So, right now, there is major controversy in Denmark, concerning the proposed abolition of one of the national holidays, _store bededag_, the ‘general day of prayers’, by the government, in order to, in their own words, “fund the rearmament of the military.”
This move is opposed by the left and the trade-unions—to which I belong—as it is a covert attack on worker’s free time and won rights in regards to days off and compensation for working on holidays.
On the right however, and this is what prompts this question, liberals have been quick to denounce the proposed abolition as an attack on the Christian heritage of Denmark, the Christian values, and so on and so on. In both liberal and conservative movements in Denmark, Christianity and the idea of Denmark as a “Christian country” is an often referred to idea, when it comes to various subjects, such as immigration policies, educational policy, and so on, and now also the area of labour regulation. Prominent politicians from the Liberal Party has criticised the Liberal Party, which is currently in government with the Social Democrats and former liberal PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s new liberal party _Moderaterne_(‘The moderates’,) for this proposed abolition, just as how priests, bishops, and other bourgeois characters (bourgeois used in Denmark to refer broadly to the right-wing) have also entered the political debate, arguing against abolition with reference to Christianity.
How important or common are references to Christianity in your countries?
15 comments
It’s a mixed bag (UK and Scotland).
“We don’t do God” – Alastair Campbell, advisor to former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Generally politicians are encouraged to keep religion out of things (not the case in Northern Ireland of course, or to an extent the Western Isles in Scotland).
However, the head of state is also the head of the Church of England (Anglican) although changes denomination to the Church of Scotland (Presbytarian) when they cross the border (rather than going to the Scottish Episcopal Church, our equivalent to the CofE). There are 26 “Lords Spiritual” in the House of Lords (the UK’s unelected upper house), who are appointed by the Church of England). There are/were some other religious officials in the House of Lords (classed as “Lords Temporal”, not appointed by their churches), including the current Chief Rabbi and a couple of people from churches in Northern Ireland.
The UK national anthem has “God” in the title so that’s pretty on the nose. Still, at least our money doesn’t mention God on it so we’ve got that going for us.
In parts of the Western Isles there are still some strict Sabbatarians so you’ll find a lot of shops are shut and the Sunday ferries were (and to an extent still are) controversial. They don’t chain the swings up in the park at least.
Northern Ireland…aye, not touching that one.
Important to the current government and their ideology. They have a strong symbiotic relationship with the Christian churches here, mutually helping and supporting each other.
(The wildest thing I’ve ever heard came from the then Minister of Human Resources Miklós Kásler, a doctor originally, who said that if you obey the Ten Commandments then you can avoid the vast majority of fatal diseases.)
The people themselves in general are not particularly religious though. (For example you can find much more religious people in Poland than here.)
Religion is viewed as a private matter and is rarely brought up in politics. Not even our most socially conservative politicians (i.e. Christian Democrats) tend to talk about God and the Bible in public (they might do it at their party meetings though). The one exception to this is the President’s annual New Year’s speech which traditionally ends with “God’s blessings”.
I live in Poland. Does it check out already or should I actually write something about this?
Yes, church and politics are tied together closely even though it should not be the case. Politicians from the right-wing government attend the meetings held by Rydzyk (the one who owns TV Trwam and Radio Maryja), and the church influences people to vote on them. Moreover, signatures in favor of the abortion ban laws were collected IN THE CHURCH. And, obviously, the church has always everything to say about politics and stuff.
Church in Poland is black mafia, it’s an organization that is untouchable. If you observe lots of the news from the last couple of years, you’ll see how bad it is. One politician called “patriots” (they are neo nazis in fact) to “protect the churches” from the devastation by the “LGBT ideology”. This country is fu..ed up. But thankfully more and more people leave this toxic God forsaken church.
It’s definitely not mentioned a lot. Notable exception: Former chancellor Sebastian Kurz tried to use religion in his campaign by holding a “prayer” for his victory in Austria’s largest indoor venue. That was a little more than a nod to believers.
Conservative politicians might make sure that every now and then there are reports of them attending a service. Definitely before an election.
