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Political Instrumentalisation of Religion

When a politician wraps policy in prayer, the policy becomes very hard to argue with. That is the point.

Religion provides something politics desperately needs: moral certainty. A tax bill is debatable. A trade agreement is complicated. But a divine mandate is absolute. So political actors learn to frame their agendas in religious language — not because they are necessarily devout, but because a voter who believes God endorses a policy will defend that policy with a fervour no campaign ad could generate.

This works across the political spectrum and across cultures. Conservative movements invoke religious tradition to resist social change. Nationalist movements wrap ethnic identity in religious belonging, making opposition feel like an attack on faith itself. Wars become crusades. Economic systems become divine order. The political goal disappears behind the sacred framing, and anyone who objects is arguing not against a policy but against God.

The people whose faith is being used rarely benefit from this arrangement. Their genuine beliefs become tools in someone else's strategy. Their communities become voting blocs. Their moral concerns become talking points that appear every election cycle and vanish the day after. If you want to know whether a political leader is expressing faith or exploiting it, watch what happens to the religious community's actual needs once the votes are counted.

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