WHAT OVERVIEW OF STATE-RELIGION RELATIONS IN THE WORLD?

Arnaud Blé-DEBUC

Abstract: The link between political and religious power has structured societies, legitimizing authority by the sacred (Egypt, Rome, China). Despite the predictions of religious decline in the 20th and 21st centuries, we are witnessing its recomposition as a vector of legitimacy, mobilization and identity. The models of state-religion relations vary: theocracies (Iran, Vatican, Afghanistan), state religions (United Kingdom, Greece), strict separation (United States, Japan), or institutionalized pluralism (Belgium, Lebanon, India). Some states like North Korea suppress religious, while others use soft power (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco). The religious remains a strong identity marker, used for national construction (Poland, Russia, Israel) or as a tool of resistance (Africa, Asia). Jihadism illustrates its violent dimension (Islamic State, Al-Qaeda). Today, a trans-confessional conservative convergence is emerging against Western progressism (LGBT rights, gender theory, etc.), uniting traditional Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox and Hindus. This alliance is manifested in UN votes, in African legislation and in electoral recompositions (United States, India). Liberal democracies, faced with these dynamics, fluctuate between secular hardening (France) and accommodation (Canada, United Kingdom), without resolving the tension between pluralism and common standards. The religious, far from disappearing, remains a central player in today’s geopolitical world.

Keywords : Religious Geopolitics, Legalism, Secularization, National Identity, Soft power, Theocracy, State Religion, Separation, Laity, Pluralism, Radicalization, Jihadism, Western Progress, Religious Conservatism, Liberal Democracies, Common Standards, Confessional Diplomacy.

WHAT PANORAMA FOR STATE-CHURCH RELATIONS IN THE WORLD ?

Abstract : The link between political and religious power has structured societies, legitimizing authority through the sacred (Egypt, Rome, China). Despite predictions of religious decline in the 20th and 21st centuries, we are witnessing its recomposition as a vector of legitimacy, mobilization, and identity. Models of state-religion relations vary: theocracies (Iran, Vatican, Afghanistan), state religions (United Kingdom, Greece), strict separation (United States, Japan), or institutionalized pluralism (Belgium, Lebanon, India). Some states, such as North Korea, repress religion, while others instrumentalize it as soft power (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco). Religion remains a strong marker of identity, used for nation-building (Poland, Russia, Israel) or as a tool of resistance (Africa, Asia). Jihadism illustrates its violent dimension (Islamic State, Al-Qaeda). Today, a trans-denominational conservative convergence is emerging against Western progressivism (LGBT rights, gender theory, etc.), uniting traditionalist Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Hindus. This alliance is evident in votes at the United Nations, in African legislation, and in electoral recompositions (United States, India). Liberal democracies, faced with these dynamics, oscillate between secular hardening (France) and accommodations (Canada, United Kingdom), without resolving the tension between pluralism and common norms. Religion, far from disappearing, remains a central player in contemporary geopolitics.

Key words : Religious geopolitics, Legitimacy, Secularization, National identity, Soft power, Theocracy, State religion, Separation, Secularism, Pluralism, Radicalization, Jihadism, Western progressivism, Religious conservatism, Liberal democracies, Common standards, Confessional diplomacy.

Introduction

Geopolitical permanence of religious fact

The relationship between political authority and spiritual power, since the first civilizations, is one of the most constant and problematic foundations of the social order. In most cultures, the legitimacy of power has never been exclusively human: it was intended to be rooted in a transcendence guaranteeing the stability of the world. The association of the sacred with political authority thus translates a universal anthropological conception that governing requires divine approval. From ancient Egypt to imperial China, to pagan Rome, the great civilizations have developed various forms of articulation between politics and the spiritual. In Egypt, Pharaoh embodied the mediation between human and divine: Ramessou Maryimana , better known as Ramses II, “child of Ra”, symbolizes this fusion of temporal power and sacrality. In ancient Rome, the imperator function was doubled to that of pontifex maximus, uniting religious authority and political sovereignty. In China, the concept of Tianming (Mandate of Heaven) gave the emperor cosmological legitimacy, as evidenced by the letter sent by Qianlong to George III in 1793.

Contrary to the predictions of secularist theories formulated in the 19th and 20th centuries (the Positivism of Augustus Count), the 21st century did not mark the disappearance of the religious, but rather its recomposition in the political and international spheres. Far from being confined to the private sphere, denominational beliefs and belongings are imposed as powerful vectors of legitimacy, mobilization and collective identity. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of contemporary conflicts – from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa, from South Asia to the Caucasus – have revealed the persistence of a religious dimension in the dynamics of our human societies. At the same time, in liberal democracies, the place of the religious in the public space creates new tensions around secularism, tolerance and pluralism. Finally, in the context of globalization, some States mobilize their traditional and spiritual heritage as a symbolic and diplomatic resource, making religious an instrument of soft power and identity projection.

This permanence of the religious in public affairs is expressed according to institutional configurations of great diversity. Some states profess an official religion, others claim strict secular neutrality, while others experiment with hybrid models of religious accommodation. How, then, do contemporary states organize their relations with religious institutions and communities? Which models dominate globally? What geopolitical logics underlie these different configurations?

This study proposes to develop a typology of contemporary models of state-religion relations, analyse their geopolitical dynamics and assess their implications for the joint challenges of globalization, religious pluralism and radicalization.

