Abstract

Over the last decade, religion has had a surprisingly powerful political impact, but the relation between religion and politics remains confused and unexamined. Conventional wisdom still holds on to the discredited notion that religion is primarily a pre-modern residue doomed to fade away along with other superstitions and myths. But how can this residue thesis be seriously argued today when almost every major political conflict exhibits extensive religious underpinnings? Any cursory list of current hot spots on the world map points to religion as a decisive feature in case after case: Moslem fundamentalism in Iran; Catholic nationalism in Poland; liberation theology in Latin America; the Jewish and Palestinian questions in the Middle East; the Catholic-Protestant clash in Northern Ireland; the Moslem-Hindu conflict in India.