**2. From "Missing Dimension" to "Religious Engagement": Reconceptualization of the Relations between Religion and Politics**

When looking from the historical perspective at the development of the new, post-Cold War understanding of mutual relations between religion and politics, the current moment may be regarded as an important point of reflection. A quarter of a century ago, in his milestone publication, former US diplomat and political scientist Douglas Johnston was calling for the change of the paradigm between religion and politics. According to his view, which turned out to be enormously influential for further developments: "The application of religious factors to political problems is inherently complex and fraught with peril; hence the Western predilection for maintaining a complete separation between the two. But the potential for overcoming the shortcomings of conventional diplomacy in some situations by introducing religious or spiritual factors appears to be substantial. It suggests that foreign policy professionals and religious practitioners should study the possibilities and seek to facilitate and reinforce one another's efforts to resolve conflict wherever it appears sensible to do so" (Johnston and Sampson 1994). In the book, referred to widely in the literature on the topic, Douglas Johnston thus focused not only on "bringing religion back", but also on building the area of common support, and even cooperation in the field of conflict resolution where religious factors simply cannot be overlooked. At the same time though he was calling for the profound change in the area of both domestic and foreign policy towards including the more holistic, more relational, and in fact more anthropocentric perspective taking into account also the non-state actors. "The challenge is to reach beyond the state-centric focus on power-politics model to accommodate non-governmental interactions at the subnational and individual level" (Johnston and Sampson 1994).

Since then, the long distance has been covered in terms of the empirically visible emergence of the religious factor in the area of global politics, in respect to gaining knowledge and understanding of this emergence, and finally in evolving a normative outlook on the role of religious resources in the public discourse. The significance of the topic, as well as its complexity, has been increasingly expressed through the growing epistemic community of activists, scholars, and policymakers recognizing that the religious factor can no longer be ignored (Bettiza 2019).

For both the policymakers and scholars, the crucial obstacle and challenge is the "form" of secularism that has dominated in the public space and in social science. The essence of this particular approach, which became decisive in the discourse, was the positioning of religion as the "enemy", and preventing any other type of more "friendly" outlook. Secularism in this pervasive version is not a neutral, objective theory trying to explain the direction of development of the reality, but its ideological, dogmatic, exclusivist vision that led to "secular bias". What has been analyzed and explained over the last decades is that the challenge of overcoming "old thinking" is even deeper when considering the "Westphalian synthesis" and influential Westphalian-Enlightenment prejudice, which introduced the mythologized, reductivist perspective of religion in the process of the development of the modern state system (Philpott 2000). As a consequence "blind spots" (Petito 2019) occurred, which can be summarized as not just "overseeing" the huge and meaningful dimension of objective reality, but forming the discourse based on the purposefully constructed vision of this reality based on "fairytales" (Thomas 2005), "legends" (Barnett 2015), and "myths" (Cavanaugh 2009).

As a reaction to this "ontological injustice" (Wilson 2017) first in the US and the UK, and later in continental Europe, considerable reconceptualization of the dominating secular perspective has been postulated. Soon, around the beginning of the new millennium, the breakthrough concept, the ambivalent role of religion in the socio-political reality has been proposed (Appleby 2000; Gopin 2000) and the field of the religious peacebuilding has emerged, first in the US and later in Europe (Hertog 2010). Almost at the same time, the notion of post-secularism has been developed (Habermas 2001), which contributed significantly to the redefinition of mutual relations between religion and politics. Finally, the far-reaching concept of religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> has been suggested (Appleby et al. 2010) and developed gradually, not only as a theoretical construct, but also as the element of the new institutionalized approach to religion (Petito and Thomas 2015; Mandaville and Silvestri 2015; Bettiza 2019; Petito 2019).

