US, UK, Religion and Politics

[Happy_Clam]

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
From The Lion and the Unicorn, by George Orwell (1941) – http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/lionunicorn.html:

QUOTE]

Y’know, I think Orwell was just plain WRONG on this. Any student of British political history during the 19th century can tell you that religion was a key factor in elections- as much, if not more so, than in America today. Gladstone won the 1878 election cheifly on the issue of rescuing Bulgarian Christians from Turkish Muslims (even though it arguably went counter to British interests at the time), and as recently as 1832 Catholics weren’t allowed to sit in the House of Commons, let alone Jews.

Personally, IM-unsubstansiated-opinion, I think that countries, and particuarly the politicis of countries, tend to get less religious over time. England/UK/Europe just has an extra 400 years of political development on the US, so it experiences this phenomenon first. Of course this isn’t an exclusive argument, but it will suffice for now. There are also issues, I think, of competing minorities striving to maintain their religious exclusivity in the face of fierce competition, of the fact that yes, a significant minority of New-World-Immigrants were religious fanatics (Pilgrims, anyone?), of the way in which political and religious power structures in the US have developed in co-operation rather than in competition (as is the case in the UK, where some Bishops have not-insignificant political power), and so on.

As far as this heralding the development of a religious revival in the UK- you must be joking, right? less than 20% of UK citizens reguarly attend a religious ceremony, and that includes fervent Jews/Muslims/etc. who you’d expect to swing the poll a little. Religion is a non-issue in British politics, or nearly so. Isolated incidcents (George Galloway’s unexpected victory in the 60% Muslim Bethnal Green constituency, on an arguably anti-Semitic platform, for example), do occur, but we simply do not have the numbers of believers required to create a significant political force.

Counter-question: Is there really such bias against atheists and agnostics in the US? Or if there is in politics, is this still true in, for example, social life? Or business? Or whatever?

[Happy_Clam]

@EAF1

Returning to the original question as to the lack of religion in UK politics: too many examples of the negatives that result from a religion in politics.

Most obviously, Northern Ireland is somewhere religion is seen to be part of the political process, and doesn’t seem to have benefitted from that.

Historically - the Jacobite rebellions. James VII/II was forced off the throne because of his religion. Bloody Mary didn’t go down too well. Bound to be plenty of others.

Hmm. I’m not sure if 400-year-old history really inspires a community to collectively abandon religion-plus-politics. And if anything, Northern Ireland works AGAINST this argument- politics there is more-or-less strictly split along religious lines, with Catholic Republicans (anti-British-occupation) versus Anglican Unionists (pro-maintaing-UK). I think the answer is more likely to lie in broad social change, along the lines mentioned by the last poster- no longer having to rely on church as the sole source of Sunday entertainment, for example (although this also applies in the US, so…). Maybe the rise of socialist politics in the 1960-70’s, which have tended to argue anti-clerically, discouraged religion? Maybe role of the Anglican Church as a social club in the 19th c. discouraged true belief, leading to an absence of faith once you no longer had to be Protestant to succeed?

Maybe the “problem” lies at the other end of the telescope. The dominance of the religious in American politics need not lie in their numbers, just their persistency. Perhaps democratic representation is more accurate or inclusive in Britain? Or maybe only the church-goers have the patience to attend the high number of voting opportunities granted in the US (once we vote in a government, we are stuck with them for four years at least, barring accidents)? Or maybe… I dunno. What?

[Mk_VII]

Protestantism in Northern Ireland is mostly Presbyterian, not episcopal - which derives from it’s Scottish origins

[Happy_Clam]

@Mk VII

Protestantism in Northern Ireland is mostly Presbyterian, not episcopal - which derives from it’s Scottish origins

:smack: Of course. Still, that adds another element- that of conflicting nationalisms- to the conflcit.

[BrainGlutton]

@Happy Clam

Y’know, I think Orwell was just plain WRONG on this. Any student of British political history during the 19th century can tell you that religion was a key factor in elections- as much, if not more so, than in America today. Gladstone won the 1878 election cheifly on the issue of rescuing Bulgarian Christians from Turkish Muslims (even though it arguably went counter to British interests at the time), and as recently as 1832 Catholics weren’t allowed to sit in the House of Commons, let alone Jews.

So? The salience of religion in politics is not necessarily reflective of the actual religious views of the politicians. It may be reflective of the actual religious views of the voters – but in the period you are discussing, “the voters” in the UK meant only the propertied elite plus moderately prosperous yeomen and merchants – I believe “one man in seven” had the vote then. Orwell was talking about the religious belief (or lack thereof) of the “common people.”

