Political religion

A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly entities. Among systems that have been characterized as secular religions are capitalism, communism, Juche, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity and the Cult of Reason and Cult of the Supreme Being that developed after the French Revolution. A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly entities. Among systems that have been characterized as secular religions are capitalism, communism, Juche, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity and the Cult of Reason and Cult of the Supreme Being that developed after the French Revolution. The term secular religion is often applied today to communal belief systems—as for example with the view of love as our postmodern secular religion. Paul Vitz applied the term to modern psychology in as much as it fosters a cult of the self, explicitly calling 'the self-theory ethic this secular religion'. Sport has also been considered as a new secular religion, particularly with respect to Olympism. For Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, belief in them as a new secular religion was explicit and lifelong. The theory of political religion concerns governmental ideologies whose cultural and political backing is so strong that they are said to attain power equivalent to those of a state religion, with which they often exhibit significant similarities in both theory and practice. In addition to basic forms of politics, like parliament and elections, it also holds an aspect of 'sacralization' related to the institutions contained within the regime and also provides the inner measures traditionally considered to be religious territory, such as ethics, values, symbols, myths, rituals, archetypes and for example a national liturgical calendar. Political religious organizations, such as the Nazi Party, adhered to the idealization of cultural and political power over the country at large. The church body of the state no longer held control over the practices of religious identity. Because of this, Nazism was countered by many political and religious organizations as being a political religion, based on the dominance which the Nazi regime had (Gates and Steane). Political religions generally vie with existing traditional religions, and may try to replace or eradicate them. The term was given new attention by the political scientist Hans Maier. Totalitarian societies are perhaps more prone to political religion, but various scholars have described features of political religion even in democracies, for instance American civil religion as described by Robert Bellah in 1967. The term is sometimes treated as synonymous with civil religion, but although some scholars use the terms equivalently, others see a useful distinction, using 'civil religion' as something weaker, which functions more as a socially unifying and essentially conservative force, whereas a political religion is radically transformational, even apocalyptic. The term political religion is based on the observation that sometimes political ideologies or political systems display features more commonly associated with religion. Scholars who have studied these phenomena include William Connolly in political science, Christoph Deutschmann in sociology, Emilio Gentile in history, Oliver O'Donovan in theology and others in psychology. A political religion often occupies the same ethical, psychological and sociological space as a traditional religion, and as a result it often displaces or co-opts existing religious organizations and beliefs. The most central marker of a political religion involves the sacralization of politics, for example an overwhelming religious feeling when serving one's country, or the devotion towards the Founding Fathers of the United States. Although a political religion may co-opt existing religious structures or symbolism, it does not itself have any independent spiritual or theocratic elements—it is essentially secular, using religious motifs and methods for political purposes, if it does not reject religious faith outright. Typically, a political religion is considered to be secular, but more radical forms of it are also transcendental. The 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) argued that all societies need a religion to hold men together. Because Christianity tended to pull men away from earthly matters, Rousseau advocated a 'civil religion' that would create the links necessary for political unity around the state. The Swiss Protestant theologian Adolf Keller (1872–1963) argued that Marxism in the Soviet Union had been transformed into a secular religion. Before emigrating to the United States, the German-born political philosopher Eric Voegelin wrote a book entitled The political religions. Other contributions on 'political religion' (or associated terms such as 'secular religion', 'lay religion' or 'public religion') were made by Luigi Sturzo (1871–1959), Paul Tillich (1886–1965), Gerhard Leibholz (1901–1982), Waldemar Gurian (1902–1954), Raymond Aron (1905–1983) and Walter Benjamin (1892–1940). Some saw such 'religions' as a response to the existential void and nihilism caused by modernity, mass society and the rise of a bureaucratic state, and in political religions 'the rebellion against the religion of God' reached its climax. They also described them as 'pseudo-religions', 'substitute religions', 'surrogate religions', 'religions manipulated by man' and 'anti-religions'. Yale political scientist Juan Linz and others have noted that the secularization of the twentieth century had created a void which could be filled by an ideology claiming a hold on ethical and identical matters as well, making the political religions based on totalitarianism, universalism and messianic missions (such as Manifest Destiny) possible. An academic journal with the name Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions started publication in 2000. It was renamed Politics, Religion & Ideology in 2011. It is published by Taylor & Francis.