Leader Cults and Secularized Faiths:Religiosity, the Choice of Values and Political Preferences in Hungary

Abstract

This paper explores the extent to which religiosity entails special choices of values, the differences between the values of religious and non-religious people and whether there are significant dissimilarities in the ways they relate to politics in Hungary. The results derived from our representative sample have shown the dual nature of the value orientations of people who consider themselves religious. The attitude of religious people is characterized by a duality of leader cult and secularised belief. Predominantly religious people hold secularized values, but their personal life worlds reflect an inherited traditionalism concerning their viewpoint on their political leader. Consequently, they have a positive attitude towards governmental measures which result in restrictions on constitutional and parliamentary government, as well as on the Western system of democratic institutions, while at the same time they are drifting away from their Christian values.