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Lovin reviews Politics and Religion by Steve Bruce.

An examination of historical problems created by religion highlights claims that one's power is a direct product of a Divine Right that gives a particular nation or leader a monopoly on truth. Germany Chancellor Gerhard Schroder said he was shocked when US President George W. Bush confided that he was "driven with a mission from God." Historians recognize that the current conflicts between the West & the Islamic world are rooted in the Age of Crusades & Arabic conquests in Europe when those of one religion fought peoples of other faiths to expand their own spheres of influence. It is argued that diversity is at the core of human evolution & no one can claim a monopoly on truth. Religion is a weighty factor in today's global rivalry & confrontations over different values & development models, as well as many other urgent global issues, including the current financial crisis. Emphasis is placed on the critical need to recognize the problems created by religion's mounting impact before it is too late. J. Lindroth

Religion and politics have depended on and influenced one another since the origins of what we know as Latin America. Their relation is both mutual and multifaceted; mutual because religion and politics have evolved together over the years, taking material and symbolic support from one another, and multifaceted because it embraces interinstitutional conflict and accommodation (e.g., the "church-state" relations which dominated earlier scholarship) as well as more subtle and elusive exchanges whereby religious and political orders gave legitimacy and moral authority to one another. In this process, religious notions of hierarchy, authority, and obedience reflected and reinforced the pattern of existing social and political arrangements to such an extent that the two orders often seemed indistinguishable.