Institute of Advanced Studies

Religion and politics: trusted friends or sworn enemies?

All over the world today there is debate about the relationship between politics and religion.

Go to any bookshop and you can find a range of offerings on the subject, some polemical and some considered and academic. It is the topic of the times with some seeing religion as the liberation of politics from relativism and cynicism while others see it as the poisoning of politics with fear and intolerance.

This lecture explored the implications of both positions for a fuller and deeper understanding of both religion and politics.

Former Western Australian Premier Geoff Gallop is the Director of the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney. Professor Gallop was introduced by Kim Beazley, Professor of Political Science and International Relations in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at The University of Western Australia.

This lecture was part of the 2008 Humanities Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Western Australia.

3 July, 2008