Does Right Religion = Right Politics ?
Last post there seemed to be general agreement with my position that religious affiliation has no bearing on how well equipped a leader is to govern. Yet I thought that a couple comments on last post’s thread suggested that some of you might be inclined to modify my position into something like “Religion may tend to have a positive influence on fitness for leadership, but it isn’t the main thing.”
Crystal: I'd be happy to have an atheist as president rather than a religious fanatic. I think that it is true, though, that a person really cannot very well compartmentalize their life - what you believe will affect every part of your life, even the public spectrum.
A.V.G. Warrier {this is my paraphrase of part of his comment}: The morality of power depends on the ideals and values of the person in power. Few people derive their ideals and values from abstractions; most depend on guidance from institutions.
What these remarks suggest to me – my own inference, I’m not trying to represent what Crystal and AVGW had in mind – is that 1. The ideal political leader would hold religious beliefs, and 2. We might generally expect candidates affiliated with religious institutions to be better leaders than those without religious affiliation.
A couple thoughts arise for me: 1. What is it that makes a belief a specifically “religious” belief? 2. While there’s clearly a relationship between religious beliefs and the “ideals and values” to which AVGW refers, people who don’t consider themselves religious also have ideals and values. The relationship between religious beliefs and ideals/values doesn’t appear to be a necessary one.
In brief, and to borrow from Buddhist phraseology: Does Right Religion make for Right Politics? What do you think?
Crystal: I'd be happy to have an atheist as president rather than a religious fanatic. I think that it is true, though, that a person really cannot very well compartmentalize their life - what you believe will affect every part of your life, even the public spectrum.
A.V.G. Warrier {this is my paraphrase of part of his comment}: The morality of power depends on the ideals and values of the person in power. Few people derive their ideals and values from abstractions; most depend on guidance from institutions.
What these remarks suggest to me – my own inference, I’m not trying to represent what Crystal and AVGW had in mind – is that 1. The ideal political leader would hold religious beliefs, and 2. We might generally expect candidates affiliated with religious institutions to be better leaders than those without religious affiliation.
A couple thoughts arise for me: 1. What is it that makes a belief a specifically “religious” belief? 2. While there’s clearly a relationship between religious beliefs and the “ideals and values” to which AVGW refers, people who don’t consider themselves religious also have ideals and values. The relationship between religious beliefs and ideals/values doesn’t appear to be a necessary one.
In brief, and to borrow from Buddhist phraseology: Does Right Religion make for Right Politics? What do you think?
Posted by Paul at 9:38 AM Permalink
19 Comments:
one caught in webs of time or old beards cannot in this world of today be a good leader...
religion is the expression...its leader is the artist....philosophy is the content,the philosopher is the author....atheism is adventure...atheist is the adventurer...it is belief in once own ability which makes a leader....one who can talk better and can carry him or herself better is a true leader...
To be religious is to have a personal agenda that one holds above all others. This is inappropriate in a politician.
Religions tend to claim monopoly on morality, in the Buddhist sense of "right", but in your penultimate para, Paul, you correctly deny their claim.
What we have seen in the case of George W Bush and Tony Blair is the comfort that religion seems to give in allowing a leader to pursue a policy with the absence of self-doubt and agonizing that one would hope for in someone who has so much influence.
We cannot know what went on in their deepest souls when they agreed to smite the infidels in their modern Crusade. But there is a suspicion that they prayed on the lines of "God, tell me what to do and I will do it." Tony Blair in addition has now become a Catholic. As the corrosion of remorse bites at his soul, he has the immense comfort of confession to wash his conscience clean when he has carried out the prescribed penances. Not all of them are Hail Marys. He has taken on a job as Middle East Peace Envoy, which I am sure the Pope thought was a step in the right direction.
I would prefer a politician with no such beliefs: one who walks naked of divine protection will be the humbler and more cautious for it.
I think we are missing a subtle point. Religions everywhere sprouted from the need to deal with the politics of being. Right religion need not make for right politics or vice versa.
Christ had physically driven away the corrupt priests from the temples. Ever wondered why he used a different strategy while dealing with the Roman establishment that sentenced him to die on the cross? We can not imagine that it was a compromise made by him knowing his own limitations. One who could work wonders at will and continue to live beyond his physical death does not have any need for making such a compromise (I do not allude to these as historical facts, but as deeper poetic truths).
I think he knew that religion and politics are not to be mixed. Perhaps the Roman governor who passed the sentence and washed his hands also knew that politics and religion are not to be mixed. May be Christ silently acknowledged that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Roman political establishment. May be the Roman governor had the urge to wash his hands and weep for his deed because he acknowledged that there is nothing wrong with what Christ stood for. Both did their jobs honestly. One accepted what he was given by destiny. The other gave what he was ordained to give.
The mixing of religion and politics yields to poisonous results in a multi-religious environment. But then it is not the religious principles, but the foxiness of power hungry persons, that comes into play. A politician is characterized by the deep chasms between what he feels, what he says and what he acts. If a politician talks about Catholicism it does not mean that he is moved by Catholic values but that he is trying a strategy to woo the catholic votes. We should accept a politician for what he is rather than attempting the impossible task of refining him by injecting value serums into him.
