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I understand this is an America-centric forum but does religion play a major role in politics in the rest of the western world? I'm counting back though prime

I understand this is an America-centric forum but does religion play a major role in politics in the rest of the western world? I'm counting back though prime ministers and i can't recall one who made religion a major part of their platform in my lifetime.

whatusername 4y ago
Scott Morrison (as a Pentecostal) had religion as a minor part of his platform at least. (I know you probably weren't looking at Australian PM's - but he stands out more so than any of the UK/CA/NZ examples that come to mind. I might be biased though)
dmurray 4y ago
I don't see American presidents making religion "a major part of their platform" either. They get some photo ops in church just like British leaders, and they side with their voters on things like abortion, which breaks down roughly along religious lines without being explicitly so. But a major policy decision directly targeting religion? The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority-Muslim countries under the pretext of links to terror. As for the rest of the Western world, you might think of Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen, who explicitly represent the Christian Democratic Union.
- b800h 4y ago
  US political debates are being driven by religion all the time - abortion for example. That's a much bigger deal in the US. That said I'd argue the culture war is quasi-religious, and it's being fought equally across the Anglosphere and beyond.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    And what, if not religion, is driving abortion law in Germany, which has a 12-week limit and restrictions such as waiting periods which were illegal in the US under Roe? It seems to me like the reason Germany doesn’t have a religiously charged debate on abortion is that no major party is pushing for abortion to 24 weeks or even later like in America.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      I'm an atheist and I think that murder is bad despite not believing in the religious sanctity of life. I'd have trouble with full-term abortions of healthy, viable babies. It doesn't seem unreasonable that other people would have a lower comfort limit, again even without religion.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        You don’t think that “comfort limit” has anything to do with Christianity? If you want to see what atheists do when they’re not bound by the cultural hangover of an abrahamic religion, look at population control efforts in Asia. The Chinese correctly observed that, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth.
        LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
        > from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth. Except there is. You want the same protections applied to you, even if you're unconscious or otherwise unable to protest. Pretty much the only broadly supportable position is that killing a viable person is murder and no more or less supportable than them killing you.
        rayiner 4y ago
        How does that factor into the utilitarian calculus? Who cares about you? If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn, why shouldn’t society be able to eliminate you as a burden on them?
        skissane 4y ago
        The Australian philosopher Peter Singer is a preference utilitarian, and has argued that infanticide should be legal, on preference utilitarian grounds. He argues we have to treat the preferences of all beings equally, but newborns have no concept of what it means to continue to live, so can’t possibly have a preference/wish/desire to go on living. Hence, the only moral obstacle to killing them is the wishes of their parents, therefore (painless) infanticide should be legal with parental consent. Personally I find his view to be utterly morally abhorrent, but I have to credit him with the courage and consistency of taking utilitarianism to its logical conclusion.
- swarnie 4y ago
  Maybe its harder to see from the inside... As an example I've pulled up the last state of the union address which appears to be a regular and semi-important thing across the pond. God is mentioned 11 times by my count. That would be considered OOT for a priest over here.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > That would be considered OOT for a priest over here. Only in the Churches where the religion part is seen with faint embarrassment. Established Churches are the best way to drive religiosity down yet discovered besides banning.
- watwut 4y ago
  Abortion and homeschooling are religion driven. Also, the evangelical fundamentalists are quite influential in USA.
- vitus 4y ago
