AbstractThe relationship between religion and politics can be examined under three rather different historical circumstances: nation-states, the global system, and empire. Although these three socio-political contexts may overlap in time and space, they are examined here in their specific historical settings. These three contexts are explored in a broadly historical or evolutionary framework, and my conceptual model is explicitly based on the famous essay by Robert Bellah (1964) on 'religious evolution', which traced the development of religion towards its individualistic, pluralistic and denominational features in a secular age. The point of this framework is heuristic, namely to help us to think more clearly about the contemporary period.