Out of many different empirical and theoretical consequences of "bringing religion back" and including it as a valuable partner in the search for the "common humanity", the "3D" perception could be proposed as the one summarizing the reconceptualization in terms of placement of the religious factor. They would be demythologization, dualism, and dialogue, simultaneously creating, as it seems, a coherent vision of the discussed reconceptualization. Demythologization would refer to both secularism and religious violence perceived so far as the main "option" for religious presence in the public sphere. Dualism would concern on the one hand "reaching beyond" and overcoming of the perception of religious and secular as separate spheres, but also understanding the dichotomic, ambivalent role of religion. It would lead to a new sensitivity about reality perceived so far as the neatly separated, closed domains of the meaning of "secular, rational and public" and "religious, irrational and private" (Wilson 2012). Through the overcoming of this exclusivist approach, the space for an inclusive, dialogical view could be constructed. Dialogue would mean in this regard creating the possibility of encountering both, so far separated spheres of the *sacrum* and the *profanum*.

Though the concept has been questioned and contested (Mavelli and Petito 2014), post-secularism did enable a new stage of discussion and facilitated a "new reading of reality". As Luca Mavelli and Fabio Petito notice: "The question raised by the post-secular ( ... ) is not just one of incorporation of the presence of religion or the power of secularism into existing theoretical frameworks, but one of the conceptual innovations to account for a transformation that invests the very structures of consciousness and power, and existing understandings of political community" (Mavelli and Petito 2014). When the post-secular perspective is recognized and included in the discourse on the evolution of contemporary world order, it allows for the assessment of the contemporary socio-political sphere as neither secular, nor linear, but transformative.

As a result of the "post-secular turn", post-secular consciousness and post-secular sensitivity have been created, which to a significant extent express themselves in the concept of religious engagement. This new perspective not only allows religion to be more present in the public sphere, but also sees religion and religious actors as the valuable resource in all the domains of socio-political reality as "religion's importance and relevance is more wide ranging than is indicated by limiting its presumed role to the impact of ideas on politics" (Petito and Thomas 2015). The crucial aspect here is the concept offered by Jürgen Habermas of approaching religion as the depositary of "normative intuition" and thus as the potential source of the "change" that occupies central place in the major religious doctrines (Gopin 2015; Gawerc 2006).

Religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> embodies all the crucial elements of this new perception of secular–religious nexus first championed by the constellation of civil society actors embedded in and responding to an emerging post-secular world society. The beginning of the process can be dated back to the early 1990s, with acceleration in the aftermath of 9/11. At that time, the loosely knit epistemic community emerged among international a ffairs scholars and analysts in the US. This epistemic community, which became the carrier of post-secular consciousness, has developed two strategies of religious engagement. The first one, a narrower one and referring directly to the intellectual and practical contribution of Douglas Johnston, sees religion as the means of promoting world peace and security. The other one is more ambitious and more broadly recognizes religious contribution in terms of promoting international order and progress (Bettiza 2019).

The concept of religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> does not refer to the simple developing of good relations with religious and FBOs actors. The concept is to draw attention to the new ways in which governments can engage and partner with religious and faith-based non-state actors to deal with a wide spectrum of global policy issues and challenges. Crucial for the religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> is also understanding its prophetic potential. In this understanding, religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> is perceived through its ability to develop the new secular–religious partnership, stretching the political imagination and creating practical innovations to respond to global policy challenges (Petito 2019).

The perspective of religious engagement, understood as a religious–secular partnership, brings the profound reconceptualization of how the Western, and more specifically Eurocentric civilization, has been oriented in terms of the limited lens of perceiving and understanding of the social-political constellation of today. The deliberations on understanding of such crucial concepts as progress or inclusion of the other (Buber 1992, 1993; Lévinas 1994; Tischner 1998) have been the ever-present issue in the human reflection. What is currently happening in this regard should be perceived as one of the important dimensions of the transformation of the normative structure of international society, beyond its Eurocentric civilizational origin as well as liberal ideological configuration (Petito 2019). With the less self-centered, more pluralist, more inclusive, and more dialogue-oriented perspective, more options are "on the table" in the increasingly challenging socio-political post-secular reality.

In the post-secular discourse, the wide definition of politics is referred to. This definition encompasses state-based politics and policies, but also dominant ideological visions that shape those policies and influence the narratives of the broader civil society and public sphere. Such a perspective brings recognition of the non-state religious actors as those who a ffect the understanding of power through contesting its source and meaning, but at the same time contribute to perceiving it through the prism of relationships (May et al. 2014). In this context, politics is about relationships, and active citizens are the ones who increasingly contribute to broadening of comprehension of how politics should be understood and how it should be performed (Saunders 2005).