  > The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority-Muslim countries under the pretext of links to terror. The Trump travel ban is weird in its various iterations. On one hand Trump was on the record during his campaign as wanting to ban Muslims from entering the country entirely, but on the other hand the ban completely omitted the largest predominantly-Muslim countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh). For a sense of scale, those three countries make up about a third of the world's Muslim population. (Add on India and Nigeria and you're looking at half of the global Muslim population.) There was also criticism for omitting places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Lebanon (and Egypt, in earlier iterations) which actually had demonstrable ties to 9/11. But, the original list was mostly consistent with restrictions on the visa waiver program, which is to say the administration probably wanted to start small with the most legally defensible subset before expanding it more broadly. In practice, said restrictions were uniformly blocked by the judicial system. Ostensibly the first amendment's establishment cause prevents Congress from passing laws that are overly religious, although that doesn't entirely stop them from, say, passing the Defense of Marriage Act or attempting to explicitly opt out churches from COVID restrictions. These days it's mostly about putting ideologically-aligned judges on the courts and letting them choose which laws to block or precedent to overturn.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >Ostensibly the first amendment's establishment cause prevents Congress from passing laws that are overly religious, although that doesn't entirely stop them from, say, passing the Defense of Marriage Act No, it does not. The first amendment establishes freedom of religion, and prohibits state-sponsored religion. (The phrase "separation of church and state" is found nowhere in the Constitution.) As the Constitution was originally interpreted, it only applied to the federal government; individual US states had state-sponsored churches into the 19th century. >or attempting to explicitly opt out churches from COVID restrictions. This is based on the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. This is why churches, for example, don't pay taxes. In any case, this is immaterial to the Trump immigration bans. The US president has enormous latitude over who is admitted into the country. <https://np.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/4vv1rc/utmwnn_explains_that_the_president_can_legally/ https://np.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/4vv1rc/utmwnn_explai...>
b800h 4y ago
If you mean British Prime Ministers, then we have for a long time been allergic to the discussion of religion in British politics; but that goes hand in hand with British reserve. Not a uniformly wonderful thing, to be honest. If the Bishops in the House of Lords were less timid we might get some better debates on moral matters.
AlchemistCamp 4y ago
> does religion play a major rile in politics in the rest of the western world? Hasn’t the growth of Islam in Europe been a large and growing political issue for the past decade? France in particular has had lot of debates about religious clothing at schools, what kind of criticism of religious ideas is and isn’t acceptable, etc. From my POV, it looks like religion is a bigger deal in European than American politics. In America, politics are the religion for many and marrying across political lines now carries more opposition than across religious ones, for the majority of people. Things have changed quite a bit since the 80s.
- mtts 4y ago
  > Hasn’t the growth of Islam in Europe been a large and growing political issue for the past decade? Probably more like two decades by now :-) The political parties in Europe that pride themselves on anti-Islamism are themselves not religious all. And no one (of any significance) in Western Europe is arguing for a return to Christianity. Some parties advocate “Judeo-Christian values” but the various incarnations of this concept are nebulous at best and mostly completely unrecognizable to Jews and Christians. At the same time, many Western European countries are now majority atheist or at least majority unaffiliated with organized religion, so, no, religion is not at all a bigger deal in European politics at all.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Those political parties in France talk about “western culture” instead of “Christianity,” but western culture is fundamentally an outgrowth of Christianity. Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. People in Europe are still socialized into all that, even if they stop going to church. This is apparent if you come from a different religious background. I know people who are nominally atheist but you can tell their family is German Protestant a mile away.
    - mtts 4y ago
      > Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. Most people would call that a culture. One were most people do not go to church on Sunday and politicians, even if they’re from a religious background, like Angela Merkel, don’t ever talk about God. And one that is very different from the one across the Atlantic where “in God we trust” is the national motto and politicians make sure to fluff up their religious credentials.
rayiner 4y ago
Religion can play a major role without becoming a point of conflict if everyone agrees. For example, many European countries still have established Christian churches and (possibly opt-out) religious education in schools. If Muslims in Sweden were filing lawsuits to prevent public money from being used to support religious education, or to force Denmark to disestablish the Lutheran Church, I suspect you would see religion becoming a point of contention. In France, Muslim immigration has made religion a major campaign issue. The French frame it as a matter of secularism versus Islam, but French secularism is better described as a form of Enlightenment-flavored post-Catholicism: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-ness-of-secular-france/ https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-nes...
- mkoubaa 4y ago
  I think the self branding of this particular movement as a secular one is a triumph of marketing.

