The Role of Religions on Politics, Economics, and Social Class in the Society: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Living in society could not be separated from religion. The fact that religions can create the culture of a nation shows that religions possess an influence that cannot be ignored. Besides, there are also social conflicts that occurred due to religious matters. Those religious conflicts have raised scepticism for the possibility of building a peaceful interreligious dialogue. Therefore, this paper aims to explain the role of religions on politics, economics, and social class in society, as a bridge for inter-religious dialogue. This research used a literature study and phenomenological approach as the methods. The results show that there are similar views among the religions to see their role in politics, economics, and social class. Those common grounds could be used to build the bridge for a peaceful inter-religious dialogue. However, the existence of radical fundamentalists should be well controlled to support the bridge construction. Thus, the conclusion is that it is possible to have an inter-religious dialogue using their role on political, economics, and social class as the topics to be discussed, unless the religious fundamentalist's activity is not well controlled.