The Religious Use of Politics and/or the Political Use of Religion: Ersatz Ideology versus Ersatz Religion

Abstract

This article analyses the relationships existing between religion and politics, particularly in totalitarian régimes. One of these relationships is the role played by «ersatz religion» in political religions, which in turn link up with secularization processes.
Offered as a contrast to the interventionist role of the State in political religion is the liberal model of friendly separation between Church and State or the hostile model of this separation, when cultural pluralism is rejected. Another kind of relationship is «ersatz ideology» in politicized religion, a good example of which is Spanish national Catholicism. Political and religious nationalism is also analysed with reference, among others, to the Basque case.
The article finishes with an examination of the express, latent functions of politicized religion and how it differs from political religion, besides the implications this has as regards religion and politics. In an authoritarian setting, as was the Spanish case,
politicized religion can be a latent element of political pluralism.