Mentor: Anis ISSA

The Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution marked the beginning of a profound intellectual transformation in Europe, which gradually expanded on a global scale. This transformation moved political and philosophical thought away from religious dogma and inherited traditions toward empirical evidence, rational inquiry, and secular forms of legitimacy. By the end of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed the “Death of God,” crystallizing a broader perception of the decline of Christian morality and the diminishing influence of religion in public life.  

Yet, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, a significant return of religion to the political and social sphere became increasingly visible. In Central and Eastern Europe, religion played an important role in the fall of communism; in Iran, the Islamic Revolution demonstrated the mobilizing power of political religion; and in Latin America, Liberation Theology emerged as a major intellectual and social movement linking faith with questions of justice and inequality.  

More recently, events such as the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, the invocation of God and religious narratives in the war in Gaza, and the emergence of environmental theology, all demonstrate that religion continues to be a powerful actor whose influence remains tangible across political, social, cultural, and geopolitical spheres.  

The Religion and Politics Nest aims to explore this enduring relationship by going deeper into the study of why, and how religion matters in contemporary societies and international affairs.