Both religion and politics have one common goal — to acquire political power and use it to fulfil their aims. However, to achieve this object, their methods are different. Religion mobilizes religious sensibilities of the people in order to get their support; while politics uses intrigue, diplomacy and makes attempts to win public opinion either democratically, if the system allows it, or usurps power with the help of the army, if the society is underdeveloped and backward.
Therefore, in the power struggle, both politics and religion make attempts to undermine each other. If religion holds political authority, its ambition is to exploit it to fulfil a divine mission. It claims that it derives authority from divinity and, therefore, its mission is holy motivated to reform society under spiritual guidance. Politics, on the contrary, bereft of any value, directs its policy on the needs and requirements of society, whereupon it obliges to change laws and system of government accordingly.
This is a basic difference between two approaches of religion and politics: religion determines its authority on divine laws which could not be changed with human intervention; while in pragmatic political approach society should move ahead, change and adjust itself with the new arising challenges of time. In its secular approach, man is responsible to determine his destiny. He is not under the control of divinity to remain submissive and inactive. On the contrary, he is supposed to initiate and plan to build a society according to his vision.
There are three models in history related to religion and politics. In one, when religion and politics both unite with each other in an attempt to monopolize political power, we call it integration and sharing model. In the second model, politic, after subduing and overpowering religion, uses it for its interests. In this model, religion plays a subservient role to politics. In the third model, both come into conflict with each other, that subsequently lead to their separation. In this model, they appear as rivals and continue to struggle for domination.
The study of the beginning and spread of any religion shows that every religion is started in particular space and time; therefore, the main focus of its teachings is the solution of existing problems. However, with the change of time, there are new challenges and a religion has to respond to them for its survival. In this process, it has to adjust its teachings according to changes. With the passage of time, a stage comes when a religion fails to respond to the challenges of its time and finds hardly any space to adjust according to new environments. For example, in the case of Islam, it took nearly two-and-a-half centuries to complete its orthodoxy. Once the process was complete, it became impossible for orthodoxy to give any place of new ideas and thinking. It was believed that any change in the structure would weaken its base. On this plea, it persists to retain its old structure without any addition.
At this stage, there remain three options for any religion: a- Avoid and disapprove any change in its structure. If any attempt is made to reinterpret its teachings, such attempt is either crushed politically or with help of religious injunctions (fatwa in case of Islam). Those who claim to reconstruct religious thoughts should be condemned as enemies of religion, and believers should boycott them; b- In the second option, religion has a choice to adapt itself according to the needs of the time and accept new interpretations relating to its teachings and accommodating modernity; c- In the third option, if religion fails to respond to the challenges and feels insecure, in this case it withdraws from the active life and decides not to entangle in worldly affairs. It confines its activities to spirituality.
The helplessness of religion is obvious in the present circumstances in which scientific and technological invention are rapidly changing society and its character, and making it more complex and mechanical, specially with the extension of knowledge, politics and economics. Science technology and other branches of knowledge assume a separate entity that could be specialized and handled by professionals. Ulema or religious scholars are not in a position to understand the intricacies of these professions and adjust them with religious teachings. This is the reason why, in some societies, religion is separated from politics and economics, and it no more enjoys the domination over society, which it did in the mediaeval period.
The characteristic of these three reactions may be defined as aggressive, compromising and separatist, respectively.
There are groups of people in every society who want a change in their practical life, but at the same time they desire not to abandon religion. These people become supporters of the new interpretation of religion that suits their way of life. It causes emergence of new sects. Therefore, we find that in every religion, there are new sects which fulfil the demands of a group of people within a span of time, and then disappear. However, some sects persist and survive. For example, in Christianity, when bourgeoisie wanted religious sanction of interest, Calvin (d.1594) a religious reformer, allowed it on the basis of religion. It removed business hurdles and the merchant and industrial classes flourished. R.H.Tawney, in his classical book, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, rightly says: “Calvin did for the bourgeoisie of the 16th century what Marx did for the proletariat of the 19th.”
