Politics and religion are not warring states

30 October 2006

Religion and politics are often treated as two nations separated by a demilitarised zone. Any sortie across the boundaries is best dealt with by an artillery barrage.

But both religion and politics are ultimately activities engaged in by human beings, often by the same person. When thinking about the relationship between religion and politics, it is helpful to ask whether people with religious convictions have a place in politics, and how they act appropriately there.

I am tempted to argue provocatively that there is no place in public life for people who are not religious. Of course, I refer to "religious people" in a special and a very broad sense. They are people who work out of considered views of what constitutes a good society and a good human life. They hold these views strongly enough to associate with others in realising them. They may ground these views in explicit or implicit philosophies, as well as in religious faiths in the more narrow sense of the word.

By this definition, non-religious people, for whom there is no place in public life, are those who have no views on what makes a good society, but who see public life and politics instrumentally. They see politics as the business of governing. For them, values, beliefs and truth are subordinated to securing and holding power, and to implementing whatever policies are willed by the government. In public life, they see religion as a commodity to be put to use.

I believe that public life in Australia has been corrupted by this instrumental view. I agree with those who have deplored the use of religion by politicians as a political counter. But on the same grounds, it is equally deplorable for religious people to use religion instrumentally. To promise support to political candidates on condition that they accept and vote for legislation that endorses a moral position supported by one’s church, is also to make religion a commodity. It puts truth out to trade, and debases it.

If we begin with the more neutrally expressed axiom that politics is only for people of conviction about why human beings and society matter, we then face the complex question of how people with such convictions may properly act in Australian political life.

We should expect that people in public life will press actively, and through their community groups, to embody their vision of society. Churches and religious bodies

RELIGION

Politics and religion are not warring states

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