The A-Z of Believing: N is for Nationalism

When religion turns patriotic... Ed Kessler, head of the Woolf Institute, presents the latest part in a series on belief and scepticism

Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is’ (Shutterstock/agsandrew)

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is. - Mahatma Gandhi

The relationship between religion and the nation state depends as much on their relative status and power as on theological perspectives and principles. Although religious nationalism is sometimes given less attention than other forms of nationalism, we regularly hear of nation states riven with religiously motivated tension and conflict.

And this is not simply a modern phenomenon. While the Roman Empire accorded Jews legal status and granted certain concessions, such as to substitute prayer for the emperor for participation in the imperial cult, early Christianity appeared to the Romans to be an illegal association, an illicit cult. Yet, when Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 379, a dramatic reversal took place and Christianity exercised civil and religious power, often to the detriment of Jews, until the 18th century Age of Enlightenment.