### **3. FBOs: Bridging Religious Engagement and Religious Peacebuilding**

The perspectives that post-secularism and religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> o ffer are multifold and multidirectional. They enable bridging, for the two-sided benefit, the non-religious and religious spheres as the ones mutually supporting, purifying, and improving one another (Ratzinger and Habermas 2006). The argumen<sup>t</sup> is raised in this regard on the irreplaceable role of religion in the public sphere, where religious actors are often capable of discovering hidden institutions or recreating lost elements of meaning and identity. According to the post-secular outlook, they profitably use modes of reasoning di fferent from the public reason (Kratochvil 2009). On the other hand, from the side of the religious perspective, the argumen<sup>t</sup> is raised that the reason can only function well when it is enlightened by the light of faith (Mazurkiewicz 2012).

As political scientist Je ffrey Haynes rightly notes, one of the most visible signs of post-secularism has been the increasing presence of non-state religious actors at the level of civil society, both within and between the states. The decisive explanatory factor was the demise of optimism about the perceived "superiority" of rational secular values and the "( ... ) growing willingness to accept that maybe, after all, "religion" might have something to tell us about how to run international relations better, that is ideas and values stemming from religious beliefs might conceivably assist in states' developing cooperation and undermining chances of conflict, while helping to provide an ethical framework for improved international collaboration" (Haynes 2014).

The mutual relations between religion and civil society have been profoundly analyzed and well known in the literature of the subject (Casanova 2005; Berger 2003; Wilson 2014; Herbert 2003). As fundamentally belonging to the civil society sector, religions have increasingly been present in the public sphere joining the voices of contestation against the state and the market economy (Casanova 2005). In activating civil structures, religions play a few fundamental functions. Firstly, they mobilize modern societies to the collective and public reflection on the normative issues, and introduce their own arguments on the controversial problems. Secondly, they stress the principle of the common good and the community of the moral issues constituting the challenge against the individualist–liberal theories, which reduce the common good to the sum of the personal preferences. Finally, religions address the principle of solidarity with all the people emphasizing the superiority of the dignity of a human person over the dominating systems of the state power and capitalist market (Szymczak 2015).

Both the discourses and the practices of global political and economic liberalism not only enable but even necessitate FBOs' growth and spreading of scope of their activities, especially after the end of the Cold War and in conjunction with the retreat of the state (Lynch 2011). They contribute to building social cohesion, social capital, both bridging and bonding one (Putnam 2001) and "salvation" of civil society as such (Bretherton 2010). As the actors of the civil society belong neither to the state nor to the market, religious and faith-based actors may be seen as mediating structures and the expression of the people's empowerment (Berger and Neuhaus 1996). In this role, they are part of the process through which the individuals negotiate, argue, struggle against, and agree with each other and with the centers of political and economic authority (Kaldor 2003).

Religion is both much more and much less than meets the eye (Barnett 2015). Religious and faith-based actors play not only a corrective (Mazurkiewicz 2012), but also an innovative role. In the process of the discussed reconceptualization of the relation between the secular and the political, religious and faith-based bodies have not only emerged as the "first-aid" providers, but also as the source of alternative proposals towards how the complex challenges in the domestic and international scale should be approached. As such, they have been actively engaged in political campaigning and advocacy work, and in promoting an alternative political and ethical paradigm based on which policies can be developed and implemented (Wilson 2014). In the face of retreat of the state and the need for alternative proposals regarding numerous new problems that are unveiled in the socio-political reality, religious considerations are often arising as not one of many, but the main or the only resource to refer to. As a result, their contributions are becoming increasingly visible and recognized as the element of developing "ethical imagination" and "ethical capacity" at the civil society level, both locally and globally. At the same time, though oriented towards the transcendence, the focus of faith-based actors is very much anthropocentric and oriented towards introducing the change in the social–political dimension, and is thus transformative.

