manner in which decisions are made in the voting booth. Today we are living in culture where religion is front and center in politics. This article examines the role of religion in political discourse with special attention to the 2012 presidential election. It focuses on the manner in which religion and politics have become inextricably interwoven in the past sixty years. It begins by establishing the role of religion in the broader political arena. The article then turns to the manner in which religious identity and participation influence voting patterns, and how religious affiliation shapes the office of the presidency. The conclusion offers some reflections on the future of religion in presidential politics, an issue that will continue to be a significant factor in how and why voters support and marginalize particular candidates.     

Religion,toleration, and religious liberty in republican empire

ABSTRACT

The essay considers the nature and extent of toleration extended by Roman authorities to the religious pluralism of the empire. Roman legal instruments and works of law and political theory identify religion not as a concern of individuals but communities, and above all of juridically-constituted communities. As a related matter, classical and Christian Latin employs the language of political belonging, most notably that of republican citizenship, as its dominant apparatus for discussing religious affiliation. These related conceptual apparatus placed considerable limits on Romans’ ability to afford liberty in matters of religion to individuals.     

Language,religion and the politics of difference

Language and religion are arguably the two most socially and politically consequential domains of cultural difference in the modern world. Yet there have been very few efforts to compare the two in any sustained way. I begin by aligning language and religion, provisionally, with ethnicity and nationhood, and by sketching five ways in which language and religion are both similar to and similarly intertwined with ethnicity and nationhood. I then identify a series of key differences between language and religion and draw out their implications for the political accommodation of cultural heterogeneity. I show that religious pluralism tends to be more intergenerationally robust and more deeply institutionalised than linguistic pluralism in western liberal democracies, and I argue that religious pluralism entails deeper and more divisive forms of diversity. The upshot is that religion has tended to displace language as the cutting edge of contestation over the political accommodation of cultural difference – a striking reversal of the longer‐term historical process through which language had previously displaced religion as the primary focus of contention.     

“The Delicious Sense of Foreignness”: American Transcendentalism in the Atlantic

Abstract

This essay presents one example of the ways in which place, transiency, and change have shaped the American experience. In the mid-nineteenth century a diverse group of American Transcendentalists came together on the island of Fayal in the Azores. The Transcendentalists' reaction to the Portuguese Catholic culture they encountered in the Azores indicates a broader pattern among nineteenth-century American liberals. These tourists operated within a larger transatlantic atmosphere of uncertainty characterized at times by hope but also by crisis. This culture of uncertainty, moreover, was one of the key factors in shaping how American liberals struggled with their conceptions of religion and nation.     

A Public Faith—but for Everyone and Every Public?

Abstract

Miroslav Volf’s sets out a strong, good thesis about the freedom religious people ought to have to participate in public as fully themselves, as religious people. This thesis is in tension with the fact that some people seek to harm others, or to radically compromise public life itself, in the name of their religion. Along the way, Volf makes a number of points that seem puzzling, at least overstated, but perhaps even incoherent with other claims he makes or with data that he likely also knows. I raise the possibility that the author’s social location may help to explain at least some of these debatable features of his otherwise salutary book.     

Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the Presentation of the Henrician Reformation in his Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth

Abstract

It was no coincidence that Charles I commissioned a study of the life and reign of Henry VIII in the 1630s as he proceeded with controversial anti-Calvinist religious reforms in the face of Puritan opposition and suspicion that he was a closet Catholic. Lord Herbert of Cherbury's willingness to undertake the laborious scholarly task is initially more surprising but can be explained by his commitment to the eradication of religious conflict and his realization that it would enable him to disseminate his own rationalist, reunionist and Erastian views on religious belief, the organization of religion and the location of religious authority.     

Structures of feeling in seventeenth-century cultural expression

ABSTRACT

As the English church splintered during the mid-seventeenth century, the resultant religious diversity overwhelmed contemporary observers, who struggled to make sense of rapidly advancing theological, political, and cultural changes. This religious chaos has, in turn, produced a similar sense of disorientation among scholars attempting to understand it, and questions of how to best categorise radical religion have generated intense controversy. One of the most important, but perhaps most misunderstood, of these emerging religious expressions were the so-called General Baptists. This article reassesses the utility and coherence of “General Baptist” as an overarching conceptual category to describe historical actors between 1609 and 1660. Historians have traditionally applied this label to any religious dissenters who both rejected paedobaptism and embraced Arminian soteriology. This standard interpretation, however, is misleading and cannot account for the historical record. As the present article demonstrates, the label “General Baptist” had no coherent, stable historical referent during the first half of the seventeenth century.     

