In a year crowded with elections and shifting coalitions, a subtler map of power runs beneath the familiar one of borders and flags: the private (and sometimes very public) beliefs of the people who govern 195 countries. Religion doesn’t draw up budgets or sign treaties on its own—but in 2025 it still shapes language, legitimacy, and the stories leaders tell about their nations.

Consider Washington. The United States is led by President Donald Trump, who for years identified as Presbyterian before saying in 2020 that he now considers himself a non-denominational Christian—a label he has repeated and leaned into rhetorically since returning to the White House in January 2025. Wikipedia+1Christianity Today

Across the Atlantic, Britain is governed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has described himself as a non-believer—a striking fact in a country with an established church and a monarch titled “Defender of the Faith.” Starmer’s irreligion places him among a small but growing cohort of European leaders who are personally secular while presiding over religiously plural publics. Bloomberg.comChurch Times

In the world’s largest democracy, India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains closely associated with Hindu nationalist politics through the BJP and its ideological ecosystem, even as India’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion. His government’s language and symbols—temples, pilgrimages, saintly imagery—regularly spill into statecraft. Wikipedia

To the east, Indonesia—the planet’s most populous Muslim-majority nation—is led by Prabowo Subianto, who publicly identifies as Muslim and has situated parts of his diplomacy within Islamic fora (most recently hosting PUIC delegates in Jakarta). Prabowo’s remarks often emphasize a moderate, society-protecting Islam consonant with Indonesia’s pluralist state ideology. WikipediaSetkab

In Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is Muslim, governing a federation where power frequently balances along regional and religious lines. His outreach to Catholic bishops this spring underscored how Nigerian presidents navigate faith not only as creed but as coalition. Wikipediastatehouse.gov.ng

And in Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—nominally Catholic—must steer a society where Pentecostal and evangelical currents now rival the historic sway of Rome, reshaping the idiom of populist politics on both left and right.