Political Religion - Overview

Overview

The term political religion draws on the aspects of religion which can be found in certain secular ideologies. The scientific schools practicing the study on religious aspects of politics include at least Political science (for example William Connolly), Sociology (Christoph Deutschmann), History (Emilio Gentile), Theology (Oliver O'Donovan) and Psychology. A political religion often occupies the same ethical, psychological and sociological space as a traditional religion, and as a result it often displaces or co-opts existing religious organizations and beliefs. The most central definition of a political religion is the Sacralization of politics, for example an overwhelming religious feeling when serving one`s country, as in the case of the Founding Fathers. Although a political religion may co-opt existing religious structures or symbolism, it does not itself have any independent spiritual or theocratic elements - it is essentially secular, using religion only for political purposes, if it does not reject religious faith outright. Typically a political religion is considered to be secular, but more radical forms of it are also Transcendental .

The first scholars to use the concept of political religion (or synonyms such as "secular religion", "lay religion" or "public religion") were Protestant and Catholic intellectuals and theologians, such as Luigi Sturzo, Adolf Keller, Paul Tillich, Gerhard Leibholz, Waldemar Gurian, Eric Voegelin, Raymond Aron and Walter Benjamin. They saw it as a response to the existential void and Nihilism caused by modernity, mass society and the rise of a bureaucratic state, and in political religions "the rebellion against the religion of God" reached its climax. They also described them as ‘pseudo-religions’, ‘substitute religions’, ‘surrogate religions’, ‘religions manipulated by man’ and ‘anti-religions’. The secularization of the twentieth century had created a void which could be filled by an ideology claiming also a hold on ethical and identitetical matters as well, making the political religions based on totalitarianism, universalism and messianic missions (such as Manifest Destiny) possible.

Yale political scientist, Juan Linz and others have noted that secularization of the twentieth century had created a void which could be filled by a total ideology, making the political religions of totalitarianism possible.