Typology of State-Religion Relationship Models

Theocracies and quasi-theocracies

The theocratic model, where political authority is explicitly based on religious legitimacy and where divine law prevails over popular sovereignty, persists in several contemporary configurations.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the Iranian political system has been combining elected institutions (presidency, parliament) with a supreme religious power embodied by the Revolutionary Guide (Velayat-e faqih), a position occupied by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989. The Council of Guardians of the Constitution, made up of Islamic jurists, monitors the conformity of laws with the Shariah and validates electoral candidatures. This institutional architecture explicitly subjects political power to the Duodecimain Shiite religious authority, creating a single system in which republicanism and theocracy coexist.

To the west, the Vatican represents a unique case of theocratic micro-state where the pope combines the functions of head of state and spiritual head of the Roman Catholic Church. With its 800 inhabitants and 0.44 km2, this sui generis state nevertheless exerts considerable geopolitical influence through its 1.3 billion followers worldwide and its diplomatic network. The Holy See maintains diplomatic relations with 183 States, constituting a recognized diplomatic actor in international law.

Since August 2021, in Afghanistan, an Islamic emirate explicitly rejecting the principles of the “modern state” in favour of a rigidist reading of the Hanbalite sharia has been restored. The absence of a written constitution, the refusal of any separation between religious and political authority, and the strict application of Islamic law characterize this regime.

In Saudi Arabia, although defining itself as a monarchy, one operates according to a quasi-theocratic logic where the legitimacy of royal power rests on the historical alliance (pact of 1744) between the Al-Saoud family and the Wahhabi movement. Wahhabi ulema control the judicial system and exercise considerable authority over societal issues. The reforms of Crown Prince MBS (authorisation to drive for women, opening cinemas) nevertheless testify to an evolution towards an absolute monarchy where the religious gradually becomes a tool of political power rather than its foundation.

With the Sultanate of Brunei (460,000 inhabitants), a micro-oil state in Southeast Asia, there is a combination of absolute monarchy and Sunni Islam of chafeite rite. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah holds the position of Head of State, Head of Government, Minister of Defence and Supreme Religious Leader. Since 2014, the Sultanate has gradually introduced sharia law as applicable law, with an Islamic penal code including stoning for adultery. Bruneian citizenship implies belonging to the national philosophy of the Melayu Islam Beraja (Malaysia Islamic Monarchy), a merger between ethnic, religious and political identity de facto excluding non-Muslim minorities (about 20% of the population) from full participation in the nation.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania (4.7 million inhabitants) is the only African example of a strict Islamic Republic. The 1991 Constitution defines Islam as the religion of the people and the State (Article 5) and establishes Shariah as the sole source of law. The Mauritanian legal system applies the Malikite rite with particular rigour: the 1983 Penal Code provides for stoning, crucifixion and amputation for certain crimes. Unlike the Gulf petromonarchies, Mauritania illustrates an Islamic theocracy in a context of extreme poverty, where religious rigorism is combined with traditional social structures that are highly hierarchical.

In South Asia, Pakistan (241 million inhabitants) presents a hybrid model between theocracy and constitutional democracy. Created in 1947 as the homeland of Muslims from the Indian subcontinent, the country has been defined as “Islamic Republic” since 1956. The 1973 Constitution establishes that “Sovereignty belongs to Allah” and that every law must be in accordance with the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The blasphemy laws (articles 295 and 298 of the Criminal Code), which were tightened in the 1980s, provided for the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad and were regularly instrumentalized to persecute religious minorities. Pakistan thus represents a model in which democratic institutions coexist, leading military power and binding religious leadership.

These configurations illustrate the geographical and institutional diversity of contemporary theocracies, affecting about 400 million people, mainly in the Muslim world but in various ways ranging from pure theocracy to complex hybridizations.

Muslims were the fastest growing religious group between 2010 and 2020

State religions and pluralism

Many States maintain an official religion while generally guaranteeing freedom of worship to other faiths. This model, inherited from European history (cuius regio, eius religio of the 1555 Augsburg Treaty), remains widespread.

In the United Kingdom, Anglicanism retains the status of established religion, the monarch being the supreme governor of the Anglican Church. The bishops sit in the House of Lords (26 Lords Spiritual). Paradoxically, this state church coexists with a widely secularized society where less than 15% of the population is practicing.

In the same region, the Scandinavian countries have a close relationship with Lutheran churches. In Denmark there is a cultural tax that finances the Danish Lutheran church, while in Norway this status was abolished in 2012 while maintaining historical ties. Sweden also separated the Church and the State in 2000, but the Church of Sweden retains a specific status. As for Finland, the two national churches (Lutherian and Orthodox) are recognized and hold public law status.

In south-eastern Europe, Greece, the Orthodox Church has a privileged constitutional status (Article 3 of the Constitution). The state pays the Orthodox clergy and Orthodox religious education is compulsory in public schools with possibility of exemption.

The American Model

The United States embodies a distinct model, combining institutional separation and omnipresence of religious in public space. The First Amendment (1791) establishes two principles: the Convention make no law respecting an establishment of religion prohibits any State religion; and the free exercise clause guarantees religious freedom. This separation does not imply the privatization of the religious. Religious references permeat American public life: oath on the Bible, “In God We Trust” on currency, divine invocation in presidential speeches. American religious pluralism is organized according to a “market” where denominations coexist and compete freely. The state maintains a benevolent neutrality, facilitating the practice of worship without favouring any particular religion.

