To explain how globalization rebuilt public policy and social behavior, we study the different political, economic, and social actors - public or private, individual or collective - and the exchanges and interactions between them that are remaking international relations. This course is inspired by a French sociological and historical approach to international relations. This course is also available in french version: www.coursera.org/learn/espace-mondial-fr/
Christianity and Politics
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來自 Sciences Po 的課程
Espace mondial：法国视角下的国际研究
個評分
從本節課中
Religions
Religion is perceived as a major parameter of the present world order, but generally in an oversimplified way.
與講師見面
Bertrand BadieProfessor
Marie-Françoise DurandProfessor
Let’s consider now Christianity and politics.
Of course it’s impossible to speak
of Christianity as a singular type.
Christianity is made
of different kinds of Christianity,
and I would like to stress the opposition
between Roman Christianity
and Protestant Christianity, “Reform”.
If we take into account the Roman Catholic Church,
we observe that this kind of religion
is probably the most centralized one,
and this very strong centralization
has historical, theological and cultural roots
that we have to take into account,
and which explain the role played
by Roman Catholicism
in shaping and organizing the world
in giving meaning to political relations.
Roman Catholic Church is strongly centralized
when Protestantism
and also Orthodox Christianisty
are much more decentralized,
and then closer to the nations,
when Roman Catholic Church
must be considered
as a real transnational organization.
Roman Catholic Church has to be analyzed
as centralized because of this delegation
given by Jesus to Peter:
‘You are Peter and on this rock
I will build my church’,
this means clearly that church
is representing God on the earth,
and is benefiting of a real
and legitimate delegation.
This delegation gives authority to the pope
and creates a centralized organization
which is considered as the delegation from God.
This centralized organization
is legitimate for dispensing sacraments,
for dispensing salvation
and dispensing sacraments and salvation
on behalf of God.
You can find here the first track
of this culture of delegation
which is deeply rooted in the Western history.
This centralization around the pope,
with the successor of Peter, the first pope
who was delegated by Jesus,
this centrality is probably the first inspiration
of the nation state model.
This conception of a centralized order
around the legitimacy,
is probably the background,
the cultural background of the nation state.
And, in fact we can observe in history
that nation state imitated
the Roman Catholic Church
when it was built at the end of the Middle Age.
If you take into account for instance
the local administration of the state,
it’s a copy of the local administration
of the church.
If you take into account
the judicial institutions of the state,
it’s a copy of the judicial institutions of church.
If you take into account
the conception of sovereignty, pope sovereignty,
this conception of pope sovereignty
inspired, influenced,
the conception of the state sovereignty.
If you take into account
the tax administration of the state
it was also an imitation
of the tax administration of the church.
There is an affinity, a very strong similarity,
imitation between
this original conception of religion
around the centralized church
and this political conception of centralization
around the state and the state builders.
Now, another aspect
of this conception of centrality
is the absence of protest, there is,
in the centralized church
there is no room for protest,
and for expressing divergence of opinions.
We can understand how it was difficult
to combine the theory of democracy
with the theory of church,
and even pope Jean-Paul II stressed that
the theory of democracy has no room
inside the church.
And that’s why one of the witnesses
of the Roman Catholic Church
is not to be able to take into account
the diversity of opinions
and of sensibilities inside the church.
If for instance in Latin America Christianity
is not conceived
in the same manner than in Europe,
there is no possibility inside this centralization
for making these two opinions coexisting
inside the Roman Catholic organization.
Third aspect: when so centralized church
was created, was built up,
there was a strong chance of rivalry
with the political power.
How to conceive this division of labor
between religion and politics,
between church and state?
And you know that this original rivalry
between church and state
generated the process of state making.
The state, the western state was creating
by trying to get emancipated
from the tutorship
of the pope and of the church.
This duality – church and state –
is an original feature
of the Roman Catholic culture,
inside the western world
and is explaining the specificity
of the western state.
I will add also a last point,
which is probably strongly connected
to the Roman Catholic history,
it’s the conception of representation
and delegation,
that’s to say the creation
of the Roman Catholic Church
is coming from this famous sentence
that I defined in the beginning of my lecture,
when I explained that Jesus considered Peter
as his representative on the earth,
and Jesus, when he said to Peter
‘You are Peter and on this rock
I will build my church’
he meant that political action,
political game inside the western world
were shaped by this conception of delegation.
God delegated his son to the earth
and his son Jesus delegated to Peter,
and then Peter, as a pope,
delegated to the bishop
and this pyramid of delegation
is probably the main footprint
of Christianity on the political order,
that’s to say inventing this conception
of representation,
legitimate representation
which is not accepted
in other religions like Islam.
And one of the reasons of the main differences
between Islam and Christianity
takes place in this strong opposition
between culture of delegation
like the roman culture
and culture of non delegation
as we will see about Islam.
Now if we move to Reform,
we are observing something quite different.
Don’t forget that Reform was created,
invented during the 16th century
as a protest against church, pope
and an excessive centralization.
That’s why Reform was first of all
a kind of rebellion against centralized power,
against delegation, and against the state,
as the absolutist state
as it was during this period.
And this implied something
new and so important
for renewing the western culture,
that’s to say if state is contested,
if state is delegitimized,
so we have to go back to individuals,
and reform is initiating a new kind of relation
which is a direct relation
between individuals and God,
and this direct relation is now organized
not by the state but by the law.
And this is stressing the new role of culture of law,
which is coming from the Reform
as it opposed to the culture of the state
as it is coming from the Roman Catholic Church.
So in this decentralized model
we say that there is now
a room for differentiation of opinions,
for debate,
as the protestant church is a decentralized one
and so is able to express this diversity,
reform is also boosting individualism
and takes a central place,
for the first time in history,
to individual inside the society
and inside the political system,
a kind of distrust to centralization,
central power and state
and a kind of valuing civil society against state.
Individuals are associated
as they are associated
in the new decentralized church,
and this association is probably
the starting point of this culture of civil society
which will take place when Reform
was really rooted in the mind of people,
in the culture of people.
And at last I would say this is also initiating
a new kind of relations
between politics and religion,
which are much more combined,
as it is the case in the British
and in the American culture,
which are quite different
from the culture of laicity
we can observe in the roman culture.