In a multi-religious environment I think the real issue is the evolution of a system to keep the foxiness of politicians under check…so that Feynmans and APJ Abdul Kalams are allowed to play decisive roles in society. If an IBM computer can talk with an Apple I think that should not be beyond the possibilities of human ingenuity.
Fundamentalism, on the other hand, always makes for bad (wrong) politics.
Well, I don’t really know, I suppose; if I’m 51, is that also my beard’s age? It’s only been on my face three years; maybe I can consider it a kind of great grandson. But I think this was not your main point.
So you’re saying a political leader should not be religious? That being religious makes someone less dynamic, less of a decision maker etc? But what if a leader who was religious just shaved? OK, seriously, see my reply below to Chris W. et. al. –
CHRIS W, VINCENT and CARRIE W: Basically, I agree.
But what about the idea that being religious may give a leader stronger “ideals and values” – even if, as one would hope, he/she didn't try to use his/her political position to propound religious beliefs? In other words, maybe religion has positive effects on the leader’s character. Could there be any element of truth to that?
Nobody’s addressed the idea of what makes a belief “religious” or the relationship/lack of relationship of religion to ideals and values...
AVGW: “The mixing of religion and politics yields to poisonous results in a multi-religious environment. But then it is not the religious principles, but the foxiness of power hungry persons, that comes into play.”
In a word, I’d say politicians use religion – both to gain votes, as you mention, and to give an appearance of absolute certainty and righteousness in the decisions they make.
“But what about…?” (See my reply above to Chris W. et. al.)
JACOB: Yes, that’s the kind of thing I’m wondering about. So you’re thinking leaders should at least understand religious belief, given that a good percentage of the populace believes. Of course, such a leader wouldn’t him/herself necessarily need to believe in order to understand . . .
“Fundamentalism, on the other hand, always makes for bad (wrong) politics.”
Certainly in the US, many fundamentalist leaders have tried to identify their stance on specific political issues as “the” God-endorsed position, and I agree that's wrong both morally and factually. But I have to say that I've known individuals who I think would identify themselves as evangelicals who lack stridently self righteous and politicized qualities.
In any case it seems presumptuous, dear AVGW, to generalize about how "religions everywhere sprouted". All right, perhaps it is presumptuous of me to dive into a subject I know nothing about - how religions originated. Let me be more humble and request references to scholars who talk about the politics of being and the general origins of religion.
But it's certainly presumptuous to give a critique applying to all religions by referring to tales in the New Testament?
Christ may have known that religion and politics are not to be mixed, but this would not help us appreciate Islam within which there is not the same distinction. Nor was there a clear distinction in European Christendom for about a thousand years: let's say from the Emperor Constantine till at least Martin Luther.
"A politician is characterized by the deep chasms between what he feels, what he says and what he acts." If that were the case, a religious politician would not be so worrying. I suggest the Queen of England is characterized in this way and it's a good thing, for she is a figurehead doing her duties on behalf of Great Britain and the Commonwealth and not according to her personal whim.
Similarly a Member of Parliament is elected to represent those who elected him and not to speak and do just what he feels like. So long as the separation is maintained, democracy is in theory possible.
Tony Blair was wise not to become a Catholic whilst he was still Prime Minister, because in the UK politics does not split on religious or ethnic lines (with the possible exception of certain immigrant minorities who don't yet understand how it works here).
If Tony Blair had announced himself as a Catholic whilst still in Parliament, he could not have wooed any Catholic voters, but would have become a victim of Catholic activists.
Obviously politics play differently in different countries. I can only speak of what I know in UK.
Oh, and I got that ridiculous email again, too. I'm so sick of the slander from all angles. Just get someone in office who can lower my taxes, respect the environment and stop the demise of the middle class...I don't care if they worship Elmer Fudd! Are we ever going to stop mixing religion and politics?
VISHESH: OK, I see. In the US the word “secular” tends to be used as the opposite of “religious,” that was my confusion.
There is no reason your audience should be on the same wavelength as one another or you. But if you would direct the conversation so as to refer explicitly to American religion and American politics in 2008, then the risk of miscommunication would be less.
I suspect that to the insider, America seems like the hub of the world. To the outsider it's just another local region, like Iran or Tibet: though bigger and louder.
My previous comment to you was to point out that it sounded like you were taking issue w/ AVGW's comment but I wasn't sure you completely understood it. It was complicated and I wasn't sure myself of its total meaning so I only focused on what I understood.
I guess that's the kind of "technique" I use to enhance my own attempts at cross cultural communication. I like having varied perspectives and am happy to risk the occasional miscommunication in order to have that in my threads.
Crystal says:
"I think that it is true, though, that a person really cannot very well compartmentalize their life - what you believe will affect every part of your life, even the public spectrum."
Are you each seeing a proverbial part of the elephant or do these statements truly contradict to each other?
The Taliban would certainly agree.
So what I'm wondering is whether the relationship between a person's faith and their politics should be non-existent because it's necessarily a bad thing; or whether, as Crystal suggests, there's bound to be some relationship because it's impossible to compartmenalize that much. If that's the case, then what should the relatioship between a person's faith and politics look like?
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