After breaking with Shintoism, Japan partially replicated the American model: Article 20 of its 1946 Constitution establishes the separation of state-religion, while guaranteeing religious freedom.

Models of plural recognition

Several States have developed systems officially recognizing several religions according to a logic of denominational pillars or multiculturalism.

Belgium maintains a system of “recognized cults” (Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Israelite, Islamic, Buddhist) with public funding. This model of pillars (verzuiling) historically structures Belgian society around denominational and philosophical belongings.

Germany operates under a cooperative scheme where the State collects cultural tax (Kirchensteuer) for churches with the status of a public law corporation. Religion classes are taught in public schools.

In Lebanon, the 1989 Taif Accords sought, inter alia, to abolish political confessionalism and restore the sovereignty of the Lebanese government. The 1943 national pact will establish that the President of Lebanon must be Maronite, the Sunni Prime Minister, the President of the Shiite Parliament. This system generates blockages and paralysis in the event of inter-Community tensions.

More than 200 kilometres from Beirut, Israel does not have a written constitution and has never formally defined relations between State and religion. The Grand Rabbinate controls the personal status (marriage, divorce) of Jewish citizens, the Shabbat is unemployed, and the hideout applies in public institutions. The ultra-Orthodox (Haredim), about 12% of the population, exert a disproportionate political influence through their position as arbitrators in government coalitions.

The case of India, towards a Hindu state?

India (1.4 billion inhabitants, 80% Hindus, 14% Muslim) presents a unique model which, despite the use of the term “secular state” enshrined in the Constitution since 1976, differs substantially from Western secularism. The Indian legal system maintains personal laws that are differentiated according to religious affiliation. The Hindu Marriage Act (1955) applies to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains; The Muslim Personal Law governs Muslims; the Christian Marriage Act (1872) concerns Christians (Dhavan, 1987). The Indian state intervenes massively in the management of the religious. Major Hindu temples are administered by state-controlled committees (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts). This approach, described as “principled distance” by the lawyer Rajeev Bhargava, implies that the State maintains a flexible equidence vis-à-vis religions.

This model of pluralism is today challenged by Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) promoted by the BJP in power since 2014. The Hindutva ideology, theorized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as early as 1923, defined Indian identity by “Hinduity”, relegating Muslim and Christian minorities to the status of cultural foreigners. This rise in Hindu identity generates concrete manifestations: recurring intercommunal violence (Gujarat pogroms in 2002); anti-conversion legislation in ten states; Legal validation in 2019 by the Supreme Court of the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri Masjid mosque destroyed in 1992; repeal in August 2019 of Article 370 granting autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. The Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) grants citizenship to persecuted refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, but explicitly excludes Muslims, marking religious discrimination in access to citizenship for the first time since 1947.

Restrictions on religious freedoms and officially atheistic states

Some states around the world maintain an official hostility towards religion that can rightly be seen as a Trojan. In China, there is sophisticated bureaucratic control. Since 1982, the Constitution theoretically guarantees “freedom of religious belief”, but subjects all religious practices to registration with five state-controlled organizations: the Buddhist Association of China, the Taoist Association of China, the Islamic Association of China, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and the Patriotic Movement of the Three Autonomy (protestant). However, despite the restrictions, the country has undergone a massive religious renewal since the 1990s. Estimates range from 200 to 300 million Buddhists, 60 to 80 million Christians (most of them in clandestine churches). The repression specifically targets movements perceived as threatening national unity. In Xinjiang, the policy of “sinization” of Islam has been translated since 2017 into the massive internment of Uighurs in “training centres” (about 1 million people), the destruction of mosques, and the prohibition of practices deemed “extremist”.

The most extreme case is certainly North Korea: any public religious practice has been eradicated in favour of the obligatory worship of the Kim Dynasty.

Religion and national construction: the identity base

The religious factor has played and continues to play a central role in the processes of national construction and identity definition.

In Europe, the formation of nation-states has largely revolved around denominational divisions resulting from the Reformation. The thirty-year war (1618-1648) enshrined the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, binding political territoriality, princes and religious denomination. Later, Polish national identities (Catholicism against Orthodox and Protestant empires), Irish (Catholicism against Anglican domination), Greek (Orthodoxy against Ottoman empire) or Dutch (Protestantism against Spanish Catholic domination) were built in narrow symbiosis with a denominational identity. This dynamic continues. Contemporary Poland mobilizes Catholicism as an identity marker in the face of perceived pressure from Brussels on societal issues. Post-Soviet Russia has made orthodoxy a pillar of its national identity restored, with Patriarch Kirill calling the Russian civilization space of “Holy Russia” (Russki Mir) transcending state borders. This linkage between politics and religion has helped to legitimize Russian interventionism in Ukraine, presented as protection of Orthodox populations.

In the Middle East, the creation of Israel in 1948 raises the irresolute question of a State simultaneously defining itself as Jewish and democratic. The 2018 Basic Law on “Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people” accentuated the Jewish character of the state to the detriment of its democratic character, affecting the Arab minority (20% of the population). The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a growing religious dimension, with Hamas mobilizing political Islam and Israeli settlers claiming Judea and Samaria in the name of a divine promise.

In South Asia, the 1947 partition between India and Pakistan enshrined religion as a principle of political organization. Pakistan has been defined as the homeland of Muslims in the subcontinent, India adopting constitutional secularism. However, the rise of Hindu nationalism calls into question this model.

