Empowerment through religion: religion’s survival strategies in democratic politics

Abstract

Abstract:In contemporary Western world religion has long lost its status of a default legitimating formula and has been relegated, in liberal political philosophy, to the private sphere. Institutionally, religious organizations have been largely separated from government institutions. Despite these adverse circumstances, religion -both as a system of ideas, values and norms and in its institutional expression -has adopted effective survival strategies guarding it from social and political marginalization. Religion has been accorded special status among other ideologies. In science, it results in a sort of methodological agnosticism, which treats religious and scientific statements as belonging to two incommensurable spheres. In politics, religious organizations are often granted special legal status among other political actors and religious freedom has been constitutionalized as a special case of general freedom of expression. As judicature and political practice show, religious arguments can often trump non-religious claims when fundamental value conflicts arise. In their political activity, religious organizations have used strategies characteristic for other political actors (lobbying, mass mobilization etc.), thereby gaining democratic legitimacy, as well as unique, religion-specific strategies. Armed with these and other empowering tools, religion can continue to influence democratic political systems in significant ways.

Symbolic Conflict in the Public Sphere: The Catholic Church against the State in Post-Communist Poland

“…The strategies employed by the Church throughout the post-1989 era have ranged from sponsoring political parties and supporting electoral candidates, to lobbying decision-makers and mobilizing its supporters behind salient political issues. 19 Not all of these strategies have proved equally effective for the Church. The attempts at creating its own party or allying closely with a single party in the 1900s largely failed and even backfired, insofar as such efforts were generally disapproved of by public opinion.…”

Fish in Faith: Exploring Symbol as Survival Strategies in Christianity

“…Political activities of religious organizations use strategic characteristics for political actors such as lobbying and mass mobilization (Potz, 2016). Politics as a politician is a social subject who tries to influence power relations in a political system to achieve their goals and these actors embrace a set of beliefs and doctrines, norms, and religious laws that motivate and guide them to behave from the point of view which is the ideology of the subject acting (Alfian, 2022;Potz, 2016). This strategy is usually used by Christians as a defensive strategy to politicize religious identity through political chords or religious leaders.…”