Our View: When church and politicians compete to police morals

The separation of Church and state is a fundamental pillar of liberal democracy and efforts have been made for many decades now to get organised Churches out of politics. This has been aided by the fact that religion continues to lose relevance in the West.

The Church in Cyprus has yet to receive the memo and continues to put out hard-line messages on the Cyprus issue. The new archbishop, Georgios, has come under quite a bit of fire for his Christmas message of not-so-brotherly-love and reconciliation.

Adding to the media chorus, the New Cypriot Association on Monday expressed its concern. “His mission is not to draw up geopolitical strategies, but to provide spiritual guidance,” the group said in a statement.

His message “failed to meet its pastoral purpose, ignored the need for social reconciliation and distanced itself from the fundamental principles of the Christian faith.”

“True faith does not generate hostility nor is it used to deepen rifts. The speech undermines any prospect of reunification, perpetuates stagnation and seals the division of our homeland.”

This is all true of course but it’s difficult to determine the real impact the ramblings of an old bearded man in black robe might still have on the national issue for most people.

At the same time, with the demise of religion and church-going, there has been a shift in recent decades towards politicians filling the role of the arbiters of our morals and employing the same tactics, shaming and guilt-tripping to shape behaviours without however the promise of a reward in heaven.

A minor example came to the fore a couple of days ago when former Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar was accused of exploiting the memory of Rauf Denktash.

Tatar denied he’d ever used Denktash’s name for political gain even though in October he did precisely that, telling Turkish Cypriots: “We must continue on our path so as not to embarrass Denktash”.

Instead of proving himself the best candidate for the job, he effectively told people if he wasn’t elected, Denktash would be turning in his grave.

This is not a new tactic but it is becoming more ubiquitous and even being enshrined in legislation. Just accuse people any of the shameful ‘isms’ and they’ll fall into line. No one wants to be labelled a heretic.

In Cyprus, this has been used by both sides in the political sphere primarily by flinging around the word ‘traitor’ to tarnish those working for real reconciliation.

But it really took off during Covid where the guilt-tripping coming from the top was surreal and often without scientific merit.

That era has now become a blueprint for coercion in other areas, smoking, drinking, car and energy usage, sugar, junk food, meat eating, flight-shaming, hate speech. Coming soon, carbon footprint scores on foods to embarrass folks at the checkout.

It’s almost as if governments are attempting to offload blame for their own failed policies onto their ‘sinful’ populations.

Just as the Church needs to stop with the politics, politicians need to stop with the moralising. Most of them are not nearly qualified to preach to the rest of us any more than the Church is.