In sub-Saharan Africa, large crises often arise from colonial borders, which too often have overlaid populations of different ethnic groups and denominations. In Nigeria, the majority Muslim North has 12 states that apply sharia law. In the east-central part of the continent, Sudan experienced a 22-year civil war (1983-2005) which culminated in the 2011 partition.

Religion as soft power

Transnational religious actors are major vectors of diplomatic influence, mobilizing beliefs and faith networks to project their power beyond their borders.

Concerning the so-called Holy See, he has unique assets: 1.3 billion Catholics, a network of 183 nonciatures (embassies), and a moral influence to intervene on a wide range of subjects and conflicts. John Paul II played a decisive role in the collapse of communism in Poland and Eastern Europe. Pope Francis used his magisterium to influence global debates (climate, migration, poverty). In the same vein, we can see the Roman diplomatic pragmatism with the China-Vatican agreement of 2018: accept a compromise on the appointment of bishops to preserve the Catholic presence in China.

On the Arab peninsula, Saudi Arabia has long dominated the Sunni soft power through the World Islamic League (1962) and the massive financing of mosques, madrasas and Islamic centers promoting rigorist Wahhabism. This strategy was aimed at countering Nassarian Arab nationalism and then Iranian Shiite influence. But it has produced side effects of an unprecedented magnitude with the rise of jihadist movements, forcing Riyadh to revise its policy under MBS since 2017 . Turkey’s Erdogan now claims this Sunni leadership by mobilizing the Ottoman legacy. The Diyanet finances more than 2,000 mosques in Europe, forms imams, and spreads conservative Islam. Via the agency TIKA, Ankara builds mosques and schools in the Balkans, Africa and Central Asia, positioning itself as protector of Muslim minorities.

Morocco effectively promotes a counter-model: a “Islam of the Right Environment” based on the Malekite rite and Sufism. The Mohammed VI Institute trains hundreds of African and European dimams each year in opposition to Wahhabism and jihadist Salafism. This diplomacy is mainly aimed at strengthening Moroccan influence in West Africa.

With Iran we see the deployment of confessional diplomacy based on Shiism and anti-imperialism. As such, Tehran financially and militarily supports the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, the Zaydite Houthis in Yemen, and the Syrian Alawite regime. This strategy enabled Iran to build the “Shiite crescent” in Tehran in Beirut despite its diplomatic isolation.

These religious diplomacys reveal that the sacred remains a powerful instrument of unification, structuring alliances, legitimizing interventions, and shaping collective identities far beyond national borders.

Jihadism: Internationalization of Violence

Contemporary jihadism is the most violent and mediated form of the political instrumentalization of religion, mobilizing a radical and selective reading of Islam to justify a global war against the West, Muslim regimes judged apostate and any other state structures on its way. In 2014, in a vast territory like the United Kingdom, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the “caliphate”, on a territory on horseback between Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State (IS) innovates by combining territorial occupation, proto-state administration (justice, taxation, services), and sophisticated digital propaganda. More than 40,000 foreign fighters come from 120 countries, an unprecedented phenomenon. The Caliphal project is based on a rigorist application of the Shariah and a millenarian reading of Islam: The IS presents itself as the vanguard of a final eschatological battle against the Shiite “crusaders” and “apostates”. This totalitarian ideology justifies confessional cleansing, the massacre of minorities, and the imposition of an oppressive moral order. The destruction of the territorial caliphate between 2017 and 2019 by an international coalition deprived the EI of its main legitimacy, but the organization survives underground.

Contemporary jihadism is characterized by its geographical and organizational fragmentation. Al-Qaeda and ISIS have “franchises” on several continents: “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQMI) and “Islamic State in the Greater Sahara” threaten the Sahel; Al-Shabaab controls areas of Somalia while Boko Haram terrorizes the Lake Chad basin. In the West, among the sworn enemy, the threat evolved from the “structured commando” (Paris bombings in November 2015) to the attacks of “solitary wolves”, inspired by jihadist propaganda without necessarily receiving orders. This proximity jihadization via the Internet makes prevention more complex.

Contemporary issues and reconfigurations: between “woke” progressism and religious conservatism

The religious counter-offensive: beyond secularization

Contrary to the predictions of secularization theories which predicted an irreversible decline of the religious, the 21st century witnessed a spectacular resurgence of religious mobilizations in public space. This counter-offensive is not limited to a simple resistance: it constitutes a deliberate political reconquest, carried by states that unite with the religious as a vector of legitimacy and unity.

In Turkey, the most dramatic reversal can be seen. Since the coming into power of the AKP in 2002, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has systematically dismantled the secular Kemalist legacy to impose a “re-confessionalization” of the state. This strategy is based on three pillars: firstly, the capture of religious institutions with the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs), which has become a propaganda instrument employing 120,000 people with an annual budget of $2 billion; Second, the Islamization of education with the obligation of religion classes from primary school and the proliferation of imam-hatip schools; Third, the symbolic transformation of public space with the massive construction of state-funded mosques and, a highly symbolic act, the conversion of St.Sophie into a mosque in 2020. This religious reconquest incorporates a complete concentration of powers: the 2017 constitutional review, establishing an authoritarian presidential regime, was based on the mobilization of Ottoman Sunni identity. Erdoğan does not hide his ambition: to restore the greatness of the Ottoman Empire and make Turkey the leader of the Sunni Muslim world. The secularism, the pillar of the Republic since Atatürk, is now presented as a Western alienation from which to liberate.

