politics

Question 1

descularisation

Answer 1

• treaty of westphalia 1648
  modern state and church
  religion not public
• privatisation thesis H. SEIWERT
• • binary relationship of religion and politics
• – some say no relationship at all
• western perspective
  ‘new’ understanding
  product of enlightenment BOCKENFORD

Question 2

revival

Answer 2

• liberal spirits of the 60s?
• secular politics failed expectations: peace, global capitalism
• people look to religion for stability
• previous conflict destabilised them; they are in need of support
• backlash to secularism: some societies feel left out of the modernisation process
• secularisation has been completed yet- slower than it was supposed to be
• people fall back on religion as a source of new ideologies: dissatisfied
• cold war brought in the whole world
  — out of resentment religions arose as a source of new ideologies that are more authentic and indigenous to their culture: islaminism
• arouund 70s and gaining momentum in the 80s

religious conflict in the 1970s increase as cold war dies down
1990s more of religious conflict than any other

identity becomes a first model for how religion functions in politics

Question 3

e.g. religion/ modern

Answer 3

Judaism - torah/ kings (not pharaoh) yet still accept religious gifts for legitimation

Christianity- Jesus not inherently political but attracted political attention- constantine

Islam- role of muhammad and quran / shariah

in the UK twenty-six archbishops and bishops are members of the ‘House of Lords’ and thus directly involved in political decisions

Iranian Rev
Even more recently, events such as the 1979 Iranian revolution, in which the 2,500 year-long Persian monarchy under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced with an Islamic Republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein, point to a more complex relation between the religious and the politics than secularisation theory could have predicted
9/11

Question 4

legitimation

Answer 4

BOURDIEU This function of religion comes from the fact that it is able to “absolutize the relative” and to “legitimate the arbitrary”. legitimation

marx: religion as the opium of the people= false sense of grounding

why “people obey rules and consider governments worthy of ruling”.FOX

SA apartheid: Dutch Reformed Church- Calvin doctrine of predestination FOX

the theological system of superiority was nurtured and grew into the political sphere too
Eventually, both the religious and political spheres reinforced each into a cycle of justifications that some people are simply superior to other

Question 5

functionalism

Answer 5

from a functionalist perspective “religious theologies and institutions are created and manipulated by other forces in society solely for the benefit of these secular forces.” Religion is a tool that serves a function

secondary factor

Question 6

functionalist fallacy

Answer 6

is not to say that this is the only political influence that religion has. Fox identifies this as ‘the functionalist fallacy. Just because religion is used as a tool does not mean that it is only a tool and nothing else.’ FOX

Question 7

nature of religion

Answer 7

FOX
all major definitions provided by Emile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz’s, Daniel Bell’s and Peter Berger’s, despite having their irreconcilable differences have one thing in common. Their commonality resides in the fact that they all focus on human behaviour.

Question 8

woodhead and cato

Answer 8

integrated approach
“not only is religion affected by wider changes in the economy, politics, media, the law… but it is integral to them”

“post war britain as secular and religious”

not confusing
false dichotomy