Religion & Politics - a Dangerous Recipe

At times, entire populations are sheltered from the rest of the world and its ‘pleasures’, to comply with an principle such as egalitarianism or socialism, i.e. communism in North Korea, and formerly the Soviet Union. These very same people are led to believe in blind faith that their society is always right, and therefore perfect. Unfortunately, the government in Anthem abuses

On the other more extreme side of things, religious persecution can be extremely fatal, leading to loss of life over differing beliefs and attitudes. Just look at today’s political climate. ISIS, an extremist radical group known for being religiously charged, takes credit for virtually every act of mass violence across the world. This has caused people all over the world to be afraid of Muslims even though their religion really has nothing to do with these acts of violence. People have made the religion out to be the problem when that isn’t the issue.

Even though, George W. Bush had become, like some of his great predecessors, the voice of inspiration and hope for freedom not only in America, but in all over the world, he had received many critics for his religious contribution on American politics. In the light of this quotation, Noll shows that the second victory of President Bush was somehow astonishing when we noticed the crucial role of the white evangelical Protestants plays in his second term. Additionally, this quotation shows that if there were no evangelicals’ support, the President would not win the election, it also; strengthens the value of religion and its place in the American political life.

Religion has always been bound up with questions of justice and injustice. Across traditions, ethical injunctions – not to murder or steal, for example – are not simply directed at individuals, but also at a larger social and political community. Within religious traditions, the just and unjust is usually and ultimately for a single God or gods to determine; however, from their origins, those traditions have typically inflected the concept of justice within the context of the family, clan, tribe, or city. With the rise of the nation state, the context of the problem shifted, but many core principles remain valid. As states and societies become more integrated through globalization, questions of justice take on a more transitional dimension. Issues of genocide, ethnic cleansing, corruption, and the oppression of women and minorities challenge religious communities to rework – and reapply – established ethical principles in a new global context.

The countries present their ideologies to the outside world as holy nations. Recently there has been significant evidence on major shifts with increasing polarization and creation of new alliances. These strategic actions produce both risks and opportunities; however, in the Middle East, there has been growing sectarianism in the conflicts (El Fadl, 2005). The sectarianism plays a great role in the political conflicts within Saudi Arabia and Iran. While both Saudi Arabia and Iran claim to have theocracy model states based on Islam, Saudi Arabia is considered a Theo-monarchy with strong relations to Wahhabism, a branch of Sunni Islam, while Iran’s political system has democratic components and is based on Shiism (Al-Rasheed, 1996). The differences in religious practices and ethnicity between the two nations have contributed to the dilemma of instability in the Middle

In “The Worldwide Attack on Christians,” David Aikman highlighted the different forms of religious persecution suffered by Christians throughout the world. The forms of persecution ranged from political oppression to gruesome murders. Additionally, Aikman provided a list of culprits that included familiar Islamic nations but also less familiar non-Muslim regimes. Further, he examined several factors undermining the U.S. State Department’s and President Barack Obama’s obligation to thwart religious persecution happening abroad.

Authoritarian rulers place themselves above the law without any reprimand. There is no respect for civil society and the population has limited political participation. These rulers often strive to financially benefit themselves rather than their state and any opposition is removed by threats of violence. This increases fear within the population and increases power of the ruler or rulers. All media platforms are censored and monitored and the ruler or party

In an authoritarian government, there is one leader who makes all of the decisions. They could also have a group of leaders like in our democracy. The only thing is, the people don’t get a say in who is leading them. Instead of holding an election, like we do, the authoritarian government just picks whoever they think fits best. This is a problem because they are taking away the people’s

Oppression and the denial of basic human rights can be seen throughout history. Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, yet many governments ignore human rights and totally abuse other human beings. One can see several examples of how society has rationalized such behavior in order to adhere to the mindset and beliefs of a race or group of people who declared themselves superior. Tactics used throughout history that amplified such mistreatment include systematic repression, economic deprivation that called for the formation of ghettos or Bantustans, torture, ostracism and even death. Living under the wrath of this regime crushed the souls of men, forcing them to resort to forming their own political support group and religion.

I started my search based off my long held interest in politics, and the issues that affect the way we govern. So I boiled that down to the entities that decide when and what we govern. Political Parties. After I had my subject I looked at the three things I believe political parties play a role in. The three areas of interest I chose were our political parties role in our history, economics, and religion, and what factors in those areas determine how political parties’ function.

History has known far more authoritarian regimes than any other form of government. Authoritarianism is a form of non-democratic rule defined by state power being centralized in a single person or a small group of people. Unlike democracies, these individuals in power are not dependent on the people for power. Thus, under authoritarianism, state leaders have little accountability to the public and there is little individual freedom. Additionally, authoritarian regimes are not bound by a constitution that might limit their power. Such democratic liberties such as the right to assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are highly controlled or non-existent. State policies are designed to maintain the power status quo in favor of

For many times in history, there have been different types of governments that have targeted certain sections of the population and discriminated some people inside that population. Some of the examples of discriminative movements are movements against religious groups , being discriminative against people of the opposite gender and also due to race and the color of people’s skin. There are some places in the world where people, specifically Christians , are being persecuted and put to death because of their faith. The most major areas in the world where this occurs is in Northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia. . this is due to their different religious structures in their governments.

Different religious groups who thought highly of their own “Ultimate Being” have been persecuted or assaulted. The Pew Research Center says that Christians are the most persecuted faith of all the world’s major religions. In 2007, Christians were harassed in 107 countries. In some countries, those who tried to promote their religion to the public were harassed because of their faith. Pew says that “there has been a marked increase in the number of countries where Jews were harassed, a recent peak.” Another example of violence from theistic beliefs are Islamic extremists who use acts of violence and terror towards people. These Muslims professed that they had support from Allah himself when in fact Islam teaches peace. Such strong misinterpretations of a religion and a deity can be dangerous to religious groups who do not share their

“All religion seem to need to prove that it’s the only truth. And that’s where it turns demonic. Because that’s when you get religious wars and persecution and burning heretics at the stake,” John Shelby Spong, a retired American bishop of the Episcopal Church, stated about religious persecution circumnavigating the globe. In today’s world persecution is a natural reaction to any kind of foreign belief established in a country that is governed by the it’s original religious foundation. An example of this would involve, ISIS terrorizing smaller religious groups like the Yazidi people who practice a form of Islam, but then detoured from Islam’s original ways. Yazidi people are not the only ones; other various foreign religious groups like

In this course, I found the connection between religion and politics the most important concept we’ve studied. With engagement and understanding of politics becoming increasingly important, it’s valuable to study the ways people both interact with politics and form their political opinions—and as we’ve seen, religion can play a huge role in both of these aspects. However, the way religious groups engage with politics can perhaps be generalizing when discussing major religions, seeing as these groups are often widely diverse and brimming with unique experiences. Therefore, I believe it is just as important to discuss the political dimension of religion with the social influences of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and the interrelations between them.