Some 4000 kilometres from Ankara, India, Narendra Modi’s BJP embodies a distinct but equally radical form of religious politicization. With Hindutva (Hinduy) it is no longer just a question of cultural identity, it is a total political project that redefines Indian citizenship according to ethnic and denominational criteria. Muslims (200 million people, 14 per cent of the population) are gradually relegated to second-class status. This marginalization occurs at several levels: revision of textbooks glorifying the Hindu past; anti-conversion laws criminalizing interreligious marriages suspected of “love jihad”; destruction of historic mosques (Babri Masjid in 1992, followed by the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins in 2020); Community pogroms tolerated or even encouraged by local authorities. The Modi government has revoked the constitutional autonomy of Muslim-majority Kashmir (2019) and passed a Citizenship Act (CAA, 2019) facilitating the naturalization of all religious migrants except Muslims. The Hindutva represents an attempt to transform India, an officially secular and pluralistic state since independence, into an ethnically Hindu and religiously homogeneous nation. This vision is in frontal contradiction with the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru, but finds a massive echo in a predominantly Hindu population who perceive themselves threatened by Islam and dependent on a past of colonized.

In Europe, Poland and Hungary illustrate the return of the religious as an identity marker against Western liberalism. In Poland, PiS (Law and Justice), in an organic alliance with the ultra-conservative Catholic Church, imposed a radically anti-progressive agenda: quasi-prohibition of abortion (2020), limited to cases of rape, incest or vital danger, causing massive protests; the inclusion of the protection of life “from conception” in constitutional jurisprudence; multiplication of “free zones of LGBT ideology” declared by municipalities (one third of Polish territory in 2020). Viktor Orbán in Hungary has constitutionalized a traditionalist Christian vision: defining marriage as an exclusive union between men and women (Constitution 2011); prohibition of “promotion of homosexuality” among minors (2021); control of media and educational content found to be contrary to “Christian values”. Orbán explicitly presents himself as the bulwark of the “Christian Europe” against the “Muslim migrant submersion” and the “moral decadence” of the liberal West. These two countries transform Christianity into a national identity cement and a political weapon against Brussels, accused of imposing “progressive moral imperialism”.

Transfaith Conservative Convergence: A Global Anti-Woke Front

The most unexpected and potentially destabilizing phenomenon of the early 21st century is the emergence of conservative solidarity transcending historical religious divisions. Traditionally antagonistic groups – Protestant evangelicals, traditionalist Catholics, Russian Orthodox, conservative Sunni Muslims, nationalist Hindus – discover a common enemy: Western cultural progressism, synthesized or even camouflaged under the term “wokism” and “gender ideology”.

The US presidential election of 2024 revealed a major reconfiguration. Donald Trump not only retained the massive support of the white evangelicals (76%), but also benefited from a dramatic shift in Muslim voters, traditionally acquired by the Democrats. In Michigan, a crucial state with a large Arab-American community (Dearborn has 40% residents of Arab origin), the Muslim vote turned towards Trump. This upheaval is not explained by theological affinities – evangelicals and conservative Muslims are opposed over almost everything – but by a common rejection of progressive democratic policies: promotion of transgender rights in schools, comprehensive sex education programs deemed inappropriate, celebration of LGBT pride months in public schools, use of non-binar pronouns, authorization of gender transitions for minors. The conservative imams of Dearborn and the evangelical pastors of the deep south have found a common language, articulated around the “defence of traditional family values”, the “parental right to control the moral education of their children”, and the “protection of children from early sexualization”. This convergence has been structured around organisations such as the Muslim Engagement Project and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which organize interfaith conservative coalitions. The Democratic Party, historically supported by religious minorities in the name of the fight against discrimination, found itself trapped by its own progressive rhetoric by making LGBT+ rights and transgender a vicious society project that extended to children.

Wide differences between Biden and Trump’s support on key cultural issues in the presidential campaign

Conservative diplomacy: the UN as a cultural battlefield

This convergence transcends national borders and now structures votes in multilateral forums. At the United Nations, an informal but effective coalition was formed against Western resolutions on “reproductive rights”, “complete sex education”, and recognition of “gender” as a separate category from biological sex. This coalition brings together actors as diverse as the Vatican, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, 57 member states), Russia, and a majority of African and Latin American States. In 2021, at the Gender Equality Forum, these countries blocked any explicit reference to abortion as a “fundamental human right”. In 2023, they rejected a resolution promoting “self-determined gender identity” as a universal principle.

Russia as the vanguard of “traditional civilization”

Vladimir Putin has made this opposition a pillar of his foreign policy and his internal legitimization. The Kremlin presents itself as a bastion of “traditional civilization” against a “decadent” West promoting “LGBT satanism”. This rhetoric, which may seem grotesque in the West, resonates powerfully in many countries. Russia has adopted a radical legislative arsenal: ban on “homosexual propaganda” (2013, extended in 2022 to all age groups); qualification of the “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” (2023), allowing criminal prosecution; criminalization of “gender reassignment” and prohibition of transition operations (2023); censure of any cultural content deemed “non-traditional”. Russia is actively exporting its vision through funding conservative NGOs in Europe; Organization of international congresses of “traditional families”; media support for anti-gender movements. The World Congress of Families, an American anti-LGBT organization, regularly holds its summits in Russia, bringing together traditionalist, evangelical and Orthodox Catholics in a common crusade against the most devious enemy of the 21st century.