Far-right, ultra-conservative leader f the far-right party Norbert Hofer talked about introducing little steps to make aboirtion less accessible. He didn’t necessarily do so in a religious context, but we all know that the pro-life croud is predominantly religious.
Regarding holidays: I don’t remember anyone questioning a religious (or any other) holiday recently. I am sure it would be met with lots of opposition from both the Catholic Church and unions. Unions have successfully kept Sundays ‘holidays’ (meaning that stores are closed) so far and they would fight hard against abolishing a holiday, albeit not for faith reasons.
As a politician you’re allowed to say you’re Christian but if you were to justify a law through religious beliefs ALONE there would be consequences.
Religion here in Belgium is incredibly personal. Flaunting it wouldn’t be received well.
On paper, Switzerland seems very religious; at least at first glance. Our constitution has a preamble which begins with the words: “In the name of God, the Almighty!” There are two political parties whose names reference Christianity – until last year, it was three of them. And our national anthem is literally called “The Swiss psalm”. Instead of talking about the bravery of our ancestors or the freedom of our country, it’s basically a love letter to God, written by a 19th century pastor.
However, in day-to-day politics, I feel like religion has a fairly minute impact. Immigration debates are the only occasion when I hear terms like “judeo-christian culture” being thrown around. But even this has decreased significantly since the late 2000s when the Swiss People’s Party was on its zenith.
Some conservative/catholic cantons still have crucifixes in their public schools and administrative buildings and this becomes a point of criticism every couple of years. As a leftist and atheist, I get why it makes some people uncomfortable but I actually agree with conservatives that they’re interpreting too much into those symbols. When I see a crucifix in a public building, my first thought is “this is a historical building with a long tradition” and not “they’re trying to indoctrinate me”. And I believe at this point, that’s mainly what these symbols stand for. Likewise, I’m not bothered by the idea of a female muslim teacher wearing a headscarf because it’s mostly just a cultural representation of her immigrant heritage. Though I did vote in favor of banning the burqa/niqab. Right-wing populists sometimes like to scream and fear-monger but I feel like most Swiss people (including most politicians) have a pretty reasonable and pragmatic approach to religion. We try to find a good middleground between protecting our traditions, allowing progress, not indoctrinating anyone, letting people practice their basic civil rights, protecting vulnerable members of society, granting religious folks the freedom to practice their faith and making sure they don’t infringe on other people’s rights. Obviously, the solutions aren’t always perfect and you can’t make everyone happy but I’ve never had the impression that religion was a serious issue of conflict in our country.
I believe some of this is also due to historical reasons. Modern Switzerland was founded right after a civil war and that civil war was (at least partially) fought because of severe religious disagreements among the population. The protestants won the war but they handled the victory in a very classy way. Instead of ridiculing and mocking their fallen opponents, they reached out their hand and offered them an active role in the creation of a modern nation-state. This made it very hard for the losing catholics to hold on to any grudges. At one point, I think Swiss people just kind of decided: “This is dumb, let’s not fight over personal religious beliefs.”
Tbh, in Portugal it’s my opinion that people don’t want religious holidays to be abolished because they generate wealth and leisure time. And the political class rarely touches the subject because the backlash would be significant.
Many lesser religious holidays are tied to regional celebrations and that means people go to specific places to celebrate the holiday and visit their family, and a place which can usually be pretty irrelevant at other times of the year, will receive an influx of patrons willing to spend money on local businesses.
Also, labour laws dictate that employees will be paid extra for working on a holiday, so most people will be more than willing to receive that extra income.
As an example, I once worked on May 1st (labour day), which was a Sunday. So I received approximately three times as much as I would get on a normal day. The government also gets its fair share in taxes, and so stuff keeps spinning.
On a political level, I recall when one of our Prime-Ministers proposed that from then on there would be no Carnaval Tuesday (eve of Ash Wednesday), and no one was happy. Technically it’s not even a holiday but several companies still give you time off.
Overall the matter of holidays is no longer tied to religion per se anymore, I believe it’s more of a custom, frankly. As if people just expect that to happen and don’t want it to change.