[BrainGlutton]

@Mk VII

Protestantism in Northern Ireland is mostly Presbyterian, not episcopal - which derives from it’s Scottish origins

Ah, well, that explains everything. Nothin’ but trouble, them Presbyterians.

[BrainGlutton]

@Happy Clam

And if anything, Northern Ireland works AGAINST this argument- politics there is more-or-less strictly split along religious lines, with Catholic Republicans (anti-British-occupation) versus Anglican Unionists (pro-maintaing-UK).

True, but they’re not actually fighting over religion – that is, over what’s God’s true will and what’s the right way to get into Heaven – like Catholics and Protestants did in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Whether you are a Catholic or Protestant in NI is more relevant as a signifier of your family’s ethnic background and historic national loyalties.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Happy Clam

And if anything, Northern Ireland works AGAINST this argument- politics there is more-or-less strictly split along religious lines, with Catholic Republicans (anti-British-occupation) versus Anglican Unionists (pro-maintaing-UK).

Well, but in Northern Ireland, the two main groups, Presbytarians on the one side, Catholics on the other, were both, for quite a long time, persecuted and marginalized by the government, so they’re religious identities were pretty much forced upon them by the outside, and became national identities. Add to that the fact that, for political purposes, both sides adopted a mythology that demonized the other (in the Catholic case, Cromwell, in the Presbyterian case, the massacre of Protestant settlers during the Civil War as well as the later Jacobite cause), and what you have is a nationalist dispute (especially on the Catholic side, with the IRA being extremely anti-clerical) disguising itself as a religious one.

[Happy_Clam]

@BrainGlutton

So? The salience of religion in politics is not necessarily reflective of the actual religious views of the politicians. It may be reflective of the actual religious views of the voters – but in the period you are discussing, “the voters” in the UK meant only the propertied elite plus moderately prosperous yeomen and merchants – I believe “one man in seven” had the vote then. Orwell was talking about the religious belief (or lack thereof) of the “common people.”

Not after the 1867 and 1878 Reform Acts, which enfranchised (firstly) most homeowners (including the prosperous working class- who made up a great deal more of the population than you seem to think), and (secondly) near-universal male enfranchisement. Admittedly, Britain was more an oligarchy than a democracy pre-1876, but the views of the “common people” as you put it were a very siginificant factor in elections after this period- some of which were won on religous grounds.

[Quartz]

@e-logic

Labour tended to be seen as godless socialists (or communists).

That also applies to the Church of England.

[UDS]

@tagos

Tony Blair - closet Catholic - recently let on that he and God are on first name terms and in close agreement on the need to attack ME countries on specious grounds.

No, no, no. Bush (reportedly) believes that Gold told him to invade Iraq. Blair says that he prayed about the decision, and he believes that God will judge him for it. “God will judge me for this” is not the same as “God told me to do this”.

[tagos]

@UDS

No, no, no. Bush (reportedly) believes that Gold told him to invade Iraq. Blair says that he prayed about the decision, and he believes that God will judge him for it. “God will judge me for this” is not the same as “God told me to do this”.

If you pray you are looking for guidance to act on. Besides I never claimed what you claim.

No democratically elected politician has any damn business acting on any fantasy communications with their invisible friend.

[Jennyrosity]

In her recent book “Watching the English”*, social anthropologist Kate Fox describes one of the defining rules of English behaviour as “the Importance of Not Being Ernest” - not taking anything, including oneself, too seriously. On the subject of religion, she goes on to say:

Other people are welcome to worship Him if they chose - it’s a free country - but this is a private matter and they should keep it to themselves and not bore or embarrass the rest of us by making an unnecessary fuss about it. (There is nothing the English hate more than a fuss.)…Our benign indifference remains benign only so long as the religious of any persuasion, stay in their place and refrain from discomforting the non-practising, spiritually neutral majority with embarrassing or tedious displays of religious zeal…Earnestness of any kind makes us squirm; religious earnestness makes us deeply suspicious and decidely twitchy.

For me, that sums up the reasons behind our reaction to Blair’s recent comments rather well.

*I realise the OP asked about the UK as a whole, but I thought this was relevant nonetheless.

[Walloon]

The flip side is that, at least in a lot of the British press and the literarti, it’s just irony, irony, irony, all the time. And that gets equally tedious.

[BrainGlutton]

@Jennyrosity

In her recent book “Watching the English”*, social anthropologist Kate Fox describes one of the defining rules of English behaviour as “the Importance of Not Being Ernest” - not taking anything, including oneself, too seriously.

Well, that’s just the difference. Americans tend to take things seriously. Many, perhaps most, of us are zealots of one kind or another. (At least by comparison to most national cultures.) Our Christians are zealous Christians. Our atheists are zealous atheists. It’s hard to envision the UK producing a Madelyn Murray O’Hare.