FBOs function in a multi-dimensional manner in terms of engaging society. On the one hand, they are directed at the outside environment, meaning those in any kind of need for material and non-material support. Acting as such, they influence the political sphere both as the service providers and as the "idea providers". On the other hand, they are directed at their "internal environment", which means expressing certain values and attitudes based on their moral orientations and commitments. In fact, in the case of transnational FBOs, the di fferentiation into the "internal" and "external" environment is di fficult to define. As such, they become "cosmopolitan" and gain the possibility of transferring the local innovations to the national and global level. What needs to be stressed in this regard is their flexibility and, in a majority of cases, the capacity of adjusting to the socio-political reality. Theologies constantly evolve to cope with the changing political conditions, liberalizing economies and the links between individual and communal rights and practices (Lynch 2011).

Both a narrow and broad understanding of the concept of religious engagemen<sup>t</sup> are more or less linked to the issue of peace being the most fundamental, ye<sup>t</sup> the most unrealized human need (Ramsbotham et al. 2011). Peace is the major goal and commitment of all the major religious doctrines, as well as underlying purpose of the political communities (Cortright 2008). Holistically, anthropologically understood peace should be thus perceived as the most fundamental framework for religious–political partnership. What needs be focused on as the area of overlapping and mutual inspiration is the notion of positive, just peace and not the negative peace, meaning the absence of conflict. Present in the religious doctrines since ancient times, with the Book of Isaiah being its most well-known example, the broadly understood concept of positive, just peace has been transferred into the secular domain. Peace has thus been increasingly recognized in the relational and transformative dimension (Galtung 2007; Lederach 1999).

The "father" of Peace (and Conflict) Studies Johan Galtung notices that the good start for discussion on the relations between religion and peace could be the word "religion" itself. As *re-ligio* can be interpreted as the *relinking* in the language of social science, this would mean some kind of integration (Galtung 2016). In the search for a dialogical approach to the problems of war and peace, religions could become the "joint human property" in the rapidly globalizing world (Galtung and MacQueen 2008). With their comprehension of conflict, religions may be perceived as the "ingenious" source of knowledge on how to solve it and as the "reservoirs of wisdom" (Gopin 2015).

The area of the "religious-political nexus" as the general framework for partnership embraces "thinking about peace" and "making peace", but also concepts such as "positive peace" and "just peace", as well as crucial from both the religious and secular perspective "transformation of the conflict" aiming at reconciliation. The innovative peace-oriented, relational, and transformative approaches engaging religious actors have been conceptualized with terms such as "relational diplomacy", "diplomacy of friendship", "faith-based diplomacy", and finally as the concept encompassing all the particular ones, namely religious peacebuilding (Hertog 2010).

Characterized by a high level of interdisciplinarity, religious peacebuilding is defined as the range of activities performed by religious actors and institutions for the purpose of resolving and transforming conflicts with the goal of building social relations and political institutions, characterized by an ethos of tolerance and nonviolence (Little and Appleby 2004). Being the crucial though rarely discussed and analyzed dimension of the "return of religion", religious peacebuilding implies reaching to the peaceful sources of the di fferent religions in the doctrinal and ethical sense, which translates into multilevel activities undertaken by the religious and faith-based actors. At the same time, referring to the ever-existing links between religion and politics, religious peacebuilding can be perceived as the increasingly institutionalized dimension of the mutual interactions between *sacrum* and *profanum* (May et al. 2014).

Both in the theoretical and in the empirical sphere, religious peacebuilding has gained the status of the bridge between activities undertaken by religious and non-religious actors in the area of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The meaningful symptom of this phenomenon has been the occurrence in the political and politological discourse of religiously rooted, "non-political" concepts such as reconciliation, guilt, or forgiveness. Along with them, such crucial notions as "positive peace" and "just peace", and also "brotherhood", "friendship", "love", and "hope" are more extensively discussed as the elements of an alternative approach to conflict resolution and peacebuilding, but also to politics as such (Kulska 2019).

As peace is a relation between parties, building peace means improving relations. In the relational approach the security concept will not be helpful. Since according to this view, some party is perceived as a threat to be deterred or eliminated, there is no focus on improving relations. To achieve peace, the transformation of relations is needed, which requires the transcending of goals of the parties and creating a new reality based on empathy, non-violence, and creative thinking (Galtung 1996, 2007). The desired outcome of this transformation is reconciliation (Lederach 1999). In this process, "the other" is de-demonized and rehumanized.

