Abstract: Can the phrase “political religion” be used to describe any type of interference between religion and politics? In 1938, Voegelin uses the term in a broad sense to refer to realities as diverse as Egypt’s religion of Akhenaton, the Christian mystical body, the Hobbesian Leviathan, and the contemporary totalitarian regimes. Thereafter, he makes a clearer distinction between societies centered on worldly power and denominational societies which recognize an order of existence beyond man and society.
