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3 - A Religious Perspective on Religion and Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

Eric O. Hanson
Affiliation:
Santa Clara University, California
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Summary

WHAT IS RELIGION?

The second plane of the book's paradigm focuses on the political and on the religious contributions to personal and social identity. But what is religion? The exact meanings of “religion” change as the discussion moves from civilization to civilization, from nation to nation, even from locality to locality. This book's worldwide analysis, however, requires, first, a general definition of religion and, second, general categories of religious practice relevant for the description and the explanation of the influence of religion on politics. Therefore, this chapter begins by employing three separate books to examine three very different types of religion: Roman Catholicism, the most complex institution of “the religions of the book” (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); Zen Buddhism, the least doctrinally focused of “the religions of meditative experience” (Hinduism, Buddhism); and Maoist Marxism, the most militant and far-reaching of the twentieth-century “religions of public life” (Confucianism, Maoist Marxism).

Because these three cases constitute such disparate phenomena, a definition of religion and categorization of religious practices that covers all three cases would seem to be a good starting point for a general theory of religious influence on politics. A book on global politics must discuss at least what are generally listed as the world's major and most numerous religious traditions. Primarily national religious traditions such as Mormonism, Sikhism, and Jainism that may be more important from other perspectives will be discussed in their regional contexts.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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