The Difficulties with Doctrine: How Religion Can Influence Politics

How can religious doctrine help to explain political outcomes? Both scholarly and popular apologists for religion have argued that religion is not only distinct from political power, but does not help us to account for outcomes such as violence, public policy, or popular mobilization. This paper argues that such accounts first of all misunderstand the nature of the relationship between doctrine and politics: religious arguments may not be sufficient for political outcomes, but they are often necessary. Second, these accounts divorce religion from politics in ways that ignore the fact that both seek authority over rules of behavior. Third, many of these accounts are un-falsifiable and thus do little to advance our understanding of how religious motivations and concepts do or do not inform both behavior and understanding. Instead, by examining the examples of the stem cell/IVF debates in Europe, violence in the Middle East, and nationalist mobilization, I argue that religious doctrine provides a powerful source of common identity and knowledge, serves as a normative template, and lowers inhibitions on certain types of political behavior.