{"id":3381,"date":"2026-07-03T09:16:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T07:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/?p=3381"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:45:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T07:45:02","slug":"religious-doctrine-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/?p=3381","title":{"rendered":"Religious Doctrine and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have a review essay on this subject in <em>Perspectives on Politics<\/em>, available under Open Access <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/perspectives-on-politics\/article\/religious-doctrine-and-politics\/DFC7C3463D1917F02EB4594D290E3994\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/perspectives-on-politics\/article\/religious-doctrine-and-politics\/DFC7C3463D1917F02EB4594D290E3994\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The three very interesting books reviewed are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>How Economic Ideas Evolve: The Impact of Religion on the German and Italian Welfare State. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Josef Hien. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. 195p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Islamic Welfare State: Muslim Charity, Human Security, and Government Legitimacy in Pakistan. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Christopher Candland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 335p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Refining the Common Good: Oil, Islam and Politics in Gulf Monarchies. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Miriam R. Lowi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 212p<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A note on the illustration (hat tip to ChatGPT): <em>Hans Holbein&#8217;s<\/em>\u00a0The Ambassadors\u00a0<em>(1533), painted amid Europe&#8217;s religious upheavals, captures the intimate entanglement of diplomacy, political power and religious conflict that lies at the heart of this essay.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s what ChatGPT had to say about why the illustration is appropriate for the essay: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the hidden skull reminds the viewer that worldly political power is transient.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>it was painted at the moment of the English Reformation, when religion and politics were inseparable;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the two ambassadors stand between diplomacy, theology and statecraft;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the broken lute string evokes religious discord.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a review essay on this subject in Perspectives on Politics, available under Open &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,50,51],"tags":[134,133,96],"class_list":["post-3381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-slider","category-new","tag-islam","tag-politics","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3383,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3381\/revisions\/3383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulseabright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}