I’m quite sure it’s here that it has the highest importance in politics compared to how many people are actually religious
The current regime makes it a constant talking point how religious the country is, and how we’re defending Christian Europe on the Serbian border, and stuff like that. Also, one of the oppositional candidate’s campaign points in last year’s election was that he’s a better Christian than Orbán
However you’d have to look with a magnifying glass to see someone under the age of 60 in a church. But I’m sure a lot more people claim to be religious than those who actually are
In Italy the situation is complex, the constitution affirms the secularity of the state but, at the same time, recognises Catholicism as the religion of the majority of Italians, and the Lateran Pacts (the concordat with the Catholic Church) are included within the constitution. There are and have been parties that explicitly refer to Christianity, for example the Christian Democratic Party, which de facto monopolised political life from the Second World War to the early 1990s; the Right in recent years has repeatedly emphasised religion, but more in the form of an ‘identity flag’ than out of true conviction (a recent example: the controversy over whether or not crucifixes should be kept in classrooms). Moreover, within the Democratic Party (the main social democratic party in Italy) there is also a Christian-social current.
Overall the only parties that make overt references to Christianity are the specifically Christian political parties and some of the parties that are further on the right, although they don’t do it in the same way. The Christian parties, [Christian Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Union_%28Netherlands%29) and [SGP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Political_Party) tend to refer to Christian principles or just straight up to the bible as to how they make their decisions. CU for instance often refers to “Man’s stewardship over the earth” as a reason for why we should care about the climate and the leader of the SGP often refers to the bible or biblical verses in his speeches to parliament. The right wing populist/far right parties, such as [PVV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Freedom) and [FVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_for_Democracy), don’t refer to Christianity often, but at times bring up “our Judeo-Christian values” to complain that these are under threat by progressives, immigrants and the other usual far right scapegoats.
While Christianity overall isn’t present in most political parties’ programs or statements, some of the specifically Christian parties have become kingmakers and often either end up in the ruling coalition or offer support to it in return for concessions.
Absolutely not. We celebrate major chtistian holidays (christmas, easter) but in very secular manner. We have political party of “christian democrats” but is very minor and barely in the parliament.
Usualy polititians don’t express any religious behaviour and when they do, they risk that the majority of people would look down on them.
We value secularity very much and you can sue school or any public enterprise for “enforcing religion”. You can wear or pray whatever you like, but as an authority, you can force it to anyone else (like force people to pray before meal in you workplace/school etc.) But it really don’t happen, because we are mostly atheistic.
It’s also considered kinda rude to ask people about their belief.
Can be very important.. in some elections.. the right-center and center-left axis of politics can be very close.. Meaning that the christian people party (in the middle with just a few percentage of the votes) can “decide” who becomes prime minister… A couple of decades you had an extreme case of it… A politician (priest of profesion and head of the christian party) became the prime minister of norway.. Used to joke bak then that Norway and Iran were the only nations on this planet with religious leaders..
So christianity is not necesarily a wining topic regarding political debates.. Though the christian politicians har probably gotten more politics for their votes than many other parties.. Our current PM some years ago went to a religious convention.. manifesting his christian faith among religious leaders…
Though with christianity within politics in norway.. you never get rid of political topics like limits on sale of alcohol, kontantstøtte, biotech, gay-marriage, abortion etc..
Not usually mentioned in politics, although it’s indirectly influential as some parties defend the Christian moral values when it’s up to their interest (without mentioning the Church while defending that morality).
Considerably — England still has an established national church in the Church of England, and *de facto* one could argue there is one in Scotland as the monarch is a patron of the Church of Scotland too.
The Church of England is represented in Parliament by 26 Lords Spiritual, who sit on the government benches in the House of Lords and are entitled to vote on and amend legislation.
A British government minister sits as the Second Church Commissioner for the Church Commissioners for England, which is one of the largest charities by endowment in the world.
Also, the House of Commons must pass Church Measures, the legislation made by the Church of England’s General Synod (governing body). Without parliamentary approval, decisions made by the General Synod cannot receive Royal Assent (enactment by the Monarch). Technically, Church Measures are part of English law and count as ‘primary legislation’, which means they have the same force as Acts passed by Parliament. Altogether, this means England’s folk church is *intrinsic* to the British political system.