Africa: New front of cultural war

Africa has become the preferred confrontation between Western progressism and religious conservatism. In a continent where 63% of the population disapproves of homosexuality (Afrobarometer 2019), Western organizations promoting LGBT rights are perceived as neocolonial. Unpublished coalitions are emerging. In Kenya, imams and Catholic bishops are demonstrating side by side against comprehensive sex education programmes, denounced as a vector of “Western LGBT agenda”. In Uganda, the anti-homosexuality law of 2023, providing for the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, was jointly defended by Pentecostal Churches (majorities), the local Catholic Church, and Muslim organizations. Despite international condemnations and threats of economic sanctions, President Museveni promulgated the law claiming to defend Ugandan sovereignty against “Western imperialism”. Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal have similar legislation. African LGBT activists, often trained and funded by Western NGOs, are accused of being cultural trojans and are subjected to increasing violence. By making development aid conditional on respect for LGBT rights, Western countries reinforce African conservative resistance and endanger the minorities they claim to protect.

The Vatican and the Evangelical Churches: Tensions and Convergences

The situation in Christianity is complex. Pope Francis represents an attempt to reconcile: maintaining the traditional doctrine on sexuality (rejection of homosexual marriage, abortion) but adopting a less vindictive pastoral tone (“who am I to judge?”). His policy of opening up to remarried divorcees and his blessing of homosexual couples (2023) provoked a conservative sling, especially among African and American bishops, once again. In their generality, evangelical churches radicalize their opposition. In the US, the “nationalist Christian” movement, which merges evangelical religious identity with white American national identity, considers the struggle against “wokism” as an existential spiritual war. Figures like Franklin Graham or Pastor John MacArthur call for a “Christian reconquest” of American society, recovering the rhetoric of a war that would be holy.

The impasse of liberal democracies: secular hardening or accommodation?

In the face of these mobilisations, Western democracies are caught up in the midst of two contradictory logics: defending individual rights and religious freedoms (accommodations) or imposing common norms in the name of equality and social cohesion (secular hardening).

France has chosen hardening, especially in the face of visible Islam. Since the 2015-2016 attacks, secularism, historically conceived as a state neutrality guaranteeing freedom of conscience, has become a mechanism for controlling Muslim religious expressions in public space. The legislative escalation is striking: the ban on the complete veil in 2010, the law against “Islamic separatism” in 2021, strengthening the control of religious associations and non-contracted schools, and the ban on the “long tunic” in public schools in 2023. These measures, justified by the defence of public order and equality between women and men, are denounced by part of the Muslim population as targeted stigmatization. The confusion between state neutrality and neutralization of individuals is problematic. The secularism “to French” slides towards an assimilationist vision where citizenship would require the invisibilization of religious affiliations in the public space. The veiled escorts during school trips, the burkinis in the municipal swimming pools become national political issues, revealing a society frozen on Muslim visibility or on the fear of a threat that it cannot control. In the military, this would have been defined as PTSD (post treamatic stress disorder). Paradoxically, France resists Christian conservative pressures: inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution (2024), maintenance of homosexual marriage despite the massive mobilizations of the “Manif for All”.

As for the Nordic countries, which have long been symbols of multicultural tolerance, they are operating a security shift that in reality is only the result of the violence that Islamists have thought to internationalize wrongly or rightly, and this wave of people alien to habits hostile to the Scandinavian paradigm. Fear, too, of extremist Islam and its derivatives.

Denmark embodies this evolution: ban on the complete veil (2018), laws on “ethnic ghettos” imposing aggravated penalties in certain immigrant-majority neighbourhoods, compulsory courses on “Danish values” including gender equality and LGBT rights. The Danish case is revealing: the deliberate destruction of the Koran by far right activists has led to riots in Muslim countries and terrorist threats. The social democratic government, historically progressive, has chosen to limit these provocations not out of respect for the religious but to preserve public order. Freedom of expression, a Danish cardinal value, has found itself in tension with collective security.

In Sweden, the limits of multiculturalism can be observed: faced with increasing urban segregation, gang violence in some immigrant neighbourhoods, and community tensions, the country is gradually abandoning its policy of accommodation for more coercive integration measures. The Social Democratic Party, together with the Conservatives, tightens immigration conditions and language requirements.

Anglo-Saxon liberal democracies, based on multiculturalism and reasonable accommodation, face unprecedented tensions.

In the UK, Birmingham primary schools had to suspend their “LGBT relations” education programmes in 2019 after massive protests by Muslim parents in front of the grids. The protesters claimed not to oppose LGBT rights but to refuse the “indoctrination” of young children. This conflict reveals the impasse of multiculturalism: how to reconcile respect for conservative religious sensitivities and the promotion of LGBT equality? The UK government, after months of tension, has maintained the programmes while giving schools more flexibility in their implementation, a weak solution satisfying few.

Canada is experiencing similar tensions. In Ontario and British Columbia, “1 Million March 4 Children” (2023) events brought together Muslim, traditionalist and evangelical parents against programs that included “gender theory” and the use of non-binar pronouns at school. These parents, often themselves from immigration, object to the homophobia charge and claim a “parental right” to control the moral education of their children. Trudeau’s Liberal Party, champion of progressism, finds itself in a paradoxical situation: its most progressive policies alienate an important part of its traditional electoral base, composed of immigrants with conservative values. Canadian multiculturalism, based on respect for cultural differences, collides with the attempt to universalize LGBT+ rights.

