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Join us during our Fall Liberal Arts Discussion Series

A collaboration with

The University of Chicago Graham School
hosting presentations and discussions of original research

Stephen C. Walker, PhD will lead a discussion on

Religion and Political Power

Powerful people have always used religious ideas, images, and stories to justify and glorify their power. This is easy to see for most of history: until relatively recently, every government we know about routinely claimed authorization and assistance from one or more superhuman beings. It’s harder to see with the secularized republics of our own time, which tend to distance themselves from talk of “gods” and prefer to reign under abstractions like “freedom” and “rights.” One of our topics tonight will be the continued, if subtle, religiosity invoked by such abstractions: they are very much wielded as superhuman sources of authority, and summon many of the same passions as more traditional religious symbols do.

Another topic will be the intimate and paradoxical relationship between every influential religious ideology and the interests of the powerful. Since powerful people seek religious legitimation, they promote traditions that seem to serve their interests—by putting people like them in a good light and justifying any wealth or violence they might want to pursue. Religious traditions benefit tremendously from such elite support, but if they become too identified with elite interests they lose the very aura of superhuman righteousness and truth that made them worth supporting in the first place. Hence every religion that becomes powerful enough to play a major role in society performs a constant balancing act between the core values that make it seem to be “above mere politics” and, on the other hand, conformity to whatever the political elite would like.

Stephen C. Walker holds a PhD in Philosophy of Religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He studies philosophy and the history of philosophy across multiple traditions; his research focuses on classical Chinese thought and especially on Daoism.

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