whatusername 4y ago

Scott Morrison (as a Pentecostal) had religion as a minor part of his platform at least. (I know you probably weren't looking at Australian PM's - but he stands out more so than any of the UK/CA/NZ examples that come to mind. I might be biased though)

dmurray 4y ago

I don't see American presidents making religion "a major part of their platform" either. They get some photo ops in church just like British leaders, and they side with their voters on things like abortion, which breaks down roughly along religious lines without being explicitly so. But a major policy decision directly targeting religion? The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority-Muslim countries under the pretext of links to terror. As for the rest of the Western world, you might think of Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen, who explicitly represent the Christian Democratic Union.

b800h 4y ago
US political debates are being driven by religion all the time - abortion for example. That's a much bigger deal in the US. That said I'd argue the culture war is quasi-religious, and it's being fought equally across the Anglosphere and beyond.
- rayiner 4y ago
  And what, if not religion, is driving abortion law in Germany, which has a 12-week limit and restrictions such as waiting periods which were illegal in the US under Roe? It seems to me like the reason Germany doesn’t have a religiously charged debate on abortion is that no major party is pushing for abortion to 24 weeks or even later like in America.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    I'm an atheist and I think that murder is bad despite not believing in the religious sanctity of life. I'd have trouble with full-term abortions of healthy, viable babies. It doesn't seem unreasonable that other people would have a lower comfort limit, again even without religion.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      You don’t think that “comfort limit” has anything to do with Christianity? If you want to see what atheists do when they’re not bound by the cultural hangover of an abrahamic religion, look at population control efforts in Asia. The Chinese correctly observed that, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth.
      - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
        > from a purely utilitarian standpoint, there’s no compelling reason to draw the line at birth. Except there is. You want the same protections applied to you, even if you're unconscious or otherwise unable to protest. Pretty much the only broadly supportable position is that killing a viable person is murder and no more or less supportable than them killing you.
        rayiner 4y ago
        How does that factor into the utilitarian calculus? Who cares about you? If a stroke reduces you to the same level of mental functioning as a newborn, why shouldn’t society be able to eliminate you as a burden on them?
        skissane 4y ago
        The Australian philosopher Peter Singer is a preference utilitarian, and has argued that infanticide should be legal, on preference utilitarian grounds. He argues we have to treat the preferences of all beings equally, but newborns have no concept of what it means to continue to live, so can’t possibly have a preference/wish/desire to go on living. Hence, the only moral obstacle to killing them is the wishes of their parents, therefore (painless) infanticide should be legal with parental consent. Personally I find his view to be utterly morally abhorrent, but I have to credit him with the courage and consistency of taking utilitarianism to its logical conclusion.
swarnie 4y ago
Maybe its harder to see from the inside... As an example I've pulled up the last state of the union address which appears to be a regular and semi-important thing across the pond. God is mentioned 11 times by my count. That would be considered OOT for a priest over here.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > That would be considered OOT for a priest over here. Only in the Churches where the religion part is seen with faint embarrassment. Established Churches are the best way to drive religiosity down yet discovered besides banning.
watwut 4y ago
Abortion and homeschooling are religion driven. Also, the evangelical fundamentalists are quite influential in USA.
vitus 4y ago
> The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority-Muslim countries under the pretext of links to terror. The Trump travel ban is weird in its various iterations. On one hand Trump was on the record during his campaign as wanting to ban Muslims from entering the country entirely, but on the other hand the ban completely omitted the largest predominantly-Muslim countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh). For a sense of scale, those three countries make up about a third of the world's Muslim population. (Add on India and Nigeria and you're looking at half of the global Muslim population.) There was also criticism for omitting places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Lebanon (and Egypt, in earlier iterations) which actually had demonstrable ties to 9/11. But, the original list was mostly consistent with restrictions on the visa waiver program, which is to say the administration probably wanted to start small with the most legally defensible subset before expanding it more broadly. In practice, said restrictions were uniformly blocked by the judicial system. Ostensibly the first amendment's establishment cause prevents Congress from passing laws that are overly religious, although that doesn't entirely stop them from, say, passing the Defense of Marriage Act or attempting to explicitly opt out churches from COVID restrictions. These days it's mostly about putting ideologically-aligned judges on the courts and letting them choose which laws to block or precedent to overturn.
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >Ostensibly the first amendment's establishment cause prevents Congress from passing laws that are overly religious, although that doesn't entirely stop them from, say, passing the Defense of Marriage Act No, it does not. The first amendment establishes freedom of religion, and prohibits state-sponsored religion. (The phrase "separation of church and state" is found nowhere in the Constitution.) As the Constitution was originally interpreted, it only applied to the federal government; individual US states had state-sponsored churches into the 19th century. >or attempting to explicitly opt out churches from COVID restrictions. This is based on the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. This is why churches, for example, don't pay taxes. In any case, this is immaterial to the Trump immigration bans. The US president has enormous latitude over who is admitted into the country. <https://np.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/4vv1rc/utmwnn_explains_that_the_president_can_legally/ https://np.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/4vv1rc/utmwnn_explai...>

