Catholic Bishop Emeritus Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing said Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak’s warning on the dangers of politicised religion should prompt a rethink on religion’s role in the public square.

The bishop defined ‘public square’ as the arena where debate on public policy takes place, influenced by the philosophical assumptions and religious tenets of participants in the discourse.

“I consider Sultan Nazrin's warning on the dangers of politicised religion pertinent in these times when the negative effects of the politicisation of religion are there for all to see,” said Paul Tan.

“We have had more than three decades of the intermingling of politics and religion in this country and the returns are coming in on that intermixture,” opined the bishop.

“I don’t think I would be alone in saying the results have been conducive to division and ill-will which is why, I think, the sultan has seen fit to issue a caution against politicisation of religion,” Paul Tan expatiated.

He said politicians and their followers should heed Sultan Nazrin’s urging even if they subscribed to the concept that there is no distinction between the political and religious spheres.

“We need not make a sharp distinction between the two spheres but we have to recognise that too close a mingling will bring on the negative consequences evident these past years against which Sultan Nazrin has seen fit to issue a caution,” observed the bishop.

Paul Tan said Sultan Nazrin is not the only state ruler to issue cautionary advise on the intermingling of politics with religion.

“Other rulers have also done so in the recent past, reflecting, I think, a public perception that the mix has advanced so far as to threaten the fabric of societal peace and tranquility,” mused the prelate.

Paul Tan said supremacist notions of religion are incompatible with democracy.

“Ours is a plural society and preservation of that pluralism is necessary for the maintenance of peace and harmony,” he said.

“We have to rethink religion’s place in the public square. The exercise should lead to a wariness about infusing the political sphere with too much of religious.

“As to what is too much it’s hard to say, but we can take our drift from the consequences of the close intermixture of the past three decades and decide what’s too much,” he said.

Paul Tan said a good place to start was a return of the original meaning of the term ‘secular’ to what it connoted - the separation of church/mosque and state and not something that betokens the banishment of religion from the public square.

“This return of the term ‘secular’ to its original meaning is a good place to begin getting things right,” he asserted.