Moreover, contemporary reconfigurations reveal a threefold dynamic: the resurgence of religious mobilizations as vectors of identity relief; the emergence of a trans-confessional conservative solidarity against Western cultural progressism; The difficulties of democracies in reconciling religious pluralism and social cohesion around common values.

The systematic analysis of institutional configurations governing the relationship between state and religion on a global scale reveals irreducible structural heterogeneity, ranging from Islamic theocracies (Iran, Afghanistan) to strict secularism (French model), constitutionalised state religions (United Kingdom, Scandinavian countries) and institutionalized systems of religious pluralism (Lebanon, India). This diversity is not a transition but a plurality of historical trajectories where the religious remains a central operator of political legitimacy, social cohesion and identity differentiation.

Three major geopolitical changes are now reconfiguring the field of state-religion relations. First, many states are experiencing a reaffirmation of religious in public space – whether it is the re-Islamization of Turkey, the re-hindourization of India or the claimed re-Christianization of Poland, Hungary or Russia. Far from an archaic return, this dynamic reflects the emergence of an alternative modernity challenging the normative universality of the Western model. Secondly, transnational religious actors (Holy See, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Russian Orthodox Church, evangelical networks) have formed themselves as vectors of sophisticated soft power, mobilizing symbolic resources, diasporic networks and confessional diplomacy to extend their influence beyond state borders. These recompositions make the Westphalian grid obsolete: transnational religious allegiances today structure alliances, financing and mobilizations, creating new spaces of solidarity and power. The example of the “Shiite arc” illustrates this religious-political projection, where faith becomes a cement of strategic unity between state and non-state actors. Thirdly, an unprecedented trans-confessional conservative convergence is emerging around the rejection of progressive policies on gender, sexuality and bioethics. Historically antagonistic actors – traditionalist Catholics, evangelicals, conservative Muslims, Russian Orthodox, nationalist Hindus – find a common opponent in what they perceive as a form of Western moral imperialism. This coalition, perceptible in UN votes, in African national legislation or in some American electoral recompositions, redefines geopolitical divisions beyond traditional denominational affiliations.

In the face of this global movement, liberal democracies face a fundamental aporia: how to reconcile the axiological neutrality of the state, the religious pluralism that constitutes political liberalism, and the defence of substantial values that now constitute their normative identity (gender equality, LGBT rights, reproductive autonomy)? The responses vary: secular hardening in France, liberal multiculturalism in the United Kingdom and Canada, and assimilationism in Scandinavia. None, however, managed to resolve the tension between recognition of religious diversity and imposition of common standards, revealing the limits of the liberal project of procedural neutrality.

Thus, in the 21st century, the religious regained geopolitical centrality: mobilizing force, soft power resource, identity marker and idiom of resistance to the global liberal order. In a world fragmented by identities and traversed by the quest for cultural sovereignty, it continues to structure alliances, interventions and legitimacy. Still an essential question: will these reconfigurations help to found a new civilizational order or deepen the fragmentation of the world?

On the horizon, there is another possibility: that of a shift towards an e-Spirituality, where humanity, by creating artificial intelligences with autonomy and consciousness, could generate its perfect model of an audible god and able to bring true solutions to humanity – an e-God, in front of an e-Religion. The hypothesis may seem distant, but the introduction in Albania of the first woman politician created by artificial intelligence, appointed minister in charge of the fight against corruption, prolongs this same dynamic: that of the quest for a higher principle capable of restoring meaning, order and transcendence to a world in crisis.

14 octobre 2025.

Bibliographie :