b800h 4y ago

If you mean British Prime Ministers, then we have for a long time been allergic to the discussion of religion in British politics; but that goes hand in hand with British reserve. Not a uniformly wonderful thing, to be honest. If the Bishops in the House of Lords were less timid we might get some better debates on moral matters.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago

> does religion play a major rile in politics in the rest of the western world? Hasn’t the growth of Islam in Europe been a large and growing political issue for the past decade? France in particular has had lot of debates about religious clothing at schools, what kind of criticism of religious ideas is and isn’t acceptable, etc. From my POV, it looks like religion is a bigger deal in European than American politics. In America, politics are the religion for many and marrying across political lines now carries more opposition than across religious ones, for the majority of people. Things have changed quite a bit since the 80s.

mtts 4y ago
> Hasn’t the growth of Islam in Europe been a large and growing political issue for the past decade? Probably more like two decades by now :-) The political parties in Europe that pride themselves on anti-Islamism are themselves not religious all. And no one (of any significance) in Western Europe is arguing for a return to Christianity. Some parties advocate “Judeo-Christian values” but the various incarnations of this concept are nebulous at best and mostly completely unrecognizable to Jews and Christians. At the same time, many Western European countries are now majority atheist or at least majority unaffiliated with organized religion, so, no, religion is not at all a bigger deal in European politics at all.
- rayiner 4y ago
  Those political parties in France talk about “western culture” instead of “Christianity,” but western culture is fundamentally an outgrowth of Christianity. Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. People in Europe are still socialized into all that, even if they stop going to church. This is apparent if you come from a different religious background. I know people who are nominally atheist but you can tell their family is German Protestant a mile away.
  - mtts 4y ago
    > Even if you strip out the supernatural parts, a religion provides all sorts of notions about fairness, justice, forgiveness, family life, the rules and order, etc. Most people would call that a culture. One were most people do not go to church on Sunday and politicians, even if they’re from a religious background, like Angela Merkel, don’t ever talk about God. And one that is very different from the one across the Atlantic where “in God we trust” is the national motto and politicians make sure to fluff up their religious credentials.

rayiner 4y ago

Religion can play a major role without becoming a point of conflict if everyone agrees. For example, many European countries still have established Christian churches and (possibly opt-out) religious education in schools. If Muslims in Sweden were filing lawsuits to prevent public money from being used to support religious education, or to force Denmark to disestablish the Lutheran Church, I suspect you would see religion becoming a point of contention. In France, Muslim immigration has made religion a major campaign issue. The French frame it as a matter of secularism versus Islam, but French secularism is better described as a form of Enlightenment-flavored post-Catholicism: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-ness-of-secular-france/ https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-nes...

mkoubaa 4y ago
I think the self branding of this particular movement as a secular one is a triumph of marketing.