Religious Politics

Religious Authority and Political Authority

A key concern in the study of religious politics is the relationship between political authority and religious authority. In ancient societies, the former was frequently legitimized by claims to the latter, with the ruler of a polity acting as a priest and sometimes as a god or demigod. Examples of this practice could be found in ancient societies in South America, the Middle East, and Asia. Such arrangements made no distinction between the temporal and spiritual realms, a belief referred to as “monism.”

The growth of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions prompted an increasing recognition of distinct temporal and spiritual realms. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam identified ultimate authority as proceeding from a single omnipotent and transcendent deity. Political legitimacy was still premised on religious legitimacy, but in the Abrahamic traditions, rulers were believed to be held to a higher authority. In pre-exilic Israel, kings were anointed with holy oil, signifying God's endorsement of their rule. However, the Jews also understood that a monarch's failure to remain faithful to God could result in the loss of his political authority. Here, the role of the prophet assumed great importance. As religious charismatics who stood outside the institutionalized social structures, prophets could openly criticize political rulers for unfaithfulness to God. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and the exile, Judaism became a diaspora religion and spread across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, and eventually to the Americas, with Jews always existing as a political minority in the various societies where they lived.

In Christianity, the relationship between religion and politics became closely intertwined after the Roman emperor Constantine's (reigned 306–336 CE) abolishment of official persecution. This allowed Christianity to spread widely, and by the end of the fourth century, it had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The collapse of the western part of the Roman Empire in the fifth century meant that the Church played a vital role as a provider of social services, a repository of classical knowledge, and a socially integrating force. Lacking military force, in 754, the papacy forged a close relationship with the Franks, who dominated most of western Europe and had converted to Catholicism during the early sixth century. In exchange for territory in Italy that would become the Papal States, the pope anointed King Pepin and his heirs “Patricians of the Romans” and protectors of the Church. When Pepin died, his son Charlemagne [Page 1471]was crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in 800, establishing a lasting alliance between the Catholic Church and temporal rulers. After Charlemagne's death, his empire collapsed and the Church forged an alliance with the Franks in the east under Otto the Great, whom the pope crowned the First Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Despite struggles for control between the papacy and the emperor—most notably the lay investiture controversy of the 12th century in which secular lords appointed bishops—the political power of the papacy continued to grow.

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