Beware: nationalism is poison for religion

I have long been bothered by the addiction of many religious people to right-wing politics. Scratch any ostensibly religious person – whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist – and you’re likely to find a right-wing nationalist.
What’s worse, the more fervent the religiosity is, the more rabid the nationalism is likely to be. It expresses itself mainly in hatred of “the other”, whether it’s a racial, ethnic or religious “other”.
We get this in my country, the United States, where fundamentalist Christians inflict their palaeolithic views on the rest of us and constitute a major political force. We get it in India, where Hindu nationalists tore down the Babri mosque. We get it in Sri Lanka, where Buddhist monks have long been involved in right-wing politics. And now we have the spectre of Buddhist nationalism slithering into Thailand.
The devil has many disguises; Mara wears many masks and any religious movement that preaches hatred is the exact opposite of what religion is supposed to be.
Nationalism is poison for religion. When it sneaks in, it forms a toxic mix that corrupts religion and brings it down.
As your editorial suggests, we had better be on guard against it.
William Page