• Arjomand Saïd Amir, After Khomeini: Iran Under His Successors, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, 280 p.
• Barfield Thomas, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2010, xi + 389 p.
• Beard Mary, North John, Price Simon, Religions of Rome. Volume 1 – A History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 482 p.
• Ben-Porat Guy, Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 280 p.
• Bhargava Rajeev, “What is Secularism For?”, pp. 486-542, in Bhargava Rajeev (ed.), Secularism and Its Critics, Delhi, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, 562 p.
• Bob Clifford, Rights as Weapons: Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2019, 280 p.
• Bowen John R., Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007, 304 p.
• Braighlinn G., Ideological Innovation under Monarchy: Aspects of Legitimation Activity in Contemporary Brunei, Amsterdam, VU University Press, 1992, 105 p.
• Brass Paul R., The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2003, 448 p.
• Brochmann Grete, Hagelund Anniken, Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State 1945-2010 (Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship), Londres, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 319 p.
• Brown Christian G., The Death of Christian Britain, London, Routledge (2nd ed.), 2009, 320 pp.
• Buzogány Aron, Varga Mihai, “The Ideal Foundations of the Illiberal Backlash in Central and Eastern Europe”, in Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 25, N°6, December 2018, pp. 811-828, link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26787385 (accessed 15 October 2025).
• Cardinale Hyginus Eugene, The Holy See and the International Order, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe Ltd, 1976, 557 p.
• Cesari Jocelyne, Why the West Fears Islam: An Exploration of Muslims in Liberal Democracies, Londres, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 399 p.
• Commins David, The Wahhabi Mission in Saudi Arabia, Londres & New York, I.B. Tauris, 2006, 288 p.
• Curanović Alicja, The Religious Factor in Russia’s Foreign Policy, Londres, Routledge, 2012, 368 p.
• Dhavan Rajeev, “Religious Freedom in India”, in American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 35, N°1, Winter 1987, pp. 209-254, link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/840167 (accessed 15 October 2025).
• Dierickx Guido, “Christian Democracy and its Ideological Rivals”, pp. 15-30, in Hanley David L., Christian Democracy in Europe: A Comparative Perspective, London, Pinter Publishers, 1994, 222 p.
• Finke Roger, Stark Rodney, The Churching of America, 1776-2005 : Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2005, 368 p.
• Friedland Roger, Hecht Richard D., “The Construction and Management of Sacred Time and Space: Sabta Nur in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher”, pp. 181-235, Friedland Roger, Boden Deirdre (eds.), NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994, 452 p.
• Hardacre Helen, Shinto: A History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, 698 p.
• Hegghammer Thomas, “Would I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting”, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 107, N°1, 2013, pp. 1-15, link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055412000615 (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Hoffman Bruce, Inside Terrorism, New York, Columbia University Press (3rd ed.), 2017, 528 pp.
• Jaffrelot Christophe, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, 592 p.
• Johnson Douglas H., The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, Oxford, James Currey and Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2003, 234 p.
• Kääriäinen Kimmo, Niemelä Kati, Ketola Kimmo Henrikki, Religion in Finland: Decline, Change and Transformation of Finnish Religiosity, Tampere, Kirkon tutkimuskeskus (Church Research Center), 2005, 185 p.
• Kaoma Kapya John, Colonizing African Values. How the U.S. Christian Right is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa, Somerville (USA), Political Research Associates (PRA), 2012, 68 p.
• Kang Chol-Hwan, Rigoulot Pierre, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, Londres, Atlantic Books, 2005, 272 p.
• Lacroix Stéphane, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, Cambridge (USA), Harvard University Press, 2011, 384 pp.
• Lau Martin, “Twenty-Five Years of Hudood Orders”, in Washington and Lee Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 4, 2006, pp. 1291-1314, link: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol64/iss4/2/ (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Lewis Andrew R., The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 288 p.
• Madsen Richard (ed.), The Sinicization of Chinese Catholicism, Leiden, Brill, 2021, 188 p.
• Marx Anthony W., Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003, 288 p.
• Matthiesen Toby, The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 292 p.
• McCants William, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2015, 256 p.
• Moslem Mehdi, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, New York, Syracuse University Press, 2002, xii + 366 p.
• Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, New York, W.W. Norton, 2006, 287 p.
• Ould Ahmed Salem Zekeria, Preach in the desert. Political Islam and Social Change in Mauritania, Paris, Karthala, 2013, 336 pp.
• Öztürk Ahmet Erdi, “Turkish under AKP Rule: From Protector to Impose of State Ideology?”, in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2016, pp. 619-645, link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14683857.2016.1233663 (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Öztürk Ahmet Erdi, Sözeri Semiha Bekir, “Diyanet as a Turkish Foreign Policy Tool”, in Politics and Religion, Vol. 11, N°3, March 2018, pp. 624-648, link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S175504831700075X (accessed 15 October 2025).
• Porter-Szücs Brian, Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, 496 p.
• Prodromou E. H., “Negotiating Pluralism and Specifying Modernity in Greece: Reading Church-State Relations in the Christodoulos Period”, in Social Compass: International Review of Sociology of Religion, Vol. 51, N°4, December 2004, pp. 295-320, link: https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768604047870 (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Robbers Gerhard, “State and Church in Germany”, pp. 77-94, in Robbers Gerhard (ed.), State and Church in the European Union, Baden-Baden, Last nameos Publishing House (2nd ed.), 2005, 589 p.
• Roy Olivier, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, 136 p.
• Salamey Imad, The Government and Politics of Lebanon, Londres, Routledge, 2014, 322 p.
• Scott Joan Wallach, The Politics of the Veil, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007, 224 p.
• Selby Jennifer A., Barras Amelie, Beaman Lori G., Beyond Accommodation: Everyday Narratives of Muslim Canadians, Vancouver, UBC Press, 2018, 284 p.
• Stoeckl Kristina, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur”, in Religions, State and Society, Vol. 44, N°2, 2016, pp. 132-151, link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2016.1194010 (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Weigel George, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, New York, Harper Collins, 1999, 1056 p.
• Whitehead Andrew L., Perry Samuel L., Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, 288 p.
• Wilkinson Cai, “Putting ‘Traditional Values’ Into Practice: The Rise and Challenge of Anti-Homopropaganda Laws in Russia”, in Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 13, N°3, September 2014, pp. 363-379, link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2014.91218 (accessed October 15, 2025).
• Witte Jr. John, Nichols Joel A., Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment, Boulder, Westview Press, 2011, 384 p.
• Yang Fenggang, Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, 264 p.
• Zeghal Malika (trad. George A. Holoch), Islamism in Morocco: Religion, Authoritarianism, and Electoral Politics, Princeton, Markus Wiener Publishers, 2008, 320 p.
• Zenz Adrian, “Thoroughly Reforming Them Towards a Healthy Heart Attitude: China’s Political Re-Education Campaign in Xinjiang”, in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 38, N°1, 2018, pp. 102-128, link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2018.1507997 (accessed October 15, 2025).