Shia groups and Iranian religious influence in Azerbaijan: the impact of trans-boundary religious ties on national religious policy

Abstract

The Azerbaijani Government’s struggle against external influence from Iran has played a significant role in consolidating its secular self-identification since independence in 1991. Though strong, direct Iranian influence on Azerbaijani Shia groups belongs to the past, its effects are sustained. This article examines the religious transborder flows from Iran to Azerbaijan and their impact on Azerbaijani domestic religious policy. The analysis includes religion as a factor in the debate about transnationalism and about how transnational actors challenge nation states’ exclusive authority over their territory. The analysis uses data from government documents, newspaper articles, social media, and interviews with politicians and religious actors. As a result, the article shows that the Iranian intervention in Azerbaijan has effectively initiated the building of a more specific Shia identity among a small but growing number of Shia groups. This has led to the reconfiguration both of the religious field and of Azerbaijani political secularism.     

An interpretation of Finnish religious nationalism: the four topoi of theological depoliticisation

ABSTRACT. The topic of this article is the relation between ‘politicality’ and theology in the discourse of Finnish religious nationalism during the Winter War of 1939–40 and the Continuation War of 1941–44. I shall draw on the ideas of Kari Palonen and Anthony D. Smith in attempting to thematise theological depoliticisation as an intrinsic element of religious nationalism. Also, I will elaborate its political significance in the Finnish context, where the role of traditional religion in the general development of nationalist thought has been particularly important. The specific focus is on how prominent representatives of the Finnish clergy related to war and nationalist claims in general. My interpretation is that their arguments were drawn from what I call the topoi of theological depoliticisation, which, at the same time, rendered the discourse extremely political.     

Religious themes in Central European postage stamps, 2006–2010

The countries of Central Europe present a suitable arena for studying the interplay of religion and nationalism. This study explores religious expressions of national identity through the issue of postage stamps, from 2006 to 2010, in seven Central European countries: Austria, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. While the national societies in question exhibit very different religious inclinations, as expressed through a variety of recent, comparable data, quantitative and qualitative analyses of the stamps they issued over a 5-year period enrich our understanding of the religious elements and traditions that form an integral part of Central European identities. As expected, states with higher relative numbers of religious adherents—Poland, Slovakia, and Austria—produce relatively more religiously themed stamps, particularly stamps that depict “living religion.” Protestant or Catholic traditions can also be traced in the relative frequencies of stamp issues. The stamps demonstrate how states employ religious traditions and heritage to perpetuate a sense of national community.     

Muslim Theologies of Solidarity and Disavowal and the Challenge of Religious Pluralism

ABSTRACT

Rawls' conception of political liberalism does not reckon exclusivist salvation religions to be, for that reason alone, unreasonable. He posits, however, that exclusivist doctrines of salvation are likely to become more generous in their views of the religious other with the experience of toleration. While the religious welcome toleration by the majority, relaxation of doctrines of salvation dilutes the urgency of religious truth, and so reduces a religion's ability to justify its existence. Paradoxically, political toleration creates a countervailing demand within a religious community to articulate more precisely what is intolerable in the religious other. This paper explores the dialectic between toleration and nontoleration in the history of Muslim sects and suggests that this history offers lessons on the kinds of strategies that can be successful in promoting religious tolerance in a Muslim society, as well as the limits that might reasonably be expected in those societies.     

Normative Political Theology as Intensified Critique

ABSTRACT

Some theorists are suspicious of normative political theology because they believe it undermines critical rationality. In my view, these theorists neglect theological traditions that resist dogmatism through intensified critique. Because authoritarian dogma is not unique to religion, theology offers sophisticated techniques that may be useful for those who are not themselves religious. A normative theology that intensifies critique represents a valuable resource for political reflection, and not only for the faithful.     

Religion and Politics in Australia

Abstract

The relationship between religion and politics in Australia has in the past been conditioned by the peculiarities of Australian history. Traditionally religion was related to issues of moral reformation and sectarianism. Changes in Australia over the past forty years have changed this relationship as the public role of religion has waned. In recent times there has been somewhat of a religious comeback in Australian public life. This has been related to a new style of Christian politics, the presence of two strong Church leaders, Cardinal George Pell and Archbishop Peter Jensen, the presence of Islam, the election of a committed Christian Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister and the continuing importance of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) as a civil religion.     

Nationalism,religion, and abortion policy in four Catholic societies

Over the last decade, a growing number of scholars have tackled the changing relationship between national identity and social policy. In this article, we explore the relationship between abortion policy and the historical and political construction of national identity as it relates to religious norms and symbols. Focusing on two main cases, Ireland and Poland, Catholic societies in which abortion rights are severely restricted, we argue that, in political discourse and institutions, a strong relationship between the Catholic Church and national identity helps opponents of abortion enact and maintain such restrictions in the name of religious norms embedded in strong claims about national identity. After exploring these two main cases, we briefly turn to Spain and Québec, Catholic societies that, in recent decades, have witnessed a secularisation of their national identity correlated to a liberalisation of abortion rights. This suggests that, at least in Catholic societies, the decline of a religious national identity is likely to favour a liberalisation of abortion rights.