The Social and Political Role of Religion in Europe: the Demand for Christian Identity

Abstract

Inthearticleanalyzedthesocial and political role of Christian churches, their position in Europe from the pint of view of statistics and presence of the faith-based organizations in the society. The author made a conclusion that the politicized Christianity on the European continent tied with the preserving of the role of Christian churches in the social structure as with the secularizationthatdidnotbecomedesecularization (thereturningofreligiontouchedonlyLatin America,Africa,Asia)andcreatedthevacuum of identity. The weakness of the modern Western European society in its capacity to defend and express the identity forced politicians to seek the support from Christian worldview. Different confessions demonstrated stable development and social mobility in the period of the formation of EU structures. The European politicization of Christianity became the part of the world process of the transfiguration of the religion into a way of the self expression of multiple identities in the circumstances of the inevitable globalization and becoming of the democracy as the optimal form of the social existence. The basic features of the process: the high number of church affiliated (faith based) civil organizations, network church activity, the possibility to reflect various forms of identity in a frames of the Christianized democratic structures.

Keywords

• religion and politics
• church-state relations
• problems of identity
• secularization
• traditionalism
• religiosity in europe
• interconfessional relations