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Religion, Culture, and Public Life
Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage
Religions are creeping back into the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied by secular institutions and ideologies. Disillusioned with industrial progress and cut off from opportunity and wealth, many are looking to Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity to restore a sense of purpose not found in daily life. Since the 1970s, the Catholic Church has sought a “holy alliance” among the world’s religions to recentralize religious ideas and practice in modern society.
Holy Wars or Holy Alliances explores the nation-state’s current crisis to better understand its origins and future development. Focusing on the Catholic Church, Manlio Graziano looks at how Catholicism has coordinated world religions in joint actions. Through its material, financial, and institutional strength, the Church has gained power and increased its profile in international politics. Challenging the ideas that modernity is tied to progress and religion necessarily means decline, Graziano documents the “return” or the “revenge” of God in all facets of secular life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as claimed in modern times. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work in our world today, Graziano argues, we must appreciate the nature of the religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.
Holy Wars or Holy Alliances explores the nation-state’s current crisis to better understand its origins and future development. Focusing on the Catholic Church, Manlio Graziano looks at how Catholicism has coordinated world religions in joint actions. Through its material, financial, and institutional strength, the Church has gained power and increased its profile in international politics. Challenging the ideas that modernity is tied to progress and religion necessarily means decline, Graziano documents the “return” or the “revenge” of God in all facets of secular life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as claimed in modern times. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work in our world today, Graziano argues, we must appreciate the nature of the religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 11, 2017
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June 1, 2017Recent years have seen an unmistakable rise in the public role of religion. The intersection between politics and religion is a tense one, particularly as the focus of attention often takes place within the context of religiously motivated violence. The temptation present, particularly in an imagination whose horizons are still defined largely by the secular nation-state, is to define religiously motivated violence as an irrational and reactionary force. This view of religion has been given a definitive form by Samuel Huntington's thesis on the 'clash of civilizations.' "In the wake of the 9/11 attacks," writes Manlio Graziano, "and the subsequent American-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, this theory has become very popular, and the relationship between religion and politics has been seen almost exclusively in terms of the connection between Islam and politics."(7) Secular 'Western civilization' faces off against an Islam that blurs the distinction between faith and politics.
Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage offers a thoughtful challenge to the well-defined boundaries of Huntington's thesis. The neat contours of the globe that Huntington offers, says Graziano, simply does not correspond to reality either past or present. What is needed is a clearer study of the complex role of religion and politics, which Graziano undertakes through a geopolitical study of the role of religion. Central to his thesis is the claim that secularization is on the wane. The old certainties of the nation-state are now in decline, and people and governments are increasingly turning to religions. Religion and religious groups, that is, have come to fill the spaces left empty by the upheaval of political forms and forces. The rising visibility and attractiveness of religion leaves it vulnerable to the exploitation of forces who use religion for nonreligious purposes. This is the dominant trend, he argues, however there is another possibility which is the 'case of religions that manage to... promote their own goal, which is to become again a central actor in public life.' The Roman Catholic church, he goes on to say, is the only religious body with the 'centralization, global network, rooted global presence, and, above all, accumulated experience... to achieve this goal.' The way that that Catholic Church will achieve this goal is through an alliance among all the world's major religions.
Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage offers a thoughtful challenge to the well-defined boundaries of Huntington's thesis. The neat contours of the globe that Huntington offers, says Graziano, simply does not correspond to reality either past or present. What is needed is a clearer study of the complex role of religion and politics, which Graziano undertakes through a geopolitical study of the role of religion. Central to his thesis is the claim that secularization is on the wane. The old certainties of the nation-state are now in decline, and people and governments are increasingly turning to religions. Religion and religious groups, that is, have come to fill the spaces left empty by the upheaval of political forms and forces. The rising visibility and attractiveness of religion leaves it vulnerable to the exploitation of forces who use religion for nonreligious purposes. This is the dominant trend, he argues, however there is another possibility which is the 'case of religions that manage to... promote their own goal, which is to become again a central actor in public life.' The Roman Catholic church, he goes on to say, is the only religious body with the 'centralization, global network, rooted global presence, and, above all, accumulated experience... to achieve this goal.' The way that that Catholic Church will achieve this goal is through an alliance among all the world's major religions.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review