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Churches and Pressure Group Politics

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Pressure Politics in Industrial Societies

Abstract

All churches are organised communities of religious believers, and their primary concerns are obviously spiritual rather than political. Nonetheless, as Gandhi once observed, ‘if you believe that religion has nothing to do with politics, you don’t understand religion’. In every political system religion and politics are inevitably intertwined, and there is no doubt that churches play a political role, albeit of varying significance, in all political systems. Furthermore, it is clear that what is apparently ‘non-political’ in one context may become highly political in another: a candlelit procession may be viewed as a manifestation of private faith in one setting, yet become an act of visible political protest in another.

‘This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons to guide it through the channel of no meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis ofAye and No.’ (Cardinal Newman)

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Notes to Chapter 7

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Authors
  1. Alan R. Ball
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  2. Frances Millard
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© 1986 Alan R. Ball and Frances Millard

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Ball, A.R., Millard, F. (1986). Churches and Pressure Group Politics. In: Pressure Politics in Industrial Societies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18257-2_7

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