### **4. Dialectics of Migration as a Political and Ethical Problem**

As peace is the value in the international reality, it is an ethical problem (Ku´zniar 1991). The spreading of peace is the moral imperative at the level of individuals, institutions, and states regardless of their geopolitical location. At the same time, "ethics is born when "the other" enters the scene" (Eco and Martini 2019). "The other" means thus "the obligation" for those referring to some kind of transcendence and those not having such a point of reference. This is also the moment when politics comes in with its defining of "the other" for its own purposes and using its own political measures. While referring to distinct kinds of reasoning, the religious and non-religious overlap with reference to the fundamental human dignity (Solarz 2012).

The other is created to define the "borders". The defining ones are the governments and the societies. The process is dependent on numerous political, cultural, social, and economic determinants. But the final outcomes in this process of defining who "the other" is and what political measures to use while deciding on "the other's" image and political-cultural responsibility, can be influenced by non-political arguments and attitudes. This matters especially when realist, state-interest, and conflict-oriented political views are involved. States are the ones that do not always have the will or capacity to spread the message of peace (Egeland 2013). However, they do have to define themselves in terms of the relation towards "the other".

Dialectical relations towards "the other" can be detected when the etymology of both the term "guest" and "hospitality" is analyzed. In ancient times, on the one hand, the word gues<sup>t</sup> meant someone who would be welcome and awaited and whose coming implied certain obligations on the side of the state. On the other hand the term was referred as "the other", or the enemy. This resulted in stretching the term between acceptance and a ffections and hatred or open enmity. From the very beginning, the term also resulted in some social and political consequences as "hospitality" was linked to unselfish care of the gues<sup>t</sup> and at the same time deeply rooted in the ruler–serf dependence (Pisarek 2010).

From both the theoretical and practical point of view, migration has always been a dialectical phenomenon. This dialectic has unveiled itself both in the social-cultural and political dimension. For ages, migrations have been characterized by two co-existing phenomena. Although they meant the development and the enrichment of both the hosts and the hosted ones, they raised the issue of troublesome identity, exclusion, and fear. "The other" has thus been the instrument utilized by the those holding power to exercise their power in accordance to the immortal *divide et impera* and evoking the sense of fear, but also constituted the premise for mobilization at the social level to reach out to those marginalized ones (Kulska 2018).

What has grown to the extent of an enormous political challenge over the last decades has been the clash between ethics and politics with reference to "duty dilemma" in the context of migration issues, and especially the problem of refugees. The political and cultural obligation of the governmen<sup>t</sup> is to protect the population not only in the sense of territory, but also safeguard the culture which the given population recognizes as its fatherland. In this regard, the governmen<sup>t</sup> is authorized not to allow the refugees to enter, even if this violates the moral obligation towards those in need. When looking from the moral perspective, the view is different as the society has the moral obligation towards those who are in need, even if this would undermine the cultural identity of the hosting country (Delsol 2016). Simultaneously, the most subtle dilemma in politics occurs specifically within the dilemma of choosing of the lesser evil (Grosfeld 2010).

The migration issue invokes the eternal question of the relations between politics and morality on a universal scale. Assessment of debates upon the political limits of migration is essential to understand the evolving conditions and determinants of the contemporary politics. Out of many social-political challenges that governments have to face, migration appears to be one of the most complex and most challenging ones. The problem of migration could be perceived as the lens through which all the major dilemmas of the relation between the individual, the society, and the state focus. Refugees reveal a deep contradiction in contemporary patterns of political sovereignty. The issues of migration and asylum bring to the fore the question about relations between identity, citizenship, and the rule of law (Bretherton 2010). Among them, there is the inclusion–exclusion issue, and in this context, there is not only the "politics of identity" problem, but also the "politics of fear" problem (Fukuyama 2019). The crucial challenge, not just legal but also moral, is assessing illegal immigration and asking ourselves as citizens, but also as humans, are the illegal migrants actually doing something wrong? There is no doubt they are breaking the law but arguably, from a moral standpoint, not all methods of breaking the law are to be condemned (Risse 2008).

