Religious Movements

A religious movement is an organized effort that intends to bring about religious reforms. Many religious movements also have political goals because the kinds of reforms they want appear possible only by altering, sometimes fundamentally, political and/or social contexts and arrangements in which they operate. This entry discusses some major manifestations of such movements in contemporary politics.

In recent years, social scientists have consistently noted that religion can influence politics. Three decades ago, the Iranian revolution showed that an Islamic religious movement could overthrow a regime once seen as a key example of the modernizing effects of secularization in the Middle East. More recently, the rise of the Christian Right (CR) in the United States demonstrated how religious movements can evolve as a result of changing political circumstances. Further, the emergence and consolidation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India was made possible because of the party's foundations in Hindu religious movements. Similarly, Jewish fundamentalist movements have emerged in Israel with plenty to say about the Israel–Palestinian issue.

All these examples point to the inadequacies of modernization and secularization theories, which predicted that the importance of religion in politics would decline. Although secularization has clearly occurred in many countries, especially in Western Europe, this has taken place at the same time that religion has exhibited sustained presence—some would call it a resurgence—in many parts of the world. Overall, the impact of religion on politics has not declined but instead changed in complex ways, including the political involvement of some religious movements.

Until recently, such issues were judged to be remote from central political questions. The explanation for this neglect lies in a key assumption embedded in the social sciences. One presupposition, especially evident in theories of modernization and political development, was that the future of the integrated nation-state lay in secular participatory politics. The assumption was that nation building would be ill served by perceived “obscurantist” beliefs—such as religion. Nearly everywhere, it seemed, secular political leaders dominated, displacing once powerful traditional and religious figures from prominence. The implication was that, to successfully build nation-states, political leaders would have to remain as neutral as possible from the entanglements of particularistic claims, especially those derived from religion. It is hoped that [Page 2264]this would avoid dogmatism and encourage citizens' tolerance, a crucial prelude to building viable nation-states and democracies. Decades of apparently unstoppable movement toward increasingly secular societies in many parts of the world reinforced the assumption that religion and piety would inevitably become private matters everywhere. Consequently, in political analysis, religion was often regarded as an increasingly minor problem of little or no significance in the search for national unity and political stability.

Such a view is, however, problematic. If it were correct, how could we explain and account for many religious movements' current political significance? Consider again the examples mentioned above:

• In officially secular India, the Hindu nationalist BJP came to power in the mid-1990s after staging a 10,000-kilometer march that sought to destroy an ancient mosque at Ayodhya, alleged to have been built on the remains of a temple dedicated to Lord Rama.
• In the United States, where the principle of separation of church and state is incorporated in the nation's constitution, the organized CR—a religious movement with social and political goals—has become very influential.
• The continuing conflict between Israel and Arab neighbors encouraged the emergence of Jewish fundamentalist movements and settlers in occupied territories after the 1967 war.
• The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a religious movement that emerged in Egypt in the 1920s, becoming politically and socially prominent from the 1970s, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state.

These cases obviously differ greatly, and this entry does not offer a comprehensive theory of politics and religious movements. Instead, it briefly examines religious movements in four countries (India, the United States, Israel, and Egypt) from four religious traditions: Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. We will see that in each case, religious movements from different religious traditions engage significantly and consistently with politics, seeking to achieve various goals that relate to the nature of the state and the moral and ethical universe that informs it.

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