Religion and Politics

In response to Catrina's post on April 17

In one of her posts, Catrina talked about how we should not assume that all the texts written by people of “one” religion have the same message. Although these texts “[were] written by men who deeply believed in and followed God,” writes Catrina, “religious texts are still written by men, with all of their faults and humanity.” I would like to agree with and expand this idea while making a connection, if somewhat dangerous, to political and/or secular theorists.

I think we talked about, at the beginning of the term, how one main aspect of religion was to give a guide for how to live your life. In a similar way, political theorists write about how a group of people together can live their lives. In come cases, more common many years ago, religion and politics are one in the same. However, while we view political theorists as often updating or refuting prior theories, often changing the entire meaning of the group—as have democrat and republican theories in the US—religion often seems fixed, at least in the main ideas of the group. However, if both are telling people how to live, why is there such a difference in how we read each group’s writings?

It is not just that religious texts have been around for many more years, because they haven’t. For many, many years, in many places, a monarchy was the main political form. Also, democracy is not a new idea—the Romans instituted the first infamous democracy. It is also not just that categorized-as-religious theorists have always been inspired by a deity. In Chuang Tzu’s Basic Writings, he does not reference a higher power, and teaches only that one must follow “the way”. Nevertheless, Chuang Tzu’s writings are definitely spiritual.

Between Chuang Tzu, religion being the same as politics (as is trying to be formed in Iraq), and flowing into more “traditional” religions and political theories such as Christianity and Communism, there seems to be a kind of continuum between the two groups. It is only our imposition of the categories of “religion” and “politics” that we read these things differently. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating that religion and politics be mixed in practice. I am simply saying that they serve similar general roles—teaching people how to live—and that that their theoretical writings should be read in similar ways. People may choose which theory (or theories, in the case of, say, a Jewish Democrat) they identify with.