Lutheran churches encouraged the East German protests that toppled the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Polish labor leader Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II prayed to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa for divine protection over the Solidarity movement’s defiance of their Communist government.

Liberation Theology, a volatile mix of Catholic social thought and Marxist analysis, inspired left-wing politics in Latin America. The Filipino Catholic Church was instrumental in the popular overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos regime. Events in the subsequent decade repeatedly underscored the growing role of faith-based movements.įor instance, the Afghan mujaheddin who defied the Red Army were also Muslim jihadis who cried “Allah O Akbar” as they shot down Soviet helicopters with Stinger missiles. Indeed, Carter himself made an ecumenical appeal for peace when the devout Southern Baptist brokered the 1978 Camp Accords between Israel and Egypt. Why did it come as a terrible shock? The revival of religious influences on international politics was already evident in the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian, Indian-Pakistani, and Northern Irish conflicts. Nobody saw it coming, least of all the Central Intelligence Agency, but just thirteen months after Carter’s visit the Shah was in exile and his regime replaced by a theocratic Islamic Republic, whose leaders denounced the United States as the Great Satan. Just a few weeks later, strikes and protests erupted, which metastasized over the coming year into a revolution led by Shi’ite Muslims loyal to their exiled Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini. This is a great tribute to you, your majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.” ally in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East, as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. The President took the occasion to laud Iran, a reliable U.S. On December 31, 1977, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi hosted Jimmy Carter at a state dinner in Tehran.

Crusader kings 2 political concerns