When describing the struggle between duty and morality, Darwin stresses that the instinct of sympathy or empathy constitutes the most noble part of human nature and that the highest moral achievement is concern for the welfare of all living beings, both human and nonhuman (Ekman 2010). This statement, though not referring directly to the sphere of politics, carries an enormous political weight. You cannot create a good citizen unless one is a good person (Mazurkiewicz 2007). Though defining the term of a good man is not an easy task, one might, following Darwin, risk the statement that definitely empathy is important component of the man referred to as "good". The crucial issue is how to foster this instinct of empathy in the society. The question belongs to the category of the fundamental ones, not just in relation to the problem of "defining the borders". The matter seems to be of pivotal importance also in the perspective of social cohesion and social capital and the conditions of functioning in the society deprived of empathy towards any, both internal and external, "the other" (Nussbaum 2015).

Religion is the most, or at least one of the most, effective cultural practices defining the individuals and the communities. It helps to determine, implement, and authorize what is good, what is evil, what is right, and what is wrong (Petito and Thomas 2015). At the same time, religions, particularly those with formal institutional structures, are one of the few means of mobilizing people for common, public action. As such, they provide an opportunity to move beyond politics perceived through the prism of legal and market proceduralism but, what's even more challenging "they keep alive ultimate questions about what it means to be human and what a good life consists of in such a way as to re-open the need for political deliberation about what we value and why we value it" (Bretherton 2010).

In the conditions of the deliberative democracy, the state does not have a monopoly in defining the social and cultural borders of "moral imagination" and "ethical capacity". What is essential in this regard is the engagemen<sup>t</sup> of the civil society and its role in shaping the image of the other and the attitudes towards "the other". The religious voice can be regarded as important and useful for achieving "social sensitivity" resulting from "bringing up" the society and developing the awareness and compassion towards those more vulnerable. The specific dimension of "knowledge creation", but also "relationship creation" in the conditions of the post-secular society can be recognized as the pivotal responsibility on the side of the religious and faith-based actors.

Encounter, dialogue, and knowledge are the elements of religious engagement, and all embrace di fferent dimensions of inclusion and recognition of the value of religious contribution. Following cognitive and communicative aspects of partnership between religion and politics, relational and transformative aspects occur. These aspects, both in the conceptual and operational sense, are embodied at two main levels. The first of them is the level of civil society, where the non-state religious and faith-based bodies address their activities at the subjects, both individual and collective ones, directly with no involvement of the state. But there is also the second possibility of addressing their activities as the actors of the civil society sector with the involvement of the governmental level. While an increase in the level of "overlapping" of the religious and secular activities increasingly raises the questions of the "healthy limits" of such a cooperation at the same time it o ffers new horizons of potential innovations to which the religious actors can contribute. As an element of the public discourse, this could also refer to the dialogue between the state and the active, participating citizens whose contribution may mean "added value" to the governments' activities (Saunders 2005).

The relationship between the governments and the civil society organizations (CSOs) should not be conceived as being unidirectional, where either CSOs influence the state or the state co-opts the CSOs being predominant. "The relationship is rather of mutual synergy e ffectively improving the political capacity of both actors". In the process of practical accomplishment of the project, both sides can benefit from each other's "channels of access" that both sides possess. While CSOs need to rely on governmen<sup>t</sup> actors to access diplomatic negotiation channels, governments can benefit from the indirect support o ffered by the CSOs. Among the most important dimensions of such support, apart from o ffering technical skills and infrastructural resources, generating awareness and public support in the countries to be persuaded are of crucial importance (Marchetti 2018).

Migration, both as a political and an ethical problem, has always been a part of human history and a topic of both secular and religious reflection. At the present moment, migration is one of the key reasons for the emerging of post-secular society. According to the new post-secular perspective, religious communities need to be perceived as the "communities of interpretation" irrespective of whether religion occurs in their case as the stabilizing or destabilizing factor. On the other hand, the "post-secular consciousness" is created, which provides the opportunity to see "the other" from two perspectives. The "other" is the one who should be recognized and included as the subject that has the right to preserve identity and the mode of life (Kratochvil 2009). At the same time though, "the other" is the one that has something to o ffer the hosting community. The potential of o ffering some assets lies also on the side of the religious communities occurring in the role of providers of specific, more spiritual, but also practically oriented on the "the other" views and attitudes. They find their expression in the ethics of hospitality, which finds its roots both in the secular and religious reflection (Baker 2011; Wilson 2011).
